As millions protest today...
...let's look at countries where you CAN'T protest.
From Law School, from The Great Decay, with a similar citing at Lone Star Diary. Emphasis mine:
Immigration Laws:
- If you immigrate to our country, you must speak the native language.
- You have to be a professional or an investor. We are not going to take unskilled workers. You will not be allowed.
- There will be no special bilingual programs in the schools, no special ballots for elections, no government business will be conducted in your native language.
- Foreigners will not have the right to vote, I don’t care how long they are here, nor will they ever be allowed to hold political office.
- If you’re in our country, you cannot be a burden to taxpayers. You are not entitled, ever, to welfare, to food stamps, or other government goodies.
- You can come if you invest here, but it must be an amount equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage. If you don’t know have that amount of money, you can’t come and invest. You have to stay home.
- If you do come and you want to buy land, okay, but we’re going to restrict your options. You will not be allowed to buy waterfront property....That will be reserved for citizens naturally born in this country.
- However, as a foreigner, you must relinquish individual rights to property.
- You don’t have the right to protest in our country. You’re allowed no demonstrations, you cannot wave a foreign flag, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our president or his policies, or you get sent home.
You’re a foreigner. You shut your mouth or you get out, and if you come here illegally, you go straight to jail and we’re going to hunt you down ’til we find you.
But don't pay attention to the drug addict who proposed these laws. They certainly can't be true, can they?
And Gateway Pundit links to Kokonut Pundits (again, emphasis mine):
The following from a director with SW BELL in Mexico City.
I spent five years working in Mexico. I worked under a tourist visa for three months and could legally renew it for three more months. After that you were working illegally. I was technically illegal for three weeks waiting on the FM3 approval....
Barbara and I spent about five hours accompanied by a Mexican attorney touring Mexican government office locations and being photographed and fingerprinted at least three times. At each location (and we remember at least four locations) we were instructed on Mexican tax, labor, housing, and criminal law and that we were required to obey their laws or face the consequences. We could not protest any of the government's actions or we would be committing a felony. We paid out four thousand dollars in fees and bribes to complete the process. When this was done we could legally bring in our household goods that were held by US customs in Loredo Texas. This meant we rented furniture in Mexico while awaiting our goods. There were extensive fees involved here that the company paid.
We could not buy a home and were required to rent at very high rates and under contract and compliance with Mexican law. We were required to get a Mexican drivers license. This was an amazing process. The company arranged for the licensing agency to come to our headquarters location with their photography and finger print equipment and the laminating machine. We showed our US license, were photographed and fingerprinted again and issued the license instantly after paying out a six dollar fee. We did not take a written or driving test and never received instructions on the rules of the road. Our only instruction was never give a policeman your license if stopped and asked. We were instructed to hold it against the inside window away from his grasp. If he got his hands on it you would have to pay ransom to get it back.
We then had to pay and file Mexican income tax annually using the number of our FM3 as our ID number. The companies Mexican accountants did this for us and we just signed what they prepared. I was about twenty legal size pages annually.
The FM 3 was good for three years and renewable for two more after paying more fees.
Leaving the country meant turning in the FM# and certifying we were leaving no debts behind and no outstanding legal affairs (warrants, tickets or liens) before our household goods were released to customs....
The Mexican Government uses its vast military and police forces to keep its citizens intimidated and compliant. They never protest at their White House or government offices but do protest daily in front of the United States Embassy. The US embassy looks like a strongly reinforced fortress and during most protests the Mexican Military surround the block with their men standing shoulder to shoulder in full riot gear to protect the Embassy. These protests are never shown on US or Mexican TV. There is a large public park across the street where they do their protesting. Anything can cause a protest such as proposed law changes in California or Texas.
Please feel free to share this with everyone who thinks we are being hard on illegal immigrants.
And, as a postscript to my earlier message, here's something Tony Pierce wrote over a month ago:
firstly i have no problems with mexico, mexicans, or mexican culture. and i realize that this town is called Los Angeles, not The Angels. this is mexico. this city is the second largest spanish speaking city in the world next to mexico city.
with that said, we have laws about how you emmigrate here and how you get your papers. you cannot just bum rush the show. i know what the statue of liberty says but theres an asterick there plain as day. that torch that she holds is the asterick.
yes it says bring me your tired your hungry your huddled masses yearning to breath free but the asterick says but get in line bitch. and im sorry but mexico might be fucked up but its not some totalitarian commie country. the way to fix mexico isnt to let tens of millions of mexicans come here to pick our fruit nanny our white children and hang outside the home depot.
the way to fix mexico is to legalize weed down there and start opening up mexican restaurants around the world. starting in spain which have no good mexican food.
Well, Tony, they did legalize weed down there. Which, when you think about it, will increase the consumption of Mexican food, which will increase demand, which will increase local jobs in Mexico, which will eventually (if enough weed is consumed) result in a living wage.
Unless, of course, there's a shortage of weed, which drives up the price. Dang! Thought I had solved this whole thing.
Comments
Companies are making money off these people, and we are reaping the benefits. If we deport them, our economy will grind to a halt. We complain about paying $3 a gallon for gas - wait until we have to pay $3 for a tomato.
So, who are they hurting by being here? Only themselves, in terms of low wages and no benefits. If they're happy to work for those conditions, why should we stop them?
Hell, let's take every deadbeat moocher defrauding the welfare system, as well as worker's comp and insurance fraud, and ship them to Mexico. Let the Mesicans who are willing to work hard for the American dream stay here.
It was a light bulb moment for me.
I guess you could call this a small L libertarian argument, but our government (and most others) have passed laws against people hurting themselves in various ways.
And in this case, the presence of the immigrants serves to depress wages for non-immigrants. I think somewhere in this blog I posted an example of how janitorial wages for immigrants and non-immigrants alike have been cut in half.
Regarding the visa thing, there's a valid point in there. There's a common misconception that all illegal aliens are crossing the desert in Arizona. However, there's a good portion of illegal aliens (including, I believe, some of the 9-11 conspirators) who got in the country legally, but overstayed their visas.
On a related note, I posted the fact that our exchange student had a one month grace period on her visa. However, this might only apply to certain types of visas.