Thursday, November 01, 2007

immigration discourse today

Here is an excerpt from a recent post at Latina Lista, a blog about issues affecting Latinas:

Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America's Children is documentation for the first time on how severely impacted children are by seeing their parents either taken into federal custody or waiting for them, only to never arrive due to being caught in immigration raids.

This report spells out not only the initial impact of the event on these children but underscores the long-term effect that will haunt these children into their adulthood.

. . .

As the report shows, the children suffer greatly:

Children experienced the emotional trauma of their parents' sudden absence, often personalizing the cause of the separation and feeling abandoned or fearful that their parents could be abruptly taken away from them.

Mental health experts noted that children's and parents' fears and the events surrounding the raids led to depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, separation anxiety, and suicidal thoughts in children.

The researchers found that while the majority of children remained behind with a second parent, there were some children who were left alone. In Grand Island, 17% of the children impacted by the raids had both of their parents arrested.

. . .

It's a fine line between being sensitive to children's well-being and enforcing the law. But that is what marks the difference between great nations and developing countries that let fear and intimidation rule instead of compassion and common sense.

Ok, fair enough. Readers are free to agree or disagree on whether this is a serious problem and, if so, how best to respond to it. But here are some representative comments in the thread:


I find it appalling that foreign nationals would abandon their children just because they were born in the USA. However, I do know of many families who, after coming over on work visa and having had children here (read citizens), return to their homelands without fuss, and believe it or not, actually love their children enough to retain responsibility for them (read take them home to their countries of origin). Deported illegal aliens with citizen children are still responsible for their children even though they themselves have been deported. Honestly, Marisa, what is the Hispanic family coming to?


Perhaps potential illegal aliens should stay in their own country and save their families from the anguish of being deported. Others who are here should leave by simply leaving on their own accord, before the long arm of justice prevails.

In response to another commenter pointing out that immigrant parents aren’t leaving their kids unattended by choice, but instead because they’re being swept up with little consideration for the health or safety of young children, commenters responded thusly:


No, it is the illegal parents that put themselves and their children in those positions. They know they are breaking our immigration laws when they come here. Our immigration policy has only failed because of lack of enforcement.

Even when the parents were kept with their children in a detainment center to keep the families together the pro-illegals were still crying foul.


La Raza and unscrupulous advocacy groups lie, cheat and obfuscate every day in order to make the feds look bad. They take lessons from Al Sharpton, who commonly stoops to hystrionics to sensationalize what he perceives as civil right violations. It wouldn't matter whether the feds put the whole family up in the Ritz Carleton and served them caviar, Hispanic advocacy groups would attempt to villify our law enforcement officials. To them, the end justifies the means. Discount any report by La Raza, as they have no loyalty to this country.


Illegal aliens deny our right to keep them out, degrade and defraud the credentials that we use to prove out identity. Their entire life in the U.S. is just a lie. Lying is a way of life for them. Why should we believe them when they complain about abuses by our government officials?

Why indeed? And there you have it. This is our immigration discourse today.


nicolle said...

Dios Mio (seems less sacrilegious in Spanish), that is frightening. Do people not hear themselves when they say those things? Where's the love?

bibi powers said...

i think people feel a freedom to say all the unscrupulous things that they think then they can comment anonymously. technology offers protection to be a bigot.

kyledeb said...

This isn't about the anonymity of technology this is about the anti-migrant hate that has overtaken the web. It's definitely having an impact.