dear du, do you know what i am afraid of, hot the illigeals but

[AllaN01Bear]

houses in california now selling for $2m. where teachers and others are being forced out. hospitals who charge $100.00 for a 10 c bandaid . oil refineries who sht down with a trash can fire and jack up prices and supermarket conglamarates who can charge anything they want to. these are my thoughts and my thoughts alone . you can agree or dissagree.

[sop]

1. I agree.

We're becoming a feudal society.

[Unladen Swallow]

2. I agree, but the illegals do "scare" me

or at least generate a significant level of concern.

[Voltaire2]

3. No person is illegal.

But I am curious how many undocumented refugees have you encountered, how did you know they were undocumented, and how did they 'scare' you?

[Unladen Swallow]

4. I have lived in a border town

for 99% of my life, and life down here is significantly different than elsewhere in the nation, at least, all the other places I've ever visited.

Significantly different.

[sop]

5. "Different" because there are significantly more residents of hispanic ancestry in the Southwestern states.

I lived in New Mexico, the most Hispanic state in the United States, with 49% of its population identifying as Hispanic. The state's Hispanic population is very diverse, many are descendants of the original Spanish settlers, and many are of Mexican ancestry who have been living in (what is now) New Mexico for centuries, becoming US citizens when the territory became a state in 1912. Texas, Arizona and California share similar demographics.

I always had to laugh whenever recent arrivals to New Mexico from other states - retirees from Ohio, Virginia or Pennsylvania who had only been in the 'Land of Enchantment' for three or four years - would complain about the large number of "Mexicans" in the state, often saying "they should go back across the border where they came from." I would point out many of the "Mexicans" they were talking about had been living on the land for hundreds of years, and they didn't cross the border, the border crossed them.

[mountain grammy]

6. Exactly!

Our border states used to be Mexico.

[Unladen Swallow]

7. No.

"Very different" because most of my rancher friends on the border (dozens) have had their fences cut, livestock lost or injured or killed, houses and sheds sacked, outdoor hoses left on, stock tanks damaged by garbage or clothes or other items of contaminant. The hit-and-run and uninsured motorist issues are many orders of magnitude worse than other cities. I used to work in schools in IT and the classes I entered were taught 50% in english and 50% in spanish, so each kid only got 50% of a teacher's time at any given time. There are dozens of other factors that caused me to use the phrase "very different" because I've not seen these same issues (some at all and some to the same degree) in cities further north when I have visited for long periods of time.

[sop]

10. Yes. Very different because many poor Central Americans and Mexicans are fleeing across the border to

work in American factories, construction, service indiustries, agriculture, meat processing, and every other job Americans refuse to do for the wages being offered, just to stay alive and send money to their families back home.

And they're being hired by American companies, probably Trump supporters, who then demagogue about "illegals" to convince your rancher friends to support the very same policies that created illegal immigration in the first place.

And the violence and chaos is primarily the result of illegal drugs being brought across the border to satisfy Americans' drug habits. And the guns responsible for all the killing along the border are being manufactured and illegally sold by American gun manufacturers.

And if your rancher friends don't want hordes of desperate, starving immigrants streaming across their land, cutting fences and doing property damage, maybe they should support a humane legal immigration policy, not hunt immigrants down like animals and put them in cages and detention centers.

And remind your rancher friends the land they now "own" used to belong to another country, stolen at the point of a gun from the same people they now love to hate.

Your complaints are as old as America itself. Every single wave of immigrants that came into this country, long before immigration laws even existed, was met with the same sort of open hostility by people who themselves were immigrants only a few years before. We seem to have forgotten our history.

[mountain grammy]

16. Well said

And I don’t think there are any “rancher friends” Sounds a bit made up to me.

[Unladen Swallow]

17. lol

[Bettie]

12. In what way is it different?

Seriously, it would be helpful to describe why you are afraid.

[Elessar Zappa]

18. Then you should know how safe cities like El Paso and Brownsville are

compared to most US cities. Read the statistics. Significantly lower violent crime rates.

[DeepWinter]

9. Many people are illegal

You don't enter through a legal port of entry, fill out the legal paperwork, go through the legal process, you entered illegally and are rightfully put back to the end of the line to start over legally if you have no ill intent.

Try doing that in Japan, Germany, Peru, Morocco as a US Citizen and see how far that gets you.

[Voltaire2]

11. people are not illegal

existing is not a crime. " you entered illegally" doesn't make you 'illegal'. The terminology is used in order to dehumanize people so that we 'legal' people will accept concentration camps and mass deportations.

[harumph]

13. very good point. sometimes i find myself being surprised how much

"otherizing" language we swim in. It's just the ambiance of our country i guess..

[DeepWinter]

15. Fine

Existing is not illegal. What you choose to do may be illegal. Like illegally entering a country and reaping the consequences.

[sakabatou]

8. Yeah, most housing in the best areas are out of reach for anybody but the rich

[Prairie_Seagull]

14. When the working class can no longer afford

to live near where they work, there is a big problem. One facet of the homelessness problem?

IMO.