The DREAM ACt of 2007

[Boiler 45,516]

As I mentioned earlier, the problem lies within our own desire to keep everything in possession. However, I want to stress that fact that for every dollar spent on students, the government gets approximately seven dollars back when the student graduate.

The decision is yours to make. Mine is already made whether or not to support the kids depends on the circumstance.

Most people going into jobs from a college education and earning that sort of money will require proof of legal status. For example if you want to be an accountant or a lawyer.

How can you justify charging USC's from another State more than an illegal?

In my State they are always complaining about underfunding, seems an odd choice to make of limited funds.

i have no issue what individuals do with their own money, just when they want other people to do it with their money.

Edited March 19, 2007 by Boiler

[pedroh 21]

Let's keep the immigration from countries balanced as it was meant to be. Millions of people, legal or not, from one country is not fair, is not balanced, and does not create the melting pot we all want America to continue to be. So to that I say send all the illegals home. You want to come back? Do it legally, just like you neighbor did. When your country meets its annual quota, try again next year.

Excellent point! Whoever you are.

The lack of balance is why we're pressing 1 for English and the other language is Spanish.

that's economic factors.. not lack of balance.. ayyy el español ayyy it scares mee... btw, yesterday i made a sh!tload of money lol.. selling phones to hispanic customers... my coworkers who have learn a little bit of spanish, have made more money too.. crisis? if u see it that way, it's more of an opportunity

Edited March 19, 2007 by pedroh

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Let's keep the immigration from countries balanced as it was meant to be. Millions of people, legal or not, from one country is not fair, is not balanced, and does not create the melting pot we all want America to continue to be. So to that I say send all the illegals home. You want to come back? Do it legally, just like you neighbor did. When your country meets its annual quota, try again next year.

Excellent point! Whoever you are.

The lack of balance is why we're pressing 1 for English and the other language is Spanish.

that's economic factors.. not lack of balance.. ayyy el español ayyy it scares mee... btw, yesterday i made a sh!tload of money lol.. selling phones to hispanic customers... my coworkers who have learn a little bit of spanish, have made more money too.. crisis? if u see it that way, it's more of an opportunity

Economic factors (namely greed) have caused this imbalance. The former and latter are not excluding one another.

[pedroh 21]

Let's keep the immigration from countries balanced as it was meant to be. Millions of people, legal or not, from one country is not fair, is not balanced, and does not create the melting pot we all want America to continue to be. So to that I say send all the illegals home. You want to come back? Do it legally, just like you neighbor did. When your country meets its annual quota, try again next year.

Excellent point! Whoever you are.

The lack of balance is why we're pressing 1 for English and the other language is Spanish.

that's economic factors.. not lack of balance.. ayyy el español ayyy it scares mee... btw, yesterday i made a sh!tload of money lol.. selling phones to hispanic customers... my coworkers who have learn a little bit of spanish, have made more money too.. crisis? if u see it that way, it's more of an opportunity

Economic factors (namely greed) have caused this imbalance. The former and latter are not excluding one another.

greed? well yea, that's the point of any business, making money... and I don't see it bad.. how are they hurting you, or me, or my wife... is 'pressing 1 for english' that bad? (well, it can be bad if the call center is from the other side of the world and u cant understand jack, lol)

Edited March 19, 2007 by pedroh

[Niels Bohr 72]

I find it entirely wrong when I, an immigrant of Cambodian descent, have a larger vocabulary and better English skills than most native born Citizens of the United States. It's very ironic, and embarrassing for those of fluent English speakers here in the US whom ancestors lived here since the birth of the USA. And, to add to the burden, I also can speak two other languages. I had seven years of French in school, and my native tongue is Khmer (A dialect spoken in Cambodia).

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Let's keep the immigration from countries balanced as it was meant to be. Millions of people, legal or not, from one country is not fair, is not balanced, and does not create the melting pot we all want America to continue to be. So to that I say send all the illegals home. You want to come back? Do it legally, just like you neighbor did. When your country meets its annual quota, try again next year.

Excellent point! Whoever you are.

The lack of balance is why we're pressing 1 for English and the other language is Spanish.

that's economic factors.. not lack of balance.. ayyy el español ayyy it scares mee... btw, yesterday i made a sh!tload of money lol.. selling phones to hispanic customers... my coworkers who have learn a little bit of spanish, have made more money too.. crisis? if u see it that way, it's more of an opportunity

Economic factors (namely greed) have caused this imbalance. The former and latter are not excluding one another.

greed? well yea, that's the point of any business, making money... and I don't see it bad.. how are they hurting you, or me, or my wife... is 'pressing 1 for english' that bad? (well, it can be bad if the call center is from the other side of the world and u cant understand jack, lol)

The services that the American taxpayer (that's me) extends to them so some can collect undue profits, that's how they're hurting me. The deterioration in working conditions and compensation that they have fueled so others can make undue profits, that's how they hurt my fellow Americans.

Turning a profit is not the same as greed.

I learned English when I came here. My wife did too. We did not expect and are not expecting anyone to press one for English or two for German or three for Amharic nor do we expect the US government to develop, publish and print forms and tests and pamphlets in our native languages either. We came here so we adopt the local language. It's a concept apparently quite hard to grasp for some but that's how America became a melting pot - different people from different places merging together. A common language is the very foundation for that concept to work.

[pedroh 21]

Let's keep the immigration from countries balanced as it was meant to be. Millions of people, legal or not, from one country is not fair, is not balanced, and does not create the melting pot we all want America to continue to be. So to that I say send all the illegals home. You want to come back? Do it legally, just like you neighbor did. When your country meets its annual quota, try again next year.

Excellent point! Whoever you are.

The lack of balance is why we're pressing 1 for English and the other language is Spanish.

that's economic factors.. not lack of balance.. ayyy el español ayyy it scares mee... btw, yesterday i made a sh!tload of money lol.. selling phones to hispanic customers... my coworkers who have learn a little bit of spanish, have made more money too.. crisis? if u see it that way, it's more of an opportunity

Economic factors (namely greed) have caused this imbalance. The former and latter are not excluding one another.

greed? well yea, that's the point of any business, making money... and I don't see it bad.. how are they hurting you, or me, or my wife... is 'pressing 1 for english' that bad? (well, it can be bad if the call center is from the other side of the world and u cant understand jack, lol)

The services that the American taxpayer (that's me) extends to them so some can collect undue profits, that's how they're hurting me. The deterioration in working conditions and compensation that they have fueled so others can make undue profits, that's how they hurt my fellow Americans.

Turning a profit is not the same as greed.

I learned English when I came here. My wife did too. We did not expect and are not expecting anyone to press one for English or two for German or three for Amharic nor do we expect the US government to develop, publish and print forms and tests and pamphlets in our native languages either. We came here so we adopt the local language. It's a concept apparently quite hard to grasp for some but that's how America became a melting pot - different people from different places merging together. A common language is the very foundation for that concept to work.

well, the govt options from diff language is a diff topic.. I'm talking about the businesses only, u do not pay the businesses anything extra for having that 'option 2 for spanish'... and while, yes, a lot of immigrants specially hispanics have problems learning english, or they just wont learn at all.. u don't make business with them.. the people who don't speak spanish don't come to the public (unless i guess it's miami, or LA), but other than that, businesses require people to speak english before speaking anything else, so again, I don't see how joe's grocery store hurts someone for having some bilingual cashiers..

and, there are some countries that have differente languages, and don't have any problems living together... unless the flemish and the french-speaking belgians are debating if its 'frites met mayo' or 'pommes frites avec mayo'

Edited March 19, 2007 by pedroh

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Let's keep the immigration from countries balanced as it was meant to be. Millions of people, legal or not, from one country is not fair, is not balanced, and does not create the melting pot we all want America to continue to be. So to that I say send all the illegals home. You want to come back? Do it legally, just like you neighbor did. When your country meets its annual quota, try again next year.

Excellent point! Whoever you are.

The lack of balance is why we're pressing 1 for English and the other language is Spanish.

that's economic factors.. not lack of balance.. ayyy el español ayyy it scares mee... btw, yesterday i made a sh!tload of money lol.. selling phones to hispanic customers... my coworkers who have learn a little bit of spanish, have made more money too.. crisis? if u see it that way, it's more of an opportunity

Economic factors (namely greed) have caused this imbalance. The former and latter are not excluding one another.

greed? well yea, that's the point of any business, making money... and I don't see it bad.. how are they hurting you, or me, or my wife... is 'pressing 1 for english' that bad? (well, it can be bad if the call center is from the other side of the world and u cant understand jack, lol)

The services that the American taxpayer (that's me) extends to them so some can collect undue profits, that's how they're hurting me. The deterioration in working conditions and compensation that they have fueled so others can make undue profits, that's how they hurt my fellow Americans.

Turning a profit is not the same as greed.

I learned English when I came here. My wife did too. We did not expect and are not expecting anyone to press one for English or two for German or three for Amharic nor do we expect the US government to develop, publish and print forms and tests and pamphlets in our native languages either. We came here so we adopt the local language. It's a concept apparently quite hard to grasp for some but that's how America became a melting pot - different people from different places merging together. A common language is the very foundation for that concept to work.

well, the govt options from diff language is a diff topic.. I'm talking about the businesses only, u do not pay the businesses anything extra for having that 'option 2 for spanish'... and while, yes, a lot of immigrants specially hispanics have problems learning english, or they just wont learn at all.. u don't make business with them.. the people who don't speak spanish don't come to the public (unless i guess it's miami, or LA), but other than that, businesses require people to speak english before speaking anything else, so again, I don't see how joe's grocery store hurts someone for having some bilingual cashiers..

and, there are some countries that have differente languages, and don't have any problems living together... unless the flemish and the french-speaking belgians are debating if its 'frites met mayo' or 'pommes frites avec mayo'

The bilingual cashier at joe's grocery wasn't exactly the issue either, was it? I'm bi-lingual and work for a US employer and that doesn't hurt anyone. That's entirely irrelevant to the debate at hand, however.

The DREAM Act was the matter that was debated. Among other things, the imbalance in immigration and the cost in so many ways that the illegal influx of folks causes has been debated. Whether you want to see it or not, it is that imbalance that has caused people having to press one for English whether that be for public or private services. Other countries that people immigrate from have quotas and are more or less bound by which, among other things, ensures that no one language other than English is the primary language here. Illegal immigration from south of the border has changed that dramatically. It has also stifled integration and assmiliation (aka melting). You can check it out for yourself in the sticks around Tampa - there are completely isolated and seemingly self-sufficient latino villages all over the place here. I don't know but my gut tells me that it can't be good to have some sub-society developing here.

[mawilson 2,133]

The Guardian had an interesting article about this:

The Hispanic panic

Hispanic immigration has become a big political issue in the United States, as large

numbers of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans enter American towns and cities. But, says

Paul Harris, this is just the latest chapter of an old American story.

There is a story from the American side of my family about my great-great-grandfather

Samuel Nelson. He came from Sweden to America - poor and seeking land, like millions

of others - sometime before the 1880s. He ended up with a hardscrabble farm in

south-east Iowa near the town of New London.

He raised a family, worked hard and carved out his slice of the American dream. It was

a tough slice, as it turned out. He chose land that reminded him of Sweden: rocky and

with a creek and woods, ignoring fertile prairie plots all around him. While others raised

corn from Iowa's rich black earth, he tended to raise stones. He worked the farm for

decades, struggled by, and when it came to leave, moved West to live with a daughter.

Here comes the rub: on that journey his relatives tied a sign around his neck. They

wrote his name and destination on it and then sat him on a train and hoped kindly

strangers would help him get from Iowa to California. They 'posted' him across the

country like a human parcel.

Why? Was he mute? Or ill? No. It was simply that in all his years as an American,

Samuel Nelson never learned English. He never had to. Iowa was packed with immigrants

speaking Old Country languages. New London was full of Swedes speaking Swedish in

their day-to-day lives. He was able to live, work and eventually die (at the ripe old age

of 102) entirely in Swedish.

This story is not just family history. It has a vital point to make. America is convulsed

with impassioned debate about immigration: this time, not of Swedes, but of Spanish-

speaking illegal immigrants from the rest of the Americas. To say this issue is a hot

potato in American politics is a spectacular understatement.

Both parties are split, torn between courting powerful anti-immigration fears among

many white Americans and mindful that the Hispanic vote in America is ever more powerful:

deporting someone's cousin is no way to win someone over at the ballot box. One of the

most common complaints of those seeking to deport the estimated 11 million illegal

migrants (and also those nervous of Hispanic immigration as a whole) is of language.

'These people don't learn English' is the bar room version of the political argument.

It is true that Spanish is remarkably influential. From cash machines to airport signs,

to the familiar telephone refrain 'Press two to hear this message in Spanish', the language

is everywhere. There is a vibrant Spanish media in TV, newspapers and radio. I often

see American customers in my local deli in New York make their orders in Spanish to

the Hispanic staff. At such moments English is relegated from the store.

Nearly every city in America has its distinct Hispanic neighbourhoods. In New York if you

travel to uptown Manhattan, you notice the shop signs and adverts are entirely in Spanish.

Spanish is the language of the street and Latin music blares out on the pavement. Almost

everyone in uptown neighbourhoods is Dominican or Puerto Rican. But this is little different

to the way the Lower East Side was once all Jewish and Yiddish speaking. Or the way

Little Italy was once Italian.

Critics would argue though that the current influx of Spanish-speakers is different. Some

think it is too large; others say that because, unlike past immigrations from Asia and

Europe, their homelands are not across an ocean, Hispanic linguistic and cultural ties will

remain strong. They say the numbers speak for themselves. Out of a population of about

290 million overall, around 37 million are Hispanics. In 2003 they overtook black people

as America's largest ethnic minority. By 2050, it is estimated that they will make up one

quarter of the US population. Instead of being changed by America, the argument goes,

the Hispanic migration will change America itself.

That was the argument of Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington's controversial 2004 book

Who Are We? It argued Hispanic migrants would divide America into two different

cultures and languages. And many think Huntington is right. Certainly the Hispanic migration

will make the average American a bit darker in skin colour. But will it change American

society? Do immigrants come to America just to bring the problems of their homelands with them?

I don't think so. It seems to me America has been here before. Each immigrant wave -

whether Irish, Italian, Jewish or Chinese - has faced poverty and prejudice, clung to old

ways and then shed them in a generation or two to embrace American ideals, culture and

the English language. The Hispanic migration seems likely to do the same, just on a larger scale.

It is strange though that the fiercest critics of the migration - those who panic most about

a supposed loss of identity - often paint themselves in the most patriotic terms. Yet for patriots,

they don't seem to have much confidence in their own country's ability to influence those

who travel to its shores. I like to think my great-great-grandfather would have shaken his

head in dismay at them. Except, of course, that he would not have understood a word they

were saying.

[Peikko 1,575]

namby pamby liberal Grauniad readers...

[notrepetiteashley 0]

The law was made to protect the people. Not to punish them. This topic is enough for me. I rather see everyone treated equally. It's the most important lead to world peace.

Well, if everyone was treated equally, I should be buying my husband a plane ticket right now to come over and no one will question him about his immigration status, but welcome him instead with a college invite! It ain't his fault that he wasn't born here!

By your previous logic, yes it is his fault. His parents are from a foreign country. He should just stay out. According to your logic....parents are criminals so the children are criminals. Ha. Well, let's all go hunt down the kids of Jeffery Dahmer, they have some explaining to do! Let's all get paranoid and freak out.

Don't bother replying that you're trying to do this legally and blah blah blah it's so unfair. That's not what I'm talking about.

[almaty 19]

what???????????

[peejay 327]

The Dream Act 2007 is just a revival of legislation that failed to pass previously. It is nothing more than pandering to illegal aliens and their cheerleaders. Instead of embracing and rewarding illegal immigration...we should be discouraging and punishing it. I could care less whether the parents are to blame. These kids are the responsibility of their own government and not the responsibility of the American taxpayer.

People in this country illegally should not be getting taxpayer subsidized benefits or fast tracks to citizenship. That is the bottom line.

If you do what you always did...you're gonna get what you always got. Keep rewarding and pandering to illegal aliens and you will get more illegal aliens.

It has to stop somewhere. It has to stop now. Durbin is an idiot! Redirect these precious tax $$$ to American citizens and quit pandering to illegal aliens for political mileage. There are some far left liberal Dems that are betting the party on being the party of amnestied illegal aliens.

They can't get their lame agenda across to mainstream America, so they have to import future "citizens" to buy into their insanity. That sux! This is a means to a f*cked up end for these idiots. I hope this and other lame pandering legislation of its type dies a quick death. This is wrong.

[Niels Bohr 72]

I find it funny that foreign students with a student visa entering a college, can have taxpayers money too. Aren't you mad at them too?

Edited March 19, 2007 by consolemaster

[peejay 327]

I find it funny that foreign students with a student visa entering a college, can have taxpayers money too. Aren't you mad at them too?

Foreign students here legally pay a higher rate for tuition. The Dream Act 2007 rewards illegal aliens with in-state tuition and a fast track to American citizenship. Why should America reward illegal aliens? The lower rate for tuition is bad enough without further rewarding them with a fast track to US citizenship. They really should be deported for illegal presence.

This is nothing more than pandering legislation.