Tough new state immigration laws are striking fear in the hearts of illegal immigrants with American-born children.
“I worry about my children,” says one father of two young kids in Carrollton, Georgia. He didn't want to give his name, because he has no legal right to reside in the United States. “My kids were born here. What will happen with them? We don’t know, and that’s the fear we have.”
Georgia, like Alabama, Arizona and Utah, recently passed a tough immigration law.
The longer Congress waits to deal with immigration reform, the louder states seem to scream for action. According to the National Conference of Legislatures, an all-time high of 1,538 bills dealing with immigrants and refugees have been introduced in state legislatures this year alone. These measures include things like employment verification requirements for businesses and restrictions on public health services and college access for illegal immigrants. But the most worrisome for many parents are those giving local law enforcement more power to do federal immigration checks.
“Don’t worry!" is a message Atlanta immigration lawyer Charles Kuck gives his clients all day long. He’s one of those challenging the Georgia law’s constitutionality in federal court.
“These laws are bad, and they’re going to have a tremendous effect on the community. But for now we say, ‘Calm down.’ This law is meant to silence people, and we have to at this time not be silenced. We have to be vocal and not shut up.”
But for parents who fear separation from their American children, it’s easier said than done. About 2.5 million families in the U.S. have undocumented immigrant parents and American-born children, according to the Pew Hispanic Center's Jeff Passel.
“I’m planning to move to Miami, where I have some family,” says one undocumented mother of three who lives in Georgia. “But they tell me that the law is also being considered there.”
State lawmakers acknowledge many of these bills are meant to send a message to Washington.
“This problem is never going to be solved completely until the federal government deals with it,” says Georgia Republican State Rep. Matt Ramsey, author of the Georgia immigration bill.
So far, Washington has shown little reaction to states' enacting immigration bills. “The drive for comprehensive immigration reform has shown unsuccessful,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, told the Atlanta Press Club on May 20.
Two weeks earlier, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the club only that that she didn’t like a patchwork of states taking on immigration reform.
As federal immigration reform languishes, undocumented immigrant parents of American children gain time. If they can avoid deportation until their firstborn turns 21, that child can apply for his or her parent’s legal status.
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Oh btw..
Why do these dirt poor, illiterate foreigners sneek into our country, expect us to learn their language, and THEN POP OUT BABIES AT AN INDUSTRIALIZED LEVEL!?!?!
Mexico is a 3rd world country that breeds poverty. Even if we take all their poorest, most illiterate people.. There will be another generation of them within 20 years wanting to come here.
I say just nuke the damned thing!
Kick them all out, no more anchor babies either. These illegals have been leaching every penny out of this country and its people for way to long.
If we americans are caught commiting a crime of fraud we get a sentence of jail time. But mexcians come here change socials like changing underwear and those socials belong to a ture american. How is that right. How is it right that my daughter could not go to kinder in the school she belonged cuz there was no space but then the administrator told me wait until after the holidays pass for the reason some illegal children wont come back. All these mexicans come her and have children and who is paying for there birthing costs we are. When what have they contributed to the resoures and they just kepp on hving kids after kids when the children i have had i hv paid for the birthing costs.
It's not just Mexicans! Why do you people have to keep blaming Mexicans alone?! I think you should also do a spell check next time you submit a post.
Hey, imagine if we had a land border with Africa. I bet Washington would have fixed the immigration issue in the 80's if that were the case!
I thought America was the great satan? I thought everybody hated us? Why the hell are people crawling through the cracks in our floors? Because of the greatness of our country thats why. Serve in the United states military for 6 years and pass a naturalization test and i say welcome aboard. But that would be to easy. They would rather sit outside Home depot and shank jobs that an unemployed citizen could use to feed their families. They will feed off of us untill theres nothing left but a carcas where a great nation once stood
To all the illegals worried about these new laws I have an idea.....Why don't you and your anchor babies go back home, I'm sick of paying for you and the record number of babies you pop out!
Finally, someone has said it. If we want a secure border why don't we use land mines? Works to keep North and South Korea separate. I guarantee that if there are 10 illegals crossing and one steps on a land mine the other 9 would turn around and go home...!!
ultimate stupidity.
what a poor mentality dear!
Cute kids...it's a shame they have irresponsible parents who are now exploiting them in an attempt to avoid the consequences of the parent's criminal and irresponisble behavior in coming and staying here illegally.
Why is this even a debate????? oh my god !!! We have a 10-15% unemployment rate in this country and yet they still swarm us like locust. I agree with the pressure on the employers approach. I have an 18 year old son who couldnt get a landscaping job to help pay for his tuition.you know one of those jobs that americans wont do. It was the only place that was hiring in my small town and guess who took his spot?.....go on i'll wait ...guess
Isn't the same thing the government did with all the jobs they sent over to China? They found a cheaper price!
And as a CITIZEN of the UNITED STATES I have to know how to speak Spanish to get a job!!!! That really ticks me off. You would not believe how many phone calls I have gotten about a job I applied for and then they ask.... Do you speak Spanish??? BULL!
For each gun the U.S. sends Mexico, they send a pregnant Mexican, in return. Seems fair enough.
When I go over to the BBC I see straight forward new reporting about the facts and current affairs when i come over to CNN see propaganda.
CNN has one of the biggest sunshine pumps going, running full throttle- in their genuinely pathetic illegal alien crusade.
I came to the US as a student. And I had to pay LOTS of money for visas and renewals to stay here. I am now a Permanent Resident of the US. I see and read news of how people come here illegally, especially the Cubans (free ticket) and then expect to have the right to stay. It makes me angry!!!! I waited like everyone else. Go through Immigration interviews, to make sure I am legit. Honestly, it's the government who does not put their foot down. Illegals know that if they have kids here in the US, then their kids are US citizens. They are not stupid. Once the kids are 18 years old, their US citizen kids can file papers for their illegal parents. These kids are most probably on welfare. Who pays for their hospital billls? Friggin' you and I!!!! It angers me when they have like 5-6 kids and one still in the oven. When is this going to stop??????? I have to pay my own healthcare, no hand outs, thank you!!! Illegals need to be flushed out.
My wife's family went to great lengths and the huge expense of gaining citizenship when she was a little girl. Many, many Americans know exactly what you are talking about.
Hey Bee, thanks for do it the legal way. Welcome home. Glad to have you here.
Stupid parents know the consequences when the make the trek here. they are putting there kids in more danger by bringing them and risking themselves being deported. But maybe its better the parents get deported. Then the kids can be raised by americans who can raise them correctly and get them SPEAKING ENGLISH! Anyways parents just come over here put bills in the kids name an suck up all the welfare they can while they make more money under the table then we get after were taxed....
Read the history of US Immigration during the 1800s and early 1900s and you will see that we allowed our "melting pot" for many reasons, and those reasons have changed over time as we adjusted our policies to match current events. For a long time, Americans were arriving here as experiments in the ideology of Protestant Christians, Liberalism (read Locke) and laissez-faire economics. In the 1800s we noticed a need for cheap labor to support industrialization. We also were giving away smaller plots of land as we moved into the American midwest, so we didn't need to support slavery as much, but we did need our northern and mid-western territory farms to compete with the slave-based systems of the south. Once slavery ended we found a need to keep labor cheap, and as we moved into the twentieth century we supported immigration only as a means to help grow our economy grow, but we had strict laws in place to preserve the racial distribution from the late 1890s (Western European). During the cold war, our immigration policy shifted to protecting those who aided us in the fight against communism. This is when we opened our door to Koreans, Vietnamese, Iraqis, Iranians, Armenians, etc.
One thing that is certain is that in the history of our country we have NEVER had a policy of letting waves of people in without making sure that there was an economic means to support these immigrants. We have also had a history of providing programs to show these new cultures the benefits of our American culture. Sure, this was based on a heavy European protestant society. But we also learned to adopt the best of the cultures that integrated.
So really we must watch our words when we accuse people of racism when we discuss immigration policy. It is a purely economic discussion, appearing as racism only to those that are not educated in our country's economic history.
The bigger question comes up. Do you think it is ok to take one person's money away from him to give to many others that have not earned it?
Nice.
It is all about social economics, most Mexicans do not have allot of money so they can not buy their way into the USA however we do not hear about middle eastern people coming in illegally because they can buy their way in legally, they have money, the 911 Muslim terrorist came in legally and look at the grief and damage they did. It is all about money, politics, republican or democrat etc, it does not matter, if you have money like the Muslims do then you won’t hear much about them while they are planning on killing you and your family while the Mexicans are building your home and taking care of your kids!
You get the gold star for the day!! Well said. Well delivered. I couldn't agree more.
Really, Billy? They are taking your personal money? And you still believe the myth they put nothing into our economy?
Where do they live? How do they get electricity, water and other utilities? Food? Clothing? Gas for their vehicles to get to work? Every one of those things are required to exist–period. Even if they send money "home", they are still spending a large chunk here to maintain households.
Every one of those things generates tax revenue for indigent care, police, fire and other services. Buying gas contributes tax money that goes to maintain roads. If they have phones (land or cell), they pay all those lovely fees and taxes that maintain the towers, etc. Renting? The landlord incorporates his property taxes into the rent, so the cost of kids' educations do get covered.
To be honest, I would rather have the illegal families on my street stay put over the legal "tweakers" around the corner. At least the families work and aren't trying to steal from the neighbors to support their drug habits.
Ok, Amused, I'll bite. Ya ya my dollar is going to many. It's also paying interest on debts that went out to bazillionaire bankers. It's going to WAY too many places...
Trickle down all day long, and all that stuff may "help" the economy, but if you want to use that answer you should be arguing all about no taxes and letting the businesses come in to do their biddings without regulation, since the supply-side money will obviously make it into the pockets of every citizen. Think of all the movies we could see with all that spare change! Really, unskilled workers undermine union efforts, take up plenty of social welfare, and generally do not contribute in the same fashion as skilled, educated and productive immigrants. Now I know many Mexican and Central Americans with skills and work ethic, and the money that comes with the territory. I would want them around far more than the tweekers, addicts, etc. You are correct that this is an imbalance. But this does not make it a black and white situation, where we should open the borders to poor Mexican farmers.
Perhaps another solution is to look into the empowerment of those people in their home economies. For example, our farming industry has become so high tech that it has nearly wiped out corn farming in mexico. Poverty comes with the territory now. With poverty comes drug money, political corruption etc. Is there a way we can change policy here to make life better in Mexico? This is not a us vs. them, its about world economy now.
So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, adieu -Adieu, adieu
To you and you and you
So long, farewell -Auf Weidersehen, goodbye, I leave and heave
A sigh and say goodbye- Goodbye
ADIOS