Not doing a lot of harm beyond being here illegally? What about the illegal immigrant who killed a man and his 2 sons in San Fran a few weeks ago? The illegal who killed a woman in New York (I think that was it - last year, don't remember)? I'm sure that there are a lot more examples of this out there to be found. It's bad enough that we have people born and raised in this country committing murder, but now we have people that should not even be here doing it. In the case of San Francisco, they knew he was illegal (he already had a nice rap sheet), and didn't have him deported because they are a sanctuary city.

Yes, our ancestors came from a variety of countries, speaking a variety of languages, however they all started speaking English, as the first 13 colonies were predominantly English. Spain occupied Central and South America, and the French sold out to our founding fathers. We kicked out a few other by conquest. For decades, legal immigrants who moved to this country for a better life learned to speak English (because that's what everyone spoke), worked hard, lived by the rules (most of the time), and were proud to have become American citizens. Now, people come into this country illegally, don't want to learn the language, commit crimes, suck up our government services, medical care, and education dollars, and send most of the money they make here back to their home country. If you want to come into this country, sign the guest book, play by the rules, and if you are going to stay here, learn the language.

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I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was going to blame you.

Dynamite comes in small packages, Nitro comes in smaller ones, take your pick!

Recognized, accepted, and no longer an issue!

My biggest issue comes in the form of something I got among all the kids school papers... among 50 trillion forms I have to fill out at the beginning of the school term, they are all printed in English and Spanish.. but last week, when I was filling out the emergency card... it was in SPANISH! Not a word of English on it! I am NOT going to sign a form I cannot read, and she needed that form to get her schedule... so I had to drive to the school, pick up the form and then fill it out, and then take her back to the school.

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Crime rates are lower among immigrants than they are among citizens:
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They have a lower incrimination rate than citizens:
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The 13 colonies were founded by the British settlers, but the inhabitants of the 13 colonies were not all British settlers. Many Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, etc. people came and spoke their own languages. There was no official language in the Constitution because the colonies were so multicultural and multilingual. Spain "occupied" the areas that are now California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of Colorado and Oklahoma. When they were brought into the US under the Secession of 1848, they all spoke either Spanish or some American Native languages. And again no national language was established because much of the population spoke little or no English (which was morphing into American English at the time).

If we're going with the language of the original 13 colonies, then we should be using Early Modern English, which sounds less like American English and more like Shakespeare.
My paternal ancestors came from East Germany and settled in Okalahoma several hundred years ago. They spoke German the first generation into the second. Should they have faced linguistic persecution and beeen required to learn english, or was it okay to allow them to acclimate over a generation (as most Latin American immigrants do now)?

I think the general message of those who are getting fed up with the "Press 1 for English" is that we would like to see those that claim to want to be part of this country make an honest effort to learn to speak the language that the citizens that were born here were taught from birth through high school. English has unofficially become the national language over the years. We understand it takes awhile to get the hang of it, but millions of others have done it over the decades, so it is not impossible. I think there are a lot of us that are also getting fed up with the ones that come here illegally, when there are so many others that can manage to do things the right way. If I were to move to another country to live for the rest of my life, I would sure learn their language as quickly as possible so that I could fit into their established society.

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I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was going to blame you.

Dynamite comes in small packages, Nitro comes in smaller ones, take your pick!

I'm trying to locate scientific information on the crime rate among illegal guest workers, but I can't find any. Still, the crime rate among immigrants isn't wholly inapplicable to the subject, considering that many legal immigrants speak Spanish. Still, the act of entering the country alone isn't destructive, which is why I compared it to jaywalking and loitering above.
My point was regarding the idea that English was the original language as evidence that it should still be. It wasn't really. The evolution of language in a multilingual country tends to lead towards convergence. It's entirely possible that the US South West will someday be mostly some combination of English and Spanish. Current English already has adopted many words and phrases from other languages without it being destructive.
We've still got cultural 'clusters', though. Ignoring that fact is to ignore part of the US.

Illegal still means illegal. Using data on legal immigrants is not really applicable no matter what language they speak. Jaywalking is an entirely different matter than being in this country illegally. If people want to come to this country and work, sign the guestbook on your way in. Do you walk into someone's house without knocking or without permission? If you do, it's called breaking and entering.

Of course, English has adopted words from other languages. Most languages have adopted words from other languages. And yes, we have cultural clusters, and there are many things that we all do on a daily basis that have been adopted from the cultures of our ancestors, or adopted from other cultures. It's been going on for centuries. You will see that to some extent in any country. I wasn't suggesting ignoring the cultural influences of the people from the various countries that have moved here.

I think that the only point you and I actually disagree on is the fact that I don't think a person should be in this country illegally. No ifs, ands or buts about it. If you are here illegally, go back home, and come in the proper way, it's really not that hard.

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I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was going to blame you.

Dynamite comes in small packages, Nitro comes in smaller ones, take your pick!

Maybe you are having a hard time finding statistics because you are using an invalid term.

I'd love to do a Google search for "Manufacturers of Fairy Dust"

They are illegal aliens, no matter what PC name you give them.

Illegal+Alien+Crime+Rate+2007 gets 218000 hits on Google.

NO English was not our original language.
Russia's first language was not Russian either so your point is rather mute.
However English IS our language NOW and is at the forefront of our nation. We don't go to Mexico and ask them to learn English. So what the hell gives them the right to come here and ask the same of us? If you come here, you SHOULD learn the language if you ever really expect to be a productive member of our society.

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Proud Supporter Of: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

It is difficult, but that's moot.

Again, I do not support subverting or breaking any laws, and that includes laws of immigration. If a individual disagrees with a law, then it's their responsibility to take legal steps to work with the system and change the law democratically. In the case of an illegal guest worker, that means finding a legal route to citizenship and then, once a citizen, voting and becoming politically active.

What I recognize is the importance of the illegal guest workers in the market. Most farms can't afford minimum wage for pickers and have become accustomed to paying lower wages to guest workers. If they all left at once, farms not only wouldn't be able to find enough workers but even if hey could they couldn't afford to pay them. I'll admit this is a dispassionate method of judging worth, but it's still correct.

The reason you posted the hits on Google instead of actual articles or papers is because the search you posted does not yield the results you suggest. This is intellectually dishonest.

English is your language, but it's not the language of all American citizens. What right do you have to force your language on them, besides being in the majority?

Several hundred years ago?
Two?
Three?
More?

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