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Widespread claims of beefed-up Border Patrol presence stokes fear among Valley's undocumented immigrants
SAN JUAN — The video showed actors portraying federal agents raiding a factory, looking for illegal immigrants.
The woman who told an agent she came to the U.S. illegally was arrested. The man who remained silent was not.
More than 100 people, many of them undocumented immigrants, gathered Friday night at the headquarters of La Union del Pueblo Entero — a San Juan-based immigrant advocacy group — to learn how to exercise their rights with authorities.
Immigrant advocates say the greatest threat to foreign nationals living in the region without proper documentation is federal authorities’ heightened patrols of colonias in the Mid-Valley.
“We are talking about these families that are so afraid,” said Martha Sanchez, a community organizer with LUPE. “Children are just being terrorized. We just want to be ready and know how we can help the community.”
Spokeswomen for U.S. Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement say there have been no changes in the way agents operate.
Regardless, the situation in recent weeks has created a widespread hysteria among undocumented immigrants who fear they could be detained by agents without notice.
“It’s because of the color of my skin,” one woman, who refused to give her name out of fear of arrest, said in Spanish
Widespread claims of beefed-up Border Patrol presence stokes fear among Valley's undocumented immigrants | stokes, immigrants, among - Now - TheMonitor.com (http://www.themonitor.com/articles/stokes-41616-immigrants-among.html - broken link)
Parents create any situation that may cause difficulty on their children.
Put blame where it belongs.
Maybe illegal parents should be arrested for Child Endangerment.
Exactly. These articles are far too dramatic. Small children aren't going to care if one day they're in the USA and the next day back in their parent's own country.
There's no reason at all for hysteria - most of these people are from Mexico and the rest of Central America and if they go home, they go home. Sure, they like the bigger paychecks and they very much like the food stamps and WIC but when they go back home, they adapt to life without all that just fine.
Where are all the stories about Americans given pink slips, laid off their jobs? That's all these round-ups amount to for the illegals - they have to start their job search but back home.
I just find it SO hard to fathom a country that lets those here illegally from another country set up "camps" which are basically what colonias ARE ( no infrastructure, no services) on their soil without rounding them up and sending them back where they came from.
Can you imagine if Americans tried this, even IN their OWN country - they'd be rounded up and sent packing (probably arrested and detained) in no time. But, oh no, we can't do THAT to these poor oppressed people. Guess what would happen if displaced homeless jobless Americans set up tent cities (or colonias)..............
I just find it SO hard to fathom a country that lets those here illegally from another country set up "camps" which are basically what colonias ARE ( no infrastructure, no services) on their soil without rounding them up and sending them back where they came from.
Can you imagine if Americans tried this, even IN their OWN country - they'd be rounded up and sent packing (probably arrested and detained) in no time. But, oh no, we can't do THAT to these poor oppressed people. Guess what would happen if displaced homeless jobless Americans set up tent cities (or colonias)..............
It makes me sick to my stomach.
In the Valley, it's really not that simple. Many of these people have legal relatives living nearby. Furthermore, the culture is completely different down there. Mexico and the US are intertwined. The McAllen metro area, for example also includes Reynosa, which is a city of about 600,000 people.
A lot of the illegal immigration in this area was caused by NAFTA. People from southern Mexico moved to the border cities to work at the factories. Now that everything is moving to China, these people were left with few options.
You can scream "Illegal is illegal" at the top of your lungs, but this will never change the human factor of this issue, which your side fails to see. That makes me sick to my stomach.
In the Valley, it's really not that simple. Many of these people have legal relatives living nearby. Furthermore, the culture is completely different down there. Mexico and the US are intertwined. The McAllen metro area, for example also includes Reynosa, which is a city of about 600,000 people.
A lot of the illegal immigration in this area was caused by NAFTA. People from southern Mexico moved to the border cities to work at the factories. Now that everything is moving to China, these people were left with few options.
You can scream "Illegal is illegal" at the top of your lungs, but this will never change the human factor of this issue, which your side fails to see. That makes me sick to my stomach.
Too dramatic.
If Mexico and the USA are so intertwined, it's not going to be like falling off the world for these people to change back from the USA to Mexico - it certainly wasn't tough for them to leave home and leave friends and family to chase the big American dollars.
And because of NAFTA, they have a whole lot lower unemployment rate on their side of the border. Mexico's unemployment rate is less than 5% while many of these regions they move into in the USA are 20-30% unemployment.
The human factor is that humans get inertia - they start to settle in and even though they originally might have planned and wanted to return home in a short time, inertia set in and they got into some routine - but once they make it home, they'll settle into their new-old routine.
It's simply a fact that people sometimes are deported and they get back home and get back working and on with their lives. Often some are somewhat glad to be home.
In the Valley, it's really not that simple. Many of these people have legal relatives living nearby. Furthermore, the culture is completely different down there. Mexico and the US are intertwined. The McAllen metro area, for example also includes Reynosa, which is a city of about 600,000 people.
A lot of the illegal immigration in this area was caused by NAFTA. People from southern Mexico moved to the border cities to work at the factories. Now that everything is moving to China, these people were left with few options.
You can scream "Illegal is illegal" at the top of your lungs, but this will never change the human factor of this issue, which your side fails to see. That makes me sick to my stomach.
Human factor or not that doesn't negate our right to have immigration laws and to enforce them. Those who think otherwise make me sick to my stomach.
Human factor or not that doesn't negate our right to have immigration laws and to enforce them. Those who think otherwise make me sick to my stomach.
There's the human factor of those caught in workplace embezzlement, or fraud, or even those fired for too many tardies. And those who show up to work only to be handed a pink slip because the company is having to cut back.
It's interesting because you can go to the border itself where they deport them and it's just an every day thing. They pull up in a van to the gate in the fence and the deportees simply step out of the van, walk on over to their country. They're not wailing or carrying on, they just walk on in, maybe get in a taxi or just keep walking until you don't see them.
What they usually do is contact their relatives back in their hometown and tell them they're heading home - or they decide to just stick around and maybe find work. One of my neighbors got into a bar fight and was given his opportunity for "voluntary departure" so he headed home and got into some program the Mexican government has for returning farmers and according to him he's happier running his own little farm than being just a hired hand here in the USA or doing yard work.
Some actually self-deport and the pro-illegals would be shocked by their reasons. Sometimes they just decide they miss home and they miss their friends and family and they just up and leave here. Often they go back to the very same jobs they left when they decided to come here.
No sympathy for illegals from me. I want a better world for myself. I earned what I have, and I am not supporting these parasites.
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