Immigrants are Important!!!

How do I know??? Because Long Island needs them.

20% of Long Island’s working population is an illegal immigrant. 22% of immigrants are business owners, 16% are mangers or executives and another 22% have professional jobs. Of all the illegal immigrants in Long Island the average amount of taxes paid annually is two thousand dollars per family in state and federal taxes.

According to immigrationdirect.com Seth Forman of the Long Island Regional Planning Council told the Wall Street Journal “they did not consider how immigrants drain resources.” While other Long Island officials have provided the above numbers to show that Long Island benefits from the illegal immigrants working in their city.

The above numbers prove that while immigrant s are not here legally they still are a resource this country does not know how to appreciate. This clearly shows that these people pay taxes and legally provide for their family and they bring revenue and money to the city. Now Long Island does not have such a big population of immigrants, if we states such as California and Texas released numbers like the above the importance and significance of immigrants would drastically increase. So I once again say… Immigrants ARE Important.

Immigrants From All Over!!!

I have a question… Why is it that when we think of immigrants we automatically think of Hispanics? Whenever anyone talks about immigrants they talk about hopping the border and the Mexicans crossing the river but when will they consider all the other immigrants there are?

While Mexico does provide the largest amount of immigrants, 70 % of immigrants come from the Eastern Hemisphere of our planet. China and the Philippines are the second and third largest population of immigrants. While they are now the second and third they are rapidly growing and catching up. Among the top 10 foreign born population percentage is Korea, Canada, Cuba, India, Dominican Republic and Vietnam. As we can see the vast majority of immigrants in this country are not Mexican or Spanish at all. Most of them are European, Indian and Asian.

So, all I ask is for immigrants to stop meaning Mexicans. When we walk through New Jersey and we look around 57% of the people we encounter will be foreign born. If we walk around New York 35% of the people will be foreign born. When we look around at these immigrants we will notice that they all look completely different, come from different corners of the world and all deserve the same amount of respect. 

California gives hope...

Hello Bloggers,

So, I was looking around the web to find something to write about and I came across this

NYtimes Article. At first I was completely taken aback and surprised. I was not aware that California had passed a version of the Dream Act. I was very excited and then I finished reading the article.

California has passed a version of the Dream Act (in two bills) that would allow students without a social security number to:

·         Apply and be approved for private scholarships and loans

·         Pay instate tuition rates to students who can prove they are on the road to becoming legalized citizens

·         Apply for State aid with proof of being in the process of gaining citizenship

The second half of this bill requires that these immigrant students meet the same requirements as all other students in the system and only qualify after all other legal residents have applied.

While this bill provides some hope to the students in California it doesn’t shine as brightly as the Dream act. The Dream Act provided these illegal students an opportunity to gain citizenship through the Dream Act. This California Act does not provide any hope of that kind.

I believe we are moving towards the right direction, thousands of deserving students will now be able to attend college and keep dreaming of a better tomorrow. Kudos Cali…

`Till Next Blog

-V

Politics no longer involves Immigration (I thought it did)...

Did you watch the Republican presidential primary debate in New Hampshire on October 11? If you didn’t, you didn’t miss much; expect some serious skirting around the issue of immigration. Considering all that has happened recently with deportations and the lack of action on the government’s side you would think these presidential candidates would want to get their voices heard. Well, they don’t. Instead they took the easy way out and avoided the subject all together.

Not only was I upset with this coward move on behalf of the republicans but twitter was also upset. Fox News quoted @rramirez44 saying “100 minutes of debate and GOP candidates haven't mentioned how they'd fix the broken immigration system, which hurts economy”. In 140 characters or less Mr. Ramirez has said what many have been thinking; well maybe all except the republican candidates.  

Once again, I call to action the men and women of our government to do something. Don’t try to hide the sun with one finger (my mother’s favorite saying) it is not going to work. We all feel the sunshine and it is not  the good kind. The country needs leadership and we need to know that the government is taking care of the thousands on thousands of people who have been left on a limbo because of this inaction on behalf of our government.

All that’s left now is to see how Mr. Obama avoids the issue.

Till next blog

-V

Tsk, Tsk, Tsk... Alabama What have you done???

Last week immigrants everywhere lost a battle against Alabama. Alabama has made effective the harshest anti-immigration laws in the country. They passed a new law that will make living in Alabama as an illegal immigrant impossible.

The bill says:

• ·         Police officers will have the legal right to act as immigration officers and inquire about immigration status from anyone they find “suspicious”.
• ·         Any and all contracts that are signed by illegal immigrants are automatically forfeited and legally useless
• ·         Providing an immigrant with a car or a ride is now illegal
• ·         All business will have to check immigration status through E-Verify
• ·         All landlords who knowingly rent to illegal immigrants can be legally prosecuted for harboring a fugitive
• ·         This new law has also reached a new level by allowing school officials to question students on their immigration status and that of their parents.

Schools in Alabama are reporting that children all over the state have started to mysteriously disappear; they aren’t attending school for fear of being deported. Certain districts have reported having a high percentage of students withdrawing from school in order to move. Alabama, what have you done? These children aren’t leaving the country, they are crossing the border to other states and in the mean time they are losing valuable education.

Alabama has opened the doors to discrimination. All through the state anybody who might look “Spanish” will be stopped and questioned by police officers. Adults and children will be asked to hand over their proof of legal citizenship and if you can’t immediate produce one; you will be handed over to immigration officials. Entire families will lose their homes, their jobs, their lives because of fear. No one in Alabama would want to provide employment to anyone who might look Spanish because of the new laws and their repercussions.

What happened to “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” I can tell you that people all over Alabama are not feeling free, they are feeling scared. They are feeling the need to run and hide. People who are here legally or illegally all fear what will become of them with these new laws. People are losing their homes and leaving behind bravery in the search for safety. Things will get worse for everyone as long as the federal government stands back and lets states decide what to do with federal issues. The government needs to get their act together and pass a reform bill that will benefit America and the people that live in it.


`Till the next blog
-V