Monday, May 29, 2006

"It's going to cost us as a country either way."

My wife is an immigrant who obeyed the rules when coming over from Russia. She is not amused by the attempts to void her efforts by granting amnesty to millions of illegals. Via Illinoize, an article in the Chicago Defender about a forum on immigration at Olive-Harvey College that includes this passage:

David Simmons, an African American who is part of theatrical production at Olive-Harvey, said the immigration issue is one that's very difficult for him to struggle with.

"It's going to cost us as a country either way," Simmons said. "It's cheaper to make them citizens than to deport them and go through all of that drama.

"But I don't like the idea of illegal immigrants coming to America and getting the jobs that we can do, only because they will accept less money for those jobs. It's makes it harder for those American families who are willing to work hard just to survive with the prices of everything going up anyway."

It is a falsehood that illegal immigrants do jobs that Americans won't do. They take jobs from poor Americans and from legal immigrants. It is also a falsehood that we are a nation of immigrants. Or rather, it is false in that it is incomplete. We are a nation of immigrants who became Americans, who each earned his or her place in this country. An illegal immigrant has not earned his or her place; he or she has stolen it, and worse, cheapened what others have gone through to earn their place.

Unless of course, being an American doesn't mean anything but paying sales taxes and collecting medicare. Check the date of this post, if you really think that's true.


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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw your comment in Big Lizards my girlfriend and her daughter are from St Petersburg, what part of the Soyuz does your wife come from?
If you don't mind my asking?

McKreck said...

She is from Ekaterinberg, Sverdlosk. Her father was born in the village where the Tsar was killed; her mother's family came from the Ukraine during WWII. Her grandmother, in fact, was on the last train out of Kiev before the Nazis arrived.