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Immigrants are Protesting for What They’re Entitled

Today many immigrants, specifically those from the Latino community, will participate in a collective effort called Un Dia Sin Inmigrantes-A Day Without Immigrants.

According to the Washington Post, some will work, but buy nothing. Others will protest at lunch breaks or at rallies after work. There will be church services, candlelight vigils, picnics, and human chains.

So, what exactly will all of these protests accomplish? No one really knows, but one writer feels that it should be the same thing that so many ethnics groups before had the opportunity to enjoy. Read what she has to say about the current immigration issue.

The people of America have found another reason to protest and bad mouth President Bush. But this time there are no racial, cultural or economic differences that can indicate how any one person is going to side with immigration, everyone is involved and everyone has to take a side.

This isn’t like last year when same-sex marriage proposals and the abortion pill had only certain facets of society up in arms because homosexuals have certain rights and women have certain rights. Even then the majority of the public took it lightly because only small fractions are homosexual or female or young.

This time you have 11 million Hispanic immigrants living in this country illegally. You have business owners who can only find Hispanic immigrants to take the jobs no one else will. You have taxpayers who are upset that they must pay for immigrant children to learn to speak English or their hospital bills. You have immigrant workers who just want to support their family and can’t in their native country.

Everyone in this situation feels a sense of entitlement and there seems to be no happy medium for everyone. Eventually, it will be a domino effect, regardless of who wins in this situation. The proposed immigration bill suggests that those living illegally in this country have committed a felony. If this were to happen, deporting millions, there would be 11 million job vacancies and millions more business owners with no one to help their business run smoothly, in turn, disabling overall production and hurting the economy. All because a few people don’t want to pick up the tab for a child to learn English or stay healthy.

Perhaps the government will grant amnesty to these illegal citizens, giving them temporary work visas and setting off a firestorm among other ethnic groups who had to work for their citizenship, which can sometimes take years to attain. But whose place is it to say where anyone belongs? The irony of it all is the principles on which this country was built.

Settlers came to America looking for a place where they could make a better life for their children, where they can worship freely. And now, 200 years later, it suddenly belongs to them exclusively and a foreigner who simply wants to work and provide the same things their ancestors came to America for is forbidden; and possibly a felony.