Oh, illegal immigration...

Oh, illegal immigration!

What a nightmare this farce is. It's the elephant in the living room every American is trying to ignore during their day-to-day existence - but arguing vocally about in the presidential debates and elsewhere.

The scope of the problem is far greater than most people are aware of. Take where I live, for example. In North Brunswick, the census reports a mere 10-15% of residents as being Hispanic in origin. If that's true, every single one of them must live on my street. Although some of my Hispanic neighbours are perfectly legal, there are others who speak no English and drive rickety old cars with out-of-state licence plates - making me highly dubious of their immigration status.

Not that they do us any harm. This is why I refer to them as 'an elephant in the living room.' In pubs and at dinner parties, I'm more than happy to rant about how unfair it is - but on a day-to-day basis, I smile and nod and ignore 'them' because they just seem like normal, peaceful, everyday people trying to make it like everybody else.

And that's the problem, really.

People like me, who topple just over the 'moderate' knife-edge towards liberalism, see illegal immigrants as regular folks who want to make a better life for themselves and their families. We live in the same communities as illegal immigrants and they do us no harm, except when we can't understand them (Carlos Mencia has a skit about the immigrants working at the local fast-food place saying "Weyo to Madonnas" instead of "Welcome to MacDonalds.")

However, there's a steady shift going on regarding people's attitudes to illegal immigration. The right wing has always gnashed their teeth at the thought of immigrants exploiting America's welcome policy. Now more and more left wing people seem to be joining them.

Events like this can't help:

At a recent protest for illegal immigrant rights, the arguments the illegals used shifted focus. Instead of the old cries - demanding the right to earn a decent wage and support their families - the illegal immigrants held up signs protesting America's very existence.

White people and Europeans (and presumably African American people as well, since we Europeans were responsible for 'importing' them) were genocidal invaders and the American nation was built on land that belonged to the native Americans and Mexicans.

In Texas, New Mexico and southern California, some illegal immigrants are explicitly declaring that this is THEIR land and the Americans living on it are the REAL illegal immigrants. They call themselves the 'reconquista' - a play on the Conquistadors who travelled from Spain to conquer the Americas five hundred years ago.

As far as the Right Wing is concerned, these protesters are no longer illegal immigrants, but an unofficial invading army.

With thanks to Jenn of Take A Stand Against Liberals. I shamelessly stole these photographs from her website while she was distracted by the oncoming California wildfires.