Reforming immigration laws is not the answer. The problem is poverty, not a lack of passports. See link below.

The position of many liberals on the issue of illegal immigration is sadly short-sighted. It solves nothing to pass laws to give entry to tens of millions of desperately poor Central and South Americans, often children, who are forced to leave their countries because there is no hope, no opportunity, no education, no money, no food for them or their families in their own communities. We are not solving anything by changing the law to make it easier for mothers to send their 14 year olds to the U.S. to clean our toilets.

The "reform" debate misses the point. The U.S. has destabalized nations through Central and South America for decades. The destruction of those countries is in part our responsibility, and we need to help fix the problem. Such as by working with our neighbors to revive their own communities.

I heard someone last week-end saying we should allow "guest" workers to come in and pick our lettuce because Americans won't. Americans used to do our own farm work. The only thing that's changed is that agribusiness doesn't want to pay a living wage. We should not support an institutionalized slave labor system. Let's look honestly at the source of the illegal immigration, and stop pretending we can solve the problem with more Visas.

http://nabnyc.blogspot.com/2009/04/reforming-immigration-laws-is-not.html

Wouldn't it be nice if there weren't any racists in either party.

"You cannot go into a Dunkin' Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent."
Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., (D., Del.), 2006-07

This city will be chocolate at the end of the day. This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be.
-- Mayor Ray Nagin (D), 2006

"I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia [Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan recruiter] that he would have been a great senator at any moment. . . . He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this nation."
--Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), 2004

"I want to go up to the closest white person and say: 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing' and then slap him, just for my mental health."
--NY City Councilman Charles Barron (D), 2002

"Everybody likes to go to Geneva. I used to do it for the Law of the Sea conferences and you'd find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they'd just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva."
--Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D., S.C.) 1993

First of all, I am for open borders. I would be for all people of the world to travel and live where they please. But that IS NOT what we have currently and its not likely that we would get an open borders agreement with all nations. Every other option is a compromise and disagreeing with the tradeoffs doesn't make someone racist or xenophobic.

Currently we have a very carefully crafted immigration policy that only benefits business and is very anti-worker.

I am so disappointed to see Democrats supporting the current immigration policy or the even worse immigration policy the Obama administration is pushing, both were written by business (and a few unions). Both are regressive and keep us on a race to the bottom.

The best immigration policy would be "open borders" but we won't get that, the next best would be "fair trade" immigration policy meaning that we only allow immigration for nations with similar levels of democratic protections and similar levels of economic power.

Sadly, I think we will end up with another repeat of Reagan type immigration policy which hurts honest hard working Americans.

We are a nation of 300 million, we are not a frontier nation...actually we never were. We killed the natives and used immigrants to justify it. We were never a nation that welcomed immigrants. We only welcomed immigrants as a tool to crush American workers. Same old sad story.

Too bad so many Democrats are falling for the lie.

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=106

The American Cause
www.theamericancause.org

The American Cause is a foundation founded and run by commentator and nativist firebrand Patrick Buchanan, a three-time presidential contender who may have done more than almost any other individual to popularize white supremacist and Christian nationalist ideas in America.

Founded in 1993 to promote "national sovereignty, economic patriotism, limited government and individual freedom," the organization is actually an echo chamber for Buchanan, who has long been disdainful of non-white immigration. In one 1984 column, Buchanan wrote that the issue of immigration has "almost nothing to do with economics, almost everything to do with race and ethnicity. If British subjects, fleeing a depression, were pouring into this country through Canada, there would be few alarms. The central objection to the present flood of illegals is they are not English-speaking white people from Western Europe; they are Spanish-speaking brown and black people from Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean."

M. McCain is a prop and a con. She is being strutted out in pretense of being the new face of the cons so that when the time presents itself, they will show case her in hopes that the voting public will be tricked into returning the cons to power. Don't be stupid people. This is M-C-lames daughter okay.

Being against illegal immigration isn't being racist. I am for legal immigration but against illegal, and I am not, nor have I ever been a racist. Just feel that we have a right to control our borders in the same way that other countries control their borders. Mexico tightly guards its southern borders, as it has the right to do. But when we talk about controlling our southern border, there is mass hysteria and cries of "racism".

BTW, do not call those who are against "illegal" immigration as being against immigration. Not true.

Those are all the examples you can find? So its now racist to point out that Chinese people are coming here to study and then go back to China right after? Its racist to point out that Muslims learn Spanish? I guess all the people who voted for McCain are racist too, since after all, they didn't vote for the black guy, so that obviously makes them racist.

I'm not saying there aren't racists in the Republican Party. But just because we oppose amnesty for people who came here illegally dosen't make us racist. Lets not forget the racist Democrat segment. You got the card carrying member of the KKK, Sen. Robert Bird. How about our Vice President? He said you can't go into a 7-11 without seeing an Indian. But I guess thats not racist. After all, Biden's a Democrat, so its ok.

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=1021

Hate in the Mainstream
Quotes From the Right

"Most black people ¦ have a socialist mentality. They depend on the government, they don't get married, most of them don't work hard ¦ and if we allow the socialist Barack Obama to get in, our country would become that way."
" JESSE LEE PETERSON, an anti-gay black pastor with his own Internet-based radio show, during an Oct. 20 appearance on Clear Channel's "The Big Show with Bill Cunningham"

"Why should a welfare recipient have the right to vote? They're only gonna vote themselves a raise."
" MICHAEL SAVAGE, on the Oct. 22 edition of Talk Radio Network's "The Savage Nation"

"Well, I think probably there'll be ham hocks and turnip greens."
" G. GORDON LIDDY, commenting during the Nov. 4 broadcast of his Radio America program on what sort of food would be served in an Obama-run concentration camp

"Viva Viagra. Well " after all, who's gonna father the next generation of illegals to come swarming across the border in their effort to reconquer the Southwest?"
" JIM QUINN, on the Nov. 18 edition of his syndicated radio show "The War Room With Quinn & Rose," reacting to Mexico City's plans to distribute erectile-dysfunction drugs to elderly men

Many Huffpo poster seem to have expanded the definition of racist to anybody who does not support open borders or illegal immigration. Anybody who puts the interests of America first is called a racist. If you believe in rule of law and think immigrants should come here legally you are a racist. Illegal immigration causes huge problems. Illegals are exploited easily because they are afraid to complain to the police and other authorities. They drive down the wages and working conditions of legal workers who try to stand up for their rights. If you cared at all about American workers you would oppose illegal immigration.

Is this really a suprise??

Anybdoy remember those PaLin rallies lasf fall or should I say 'Klan" rallies. We really saw the ugly side of the GOP. Even a redneck Sheriif in Florida refferd to the President as Barrack HUSSIEN Obama as if to infer he's not a "real" American.

Disgusting but not surprising

Thanks for publicly stating the obvious, James. Keep it up.

Just saying out loud what everyone already knows about the GOP.

well done article.

well done

Well said my friend