BloodMoon

What with immigration being such a hot topic lately, and ESPECIALLY here in Texas with it's huge Mexican population, I have become somewhat of a magnet and soundboard for curious American's opinions.

It's funny because I get asked many questions about my loyalty to the US and where I stand. Often they don't like my answers. Here is what I am asked...I'd like to know how other Expats answers compare to mine:

1 - Would you wave an American flag or an English one?

I wave both. My husband and I have one of each blowing outside our home. I proudly wear British t shirts, such as England football shirts, soccer jerseys, etc. But I also have various US sports team baseball caps, etc too.

2 - If America and England suddenly went to war, which army would you choose to ally with?

Unfortunately, I'd have to say England. My family and friends are there. My legacy and history is there, and I'll always be English. As much as I love America, it's important to remember that I spent approximately 26 years of my life in the UK, and only 12 months in the US!!

3 - How do you feel about illegal immigrants?

I have an old mantra, "Don't hate the player, hate the game". In other words, don't have a problem with the individual - think about the system. I don't care what anyone says - if you came from a poor country with hopeless life chances, you would do WHATEVER IT TAKES to support your family. And if America - a land of opportunity and potential - has weak borders, poor control, and easy ways to make money, then who are we to chastize the immigrants for doing what is necessary? Hell, if nobody is checking tickets at the movie theater, I won't bother buying one. Immoral? Sure. But it's their problem, not mine.

That being said, I do have a problem with the arrogance of some illegals. Just like people who take cell phone calls during a movie, or speak loudly in a romantic restaurant, I get sick and tired of some people who think they are "above" certain rules. And when I think of all the money, travel and stress I had to endure to get my visa - blood tests, X-rays, travelling to Lonodn and back, personal interviews, etc etc - only for some scumbag to hop over a fence or swim a river and get the same privileges as me...well I find that extremely unfair.

And when they wave Mexican flags and flagrantly flaunt their illegal status in Washington, I find it incredibly cocky.

Others coming soon..I have a conference call.

Jabba1

Er...let's see.

1. I wouldn't wave either, I'm not much into flag waving i'm afraid. Fee waving on the other hand.....

2. I'd fight for Germany, that's were my family is originally from (we're jewish don'tcha know). And we'd pick up were Hilter left off, and kick ass on both the US and UK.

4. Bring back slavery. Let all illegals work on plantations in exchange for food and a roof over their heads, and the promise that whippings will be done on weekends only.

snowbunny

Do you see a little hypocrisy here?

They want to live and work in the US (as obviously do you) but they also still feel a strong loyalty to Mexico.

I have previously posted that it's political suicide to wave a Mexican flag while demanding rights in America, but that's a separate issue. And what happened to "hate the game, not the player"?

Our immigration policy and the outcome of same has been *****ed up for years and years. If we can't enforce what we have now, what's the hope for the future? Start by throwing the illegal immigrants' employers in JAIL. No jobs, less illegal immigration.

BloodMoon

I can see why that may be hypocritical. But I feel like I've earned the right to live and work in America while paying tribute to my own country. If I pay taxes and work legitimately here in the States, then I think I am entitled to wear a England football jersey as a little bit of fun. As a teacher, I'd NEVER hoist a union jack over my school building!! If you're here ILLEGALLY, paying no taxes, not supporting the economy, abusing healthcare and basically riding on the backs of tax payers, then you have no business chanting "Viva Mexico". If you love Mexico that much, swim back over the border and live there.

snowbunny

You've earned this right through a year's worth of taxes on a schoolteacher's salary?

Please remember there is next to nothing in terms of social benefits in this country and especially in Texas -- no NHS, no real "dole." Yes, a lot of workers come here illegally, but they will work for very low wages and their *employers* exploit the hell out of them.

It is entirely probable that you are paying less for things than you would without these illegal workers -- especially for food and housing. Which are rather large parts of anyone's budget.

We will not stop illegal immigration to this country until we can control people who knowingly hire illegal workers. The fines are obviously not high enough; jack them higher and throw them in jail.

BloodMoon

You're damn right I've earned the right.

When I first decided that my destiny was in the States, I decided to do things properly. I refused the large number of offers I was presented with, everything from dead men's social security numbers to referrals to restaurant owners who'll employ without the need for a visa. I even had an immigration attorney tell me to simply come over on a visitor visa and simply stay in Texas!

I refused all of this, and decided to do it legitimately. Almost everyone on here can relate to the stress, frustration, and expense of the immigration process. The fear of not getting a visa, the fear of seperation, spending money hand over fist on admin fees, processing fees, hotels, train journeys, etc. Having to wait - wait for a mail response, wait for an interview date, wait for approval, wait for your visa in the mail.

And because of my previous good background - no criminal record, a college degree, etc - I have been able to join the noble profession of teaching children. Sorry if I pat myself on the back a little here.

I consider that route to be much more noble than hopping over a fence and agreeing to work for $2 an hour as a waiter. Illegal immigrants are a little like bank robbers or rapists. Some people just have this mentality that they don't have to follow rules, they don't have to earn anything - that they can simply TAKE whatever they WANT. "I don't qualify for a green card? Hey, no problem...I'll just sneak in anyway." It's not a personal attack solely on immigrants, but the type of person who thinks they can play by their own rules. We see them in all walks of life. But let's face it - the world and soceity depends on people like me. People who follow the rules and believe in regulations and standards. If we all decided to "swim the border", then the USA would be in chaos.

To see so many honest people in India, Europe, Africa, etc who have played this game honestly and made legit applications have to sit around, seperated from their families, while a bunch of illegals wave their flags and have the nerve to boycott their jobs is just a gross example of unfairness.

Close the borders. Close down and prosecute any employers who are guilty of hiring illegals, kick out anyone who has been here less than 6 months, and bring in detention centers. Problem solved.

I was faced with the same fears that these people have -

dinosaur

Indeed - the root of the issue.

Seems, rightly or wrongly, that there has developed a market to employ people below minimum wage, without checking work authorization and with no health/safety regulation. If this market was removed, would there still be an "issue" with illegal immigration ? And would we want to pay the resulting higher prices which would impact all sectors of the economy?

Anyway, being a dual cit (with dual cit kids and a USC wife), I'd fly any/all flags (and would try not to burn any, as that seems a bit insensitive), and be a conscientious objector if we were ever at war...

snowbunny

Did it ever cross your mind that you were fortunate to be born in England, to have had a good education and a fighting chance to live to be 18 thanks to national healthcare....

I'm not advocating breaking the law by illegally entering the country and working. On the other hand, for many, many years this sort of immigration for people to pick crops and build houses was tacitly accepted as a fact of life and everyone turned a blind eye to it, even when some of the migrants were dying in the attempt to get to civilisation on this side of the border.

The elephant in the corner finally got too big to ignore -- that's all that's changed. With the newest proposed legislation all that will happen is that those who are *caught* will be punished more harshly. With troops on the border, all that will happen is more will die trying to cross, and the coyotes will profit immensely. It's plain idiocy.

I believe that before we make these changes we simply enforce the law we already have, INCLUDING revocation of any permanent residency or citizenship of someone who employs illegal workers and deporting them; and imprisoning USCs.

Arizona Wurzel

That being said, I do have a problem with the arrogance of some illegals. Just like people who take cell phone calls during a movie, or speak loudly in a romantic restaurant, I get sick and tired of some people who think they are "above" certain rules. And when I think of all the money, travel and stress I had to endure to get my visa - blood tests, X-rays, travelling to Lonodn and back, personal interviews, etc etc - only for some scumbag to hop over a fence or swim a river and get the same privileges as me...well I find that extremely unfair.

And when they wave Mexican flags and flagrantly flaunt their illegal status in Washington, I find it incredibly cocky.
Totally agree with you ,I do wave the American flag,been a US citizen since 1979 but i am too old to fight!!!!! I suggest bringing back the draft and we would see how many of them would scurry back across the border!!!!!!

dinosaur

Doesn't it depend ? If someone living in a slum somewhere in, I dunno, say Ecuador, has the guts to make it to the border, get into the US and find a job to try and get better life, I wouldn't say it was necessarily any less noble. They just don't have the same resources as you or I did to do it "properly".

Big D

so now you hate the players and the game? What happened to your consistency

snowbunny

BM -

I am a native Texan and not an expatriate. One part of the issue is the fact that for many, many, MANY years illegal immigration was ignored so that American businesses could make money. My grandfather was a farmer on land that literally is on the border (Rio Grande) so I have witnessed more immigration b*llshit than your average person. I also have recently married and sponsored my expatriate husband so I've done my share of paperwork and paid loads of money for the privilege of his immigration.

Let's say you worked very hard at your job but in order to do it, you had to drive over the speed limit. But..... no one enforced the speed limit and you knew loads of other people who did it and even though your employer was supposed to get in trouble if YOU were caught speeding, THEY encouraged it.

You worked your fingers to the bone for less money and you never complained -- because you couldn't. You aren't eligible for Social Security in your old age; you have no health insurance; but you pay a significant amount in taxes because Texas has a high sales tax (surprise, surprise).

Then one day someone decided to enforce the law, which meant you were going to lose your job and possibly be thrown in jail because of speeding you'd done IN THE PAST.

gruffbrown

If you're going for citizenship, you may not want to tell your case officer that one.

RoadWarriorFromLP

I think what you miss is that there is an ideological aspect to US citizenship that differs greatly from what you'll find elsewhere in the world, which is rooted in the US' effort to assimilate immigrants into a heterogenous but (relatively) harmonious "melting pot".

Unlike the UK or most older nations, which have cultures that often precede their national identities, the American identity is tied largely to political institutions and mythos. Given the lack of common origins that would be typical in most older cultures, the US has constructed a tacit bargain -- you can maintain your religion, food, festivals, language and the bulk of your traditions, but in exchange for that, you will adopt American core ideals and accept certain American cultural institutions. (E pluribus unum and all that.)This apparatus allows newcomers to become American, not just in a legal sense but also in spirit.

This is the chemistry that allows a Muslim from Iran, a Catholic from the Philippines and a Christian in the Midwest to find enough of a common bond that they will join together when required, even if they don't see eye-to-eye on much else. It is possible to become an American, whereas it would be difficult to impossible for an immigrant-citizen to be embraced as a fellow German, Frenchman, etc. even if he speaks the language, eats the food, and buys into the system -- there, the path to citizenship is a legal one, but lacks the message of acceptance and adoption that you'd find here.

That's a lengthy way of saying that you apparently haven't bought into the package that has a longstanding tradition in the American system, which makes most Americans uncomfortable at a visceral level. (Most have never analyzed American citizenship as I have above, but they were trained to understand this at an emotional level.) It's the same impulse that makes Americans unhappy when they see Mexican flags being waved in a demonstration on American soil: they understand that these new immigrants are often unwilling to assimilate as did their predecessors, which threatens to weaken the institutions that made this immigrant culture possible in the first place.

Obviously, I have given this a bit of study, and it makes me nervous as well. The US has been strengthened by immigration, but only because the immigrants generally saw themselves as part of the fabric and aspired to be inculcated into American constructs. If they are here only for money, and expect the system to accomodate them without much in the way of reciprocation, then that paves the way to Balkanization and possibly creating the framework for making the Southwest become the next Quebec. I don't have a personal issue with immigrants per se, but the America-as-labor-importer ethic is invariably going to clash with more than a century's worth of public policy.

snowbunny

Most Europeans don't understand why Americans will say they're "Irish" or "Italian" or "German," either. It's because in addition to feeling affiliation with the place we live, we are also taught a lot about where we came from: the language, the food, the culture, the religion. We derive hyphenated status: Mexican-American, Czech-American, even -- wait for it -- Canadian-American.

If I sit next to one of my English cousins and also next to a Chinese-American, odds are significant that I'll have more in common with my English cousin than with my fellow countryman. I'll LOOK more like my cousin. But at the end of the day, my cousin is British and myself and the Chinese-American are.... Americans.