March May 1st For Immigrant Rights |
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USA1
Groupie Joined: 18 February 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 99 |
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Iraq or Iran have absolutly nothing to do with the illegal immigration issue. Why would you even insert that into this conversation? You must be careful, some of us are patriots. |
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They just don't get it!
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Angela
Senior Member Joined: 11 July 2005 Status: Offline Points: 2555 |
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USA1, I have an uncle who is going to slowly die from the injuries he suffered in Afganistan. He has damage to his nervous system and its slowly deteriorating him. DO NOT TALK TO ME ABOUT PATRIOTISM! My brother was in Airbourne attached to a Blackhawk before an accident lead to his being given an HONORABLE discharge. I have over 3 dozen relatives who have served in ever war in the past century and I qualify for DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) and guess what. I don't believe Iraq and Iran have anything to do with our security....just Cowboy Bush getting us into a war before election time so he would be able to stay in office. People don't like to change generals in the middle of a war. edit - ever seen the movie Wag The Dog???? Now, lemme tell you how its relevant. We are spending Billions on a country we invaded. We are wasting money left and right on shadows and boogey men when our own borders are not secure. With reformed immigration laws we could prevent the next Muhammed Atta from entering the US, while encouraging more hardworking immigrants like the 3 dozen that work for me to come to this country. You said we need to improve the economies of other nations (like Mexico) to help prevent illegal immigration. However, that is an expensive proposition when we are destabilizing entire regions of the world with our politics. Edited by Angela |
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Hayfa
Senior Member Female Joined: 07 June 2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 2368 |
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I disagree with the "look like us" comment. I could care less what they look like or where they come from. Just do it legally and I (most) have no issues with it. This is what this country is. Yes in the 'ideal' world, yet you are right. But there are bigots all over the place. People from other countries come here legally and people don't want them, 'not in my town'. I grew up in small town USA and let me tell you people do have these attitudes. They view and judge people from what they see on TV. What Angela was pointing out is the inter-connectedness of everything. It is about truly how we spend our money. A great book to read is called Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. He is a mountain climber who almost died in remote Pakistan. And now helps people locally in the region. The book is about his journey. The website of Central Asia Institute is: http://www.ikat.org/about.html An article about him is: CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
To fight terror, Montanan builds schools in By Todd Wilkinson | Feature Special to The Christian Science Monitor BOZEMAN, But he doesn't use guns or bombs; his tools are pencils. It's His mission: To help set up schools for young Muslims - mainly girls - in a remote part of the world where the Mortenson admits that rural "We've reached a pivotal moment in world history, and it's the choices we make now that will define us," says Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute here. "Mahatma Gandhi said you can not shake hands with a closed fist. To fight terrorism with only war and not compassion is futile." Since 1993, he has helped build dozens of schools for Muslim girls in Though not wealthy himself, Mortenson raises money tirelessly to support his cause. In the process, he has earned the respect of many politicians and business leaders alike. Rep. Mary Bono (R) of Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D) of The genesis of Mortenson's crusade was improbable in itself. It stems from a failed attempt to scale the summit of For decades, Western climbers have visited the region on expensive outdoor adventures - often tapping local people as cheap labor to haul their gear - but few gave anything back. To repay the villagers' kindness, Mortenson asked the local mullah what he could do, and discovered that one of every three infants in the region dies before reaching its first birthday. Furthermore, the literacy rate is less than three percent; among women it is one-tenth of one percent. Mortenson returned to the On this early morning, though, Mortenson is torn by the thought of leaving his two young children and his wife, Tara Bishop (who grew up in a family of famed Himalayan mountaineers), for another extended trip to the region. "The long absences from my family are painful," he says, "but when I look into the eyes of children in Initially, Mortenson's benevolence in "In Over a crackling telephone line to Mortenson's office, cleric Risvi says the "American gentle giant" has earned respect because he listens to the desires of local people. Risvi says that despite the violent interpretations of the Taliban, who repressed women, Islam teaches equality among all. "Girls have been the most deprived of basic education in our society. Education is light, and light provides beauty and strength to the people." Compared to traditional relief organizations that often have a religious bent and a large support staff, Central Asia Institute consists only of Mortenson - who pays himself a modest salary of $39,000 - and one office assistant. "Putting between $5,000 and $15,000 in [Mortenson's] hands buys you a lot," says Even so, Mortenson's philanthropic work has attracted a few critics in this country. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he received several angry letters. "You will pay dearly for being a traitor," wrote one woman in a letter postmarked in Mortenson, however, remains undeterred, though he hopes that a military invasion of "Ignorance breeds hatred," he says before sunrise, trying to phone Copyright � 2003 The Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/search_content/0121/p01s04-wosc.htm l |
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When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. Rumi
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Angela
Senior Member Joined: 11 July 2005 Status: Offline Points: 2555 |
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Mexico Works to Bar Non-Natives From JobsIf Arnold Schwarzenegger had migrated to Mexico instead of the United States, he couldn't be a governor. If Argentina native Sergio Villanueva, firefighter hero of the Sept. 11 attacks, had moved to Tecate instead of New York, he wouldn't have been allowed on the force. Even as Mexico presses the United States to grant unrestricted citizenship to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants, its officials at times calling U.S. policies "xenophobic," Mexico places daunting limitations on anyone born outside its territory. In the United States, only two posts _ the presidency and vice presidency _ are reserved for the native born. In Mexico, non-natives are banned from those and thousands of other jobs, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens. Foreign-born Mexicans can't hold seats in either house of the congress. They're also banned from state legislatures, the Supreme Court and all governorships. Many states ban foreign-born Mexicans from spots on town councils. And Mexico's Constitution reserves almost all federal posts, and any position in the military and merchant marine, for "native-born Mexicans." Recently the Mexican government has gone even further. Since at least 2003, it has encouraged cities to ban non-natives from such local jobs as firefighters, police and judges. Mexico's Interior Department which recommended the bans as part of "model" city statutes it distributed to local officials could cite no basis for extending the bans to local posts. After being contacted by The Associated Press about the issue, officials changed the wording in two statutes to delete the "native-born" requirements, although they said the modifications had nothing to do with AP's inquiries. "These statutes have been under review for some time, and they have, or are about to be, changed," said an Interior Department official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name. But because the "model" statues are fill-in-the-blanks guides for framing local legislation, many cities across Mexico have already enacted such bans. They have done so even though foreigners constitute a tiny percentage of the population and pose little threat to Mexico's job market. The foreign-born make up just 0.5 percent of Mexico's 105 million people, compared with about 13 percent in the United States, which has a total population of 299 million. Mexico grants citizenship to about 3,000 people a year, compared to the U.S. average of almost a half million. "There is a need for a little more openness, both at the policy level and in business affairs," said David Kim, president of the Mexico-Korea Association, which represents the estimated 20,000 South Koreans in Mexico, many of them naturalized citizens. "The immigration laws are very difficult ... and they put obstacles in the way that make it more difficult to compete," Kim said, although most foreigners don't come to Mexico seeking government posts. J. Michael Waller, of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, was more blunt. "If American policy-makers are looking for legal models on which to base new laws restricting immigration and expelling foreign lawbreakers, they have a handy guide: the Mexican constitution," he said in a recent article on immigration. Some Mexicans agree their country needs to change. "This country needs to be more open," said Francisco Hidalgo, a 50-year-old video producer. "In part to modernize itself, and in part because of the contribution these (foreign-born) people could make." Others express a more common view, a distrust of foreigners that academics say is rooted in Mexico's history of foreign invasions and the loss of territory in the 1847-48 Mexican-American War. Speaking of the hundreds of thousands of Central Americans who enter Mexico each year, chauffeur Arnulfo Hernandez, 57, said: "The ones who want to reach the United States, we should send them up there. But the ones who want to stay here, it's usually for bad reasons, because they want to steal or do drugs." Some say progress is being made. Mexico's president no longer is required to be at least a second-generation native-born. That law was changed in 1999 to clear the way for candidates who have one foreign-born parent, like President Vicente Fox, whose mother is from Spain. But the pace of change is slow. The state of Baja California still requires candidates for the state legislature to prove both their parents were native born. http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060521/ap/d8ho93700.html (Sorry but this one got me all fired up.....) Edited by Angela |
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