America, Sí! Amerika, No! Respect our immigrants

Editorial written by a minister from Southwest Florida...

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Police-state activities are growing in America, and misguided citizens are forming hate groups in their support — right here in River City.

Under the guise of so-called Americanism, groups like “Americans Standing Tall” (really they are “Americans Quite Small”) are peddling prejudice and jingoistic chauvinism against hard-working women and men across our cities and nation.

And in the same way that citizens of Nazi Germany ignored the travesties happening to German Jews in the 1930s, so the vast majority of Southwest Floridians are using the same cover of ignorance.

We are turning a deaf ear and blind eye to the tragedy of what is happening to a huge swath of our fellow human beings.

For example:

This fall, a local Roman Catholic congregation in Lee County held an event to increase understanding between the Hispanic community and local law enforcement. The purpose was to combat the growing crime against immigrants without proper papers, and their fear to call police even when endangered, or to go to the emergency room when injured.

...Under the darkness

A combination of federal, state and local law enforcement sneaked into Collier and Lee County communities in the dark of night.

They drove ominous looking black vans, without any identification seals or signs, and hid behind their “Darth Vader” all black uniforms and masks.

As early as 4 a.m. in the morning, they barged into houses and homes.

Frightened children and women wept and screamed. They called a local priest — anyone to explain how this was happening in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200661227062

does not cover people who are not citizens.

only benefits the right wing and the rich. It doesn't lead to a better life for U.S. workers.

And what we really should be doing is changing the immigration laws so that it is just as easy to immigrate and become a citizen if you're from Ciudad Juarez as it is from Cracow, or from Veracruz as it is from Vienna.

There was never a good reason to use immigration policy to keep the country "white".

It's not about "keeping the country white". It's about our own economic self interest. We need to encourage the immigration of skilled, educated workers. We already have plenty of unskilled laborers! And don't feed me that "jobs Americans won't do crap". Just look at what happened after the meat packing plants were raided. Applicants (legal US citizens, mind you) where lining up in droves to get those jobs. (I can't seem to find that story, I'll update later with a link)

;-)

Try reading it sometime.

Article I, section 8:


Which part where you reffering to?

Right of Search and Seizure Regulated

The right of the people to be secure in their person, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

---

It specifies "people" and "persons", not citizens. Mass roundups of undocumanted persons is a violation of the constitution. Particularly, the use of terror tactics, using unmarked black vans and masked gunmen breaking down doors in the middle of the night is WAY over the top when it comes to 'usreasonable search and seizure'.

We are all descended from immigrants, and the vast majority of us were not wanted when we came. In succession the good Americans have hated the krauts, the micks, the guinnies, the kikes, the bohunks, the spics...

Also, the vast majority of our ancestors either faced no immigration restrictions at all, or were illegal themselves - even most of those who came thru Ellis Island, who lied about having sponsors or relatives already in the country.

Don't give in to the paranoid anti-immigrant crap. It's unworthy of fair-minded democrats.

I'm not anti-immigration. My great grandparents immigrated here from Austria. I'm just a not fan of people breaking laws. You break the law, you are punished. That's the way it is, that's the way it should be.

tyranny against the Mexican workers. It is NOT the responsibility of the USA to support or fund illegal aliens. Opposing illegal aliens has absolutely NOTHING to do with hatred or racism and tactics like this ONLY diminish the true cause of the Mexican workers and people.

I am the granddaughter of immigrants to this country. Legal immigrants. They filled out papers and waited their turn. They stood in lines and waited. Once here, they learned English at the speed of light and began the jouney to become US citizens. And just to clarify, the Jews in Germany were Germans.

I personally don't care what color immigrants are as long as they are legal immigrants. As long as they completed the paperwork and were screened and examined to determine that they are not criminals, they don't have TB, that they will have a place to live and will have employment when they arrive in this country. I welcome them and will assist them.

I will not welcome someone who sneaks across our borders with the intention of selling anything illegal, or joining a destructive gang, or taking advantage of our clueless welfare system, school system, healthcare system.

What if they only want to come here to earn a better living and have a better life? See the process above. There is a way to do that and I fault no one for wanting something better.

The US has quotas for immigrants from different parts of the world. Might want to find out what the quota was for Jews from Germany... and why.

I sense that a lot of these immigrants were skilled laborers, and had relatively high quotas.

I will look it up.

This per-country quota says that no country can send more than 7% of the total worldwide immigration (this translates to 25,620). Unfortunately, this system puts large countries at a disadvantage; the quota is the same for India and China with a billion people each as for Nauru, with approximately 10,000 people.

If many people from one country want to immigrate to the USA. the total number of immigrants may reach the per-country quota, and the number of people admitted in all immigration quotas will be reduced for this country.

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This is current law. In some ways in fair, but in other ways it's not. A person who desires to come to the US whose country has a decent standard of living, and few people wanting to emigrate will have a VERY EASY time getting a green card in comparison to a person from a 3rd world country who is one of thousands.


I find myself wondering. Were any Jewish Germans turned away??? And if so, where on earth did they go?

They wound up in Auschwitz.

Nearly 1,000 German Jews were on the St. Louis as she sailed for Havana seeking temporary refuge hoping to gain entry later to the US. Here's what happened after Cuba denied them entry.

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...Sailing so close to Florida that they could see the lights of Miami, passengers on the "St. Louis" cabled President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking for refuge. Roosevelt never answered the cable. The State Department and the White House had already decided not to let them enter the United States. A State Department telegram sent to a passenger stated that the passengers must "await their turns on the waiting list and then qualify for and obtain immigration visas before they may be admissible into the United States." American diplomats in Havana asked the Cuban government to admit the passengers on a "humanitarian" basis.

Quotas set out in the 1924 Immigration Act strictly limited the number of immigrants who could be admitted to the United States each year. In 1939, the annual combined German-Austrian immigration quota was 27,370 and was quickly filled. In fact, there was a waiting list of at least several years. Visas could have been granted to the passengers only by denying them to the thousands of German Jews who had already applied for them. President Roosevelt could have issued an executive order to admit additional refugees, but chose not to do so for a variety of political reasons.

American public opinion, although ostensibly sympathetic to the plight of refugees and critical of Hitler's policies, still favored immigration restrictions. The Great Depression had left millions of Americans unemployed and fearful of economic competition for the scarce few jobs available. It also fueled antisemitism, xenophobia, nativism, and isolationism. A Fortune Magazine poll at the time indicated that 83 percent of Americans opposed relaxing restrictions on immigration.

At about the same time that the "St. Louis" passengers were seeking a haven, the Wagner-Rogers bill, which would have permitted the admission of 20,000 Jewish children from Germany outside the existing quota, was allowed to die in committee. On the Wagner-Rogers bill and the admittance of the "St. Louis" passengers, President Roosevelt remained silent. Following the U.S. government's refusal to permit the passengers to disembark, the "St. Louis" sailed back to Europe on June 6, 1939.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005267


A view of the S.S. St. Louis surrounded by smaller vessels in the port of Havana

"I will not welcome someone who sneaks across our borders with the intention of selling anything illegal, or joining a destructive gang, or taking advantage of our clueless welfare system, school system, healthcare system."

Spoken like a true republican.

A fraction of a fraction of people cross the border with criminal intent. To claim that a majority, or even a significant minority of the immigrants come here with that purpose is pure racism. No, I'm not calling you a racist - but by repeating the claims of racists you give credance to their hate.

What happened in Germany can happen here. Never believe it cannot. So you might be a little more charitable to people who, for political or economic reasons, have fled their home countries. Jews have had to do so many times over the centuries. And one day you may have to as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States

I realize that many question Wikipedia as a source, so perhaps we should dig deeper. But it reveals interesting things.

One is that immigration rose by ~57% recently. So that is contributing to the problem.

But the real issue is numbers, and it's pretty incredible. Right now, each country is allowed 26000 immigrants per year.

BUT: Between 1850-1930, 5 million Germans immigrated (200,000/yr). A lot higher than today's quotas. 1820-1930: 3.5 million British, 4.5 million Irish. In a 10 year periord, 2 million Italians. 1880-1924, 2 million Jews.

Now: the Voyage of the Damned doesn't make me very proud. In 1939, the SS St Louis saled out of Hamburg, Germany w/950 fairly WEALTHY Jews. It was denied port at Cuba, Florida AND Canada, sent back to Europe, and then forced to return to GERMANY, where many of those on board were put to death during the Holocaust.

Sounds like your family of "legal aliens" were a lot luckier than you may have realized.

As a last note, while the number of immigrating Mexicans is astounding, there are also very high numbers of immigrating Chinese, Indians and Filipinos. Any way you look at it, America is about to change color.

who had been brought in by ambulance, unconscious. When he woke up, he was too terrified to talk to any of us. We kept telling him we weren't "la Migra" and weren't going to call them, but it took a very long time to get him to talk, at all.

I've never forgotten that poor kid's terror.

I've also always promised myself that no matter what kind of laws the GOP gets passed, "la Migra" can kiss my ass. Those people aren't the problem.

The scumbag employers looking for cheap labor are.

I guess it comes down to what a person believes to be more important-- people or red-and-blue lines on a map.