DISQUS

bcstractor · 2 years ago

They are "illegal" - not undocumented Please stop using weasel words. They are illegal immigrants.  Tell them to go back and get a passport.

btsatten · 2 years ago

A Better Idea Let's see. You suggest we provide prenatal care to all undocumented woman so we can save $1.50 for every $1.00

spent on shorter hospital stays.

I have a better idea.

Why don't the undocumented woman deliver their children

in a hospital in their country of origin?

Truthteller · 2 years ago

Because if they did The American taxpayers wouldn't have to pay for it, of course.

joe · 2 years ago

a fair and balanced approach It is refreshing to hear more substance and compassion and less hate and fear mongering. When are we going to wake up as a state and society, and realize we are all in this together?

tom47 · 2 years ago

If they COULD get a passport, they WOULD get a passport It's hateful to ignore reality in order to justify oppression of the poor, of the worker, of hard working families whose only offense is seeking to work an honest day for honest pay. Because the US immigration system is broken, the workers that come here to build our communities and economy cannot get the visas to do so.

To suggest that they "get on line" or "get visas and come in legally" is unrealistic -- only about 5% of the actual number of people coming here can get visas -- that's the real difference between present immigration policy and the policies that brought the rest of us here in the past couple of hundred years. The door has been slammed shut, that's why people come over the wall. This is not to say necessarily that open borders are the solution; but it is to point out that the essentially closed borders we now have are not reasonable, either.

The reality is that immigrants come here, especially from Latin America, because they need the work to support their families, and the US needs their work in many industries. That's why over half of the 12-20 million undocumented people are here [the rest overstayed their student or tourist visas -- that's how the people who destroyed the WTC got here, and walls on the Mexican border don't address that problem].

Until the US immigration laws are changed, we'll continue to have exploitation by unscrupulous employers [which hurts ALL workers], suffering in our communities [especially among persons of color, regardless of their individual citizenship or immigration status], and a creeping police state [which threatens the civii and human rights of all of us].

We will also have continued hate-mongering by politicians, the media and other crypto-racists [or do you prefer the term "nativist"?]. The code words ["illegal immigrant/alien"] don't hide the reality of where this hatred comes from -- if you don't want to be labelled racist, quit ignoring reality and spewing hatred. Instead, join in an honest effort to reform the broken immigration system, and welcome the people who come here with the same dreams, open hearts and willing hands as our own ancestors did. Ain't that America? 

Truthteller · 2 years ago

If they could, they would? BALONEY, cubed and squared.

Engage in all the namcalling you want, but it doesn't change the facts that people who simply want the law to be fairly enforced are neither "racists" nor "nativists" nor "crypto-racists" nor "hate-mongerers."  In fact, it's those who would bring such false accusations who deserve such appelations.

It's not the US immigration laws that are the problem.  Those laws do not create the situation where persons flee their own nations and break our laws to come here.  And IF those laws need to be changed, then there is a process by which it can be done - and until that occurs no one is somehow entitled to simply choose to break them without consequence, whatever the color of their skin.

Truthteller · 1 year ago

A real look at a piece of the problem - how illegal immigrants act like parasites Calif. School Targets Mexican Students

Dec 31 02:39 PM US/Eastern

By ELLIOT SPAGAT


Associated Press Writer


33 Comments 

CALEXICO, Calif. (AP) - Children are more likely to shield their faces than to smile when Daniel Santillan points his camera.

Santillan's photos aren't for any picture album or yearbook-they help prove that Mexican youngsters are illegally attending public schools in this California border community.

With too many students and too few classrooms, Calexico school officials took the unusual step of hiring someone to photograph children and document the offenders. Santillan snaps pictures at the city's downtown border crossing and shares the images with school principals, who use them as evidence to kick out those living in Mexico.

Since he started the job two years ago, the number of students in the Calexico school system has fallen 5 percent, from 9,600 to 9,100, while the city's population grew about 3 percent.

"The community asked us to do this, and we responded," school board President Enrique Alvarado said. "Once it starts to affect you personally, when your daughter gets bumped to another school, then our residents start complaining."

Every day along the 1,952-mile border, children from Mexico cross into the United States and attend public schools. No one keeps statistics on how many.

Citizenship isn't the issue for school officials; district residency is.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled illegal immigrants have a right to an education, so schools don't ask about immigration status. But citizens and illegal immigrants alike can't falsely claim residency in a school district.

Enforcement of residency requirements varies widely along the border. Some schools do little to verify where children live beyond checking leases or utility bills, while others dispatch officials to homes when suspicions are raised.

Jesus Gandara, superintendent of the Sweetwater district, with 44,000 students along San Diego's border with Mexico, said tracking children at the border goes too far. "If you do that, you're playing immigration agent," he said.

The El Paso Independent School District in Texas sends employees to homes when suspicions are raised. But spokesman Luis Villalobos said photographing students at the border would be a monumental, unproductive effort.

That's not the thinking in Calexico, a city 120 miles east of San Diego that has seen its population double to 38,000 since 1990. A steel fence along the border separates Calexico from Mexicali, an industrial city of about 750,000 that sends shoppers and farm laborers to California.

Calexico's rapid growth outstripped school resources, resulting in overcrowding and prompting demands that Mexican interlopers be ousted. Taxpayers complained their children were bused across town because neighborhood schools were full, even after Calexico voters approved a $30 million construction measure in 2004. Portable classrooms proliferated.

The 62-year-old Santillan (pronounced sahn-tee-YAHN) was hired in He is an unlikely enforcer. Posters of Cesar Chavez and Che Guevara adorn the walls of his ranch-style home. The Vietnam War veteran and labor activist is an outspoken advocate of amnesty for illegal immigrants and fills water jugs in the desert for Mexicans who trek across the border illegally.

He parks his old Toyota Echo at the border two or three mornings a week, often in a handicapped spot that his bad knees allow him to occupy. He photographs some of the hundreds of students who exit the inspection building and walk to class.

Some hide their faces when they see his 6-foot-5, 310-pound frame. Sometimes he follows students to school.

Many of the students know him. Others in town are not always sure what he is up to. A new police officer once ran his name through a database of sex offenders. A talk-radio host warned listeners that an odd- looking man at the border might be looking for children to kidnap.

Some students taunt him. Friends have called him a hypocrite. Santillan reminds them that he is only enforcing school residency rules, not immigration laws. Still, he says, "You've got to have hell of a tough skin."

The California native also visits addresses listed on student enrollment forms, knocking on doors as late as 9 p.m. and introducing himself in Spanish.

One crisp December morning, he went to three homes before dawn, carrying a clipboard with several pages of students suspected of living in Mexico. A woman who opened her door at 6:30 a.m. said her niece no longer lives with her. At another home, a woman said her niece moved last month.

Many Calexico residents support the crackdown.

Fernando Torres, a former mayor, was upset when the district said his grandchildren would have to transfer because there was no room in their neighborhood school. "It's not right" for U.S. taxpayers to build classrooms for Mexican residents, he said. The district eventually relented.

School board member Eduardo Rivera estimates there are still 250 to 400 students from Mexico attending Calexico's schools.

"It's a continual struggle," Rivera said. "You have people who are determined to continue sending their kids over here."

Truthteller · 1 year ago

So So try telling Rivera and Torres and Santillan that they're "racists" or "nativists" or some kind of proto-Nazis because their children are being so adversely affected by the actions of illegal immigrants.