ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

I think of myself as a humanitarian and as a liberal,kind,giving,charitable person. However when I think of the government making laws to protect ILLEGAL immigrants, I bristle. Cruel as it seems, I am against giving these people anything but orders to leave the country under their own steam. I do not want my taxes to pay for their passage home, their medical care, food, shelter or special benefits for the children they give birth to over here. They have broken our laws and they are criminals People here go to jail for breaking the most minor of laws. These illegal immigrants have imposed themselves on this country without any respect for our rules or standards of citizenship.
Now, if we want them to be safe and comfortable when they sneak over the border then we should make a law that promises them protection for no reason other than that they are human beings. But as the situation is now, people who break the law have no right to seek protection from it. Inez, you came here from Holland. As I understand it, you were legal on every level. What do you think of the amnesty and privileges people are actually picketing and marching for? It seems to me that allowing this kind of protest is a travesty against every human being who goes through the mountains of paperwork, endures the entire naturalization process, struggles to learn the language and attempts to adhere to the basic tenets of this country. I can remember stories of my grandparents studying for their citizenship exams, failing and trying again. I recall my own mother flunking kindergarten because she could not speak understandable English. Yet now, I hear of Filipino parents coming over here to join their children who are given social security and medical benefits I cannot have even though I was born and educated here and have been working in the system since I was fourteen years old. Again, this is a case of if you make a law...you don't make exceptions just because the economy needs cheap labor. A law is a law not a flexible thing that changes when we need to exploit a hungry helpless group led to believe they will live the American dream they see on their telvision sets IF they have television sets. The answer to this is to change the law to accommodate these "poor,helpless" people who violated our rules and that idea is the most ridiulous of all. It means one law applies to our citizens and another to someone we need to work like an animal.
This brings up another issue that infuriates and shocks me: Why do we feel it is ok to pay illegal immigrants wages that ignore their human needs, starves them and contributes to crime, drugs and illegal contraband they do so they can stay ALIVE in a country they should not have entered in the first place? In my opinion, they should get NO work and NO pay because they are illegal. They should be sent home to do their homework if they want to live here.
BUT to keep them here, work them like cattle and then make laws to protect them because they help our economy is far more cruel than simply saying, "Go home until you have passed all the requirements that United States citizenship demands."
This is an issue you are far more knowledgable about than I, Inez and I would love your take on it.
We have another problem here as well What makes these people think it is so desirable to trade the values of their own country for the materialistic opportunist values we have here...values and attitudes that ignore the poor, the weak, the infirm and the elderly. Schools that care about a score on a test rather than individual ability... ..attitudes that give respect and status to those with money. What on earth is so great about that?

The homeless and my attitude toward them

I have a negative, calloused attitude about the homeless people in our community. They make me angry and I have no respect for them. This rejection of human beings is so unlike me in every other way that I am amazed at myself. I look at bedraggled people standing on street corners taking money and doing nothing to earn it and I recall how I have struggled ever since my last husband left me 43 years ago. I never took anything from either of them because I believe it takes two to break a bargain just as it takes two to make one I have managed to take care of myself and never, ever ask for a handout.. . . but I have hinted...and I have accepted not money but other kinds of help like clothes or a ride or an invitation to dinner. I have lived below the poverty level ever since 1961 and through it all I managed to keep a roof over my head, lead a productive if not lucrative life and give myself a superb education at Stanford University. I enriched my mind with what I consider the necessities: the arts. I have done this by working for my benefits. I ushered for opera and theater for years and now I write reviews so I can see the drama and creative productions that to me record the real issues of our times. I baby sat when I had three college degrees and several semesters of advanced study from schools like Harvard and Stanford and I saved that money so I could eventually buy a house. I did not have the means to afford a movie, a new dress, anything but rent and food which I earned by answering the telephone for a dating service. Because of technicalities I did not have the funds to fight, I do not qualify or social security, I receive a minimal pension from Ohio, do not qualify for homeowner tax relief and taxpayer exemptions even though I live on less than $700 a month. I never ever use a credit card to pay for what I cannot afford. I still to this day work seven days a week well into the night to do the things I need to do to earn money and create a rich, happy life.
Why can't they?
What I forget Inez, is that I come to poverty from a different angle. I have a huge, extensive education that has taught me how to cope with a society that rejects me and often hates me because I am single, Jewish, old and poor. I fight where I can but I am intelligent enough to select my battles (not always.... sometimes the injustice is so blatant I cannot believe I have been victimized and I fight back even though deep down I know that for people like me who cannot afford legal help, have no support group and do not belong to a church, the answer is to move on....always move on. And I do.)
I forget that I have had a childhood rich with material comforts and opportunities to cushion me against life's blows and I have my ability to read and learn from what I read. I have my mind and so I am never, ever bored or at a loss for marvelous things to do, think, see and create.
I resent the homeless because deep down I would love to have someone... anyone ...help me pay my way and not have to do anything to earn it.
I too believe in the sanctity of the human condition and I am ashamed that I don't share what litttle I have with these unsavory, dirty, angry people who play on my sympathies and fail to touch my hardened heart.
I am clean. I eat well balanced meals. I do not ever, ever pay for entertainment and rarely allow myself a luxury. BUT I have a super wonderfully happy life that I made all by myself with no help from the family that ignored me, the society that refuses to protect me or the friends who are only there for me when I have an extra ticket to an event or can do them a favor.
I did it.
I know intellectually that these people I ignore and dislike do not have the tools I have and I am ashamed that I cannot find it in my heart to reach out to them.
But I cannot. I have nothing to spare because I use any capital, any food, any resource I create to keep me from begging like they do.
So there you have it Inez. I totally agree with your philosphy that we have dehumanized those people. But what about people like me? What about the people who give up some things to get the necessities to sustain them with out asking for a hand out. We take care of ourselves. So should they.