Immigration viewpoints

Immigrants point of view

Nineth Castillo, a 26-year-old waitress from Guatemala who joined the Atlanta march, said she has lived in the United States for 11 years “without a scrap of paper.” Asked whether she was afraid to parade her undocumented status in front of a massive police presence, she laughed and said: “Why? They kick us out, we’re coming back tomorrow.”
Hundreds of Latinos in North Carolina were called on to skip work or boycott all purchases Monday to demonstrate the financial impact of the Latino community on area businesses. We’re hoping that employers stop to consider what this is all about,” organizer Adriana Galvez said. “That if you need people here to do the work, to buy, then give them a legal channel to get here.”
"We want to send a strong message today, a message that we want the laws to be fair,” Luna said. "There’s no way to come legally over here,” said Penate, 25. “If there was, do you think people would like to be in the desert risking their lives?”
“This country was built by immigrants, Pittsburgh in particular,” along a busy street to the University of Illinois campus, carrying signs with slogans such as: “The pilgrims had no green cards.”
“Go to jail!” shouted William Hazzard, 58, a retired school custodian from Harrisburg. “I’m from Germany and I had to give up my rights as a German citizen. I had to speak English.”Raymond Marks, 47, an apartment complex service manager, held an upside-down American flag as a sign of distress.“These people are expecting me to give them rights they don’t deserve,” he said.“America is a country of dreams. These people have dreams,” said Suarez, who demonstrated in Lake Worth, Fla. “They have family back home in their countries and they’ve been separated for many years. It’s only fair that they are allowed to be together again here, and to help keep this country growing.”

On the law side!

President George W Bush plans to deploy up to 6,000 reserve soldiers of the US National Guard on the border with Mexico, as part of his plan to counter the flow of illegal migrants entering the United States.The president has also spoken of creating a legalised system that would allow foreigners to work temporarily in the US.Many people, however, including a good part of the president's Republican party, believe Mr Bush should be taking a harder line and criminalising illegal immigrants.Americans are rightly outraged by our broken immigration system: there are roughly 12 to 15 million illegal aliens in the US, and hundreds of thousands sneak across our borders each year.
Our porous borders pose a major national security threat because not all of the illegal aliens are coming to "do the job that no American will do," as President Bush often says.Illegal immigration also has a negative effect on the US's economic security. It doesn't take a degree in economics to realise that a massive flow of low-skilled labour puts downward pressure on the wages of native-born Americans.
President Bush's policies will demoralise our National Guard troops, while risking their lives.