An important topic, and often an overlooked one, of immigration is the racism of immigrants. Even those that come into the country legally face the hatred and discrimination of racist people. Most immigrants come to live a better life, but many replace one bad situation with another. In September of 2007, a federal judge, James M. Munley, put a stop to ordinances in the town of Hazleton that were put into place to harshly punish undocumented migrants trying to live there. The mayor of the town, Louis J. Barletta, was trying to make Hazleton “one of the toughest places in the United States” for migrants to live. It was indeed the right decision to put a stop to theses ridiculous ordinances. If a person is in the country legally, why should they have to go through any more pain than that that caused them to migrate in the first place? If a person goes through the whole immigration process legally and is documented, what have they done to deserve any persecution from any form of government?
There is also racism of immigrants in much less radical forms. Carlos Oppenheimer writes, ”It’s not just what fear mongers such as CNN’s Lou Dobbs or radio talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage allow to be said in their shows, which systematically blame Hispanics for many of America’s ills. Prominent academics such as Harvard University political scientist Samuel Huntington are getting away with sweeping statements such as America’s Hispanic immigration deluge . . . constitutes a major potential threat to the cultural and possibly political integrity of the United States.” People with prominent positions in society also let slide comments here and there with no adverse consequences. They are fueling the fire of racism of immigrants, and with these people doing so, there will probably be no end to the racism of immigrants, whether legal or illegal.
Citations:
http://hispanic.cc/racism_killed_immigration_reform.htm
I find this so wrong. I don’t know how people can discriminate just because someone wasn’t born in this country. Chances are that the immigrant has worked 10 times harder, and earned it 10 times more than the US born citizen. I’ve heard that the test people have to take in order to become a citizen is really, really hard. So hard in fact that a large number — maybe even the majority — of US citizens can’t pass it. Now tell me how it’s fair that immigrants are required to take a test to get into the country legally that most citizens who were born here can’t even pass! It’s not fair at all. Something should definitely be done to change this policy and make the life of immigrants better.
Personally, I think that most of the problems behind racism against immigrants (and I assume you mean those from the Latin American areas, most notably Mexico, yes?) is the assumption that most of them are illegal. Considering the high population of illegal immigrants bouncing across the borders, and the extremely negative press that immigration receives as a result, those with closed minds are quick to jump to the conclusions that “all those who are immigrants are illegals.” I also disagree with the last comment made in your post; racism against immigrants is not springing up from comments made by those in power, but by the fact that our system of immigration, and our lack of ability to keep the border fence from being jumped in the middle of the night. Until we can solve this problem, racism is never going to end.