Your .02 on anti-immigration laws.

So in other words, you can find a job, just not at the salary you believe yourself to be worth? Welcome to the real world!
 
OK, folks, listen up and listen good, 'cuz the next person who makes this assumption will be asked to bitch smack themselves!

English never has been, and is not, the "offical" language of America. The proposal has been rejected. We do not have an offical language!

EDIT: Smiley inserted and post edited for the PC brigade who can't take a joke I've used numerous times on this forum over the last several years.
 
Yeah couldn't agree more.
There will always be a certain section of the population though that is rather proud to be monolinguistic.
 
Never said it was the official language. I said it's what we speak. It's what we happen to be conversing in right now. It's the language of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It's the language that gets business done.

It is not racsist to expect someone coming to this country to live, to learn the language. It is common courtesy to learn the language of your host (home to be) country. Common language breaks down barriers and helps foster a sense of community. Refeusing to learn the host country's language leads to isolation and a feeling of not belonging. Face it, most illegals don't come here to be citizens. They come here to work and send money home. Then they leave and use their savings to start a business. Good business sense for them. But, in the meantime, theyt are using the Emergency room at the hospital for their clinic because the have no health/medical insurance. They are living 15 to a house, built for a family of 4 or 5. Here in Texas, at least, the majority of them have not insured their cars.

I know a couple, came here on a visitor visa. Got jobs and started working (illegally). Then they had a baby. Paid for with our taxes, they paid nothing. Nothing. But hey, it's okay. Right? Then they had a second baby, again paid for by our taxes. And they are still here illegally. Their visitor visa ran out 3 years ago. Now, they are try to get permanent residence status ( after the kids were born, thinking that it will be harder to deport them ).

As roofers being meth addicts and lazy, I'm sure my ex-wife's brother in law would be offended by your statement. Never did drugs, never smoked a cig in his life. Was making good money as a roofer until..... he was laid off in favor of an undocumented worker (illegal immigrant).

Use all the pretty words you want to. Until the law is changed, they are here illegally and should be treated as such. Humanely and with compassion, but still as criminals. And the law should be changed to severely punish those that hire illegals. Changed and enforced. Start by levying heavier fines and mandatory jail time. And not at some country club prison either.

One last time: This issue is with ILLEGAL not LEGAL immigrants of any race, creed, color, culture.

And don't threaten me if you can't back it up.
 
I thought you were serving with the US armed forces in Iraq?

(So I'm surprised that you are getting competition from illegal immigrants!)

Please forgive me if I've got the wrong end of the stick.
 
Only that what you've posted is not really the full story. There is no national language in the US. Never has been. Fact.

Seeing as how the gist of this thread is Mexicans or for that matter Latin Americans in America illegally... it's interesting to note that Spanish is one of the most widely spead second languages in the US.

So when you say 'we' you don't really mean we. You mean the people you know. That really doesn't account for large sections of the population.

So while it appears to shore up your argument by saying 'It's the language that gets business done. ' It's not entirely accurate. I know of many businesses run that require very little English if any to be profitable or successful.



Immigrant languages



source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_in_the_United_States

As I've bolded the part about the South West I'll explain... I was raised in a family that comes from the South West... where like many, many other families we were raised speaking Spanish as our native langauge... of course we were... we were speaking Spanish before english speaking people arrived.




It's not realistic either to expect that everyone coming to the country learn the language. Countries are dynamic... not static. That includes the populations in them. California is a great example of that. One only has to look at recent language demographics to realize that it's far from static.

In California there was a problem because people complained about so many new immigrants not being able to read english... so many drivers test manuals were written in any number of langauges (Vietnamese, Thai, Khmer, Filipino, Chinese, and of course Spanish) - the reason for this was because in order to work they needed to drive... in order to drive safely they needed to understand the rules... in order to do that they had to be able to take and pass the driving test.

If you make it a law that they have to be able to read english then you are saying in effect that there is a national language. Which is in fact not the case.



Not entirely true either. Many illegals don't have a chance to become citizens. While they are in the US working they help American companies to remain profitable. Additionally they spend a good amount of that income in the local economies. Last I checked landlords were still making their money, and they were still buying groceries and still buying gas. It's money injected into the local economy.

As for the number of people living in a house. I'm sorry could you please post the laws that show where you can decide who should live how many to a house? I'll wait.....

As for uninsured cars... I'm sure there are many Texans who have no insurance either.




I could care less if your brother in law was offended by what I said.
He's clean... the good for him. My post was based on my experience on working with far too many American meth-heads on roofing/framing jobs.
In the end I found that much of the illegal labor was far more reliable. The day rates for a good roofer/framer wasn't actually that much different between the two.



Yeah I can agree with much of what you've said here. But do you really figure that the law will ever be changed to punish those who hire them? Heh - I don't figure I'll see it in my life time.


I usually find that if the thread lasts long enough the true motivations of many people posting usually turn out to have a decidely racist element to it.
Not surprising though.



hunh?!
 
Got to chime in on this one too! I have no problem with anyone that enters this country legally! Notice how I made that word stand out? Gangrel, you are all about the law and so am I. Let's make sure that we understand that when people come to this country they do so by verifiable means and follow THE LAW! Financially, the U.S. can not afford to handle the rate of illegal immigration. Do they contribute to our economy? Yes, but not legally. Do companies hire them at reduced wages and pay them under the counter? Yes! Also, not legal.

Our Southern Border has enforcement on one side, Our side. I don't blame anyone for crossing an imaginary line to better their life. I welcome the cultural exchange. But I sure get pissed off when they scream for rights that they aren't getting precisely because they are not Legal Citizens or have Visas. Don't sneak into this country and work and then ask for more rights when you broke the law by entering. Surely if we believe in Laws, we can believe that breaking the law can not be tolerated.
 
English is the primary language in Ireland, and was in the 1930s too. Your forefathers wouldn't have had to learn English, they'd have been speaking it to each other every day. Gaelic speakers would have been the exception not the norm.
 
True, but you don't actually know whether or not his forefathers were part of the Gaelic-speaking minority, do you? You are making a big assumption.
 
The whole 'Real American' thing based on speaking the english language is an absurdly rubbish concept anyhow. My family was in the US long before the Irish got there and we spoke and still speak Spanish.

The Green-Burrito didn't come along till sometime after that.
 
I am for a "national language" and I really could care less if it is Yiddish. But we should have a unifying language so that communication is possible. I fortunately speak Spanish but I have had a time when I encountered other languages where they did not speak English and I did not speak their language and we NEEDED to communicate. (sever car accident) Now that causes me great concern...
 
About 1.6% of Irish people use gaelic as their primary daily language today and this is after a large push by the government to promote the Irish language. Most people who use Gaelic daily do so at school in Gaelic lessons rather than at home. I'm guessing the number of English speakers in Ireland approaches 100% and gaelic is probably more prevalent today than it was in the 1930s when there was still a stigma attached to speaking the language.

Having said that - yes, I am making a big assumption. I just thought it was worth pointing out that immigrants from Ireland do have a somewhat easier integration to an English speaking country since, statistically speaking, they're almost certain to speak English at home anyway.
 
Could you please point out where racist element is? My point there was, that illegal and legal run the full spectrum of race/religion/culture: from Hispanics, to Asians, from Irish to Africans and all bringing with them the elements of their culture, religion and so on. The point was ILLEGAL is illegal, legal is legal regardless of these issues. I could care less about a persons race.

Please, don't read in your own prejudice or bias into my statements. Not until you've had a few beers with me.

You brought up some good points otherwise. Some I tend to agree with or at least see your point of view. Others, sorry, have to agree to disagree with. As for the housing laws, in the last few years there have been steps taken to place such laws on the books. Can't recall exactly where and when, but Maryland was trying to do so when I left. I believe Boston was also attempting to do so. Hazleton's law was brought on in part by that. Whether or not any of these laws made it or are being challenged, it does show that people perceive this to be a problem.

And language. So you speak Spanish and grew up speaking it. Good for you. So did a lot of people, and they are not for illegal immigration. My Mom speaks it fluently, as does my step father (who immigrated from Argentina following the Falklands Island war) but, he speaks English. Heavily accented. Where only my mom and I can understand him the first go around. My wife speaks English, better than I do. And she grew up speaking Hindi.

I'm sorry, but at this point in time I cannot see why people comking here cannot make the effort to speak English. I've lived in 3 other counrties outside the USA and visited dozens more. I always made the effort to learn enough of the language to be polite and to do business. I'm horribly at languages, simply horrible, but I TRIED. Because it is the right thing to do. The polite thing.

There is nothing keeping someone from learning English other than a stubborn refusal to do so (this is my belief, not scientific fact). If they have a proven learning disability, fine. We'll work out other arrangements. But, in the end, I don't care if you can't speak it as fluently as my wife, as long as you can get by with it.

And that last comment was not directed at you slip.
 
Na, USMC retired, did my tours and kept my contracting business open while there and at home(been home since June).
 
Gaelic is used by Irish speakers, more so with the elders. I worked in an Irish pub and most of them spoke Gaelic to me (even though I had no idea what they were saying), and of course the Welsh speak an old languauge too. More then likley the Irish hertiage can be a mix since most European's are mixed anyway, I assume that most American's have european hertiage.

Candian's also speak French so they speak two languages in their own country, so I don't see anything worng with speaking both English and Spanish.
 
I don't see the slightest thing wrong with speaking several languages. My point was just that it's harder to integrate and find work if you don't speak the native language of the country you're moving to. Since the Irish invariably speak English, it's less difficult for them to integrate into an English speaking country. The same is true of, say, Puerto Rico which has joint-first languages of English and Spanish, so a Puerto Rican would find it easier to work in an English or Spanish speaking country than, say, a French-speaking one.

The guy I was replying to said that if his grandparents could learn the English language to settle in America, why can't Mexicans? I said, it's probably harder for the Mexicans because your grandparents probably spoke English at home anyway.
 
Wrong, racist is saying "I don't like those people because they are hispanic", the key being no criteria other then race is used to back up the reason for dislike.

English is the official language and well many cultures have contributed parts of they're culture, America has it's own homogenous culture and like any other culture the citizens don't take kindly to having obtuse or illeagal behaivor from people of another culture.

Here's a little cultural difference that might help you understand the difference: Bribery is an accepted custom in many Latino cultures, think we should just put aside our distain for the custom? Would not accepting that be racist?
 
Racism isn't always so open. This is a great case of rascist attitudes showing through.



First off, you are hereby ordered to bitchsmack yourself as per my last post. (And if you people can't take a joke, you can kiss my ass) Ditch the phrase "official language" out of your vocabulary for purposes of this thread. There is no such creature here in America. Period.

America does not have a homogenized culture, either. Go to any large city, and you've got how many "Little Italies", "Little Russias", "Chinatowns", etc? Oh, wait, that would be most of them. Americans like to thin we have a homogenous culture because it supports our utter refusal to learn anything about any other culture, including their language or history.




Gimme a break, cullen, I know you're smarter than that. What the hell does bribery have to do with language and cultural traditions of the Mexicans?!? Dominicans? Puerto Ricans? Or are you saying that it's an ingrained part of their culture?
 
And a good number of legal documents contain an awful lot of Latin. Maybe we should all learn that, too, since it's such an important part of American legal history! No large-scale law has ever been passed making English the official language of the US, but a good number of large-scale laws have been passed to recognize the large number of Spanish-speaking citizens here in the US. Seems to indicate that American government isn't interested in an "official language".



Wow, these generalizations speak volumes and aren't even worth arguing.



Oh, so we should take people who are coming to America to make a better life for themselves and put them on the streets, since under the law in question you can't rent them a home, ensure that they can't work by saying you can't be employed if you're an illegal, etc. Wow, that's a GREAT solution!



Sadly, it is not. Deny it all you want, but conveniently enough, I'm not hearing anyone complain about anyone except those Mexicans!



Get over yourself, Brad. But I edited the post in question since you lack a sense of humour.
 
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