A follow-on post regarding Tancredo's "alarmism" on immigration... (poster's name excised)

p.s. The "ragging on Mexicans", etc. is directed at someone else, not at anything I said.

Anyone who thinks that Mexico is a threat to the United States, aside from their deliciously artery-clogging food, is living in fantasy land. If anything, without the US, the Mexican economy would collapse. And these Mexicanos who cross the border, their kids speak both languages, and their grand kids speak English. This is the way it's always, always been in the U.S. Little Joey Guiterrez is going to be American as apple pie. Assimilation, integration. Don't believe me? Why don't you speak German, or whatever language your folks got off the boat speaking?

And um, hello? [B]THAT'S WHY ANYONE COMES TO AMERICA TO BEGIN WITH![/B] To find a job and be safe from the dangers of your home country. You think the Constitution means boo when your family is hungry and threatened by the Tzar/Nazis/Mexican Druglords? America is a golden land (built by immigrants, whites and slaves altogether). You come here first for a better life. That's why my mother's people came here from Germany at the end of WW1. And my father's people ILLEGALLY IMMIGRATED in the friggin' Mayflower, STOLE Indian jobs in Massachusetts by farming on their land, and built this great damn country.
People come to America as IMMIGRANTS. They become Americans when they accept and defend the values of the Constitution. And as I said before, Latinos - and yes, even illegal ones - play a HUGE role in the United States military nowadays.

You think your grandparents came to this country with lofty ideals? You think your spit don't stink? 80-150 years ago, all the white folks on this board were their generation's Mexican. Uneducated, poor and desperate for a better life. Especially you damn Italians and Irish. Came off the boat like locusts. Took 50 years to weed out the mafiosos from the pissanos. Please. And you want to rag on Mexicans? Please.
Grrr...
:mad:

First, ****, let me say that I agree with a great deal of what you say. And I would venture to guess -- from what I know about him -- that Tom Tancredo would agree with you as well. But I think sometimes it's possible to believe one rational thing so strongly that it blinds any consideration of other rational points of view.

Secondly, let me say that I know many Mexican immigrants -- as well as many Vietnamese, Korean, Cuban, etc. -- who are some of the hardest working people I know. We should be proud to have them in this country, provided they are here legally and are law-abiding citizens, which many of them are.

But as someone (probably Tancredo) recently summed up about as well as anyone can, why should we welcome people to this country whose very first act on entering this country was to break the law? They have right up front demonstrated an unwillingness to live by the rules, laws and customs of the United States of America.

******, your relatives did not break any laws getting into this country. They came for jobs. They contrast stunningly with the illegal immigrants of today, simply by the fact that they entered this country legally, meaning to start a new life and to INVEST their hearts and souls in this country.

When I watched a pro-immigrant march through Denver recently -- thousands of marchers -- I saw 100 Mexican flags for every American flag they had. That shows that they are more proud of their former heritage than they are of their new country, and it demonstrates just how committed they are to the US -- not at all (as you say!).

I recently saw video footage on one of those "extreme videos" shows of a boatloat of Haitian immigrants the Coast Guard intercepted before they reached Florida. They were also overloaded and in danger of sinking, and knew it. When the USCG pulled up alongside, there was a stampede of people wanting to get onto the boat. They were so desperate that they actually capsized their own boat because there were too many people and they weren't following the rules. This can be a metaphor for what is happening in America today, and for why there need to be rules for immigration, and those rules need to be followed.

You earlier said that illegal immigrants pay for their stay by paying sales tax. In my opinion, that's a vastly distorted argument. First, many Mexican immigrants come here to work, make lots of money under the table, and send most of it to their families back home in Mexico. Then, many of them return to Mexico, stay, and return again later to repeat the process. They pay very little in the way of sales taxes -- just enough to keep themselves fed -- they pay no income taxes (some do, but very few), no social security taxes (again, some do, but not many), no payroll taxes, etc. They may end up costing the US very little also, except for forgone taxes for the minor services they consume, but if they ever get sick or injured, they are 100% on the taxpayer to be taken care of. The high cost of uncompensated Medicare treatment for a few illegals in this category far outweighs any benefits from those who never get injured.

Next, there are the illegals whose entire families are here. Generally, the man will work, producing none of the paycheck taxes, but then the needs of the family pay for some of that in sales taxes. But this in no way makes up for the fact that the man isn't paying income tax, SSI, payroll tax, etc., because a legal American citizen also pays those same sales taxes PLUS all of the others. Furthermore, in most cities every child here from these families receives a public education (about $5,000 a year), plus free lunch (another couple thousand or more a year) -- this burden is entirely upon the backs of the taxpayers, and in many communities it means that working parents are paying for not only their own childrens' education, but for a large share of the education of the illegal students in their school (this issue alone is breaking America's public school systems). Some of these illegal families receive public assistance for housing, utilities, or other needs (depending on which state and city). And, like the single worker mentioned above, these families -- grandmother, mom, dad, kids, etc. -- are mostly on Medicare for any illnesses or injuries. And these costs often run into the tens of thousands of dollars for each individual.

There is no way at all that an illegal immigrant individual or family is more of a resource for this country than a liability. The millions of illegal immigrants in the US today cost the taxpayers tens or hundreds of millions of dollars every year.