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Originally Posted by Gutu28
As some of yall hopefully understand, I get very emotional when people stereotype immigrants. It is a lot harder to get citizenship that most people think. True, a lot of illegal immigrants are Mexican, but it is a lot easier to walk across the border than to fly from somewhere else. We had to sell EVERYthing to be able to pay for the flight here. My parents even sold their wedding bands. For some reason that always gets me.. I dont want it to sound like im making excuses for the illegal immigrants that are committing all these criminal acts. But I wish people would remember that all the good things dont make the news. It it's the bad things that are being reported. Even though I am an immigrant, I too get peeved at all the Spanish signs popping everywhere and everyone claimin discrimination. I only wish that people would keep in mind that there are other immigrants besides that ones that steal government money and American jobs. There are those of us who work for what we have. You know what, when we first came here, my parents were hired illegally. They were paid out of payroll. But it was those that gave them the chance to work that we owe our success to.
On another note..I dont think you guys were purposely trying to offend myself or anyone else. I just wish that people would look at the large picture instead of specific cases..
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Let me tell you a little about specific cases that show we are not catagorizing all immigrants into one category. We all know that here are good immigrants, or at least some of us do. Much of my family has only been here for two to three generations. My father spoke German and Spanish before starting school and learning English. While I have a problem with some of the immigrants who are taking advantage of us and our welfare system, I personally have three close friends who are very recent immigrants. All have been here less than three years. One from Russia, one from Hungary, and one who was actually an illegal from Mexico. The Russian and Hungarian are women who met American men who are close friends of ours and moved here legally to marry them. Both these ladies have Social Security Numbers, driver's licenses. They are wonderful ladies who are contributing to our society. The third, the Mexican immigrant, initially came here illegally, not actually knowing any better. She found out though when she met and married the son of some friends of ours who immediately began the steps to try to change her situation to a legal one. She is taking English language classes and once she understood is doing all she can to get her situation straightened out by working with an immigration lawyer and taking steps to eventually become a citizen. Her situation is much different and much more difficult than the ladies who came here legally. However, there is a lot of paperwork and expense for all three of them, but they are working within our legal system, paying their own way and not taking advantage of our government and the people of this country.
We don't mean to generalize here, but it is frustrating when we know that there are many coming here who are putting a drain on our social system. We all just want to live a happy peaceful life, be able to raise our children in a safe and healthy environment, send them to college if they so desire, and have a comfortable retirement. We want to help others, and as a whole are a very generous people, but there does come a point when we feel our generosity is being taken advantage of, and many of us who are close to the borders where we've seen the growing problem for many years now are becoming very concerned, and yes, a little resentful. Today at the grocery store, I had trouble finding the right Ziploc storage bags because the writing on the box was in Spanish. I finally found the English side and got the right bags. Sorry if I'm rambling, but it is frustrating. Peace to all.