Fully literate English speakers both proofread their comments, and abstain from SHOUTING at people. I defend your right to say “gainsay.” I do not think that you spell particularly well.

Our friends have made many good points. I have only one thing to add: The United States does not, as you claim “treat our immigrants just fine.”

I grew up in a Rust Belt town where there were lots of Eastern European immigrants. Most of these people were refugees from Communist regimes, and were fully legal. I am not proud to remember the ways that my school friends and I talked about them. They dressed funny, they spoke with accents, they listened to weird music, they played games we thought were dumb, their politics didn’t suit us. We said very much the same things that are being said today about undocmented Latinos, except that we were complaining about people who danced polkas, went bowling, and had religious statues in their front yards. Prejudice is prejudice, and it’s not good.

As for how the government treats legal immigrants, you’re wrong again. The law is a tangled mess, the bureaucracy is inefficient (except when it comes to losing records!), and the process takes a ridiculous amount of time. Once here, people of certain nationalities are widely assumed to be undocumented, and are routinely harassed, profiled, and arrested without cause. That’s not my idea of treating people “just fine.”

Mara, it’s not that we prefer those who lie, cheat and commit crimes or that we are in denial about the fact that undocumented immigrants did not commit a crime (a misdemeanor) by illegally entering the United States. It’s that we don’t believe that the punishment you and many others seek to impose on undocumented workers is just or fair. Most readers of this blog choose to be compassionate and will defend these “illegals” against what many now perceive as government persecution.

Somehow, I think that if these were different times and this discussion centered on slavery rather than “illegal aliens”, you’d be passionately arguing about how slavery is actually both ethically and economically good.

I do not begrudge LEGAL immigrants and LEGAL resident aliens their place in America, I DO resent illegals shoving their way in without permission. But obviously you people prefer those who lie, cheat, and commit crimes. And you’re all in denial that these illegals are anything except cheaters. Not that I’ll get any of you to admit it.

So good-bye and enjoy your delusions of righteousness.

Actually, Mara forget about school, just stick to your racist and intolerant ways. Soon your world will be upside down, as you find yourself on the wrong side of history. Right about now you are confused and don’t that side of history is, so let me help you out a bit. Consider that every month 40,000 children of immigrants turn 18 and become eligible to vote. Once again Mara these are US citizens, but children of immigrants.

Mara, you fail to recognize how US foreign policy has contributed to economic and political to countless nations south of it’s border.

Mara, correct me if I’m wrong in assuming you are a McCain or Ron Paul supporter, but your reality is about to be jolted by an Obama administration and the rise of a New America.

The New America will be less white, more Asian, Latino and multi-racial, so you might as well get used to it.

I was born and raised in Guatemala, and I can say with utmost certainty that Guatemala certainly didn’t ask for the U.S. to overthrow a democratically elected President and support decades of brutal right wing dictatorships.

The nativist arguments of people like Mara are completely illegitimate. How can you be anti-migrant and pro-war, when it is war that push’s migrants into countries like the U.S? How can you be anti-migrant and small government, when ICE spends billions of dollars in their war on migrants? How can you be in favor a free market of goods and services and against a free market of labor?

(Voice from Beyond the Grave): Dolares…DOLARES!

Ok, Mr. Uribe, could you tell me where all those drugs that you try to burn in the end up anyway:

Mr. Uribe looking down at the floor: “Wall Street, maybe Main Street, I don’t know. I need to invade my neighbors, be right back.”

Scene Change- Camera pans over the remains of a burned out hulks of Guatemalans peasants huts. Narrator speaks: “And in here we can see the rifle rounds casings…5.56×45 NATO standard rounds, M-16 rounds.”

I could go on, but for someone who has no pity for her fellow human beings, well what can I say….

I’m sorry. I hope you find your soul someday.