Immigration!

So I haven't gotten riled up for a couple weeks here, but the May 1st boycott and marches scheduled in the name of immigrants' rights has done it. First off, I don't understand how laws proposed to limit ILLEGAL immgration affect LEGAL immigrants. Instead of clouding the real issues at hand, why not discuss a more practical solution than "just give everybody amnesty"? How does that solve anything for the future?

I do support finding a way to legalize illegal immigrants that are here now(whether it be through immediate citizenship or the guest-worker program). I am against punishing private charitable/religious organizations for helping illegal immigrants once they are here. At the same time, I also believe that the US does need to secure the Mexican border to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and to apply that same intensity to any other "holes" in the US border.

The protesters have turned these discussions into a fight for workers' rights and against racism. These issues are legimitate, but separate from illegal immigration. The majority of the protesters, at least according to the media, are "Latinos." I love that term. It lumps anyone with a background from a Spanish-dialect country into one group. Why aren't we seeing large amounts of people from other ethnic groups. They also come into the US illegally. I guess because some of the proposed laws were to build a wall along the Mexican border. So if the laws were targeted towards turning back people in cargo containers and on boats, then those other ethnic groups would be more vocal. Oh wait, people in cargo containers are already turned back to their countries when found. What does it say to the people who find the way to legally emigrate to the US if people who find a way to slip in are allowed to continue? That seems like discrimination to me.

Here are two thoughts I came across in all these debates that made sense to me:

If all the oppressed people in the world could walk/drive here, we probably wouldn't be focusing on the illegal immigrants from our southern countries.

and

These passionate protesters should use their numbers to try to create change in there own countries.

Now, I know that last statement sounds incredibly idealistic. But over the course of history, that is how things are changed. It does take decades. Just like the decades that people have spent illegally living and working here.

I just needed to voice my opinion, being a "Latina" and part of a family full of immigrants (legal).