Living in North Mexico ... oops, I mean, uh, Central California

United States
February 24, 2007 12:21pm CST
Most of Southern and Central California -- including almost 100 percent of the vast San Joaquin River Valley farmlands -- is actually part of Mexico. The immigration debate is moot here because in some of these Valley towns, the Latino population is 90 percent or better, and the rest are Asian. The scant number of whites who live around here are holdovers from the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and they are dying off fast. Most of them cluster into a few cities and live off the neighboring plantations in one way or another. In essence, the immigration "debate" is moot here because an overwhelming number of people are illegals. They have been living here for years but have no paperwork. The federal immigration authorities just have not caught up with them, and they likely will never be deported. If they are served a deportation order, they just toss the order and change their names and residences. Some people here have dozens of aliases, and since illegals can't get driver's licenses, they stay pretty much anonymous. Estimates you hear about "12 to 14 million" people in the U.S. here illegally are ridiculously low. It's more like 50 million and growing. There is no way to stop it and business owners and farmers don't want those numbers to decline, anyway, because they need the labor for all manner of industries. Immigration reform? What a crock.
1 person likes this
4 responses
@judyt00 (3497)
• Canada
24 Feb 07
Amazingly, the white American illegal population in Canada is growing, mostly because of our health care system. They don't pay taxes, which is what pays for our social net, yet they benefit bu obtaining health cards after living here for 3 months. Right now, the wait time is 6 months for majort surgery, and chemo or radiation therapy for mosttypes of cancer is anywhere up to a year because of them jumping the line.
2 people like this
• United States
24 Feb 07
Fueling the trend to which you refer is the ever-growing population of deserting U.S. soldiers who refuse to serve in Iraq. These are full-fledged U.S. Army soldiers who were fine through basic training and serving anywhere else other than Iraq. Now most of them would willingly fight in Afghanistan, from where Osama bin Laden and his associates planned and helped execute the 9/11 attacks, but feel that Iraq is somewhere they should not be. Yes, white Americans are creeping up into Canada, for a variety of reasons, and they should be shipped right back where they belong.
1 person likes this
@snowflake5 (1579)
• United States
25 Feb 07
Why doesn't NAFTA do what the EU does - allow free movement of people to live and work? Within the EU, you can live and work anywhere you like. Loads of Poles live and work in britain. Loads of Brits have retired to Spain. The beauty of the system is that you don't have to change your passport or nationality and can always move back whenever you please. The salaries in Poland is about 1/10th of the salaries in Britain so the situation is comparable to Mexico-USA. Make it legal to move about and work, and save yourselves the hassle of expensive border patrols and all the rest of it.
1 person likes this
• United States
25 Feb 07
Outstanding point. NAFTA needs to address this situation. But what about France? Didn't EU entangements lead to the Muslim population going beserk and burning thousands of cars?
@lauriefnp (5111)
• United States
25 Feb 07
This is such a hot topic, especially for those who live in areas that are bombarded with illegals. I didn't realize that parts of Southern California were 90% Mexican, with most of them being illegal. It seems to me that the INS wouldn't have much trouble rounding them up and deporting them if they really wanted to. The business owners and farmers are getting cheap labor and are not paying benefits, so of course they will keep quiet. And the government doesn't want to rock the boat because of the tax revenue from the businesses...This leads to the government actually turning a blind eye on the real problem. Let's be honest. If the U.S. can track down terrorists like Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, why can't they round up a bunch of Mexicans without paperwork and send them home? Because they don't really want to.
@kathy77 (7486)
• Australia
24 Feb 07
This is very interesting topic and I understnad the problems that illegals face but I do not understand why our governments make it so hard to not do the right thing by these people so that they can be legalised and claim the right to be legal I mean for the ones not breaking the laws apart from this and they try to do the right thing and in a lot of their own countries they find it hard to live and to have families. Most of these people are hard working people and do not deserve to be treated the way they are, we have this problem where I live and they definately do not say the right amount of people that are illegals and if they are abiding by the law apart from this then legalised them, otherwise they will keep on doing this to stop them from being deported.
1 person likes this
• United States
24 Feb 07
There's the solution. You have it. These millions of people must immediately be accepted. Yes, this would ignite a massive migration from Mexico into the U.S., but maybe the U.S. should just annex Mexico and make it the 51st state. That would make more sense than what is happening now.