Sun Blogs: A Window on Justice
Illegal Immigration Attitudes: Growth of Bigotry or Legitimate Behavior?
October 28, 2009 - 2:00amWith immigration to the US always growing, prejudice and nativist attitudes have skyrocketed, placing immigrant workers life threatening situations. In particular, regions with the greatest degree of documented and undocumented workers have experienced drastically increased violence against immigrants. Last year’s killing of an undocumented worker in Suffolk County, New York is a shocking example of how much hatred towards immigrant workers has amplified. Reporting on instances like this is minimal and difficult to find considering raging political opinions. Nonetheless, should the rights of immigrant workers be limited or has hatred gone too far?
At last count, the non US born population made up more than 15% of the labor force, with just fewer than 7.2 million being undocumented workers. While this may seem significant, the numbers do not exceed available jobs. For example, approximately 250,000 construction jobs remain unfilled each year. In a country dependent on unskilled labor for the mass production of goods and services, it’s difficult to explain why some have such profound hatred towards other human beings that are willing to help the economy by filling those jobs. We are entitled to our own beliefs, but immigration has the potential to fulfill a gap in the labor market where too few US citizens are willing to work. The work of day laborers has developed into a vital source of cheap labor for the construction and food service industries. However, cheap labor brings human rights violations.
As one of the largest states utilizing day laborers, New York has struggled with how to implement proper immigration policy. This has created opportunity for exploitation and cruel treatment of immigrant workers, specifically day laborers. Last year, 21 construction workers died of work related injuries in NY, 17 of which were immigrants. Further, some fail to receive payment for an entire day’s work, despite promise of an adequate wage. Are immigrants deserving of this type of treatment or is this bigotry at its highest degree?
Still, there are always two sides to each story. I’m sure we have all heard about crimes committed by immigrants and the costs to our country. In fact, current beliefs about immigration correlate immigrants, documented and undocumented, to serious crime. Of course, people such as Rafael Resendez-Ramirez don’t help in proving stereotypical beliefs wrong. He is currently awaiting execution after killing eight people in Texas, Kentucky, and Illinois. Further, a study on Arizona immigration found that 16.5% of those sentenced for violent crime were illegal immigrants and 33.5% of illegal immigrants were sentenced for the manufacture, sale, or transport of drugs. While criminals are found in every part of the country and of various races, should all immigrants be treated as criminals, regardless of immigration status?
We all want to pursue our lifetime dreams, which we are entitled to do. Yet, some are denied this opportunity simply because of immigrant status. How far should we prevent immigrants from pursuing their dreams?
For more visit:
http://newsburglar.com/2008/10/09/illegal-immigrants-and-crime/
White kind of drivel is this?
The writer of this hogwash conflates legal immigration with illegal immigration throughout. Illegal immigration is a crime, thus illegal aliens are criminals prohibited from working in the United States. Oh, and wtf is wrong 'nativism' anyway? Sheesh!