I always knew there was something funny about you.

Well that, among other things.

Also, don't tell anyone, but my French grandfather was actually a Communist.

It occurs to me that I don't even know if my Dad's parents ever became citizens.

My parents did for pragmatic work-related reasons when it became clear they weren't going back north. Also, to have a say in shit.

It's so cute that it's only now that they're finding themselves utterly baffled by large portions of Americans.

Linguistically, no language is set; it's constantly evolving and morphing to reflect the culture. Look at how the Normans affected the English language; look at how Crusaders brought Arabic language and culture back with them. Language isn't sacred; it's a constantly changing tool that reflects the needs of the population.

Educationally, many immigrants are generally functionally bilingual, which is a hell of a lot more than can be said of most American children. Allowing for information about human rights, health services and laws governing proper legal rights to be disseminated in a form used by a signifigant portion of an area's population, whether "legal" or not, is humane and sensible.

In my experiences, most immigrants are working to learn the language, but adding a second language is a wee bit hard when you are trying to raise a family, or subsist on less than minimum wage job(s).

It's hideously expensive, and takes a very, very long time to get citizenship, or even a work visa. I have a friend from Peru, who is a lawyer, and she had to come here and work illegally before she married; she wanted to be closer to her sister and friends.

France is not the beau ideal when speaking of immigration, having, as they have had, an amazingly xenophobic and, IMHO, hateful approach to Muslim citizens -- CITIZENS. I'm no expert, and certainly there are probably considerations I am unaware of, but I am thinking of the prohibition against the wearing of headcloths for Muslim women. It's as offensive as forcing Jews to wear yellow armbands, or prohibiting Christian from wearing a crucifix or saint's medal, to my way of thinking.

Kristen, unfortunately, I think it is. At least, in California. My ex-bf's small, privately owned company (the one where MM temped) used to close down for a week every year at the holidays. You had to use vacation pay or not get paid.

It's just so "fear of the other".

I have to agree that I think this is a main impetus. America is largely focused on an "us or them;" we set up dichotomies all the time, and want to protect some largely conceptual idea of "us" or "the way things should be/used to be" instead of focusing on how to actually solve an issue based on logic, reason, common humanity and ethics.

NOT ideologically-based morals; ethics.

America is largely focused on an "us or them;"

I'd revise that to Humans.

We like the binary. It's easy.

Yes, it's a completely unevolved way of thinking, for all beings. We're so supposedly advanced in our humaness, but we prove we're not all the damned time.

Yeah, I am not sure I am comfortable calling another poster unevolved.

why is illegal immigration a problem? 1) it's illegal.

That's a tautology.

2) in some communities it's a drain on available resources - schools, etc.

Jacoby cited a recent study of immigrants in North Carolina that reported that over the prior 10 years, Latino immigrants had cost the state $61 million in a variety of benefits — but were responsible for more than $9 billion in state economic growth. The same point was made in a 1997 National Academy of Sciences study that found "the less-educated immigrants who impose a fiscal burden are the very same immigrants who provide the economic benefit reported." A major survey of the net effects of immigration, published in 2006 in The New York Times Magazine, cited only one economist, George Borjas of Harvard, claiming a negative net effect.

[link]

3) I don't want to live in a linguistically Balkanized country. Sorry. Speak whatever you want at home, but English should be the lingua franca.

I'll leave the rest of this alone and just ask: do you think illegal immigrants the only ones (or even the majority) speaking a language other than English?

But open borders means we grow too fast.

I'm not sure how we arrived at this. I think there are a large number of options between "illegal immigration is a huge problem that needs to be solved with laws like the one in AZ" and "there should be no restriction at all on who crosses US borders."

Or if you're Britain or France, it's struggling to retain your culture in the face of a growing cohort of (in their case) largely Muslim immigrants who hate your culture and are violent.

I didn't realize you were a BNP booster.

(Gross generalization, but the riots around Paris, the burning cars, the slums - those were the result of poor handling of immigration. I don't want that here.)

The point's been made while I typed, but as you said: the problem is the handling, and not the immigration. (There's also the fact that rioting is practically a tradition in France, so... I'd say the immigrant population was assimilating quite well.)

Of course, the US has experienced riots and slums that had nothing to do with immigrants. So if you don't want that here, it's a bit late.