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Apr. 30th, 2006 09:06 pmI wonder if the immigration stuff going on in the government is even really phasing people in other parts of the country/world. My great grandmother and her sister came over here with my grandfather (her son) from Cuba as part of a boatlift (like the Mariel Boatlift of 1980). Then I heard my white grandparents talk horribly about it and the Mariel boatlift, throughout my childhood. They said the boatlifts "ruined Miami" by "flooding the state with criminals".
My brother in law's parents are legal aliens from Mexico.
We see Border Patrol cars and vans around town and on the highway all the time, and see big old groups of immigrants working on roofs damaged by hurricanes and picking crops all the time...when I lost my nanny-ing job as a high schooler, it's because the woman wanted to find "an illegal" from South America who would work for scraps to stay in the country. A friend of Grant's who we've known for years just got deported 2 months ago. He has a wife and two sons here, but his VISA expired and they wouldn't renew.
I have three thoughts on this whole issue of proposed new crackdowns.
1. I think ANYONE running from felony charges should be promptly shipped back to wherever they came from, even if that means shipping them back here from some other place.
2. I wonder who all these Republicans think is going to harvest their dinner and clean their home and check them out at the grocery store, if there are no more immigrants?
3. I cannot imagine denying anyone coming from an impoverished country or seeking political asylum a home in the United States...but...there isn't ROOM for ALL of those people in the United States. *sigh*
I'm grateful that I'm a couple of generations down from being scrutinized, yet still somehow glad, with rumors of officials rading local spanish stores, that my name is getting changed :/ I suppose it wouldn't really come to THAT sort of thing, though, unless Bush had a couple more terms in office, and that ain't gonna happen.
My brother in law's parents are legal aliens from Mexico.
We see Border Patrol cars and vans around town and on the highway all the time, and see big old groups of immigrants working on roofs damaged by hurricanes and picking crops all the time...when I lost my nanny-ing job as a high schooler, it's because the woman wanted to find "an illegal" from South America who would work for scraps to stay in the country. A friend of Grant's who we've known for years just got deported 2 months ago. He has a wife and two sons here, but his VISA expired and they wouldn't renew.
I have three thoughts on this whole issue of proposed new crackdowns.
1. I think ANYONE running from felony charges should be promptly shipped back to wherever they came from, even if that means shipping them back here from some other place.
2. I wonder who all these Republicans think is going to harvest their dinner and clean their home and check them out at the grocery store, if there are no more immigrants?
3. I cannot imagine denying anyone coming from an impoverished country or seeking political asylum a home in the United States...but...there isn't ROOM for ALL of those people in the United States. *sigh*
I'm grateful that I'm a couple of generations down from being scrutinized, yet still somehow glad, with rumors of officials rading local spanish stores, that my name is getting changed :/ I suppose it wouldn't really come to THAT sort of thing, though, unless Bush had a couple more terms in office, and that ain't gonna happen.
