The Right Message for John McCain and Barack Obama on Illegal Immigration: 'Go Home!'
News stories such as this one make me spiral off into outer space. The premise is that the presidential candidates should "talk to" illegal immigrants—or, excuse me, undocumented workers. One is deemed politically incorrect, insensitive, and—dare I say it—"racist" for referring to people who either enter this country illegally or stay beyond their legal visa periods as lawbreakers. Yet "illegals" are exactly what and who they are. In politically correct circles, however, they are "undocumented workers." That despite the fact there are no data to prove that all of them are working.
Here's the story from Long Island's Newsday newspaper:
They are everywhere on Long Island—cashing checks in Hempstead, sharing multifamily houses in Brentwood, trimming hedges in Southampton.
And yet they are nowhere in this year's presidential campaign. Undocumented immigrants—the subject of so much discussion just a year ago—have been forgotten in the rush to discuss America's economic woes.
Immigrants flocked to Long Island during the boom of the 1990s and for a few years after. The Island is now home to at least 100,000 undocumented workers—although those figures, like almost everything having to do with the undocumented, are disputed.
Under current law, those immigrants have almost no chance of becoming citizens, so they live at the margins of society. Two years ago, two high-profile senators, John McCain and Ted Kennedy, sponsored legislation to help put undocumented workers on the path to citizenship.
Should Senators John McCain and Barack Obama go out of their way to "talk" to them? Of course! And the first words out of their mouths should be: "Go back to the country where you legally reside, get in line for a legal visa to the United States, and return legally, not illegally." But then, that wouldn't be very PC, would it?
Tags: immigration | presidential election 2008 | Barack Obama | John McCain
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Reader Comments
Can Obama help save my family
I would like to now if obama is going to help the mexicans here in the united states to get legal,and the reason I ask is because my husband of 11 years is having a hard time getting legal because we dont have the money that the goverment wants to make him legal, all they think about is money they dont think about the families that will be destroyed,because if they decide to send my husband back me and my kids will be without.I think that he has been here this long hasn't caused any trouble pays taxes in on a temp ss# i think that my husband deserve to live here with his family.
You say it because you havent been in that situation.
I cant believe some of you really think that illegals (Mexicans) are taking our jobs...The company i work for sees MANY teenagers and minorities that come in here asking for no less than 9 dollars an hour....but yet a lot of you can say the jobs illegals have, teenagers and minorities want them. Please, hardly any teens or minorities want to work for 6.50 an hour. Either way, this country was built on immigration. WE came over here, took over the land from the native americans and now we THINK we're anybody to be saying who can live here and who cant. I just dont get it. We let the 9/11 terrorist into our country because they did it the legal way and look where that got us. whats the focus on mexicans and not other immigrants...????
This even more interesting..
I think that this whole racist bent goes deeper than many people think. Do you notice how people can post their personal stories in dealing with immigration and explain how American companies are dependant upon illegal alien worker's to stock restaraunts and grocery stores, but after all of those facts and reasonable assertions are made, the results are that more people start writing "go home" in more elaborate ways. Racists don't reason and reason touched by racism is rendered unreasonable. It befuddles me exactly how unreasonable, unreasonable can be.The skinny is that if every illegal worker were to leave their job you'd notice prices at Taco Bell, for example, skyrocket. Thats just a small example of how and why food profiteers use illegal labor. They say that illegals will do work that average United States Citizens won't do. And if you were to try to make your teenage son pick tomatoes for $3.00 an our you'd understand just how real that statement is. But reality doesn't matter to a mind that works off of feeling and not reason. That used to mean that you were stupid, but apparently now that makes you a traditionalist or perhaps a far right winger? How can your mind opperate on imagined fear and irrational reason in the face of facts? Hey racists or whatever you want to call yourselves, talk to an economist and ask what would happend to food prices and basic services(I almost mentioned construction, but well, thats down already with housing), if illegals were to simply "go home". Also ask yourselves why illegals have had such great toleration so far. Connect a few dots and examine a few industries and you might draw some connections. I'm reiterating this because this is the core of this great pointless debate. Brokers on Wallstreet can deplete an economy but illegals who steal all of our fruit picking jobs are hurting prospects for United States citizens? Come on fellas, you can't wash over that kind of truth with empty "go home" rhetoric. This is an elitist country and it always has been. Perhaps hard times will change that view a bit. It really would only take a bit, its not really that scary guys and gals.
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