Library hosts exhibit of immigrant stories

“Vast number of people don’t know the difficulty of immigration reform, or the difficulty of living here illegally?"

What I know is that no other country in the world tolerates so many criminal invaders freely wandering it's lands as the US does, and still we are supposed to reach out even FURTHER to these people.

Their 'idea' of immigration reform is an open-borders policy, with not much attempt to police the teeming illegal population that is already here.

In the 80's Ted Kennedy and others such as Ronald Reagan pushed for a general amnesty for illegals, with the stern promise that it wouldn't happen again and that the borders would be strengthened.

Can you guess what happened? The amnesty was enacted, illegal immigration surged, and employers used shortcuts to get around weak penalties.

Life as a criminal invader in the US should not be easy, it should difficult and the threat of being deported should always be ever present in their minds.

I am NOT advocating abuse of any kind, just acknowledgment that all of these people who knowingly entered the US are criminals, and should be treated and deported as such.

Am I intolerant? You betcha, and I have had enough.

Clearly the lack of border control is an issue, but there is also a large need for people to do the work these people are doing. Resturants, Agriculture and the Hospitality industry are major employers of immigrants and not all are illegal. Painting with the "deport them all" brush makes no economical sense and realistically can't be done anyway. The road to control is through a system of employment documentation that is reliable and enforcable. Unfortunately E-Verify does not meet that standard yet. Visa programs such as H2A are way to slow and costly to use.

When speaking of intolerance, I think it is also important to remember where we as Americans came from... and understand that the immigrants of today are coming to America for many of the same reasons as our immigrant ancestors.

I would support a guest worker program that has no path to citizenship.

What I would like to see is a very strengthened border, south AND north, and much more emphasis on deportation than we have now

Can we deport 10-13 million illegals living in this country? I seriously doubt it.

But what we can do is try much harder to close the gaping holes that are allowing people(and massive amounts of drugs, and eventually terrorists) to stream into our lands.

If these measures were done years ago as it was promised they would be by our elected officials in both parties, America would not have such a huge problem as it does now.

By continuing to bury their heads in the sand it only emboldens the open-borders advocates who our allegiance to countries other than our own.

Bluto, you are ignorant, racist and selfish - you support a guest worker program with no path to citizenship - so basically you support slavery - bring people in when you want them, on your terms, dispose of them when you no longer need them - these are PEOPLE you are talking about, not rented machinery...you don't want to even give them a chance to earn their legal permanent residency (yeah, wake up, citizenship is not the only method of legal residency in this country)? That is just crazy - I suppose you would also put a limit on what jobs they can accept (the dirty, hard jobs we anglos don't really want) and how much they can get paid (can we get away with setting a lower minimum wage for "those people"?), and if they get pregnant and have a child while in the US, take away their citizenship....

If you really knew what was going on you would realize that already immigration is not enough to deal with the demand on jobs - don't believe it? call a few wineries, nurseries, farms and ask how their hiring season went this year, almost all employers had a hard time finding labor - but so many anglos are just sitting on their @$$ collecting unemployment because they can instead of going out and getting one of those jobs "those" people are taking from us.

Stop the ignorance, stop the racism and deal with the real situation - a FAIR and HUMANE immigration reorm, not just for us but for the immigrants as well - no wonder so many people think we're self-centered, selfish, greedy people - because of people like YOU.

you disgust me.

I'm glad I disgust you Zen, because approval from such as yourself is useless.

If the citizens of this country are supposedly so self-centered, selfish, greedy people, please explain again why we are allowing 10-13 million non-citizens to openly reside here with free health care, education, prenatal care, driver licenses, in-state college tuition discounts, citizenship for their babies whether the parents are illegal are not, and housing grants from the government.

No other country does what we do, and what is our reward? It is staggering amounts of crime, tremendously increased state and federal debt, and over-stressed hospitals and schools.

Only a progressive simpleton would have a problem with a guest-worker program that would help bring illegal workers under the protection of federal wage and labor laws, and allow them to finally be able to work and not hide it.

They make income, we get the labor that we need, and at the end of the work they go home to their OWN country(the horrors!). No bogus claims of slavery involved to cloud the issue with hysterics, just an exchange of labor for money with both sides benefiting.

I must admit that your insults brought a huge smile to my face Zen, obviously I sent your little bleeding heart afire and that makes my day.

Cheers.

"I sent your little bleeding heart afire and that makes my day"
......another example of how your mind works - if what makes you happy is getting someone else fired up or hurting them, that says a lot about you.

"approval from such as yourself is useless" Ditto :-)

Undocumented workers DON't qualify for Free health care or housing, they can't get driver licenses, they don't qualify for most college tuition assistance programs - do your homework.

"staggering amounts of crime" - WRONG! Again, do your research. here's just one of the many articles that explain it: http://www.theagitator.com/2011/05/11/more-immigrants-less-crime/

"tremendously increased state and federal debt" and millions of dollars that undocumented workers will NEVER claim - in social security and taxes

"why we are allowing 10-13 million non-citizens to openly reside here" because we need them just as much as they need us - whether YOU want to believe it or no - if immigrants were so bad for this country, government wouldn't be pretending they can't control it they would do something about it - they are identifying illegals at the DMV and denying drivers licenses, they can't do the same for employers? They don't WANT to - and guess what, if they couldn't work in this country, there would be no reason for them to come here.

ugh, what's the point, people like you will never really get it, you repeat what others say but really have no clue what you're talking about

"Bluto, you are ignorant, racist and selfish - you support a guest worker program with no path to citizenship - so basically you support slavery"

When one is incapable of a cogent argument to support their point they resort to name calling. Oh the hypocrisy.

and when one is not capable of reading the entire comments, you know the part that is meant to support a point of view, you show off YOUR ignorance.

I am entitled to my opinion after all! No worries, I know what you think of people "like me" and it doesn't bother me one bit.

Have a good day! :-)

Zen,
Why are you so full of hatred towards people who have a different opinion than you?
If you feel that people should be allowed to break the law and even have the local library honor their criminal behavior with this type of tribute, put forth a convincing, logical argument as to why you feel it is acceptable.
You obviously have strong feelings about this issue. Channel those feelings into explaining and advocating for your position instead of vicious, hateful ad hominum attacks.
If you are persuasive enough you might just change some minds. I'm willing to read and carefully consider your position if you will present it in a civil manner.

Didn't Zen explain his position in the 03:44 pm - Mon, September 24 2012
comments?

I agree, so many people talk very poorly of undocumented workers but don't have the facts, they just make assumptions and when you do feel strongly about an issue it's frustrating to see how much ignorance there is on th subject.

The bottom line is our government isn't stupid (don't laug!) if immigrants were hurting the country more than benefiting it, they would have found a way to get them out of here already.

I know many immigrants, both legal and illegal, I am happy to have them as neighbors and friends of my children, most of them are good, hard-working peope who had a rough life in their home country - wouldn't you do anything you could to make sure your kids had food, shelter, an education and lived away from violence? Our ancestors did the same thing, why do we have to judge them? Because we've been here longer? No, immigrants deserve a fair immigration reform and the possibility to stay here if they want to, legally with all the rights of a citizen or legal resident - if they commit serious crimes or violent crimes, deport them because they just give the others a bad name.

I don't think anyone wants illegal immigration but until our government decides to really do something about it, it will continue to happen, so just learn to deal with it and look on the bright side, there are many many good things that immigrants bring to this country, many people just aren't willing to look at that.

"The bottom line is our government isn't stupid..(sic)..if immigrants were hurting the country more than benefiting it, they would have found a way to get them out of here already."

We're probably not too far from a time when most Americans will be ordered to remove (or the government will remove them for us in the name of fairness) any fences having been erected on private property for the sole purpose of keeping out uninvited people..or..even particular groups of people.

Obviously, when that time comes, and it surely will, the only fences and/or walls allowed to stand, will be for those that can afford accommodations within the confines of a government sanctioned 'Green Zone'

"wouldn't you do anything you could to make sure your kids had food, shelter, an education and lived away from violence?"

This seems to be the heart of the argument for those who are in favor of illegal immigration. And I see what you are saying. I just don't agree.
Why don't they band together with neighbors and family and create a community and nation that has more food, shelter and education and less violence? Think what a great example of honor and courage that would be for their children.
Why teach your children that when things get tough we run away and break the law and hide from our country's problems by illegally entering our neighbors country and hiding there.
Zak, If you were having problems with poverty would it be okay for you to break into your next door neighbors home and live in their basement and eat the food out of their refrigerator and then call anybody that disagreed with your burglary a bigot?