I love my aunt, but she’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. She was also married for nearly 30 years to a guy who was just this side of a card-carrying right-wing militia member and was ‘influenced’.
I know this email is a bunch of horse hockey, but if someone could provide links which refute its assertions, I’d love to be able to send this crap back to her in a … manner which will keep the family peace.
Here goes:
Specifically, I’m looking for refutations that immigrants (illegal or not) are eligible for unemployment or other government aid.
I know this is border-line Pit material. I also know this is almost GD. I respectfully request responders keep their responses to GQ, and that non-GQ responses go elsewhere (but with links, please. Unless the powers that be think this entire thread should go someplace else.). I don’t want to offend my aunt or cause a family rift. Just gently knock a bit of sense into her empty head.
[sub]And if you could help me with a subtle dig along the lines of “OH! So you’re 100% First Nation and none of your ancestors came here from someplace else?” I’d be much appreciative.[/sub]
I can’t belive I’m related to people who are proud to foward BS like this…
I couldn’t find anything specific to the e-mail you posted, but I did find this, which touches on the subject, somewhat. It’s probably not very helpful, for what you need, but I thought I’d offer it up for your perusal, anyway.
This is extraordinary. My father had the same “poem” thirty years ago about Pakistanis in Britain. From what I remember, it scans the same, uses the same terms. It starts with
“I come to England, poor and broke,
Go on dole, see labour bloke.”
And finishes with the lines
“If you no like coloured man,
Plenty room in Pakistan”
I bet there is a similar “poem” doing the rounds in most English speaking countries. Can any Aussie or Canadian dopers confirm my guess?
As luck would have it, my father was born in what is now Pakistan and retains many of the old colonial prejudices.
I still can’t work out whether I should believe that ‘they are all coming over here and stealing our jobs’ or 'they are all worthless layabouts, coming over here and scrounging our welfare".
Then we have the fact that according to this Washington Post article about seven million of them are working with false SS numbers which means they are paying SS taxes and earning no rights to SS. In other words, they are paying for your aunt’s SS. Quite the opposite of what she claims.
Here in my town a house went in for subdivisions. When the town went into inspect the land they found something like 4 or 5 families living in a single fam. house and they wanted to build another house for more to come over. They were Chinese not Mexican though. I don’t know if they got public assistance but it is assumed that they did and also it is assumed that if they did work it was off the books.
The main problem is that living like this in the US is a big improvment over where they came from.
Bigotry is not based on reason and facts but on perceptions. I doubt you can change her mind even if you bury her with facts. I know a guy who is prejudiced against Jews and does not miss an opportunity to say so. I do not try to reason with him to show he is wrong because he is immune to reasoning. I just tell him (a) I do not like him expressing such things in front of me and (b) make it clear I have good friends who are jews and good people. End of discussion.
If your aunt is religious you might point out that her position is not very charitable and we are supposed to love everybody alike, not just those who were lucky enough to be born in the US. Or does she advocate cutting welfare and SS benefits for everybody? (in which case she would at least be consistent and coherent)
If her argument is that some people are getting out of SS more than they put in you can point out that it is the older generation who is in that position as they are now getting much more than they ever put in and it is the younger generation now working who are paying for it. Does she think this is fair?
The email you quoted is just plain prejudice and no amounts of facts will change anyone’s mind. The way to counter that would be a similar literary work pointing out how hard working people toil to work in the fields and in the factories so we can enjoy the product of their labor. Those oranges you bought today were probably picked by some guy working in conditions you would never want for yourself. We can all be grateful we are not “them”. We owe “them” more than we want to realize.
sailor It really doesn’t matter. They are breaking our laws and we are doing nothing about it.
Bigotry, racial profiling, discrimination - whatever you call it I would argue is based on reason and perception, perhaps not facts but a small statistical sample that someone makes during their life experience. I would argue that we all do it in one form or another, I was going to put an example but it seems pointless here. Just try to remember this is a free country and people are entitled to their views.
The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act, better known as "The Welfare Reform Act,” largely ended the (already limited) eligibility of all immigrants, legal as well as illegal, for federally funded public benefits, including “welfare” (TANAAF) and Medicaid. It also made it substantially more difficult for states to provide public benefits to immigrants.
The rules are incredibly convoluted. The bottom line is that both illegal and legal immigrants in their first five years of residence are eligible for essentially no benefits except very limited Medicaid coverage for emergency medical care.
The rules are incredibly convaluted. The bottom line is that both illegal and legal immigrants in their first five years of residence are elligible for essetially no benefits exept very limited Medicaid coverage for emergency medical care.
Even before the Welfare Reform Act, eligilbility was quite limited.
>> this is a free country and people are entitled to their views
Who said otherwise? People are entitled to hold views which are wrong and based on facts which are worng and here we are trying to fight that ignorance.
>> It really doesn’t matter. They are breaking our laws and we are doing nothing about it.
well, there is really no way of answering this without taking the thread into GD territory. Many laws are routinely broken and “nothing” is done about it. It seems that in some cases that is a viable compromise for opposite positions. Many laws on the books are not enforced and if the government tried to enforce them rigidly it might lead to the laws being taken off the books so sometimes they just prefer to keep them on the books and use them selectively.
The fact is that those illegal immigrants provide needed labor and services and there is no way to ban them all without disrupting the economy. The alternative would be to make them legal but this would find much opposition and would probably foster more illegal immigration. So the status quo seems like the least bad of solutions at least for now.
I also have a serious problem with the morality of immigration restrictions but that would really put this thread in GD territory.
The OP is about whether immigrants, in fact, take more than they contribute or vice versa. I think the evidence is that the do, in fact, contribute moe than they take and most definitely do not come to the US just to use the “free” services they get.
I’m sick of all these bleeding heart liberals!!! if i do something ILLEGAL, am i not a criminal? So wtf with all the talk about just legallizing all these criminals? yeah criminals! they r here illegally . As if thats not bad enough they won’t learn the language, they want to fly their flag and stick to their customs and traditions from a place that they chose to leave!!! if all that stuff was sooooo great then y leave it and come here? what they fail to understand is if we do not stick to the traditions and values that made this country such a great place to come to (legally) then it will cease to be that great place it was for them to come to.:smack: Wake up people!!! Not to mention if you have a child and need assistance from our tax doollars then y in the hell would you have more if you can’t afford the ones you have??? can’t feed em don’t breed em!!! start taking responsibility for your own actions!!! Don’t expect other hard working people to pay for your irresponsibility!!!
