Serious Discussion Du Jour: Immigration Policy

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 6/14/06 at 11:37am

Iflitifloat wrote:

A serious timeout here: It's just mindboggling to me that as a nation of immigrants, children of immigrants, and grandchildren of immigrants (etc), it is suddenly acceptable to look down on those who came here later, rather than sooner.


Discuss... In a civil manner, please.

Posted: 6/14/06 at 10:14pm

I'm OK with it (I'm only a second-generation American myself - both sets of grandparents came from Canada).

One thing I am not to happy with is the large influx of immigrants that do get assistance with housing/food stamps/medicaid, and US born/naturalized folks can't get them.

My aunt needed to get medicaid in order to get needed medical equipment, but because she made $10 over the income limit (yes, $10), was denied coverage. I know that we had a large immigrant population that had come to Maine, and they were getting housing and food stamps and medicaid - even though they weren't American citizens. I didn't think that was right somehow.


Updated On: 6/14/06 at 10:14 PM

[chealion313]

Posted: 6/14/06 at 10:43pm

I think the reason why they're being looked down on now is because of the difference between the types of immigrants who came to this country years ago as opposed to the immigrants now.

The immigrants who came here years ago came with the purpose of becoming Americans, of learning American culture and history, and they worked hard to adapt to American customs by getting an education and working extremely hard to learn the English language. Those people became American citizens as soon as they possibly could and built a life here for themselves and their families.

I live in area which is high in a Hispanic population and many of those who have come here seem to expect us give everything to them without adapting to American culture. From what I see on a daily basis, many of them do not speak the English language and have no desire to learn. Instead, they expect us to speak Spanish to them. (It's probably not like this in most of the country, but everyday where I work, some of these people come up to me and start speaking in Spanish, even though I have no clue as to what they're saying.)

I think that's what the huge difference is--immigrants of the past came here to become Americans. The present immigrants come here, make money, send it back to their own country and protest the illegal immigration policy while carrying Mexican flags instead of American ones, which I'm sure angers plenty of people.