Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utcsrgv.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!vassos From: vassos@utcsrgv.UUCP (Vassos Hadzilacos) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Immigrants ("illegal aliens") in the U.S. Message-ID: <541@utcsrgv.UUCP> Date: Sun, 2-Dec-84 15:18:19 EST Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.541 Posted: Sun Dec 2 15:18:19 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 2-Dec-84 15:53:54 EST Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto Lines: 31 > Here's a small example [of something good the U.S. Government does]: > the millions of illegal aliens in the States. These aliens, although > not as well of[f] as American citizens, are much better off than > their friends in their home countries. There are many different reasons why people from other countries, particularly Latin American countries, go to the U.S. Not the least of which is the extreme economic deprivation and political repression they face in the countries of their birth. Present and past U.S. foreign policy is the primary cause of this predicament. Name nearly any country in Latin America, look in the index of a decent history book and count wars, invasions, and military coups inflicted upon that country by U.S. governments. To suggest that the U.S. government is being or has been generous to the peoples of Latin America, be it in their own countries or in the U.S. as immigrants (or "illegal aliens", if you wish) is, at best, wearing rose coloured glasses over your blindfold -- more likely the height of cynical hypocricy. (If someone burnt your house and then let you sleep in their pigsty, you wouldn't call that generosity, would you?) > We could just kick them all out and send them back to their respective Latin > American countries, but we're not doing this. Of course "you" couldn't "just kick them all out". Moreover, "you" wouldn't even _want_ to "just kick them all out". Among other things, who would be picking "your" fruit and vegetables at starvation wages? > We're hardly even requiring them to become legal aliens. I'm having a little trouble following the logic here. Do you mean that "you" are making them some kind of favour by not _requiring_ them to become legal aliens? Oh, how very nice.