Illegal immigrants, this is absolutely pathetic, people who have no reguard for the laws, playing on our sympathy, and taking advantage of our kindness.

I was leaning towards some kind of break for them, BUT now, after seeing them demanding rights and behaving like ungratefull, arogant, fools. My feelings have changed totaly, towards illegal immigrants.

b, thanks for sharing this article. Indeed the impact will always be debatable as this fox news report indicates.

There will always be conflicting information for instance as the 2005 Economic Report of the President states that on average, immigration has little effect on native wages. Generally, estimates suggest that a 10 percent increase in the share of foreign-born

workers reduces native wages by less than one percent.

Going by the NYT article and the related study. Wouldn't it better for minorities if they sought higher education levels beyond a high school education ? Wouldn't this give them more economic and social equality ? There are two sides to the coin in this issue, it just depends how one takes a look at it, but one thing is almost a given, the 11 million undocumented immigrants won't be going away any time soon if ever.

b, thanks for sharing the link and articles. I have read through and inevitably as with any study, it is indeed a very complex issue and I am sure there will be conflicting views and conclusions as the article below illustrates :

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189792,00.html

I also looked at the report that the NYT article refers to. Wouldn't it be better if minorities in America were motivated to seek higher levels of education than just high school education ? Would'nt this help achieve greater economic and social equality for minorities. There are obviously two sides to the coin in this issue but as much as many may want the undocumented to leave, they simply won't leave, the reality is they are here to stay.

Finally according to the 2005 Economic Report of the President - on average, immigration has little effect on native wages. Generally, estimates suggest that a 10 percent increase in the share of foreign-born workers reduces native wages by less than one percent.

This is a very difficult and complex issue on which to draw accurate and undisputed conclusions on.

mike, here is more comprehensive analysis of #2:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/weekinreview/02broder.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

From conservative columnist David Brooks... check it out...

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/03/30/opinion/30brooks.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fDavid%20Brooks

Basically saying that if these guys were white, they'd be voting Republican from now 'till doomsday. But some "right thinking" people can't see that.

Oh, and the current plan, which I support, does include fines. I'm surprised so many people are glomming onto this misnomer about amnesty, considering what a hard word it is to spell and all.

Is it just coincidence that the banner ad above right now says "Apply for U.S. citizenship today"?

And check out today's NY Times for the truth on whether illegal immigrants are doing jobs Americans truly won't do.

If these illegals want to be Americans so badly. why were they walking around with Mexican, Dominican, and Columbina flags????

Why is it racist to think that ILLEGALS are leeching off of a system that our ancestors legally joined and that we all pay for in the end.

Can I perform an ILLEGAL bank robbery and get amnesty from the gov't?

Democrats have sold out the poor (specifically poor blacks) to pander to Latinos for votes.

here here, tim n! here are some of my photos

b, on #2

http://paa2004.princeton.edu/download.asp?submissionId=41338

Preliminary studies indicate that persons who are born in the U.S. are more likely to be unemployed than immigrants. This is in line with the economic motivation and self-selective immigration theory as well as the dual labor market theory. The results of our models show that a large percentage of the immigrant population significantly increases the whole population’s likelihood of employment, but a big part of this direct effect contributes to the immigrant’s unemployment. That is to say, a large number of immigrants lead to an increased risk of unemployment for some of them as well as for some U.S.-born people. Moreover, cross-level interactions also reveal some significant findings. They tell us that whites lose part of their employment advantages because of a decreased employment advantage for white immigrants; thus other things being equal, minorities’ employability increases in those states with a large number of immigrants.

[more]

One possible explanation from the data is that the personal endowments that immigrants carry are not that different from those of natives, so more immigrants in a state tend to increase the state average education level.

Here are three "issues" I have for illegal immigration supporters:

1. (tangent) Morons who would rather call people "racists" than present arguments of their own. "Those other guys are racist; therefore, whatever I say is true," is neither valid nor sound.

2. Illegal immigrants, who are quite vulnerable to the whims of their employers, drive down wages for unskilled labor. Yes, they reduce costs of goods and services, but in doing so they put many others (e.g. black males in NYC) out of work.

3. Many supporters of illegal immigration are unable to see a relatively simple solution to the problem: fines. We don't need to "send them home" (i.e. with some enforcement approach applied to the illegal immigrants themselves). A fine of, say, $50-100,000 per illegal immigrant employed would send quite a message to shady employers and hirers of day laborers. Such fines should be aggressively pursued. As long as the risk and cost of employing illegal immigrants dramatically exceeds the "cost savings" of hiring them, there will be no market for their labor. Leave it up to them to find their own way home; jailing and deporting them would be unnecessary.

What can you expect? Most of these people stem from the midwest, they haven't mingled with such diversity until their what? Early-mid twenties and beyond.

Ah, voices of reason. Are most Gothamist readers right-wing xenophobes, or what?

Tim, I agree with you 100%.

Wow, Saturday must be day-release day.

Why don't we just tell the truth, most anti-immigrant sentiment is just plain racism. Period. You know it's true. It has nothing to do with the color of their cards and everything to do with the color of their skin.

And unfortunately the Democrats are too dumb to just say it.

the march was well-attended, the rally not so much (many of the organizers of the protest were religious groups, so the rally ended up being very church-like... so obviously not for everyone... it was pretty freaky, actually).

there were lots of families, amd a real mix of people, although mostly latin-american (big mexican, ecuadorian, and dominican turn-out). spanish was definitely the dominant language of the event. there was a tiny korean contingent and apparently some egyptian and haitian organizations involved, but you wouldn't have known from looking at the crowd. and for the record, there were plenty of people (myself included) who weren't immigrants (at least not recently so) participating in the march. these laws affect all of us, folks.

will have photos up on nymosaico.com soon.

y ningun ser humano es ilegal!!!

i think people have to realize that being a "legal immigrant" today is much much harder than in the past. (unless you get marry to a citizen) not everyone have the luxury to apply for a legal residence. Illegal immigrants today are illegal because they have no realistic way of becoming legal.

i went to the rally. i had only found out about it last night, so i didn't expect as many people as the California and D.C. marches because I hadn't heard any press publicizing it.

What I want to know is, are the 4 irish ilegals living in a basement across the street from me included in this whole "illegal immigrants=criminals" business? And the haitian nannies on 5th ave...who is going to call the cops on the family that hires them for cheap labor? We have to stop thinking that these illegal immigrants are "draining" our government resources...they supply as much to our society as legal immigrants and american citizens.

It is indeed unfortunate to see America encumbered by a fast growing culture of xenophobia and blanket assumptions that those marching are ALL undocumented. Many of the undocumented have adult US citizen or legal immigrant relatives who live here, families and children that would be brutally torn apart by Draconian laws. Did anyone bother to question, detain and interrogate ALL of the marchers to conclusively verify the supposed fact that they are all illegal or undocumented or it is part of the mass hysteria propagated by immigrant bashing propaganda vehicles ? Where is the same level of outrage against undocumented Europeans or Canadians ? Would America be a better place as a police state where civil liberties and the right to extend humanitarian rights are trampled underfoot ? One has to wonder why America should continue to fight or stand for "Freedom" and "Democracy" and when people exercise their first ammendment rights (as guaranteed to all who are within the confines of the borders of this country), some who seem to have selectively forgotten the values that make up this country, and the fact that most of them arrived here as immigrants through their predecessors 2 - 4 generations ago, are keen to call them morons or criminals, but indeed nothing is said when Irish flags are flown on St. Patrick's day, the Irish Prime Minister comes to America and requests amnesty for undocumented Irish immigrants or the fact that American values can accomodate in the spirit of diversity, places that reflect immigrant heritage such as Little Italy or China Town. Immigrant bashing without hard facts and figures are symptoms of a society that is fast steering itself to a regrettable state of xenophobia. There is no country in this world that has been shaped the way America has through immigrants and it is that fact that makes America great. There are many myths [1 , 2] about the undocumented being propagated, it is time immigrant bashers took an opportunity to wake up from their deep slumber and faced reality with open objective minds and accepted that the undocumented no matter what laws are passed, will not leave this country on their own volition. Fix the borders, put a stop to new undocumented immigration and then address the issue of the 12 or so million undocumented immigrants who for all realistic intents and purposes will not leave this country no matter how draconian the laws may be. And as one Senator stated this week on the reality of attempting to deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants : "They would fill 200,000 buses in a caravan stretching bumper-to-bumper from San Diego to Alaska", its just not an economically feasible task, America simply cannot afford it without further burdening law abiding tax payers. America needs both these undocumented and legal immigrants as hard workers who contribute to this country's economy and must come up with feasible solutions that are not xenophobic fueled and misguided solutions that only worsen a runaway situation.

Hey right-wing nutjob, thanks for the spam...