Matt Nelson on October 09, 2009, at 02:23PM – #1

Isn't that right where Oktoberfest LA will be at noon? I hope I can watch them over my stein of beer on Broadway!

Tornadoes28 on October 09, 2009, at 04:04PM – #3

Hmmm, these people still have not learned. Carrying Mexican flags while demanding rights for illegal immigrants will get them any support. And the march must be for illegal immigrants since legal immigrants already have full rights as they are demanding.

Not again. on October 10, 2009, at 01:21AM – #5

Thank god I'm not driving that day. And how many of these things is the city going to allow these people in a year?

Joe on October 10, 2009, at 01:22PM – #8

Such neo-fascists here on this blog, you'd think Los Angeles was Fresno.

Prime example: "True immigrants didn't even have to make spectacles of themselves." Such idiocy. We've created an economic structure that would crumble without undocumented people, like it or not. Every time you fork a vegetable into your bile-spitting mouth, chances are, one of "these people" helped get it to your table. Oh right -- you'd rather stand at the WIC office than in the sun for 12 hours a day.

And for those who belly-ache about the temporary inconvenience of traffic? Shut up. Such a corpulent, suburban mentality. You should have your drivers license revoked and be forced to ride public transportation so you can get a little closer to those you fear the most: those of color and of poverty.

The most chilling part: that activism is in any way bad.

Joe on October 10, 2009, at 01:25PM – #9

@Apacherat

And Donald Rumsfeld "had connections" to Halliburton -- an organization that boned the US out of millions and millions of dollars in inflated and bogus military contracts.

Your point?

never_know on October 10, 2009, at 01:28PM – #10

It would really help the causes of these protests if they would at least chant half of what they are saying in english. You know, since we're in an english-speaking country and all. I don't speak spanish, and so have no idea what they are protesting, ever. I always have to go look it up on the internet. Even then, I never find out much more than a vague reason for these marches. "Immigration." Uh, OK. I still don't know what you were chanting for the last 30 minutes.

Activism vs. Invasion on October 10, 2009, at 01:35PM – #11

Hi Joe!

What lines will they be standing in and what buses will they be riding when they are deported?

No more by-the-case purchases at Costco with food stamps only to resell for cash; no more section 8 housing abuse, no more health-code-defying untaxed food sales, no more abusing emergency health services, no more runaway procreation for more welfare, no more drug & human trafficking, and no more blatant identity and welfare fraud from this group anyway.

Aaron on October 10, 2009, at 02:53PM – #13

Most of these people in the comments don't live in Dtown. They're coming in via Google News like they always do on articles like this.

Downtowner on October 10, 2009, at 03:36PM – #14

Hey, I live downtown and ride public transit and I see it at street level. There is a serious problem in this city with illegal immigration and the fact that LA County spends billions annually on services for these people and the children they produce once they get here.

The public services get exploited in every which way you can imagine, while the squalor, crime and poverty increases with this population. Why does it increase? Because poverty here is like abundance where they come from. And it is a culture dependent on the services provided by the US citizen taxpayer. The same would not be tolerated in their country if US citizens were to reverse the flow for the same purposes. We should not be allowing it.

Joe on October 10, 2009, at 03:56PM – #15

@ Apacherat

Born here. Parents born here. And of European descent. But nice of you to try to racially profile from a blog post, assuming that only a brown would support another brown. But more seriously, I'm educated enough to use the correct contraction of you + are which is "you're."

@ Downtowner

Have you ever been to Skid Row or do you only hear about it because you're (see how it's done, Apacherat!) too afraid to mingle with the great unwashed?

The bulk of Skid Row isn't a population of undocumented immigrants. The bulk of homeless staggering around downtown asking for change aren't doing it in Spanish. The undocumented are way too busy working for pitiful wages when the rest -- the English speakers -- are sleeping on Broadway at night, pestering hipsters trying to look poor for handouts, and doing a whole lot of nothing.

The undocumented immigrants should be teaching lazy U.S. born welfare recipients on basic work ethics.

Tyler on October 10, 2009, at 04:25PM – #16

Born here. Parents born here. And of European descent.

Whether you're Latino or not, I just hope you're not one of those limousine liberals. The ones who cry "neo-fascist!" and "heartless!" at their opponents, and who like to sound so warm and fuzzy about the homeless and undocumented, while quickly running off to some secure abode in Huntington Beach, West Los Angeles or Malibu.

And if people are worried about all the immigration, particularly the illegal type, from Mexico, they have every reason to be. Look at the example of the type of land the immigrants have created and are leaving behind: Generations of huge swaths of poverty, academic failure, absurd levels of crime and corruption, set against the backdrop of a maze of cardboard-plywood, chicken-wire shanty towns.

anthony on October 10, 2009, at 04:31PM – #17

Immigration is pretty much an economic issue. They are taking the jobs offered to them and these jobs need to have some sort of health care and protections provided for them or else they will end up at the emergency room. Supposedly it would take a few pennies per pound increase in the price of produce to improve their welfare immensely and create some sort of health care fund for them. Either we reform how immigrants are treated or else we'll have to raise taxes to cover their expenses. Make your choice.

Leaving the laws as-is does not help anyone, whether an illegal or a legal taxpayer. We must improve things and bring some order to the system.

DontTreadOnMe on October 10, 2009, at 05:21PM – #18

We, the American People don’t need or want another amnesty. How many times has the U.S. given amnesty to illegal aliens? Seven since 1986, and each time amnesty was given the flood of illegal aliens increased because the government failed to meet the enforcement requirements that they promised us.

Illegal aliens come here because they simply want to and they cannot or will not do it the LEGAL way. Illegal aliens only have themselves to blame and should receive no consideration. The U.S. owes them nothing. Immigration should be tied to the needs of the country and NOT the immigrants. People do not have a RIGHT to come to America. Those who come here illegally, steal our IDs and ignore our laws have already demonstrated they lack the honesty and decency to ever become American citizens. They have NO right to be in our country demanding anything.

Right now our country does not NEED immigrants. With 15 million+ U.S. workers unemployed we don't need anymore guest worker programs (there are already over 20). There isn’t a shortage of American workers willing to do any type of job, WE did these jobs before mass illegal immigration. There’s a shortage of employers willing to pay a decent wage to American workers.

Today, the U.S. is broke, we cannot support millions upon millions of poor, uneducated illegal aliens. We refuse--absolutely refuse, to be sold on another path to citizenship. If Obama and the Democrats try to give amnesty to millions of illegal foriegn nationals, they are through. They will pay a very heavy price in coming elections if they refuse to listen to the majority of the American People. NO amnesty!

Sophia on October 10, 2009, at 05:21PM – #19

Joe writes: "The undocumented are way too busy working for pitiful wages when the rest -- the English speakers -- are sleeping on Broadway at night, pestering hipsters trying to look poor for handouts, and doing a whole lot of nothing."

Illegal aliens aren't too proud to ask for handouts. They may not stand on street corners to ask for handouts, but they still get their handouts. How? Illegal alien men send their wives and girlfriends down to the welfare office to get their free welfare, food stamps, and WIC.

Joe on October 10, 2009, at 06:47PM – #21

Anthony: exactly. It's not much of an emotional issue, is it? It's filling a need. US born would rather not work than do those jobs. Oh no. They won't wash dishes in a restaurant, but an undocumented immigrant will happily scrape off your Cheesecake Factory remnants and sanitize the plate.

Stop kidding yourselves. The US isn't broke. There's billions upon billions of dollars still there -- pinned tightly into the bras and tidy whiteys of under 1 % of the population. It's a system that only deserves to be milked. You're either a milker or a milkee and the white collar milkers are benefitting in spades.

@ Apacherat "Hey Joe, if I thought you were a Mexican, I would have refered to you as Jose." Speaks leagues about you.

Bottom Line on October 11, 2009, at 02:59AM – #22

The only ones who could possibly defend the illegal invasion with the myriad problems and costs it brings are the ones who are somehow involved in it and are profiting from it.

PortTabacco on October 11, 2009, at 06:35AM – #23

Hey Joe,

If you look at American History AMERICANS DID THEIR OWN WORK. EVEN THE PICKING OF VEGGIES! Senior Chavez didn't want illegals in his union. Chavez beat illegals up!

One immigration expert wants our prisoners to pick the veggies. We don't need illegals. Joe must be an illegal or anchor baby!

Tyler on October 11, 2009, at 09:09AM – #24

It's a system that only deserves to be milked. You're either a milker or a milkee and the white collar milkers are benefitting in spades.

Why don't the undocumented stay home and milk their own native country? After all, the politics throughout much of Mexico have been very similar to the politics of Los Angeles, San Francisco, St. Louis, Seattle and Detroit. A desire by both elected officials and their constituents to create a huge safety net for everyone and anyone. But it just so happens that when a nation is dominated by low achievement or failure, and the successful and talented are limited to a comparatively small handful of the total population, there's not enough wealth to milk. Except from the narco-terrorists in places like Tijuana or Suarez, Mexico.

Unfortunately, bloodthirsty gangs dealing in dope, cocaine and heroin are not soft touches, ripe for the picking, like the system is in the United States. So this country gets stuck playing the role of the big patsy, the big sucker.

Tyler on October 11, 2009, at 10:55AM – #26

faced your particular brand veiled or unveiled racism

"Racism" has become such an overused word through the years, that it has lost much of its meaning. Part of that is because "racism" or "racist" has been lobbed at those for merely stating facts and acknowledging reality, unflattering or otherwise. For example, do statistics indicate that the scholastic trends of the children of immigrants of German, Jewish, Chinese, Irish, Japanese, Italian or Asian-Indian background, and the children of the children of those immigrants, remain very low, decade after decade?

What really annoys me is that some of the people who yell "racism" or "racist" the loudest will, at the same time, be the very ones purposefully sending their kids to schools where the percentage of students of Latino background is rather modest. Such people will try to conceal their hypocrisy and dishonesty by claiming that schools made up predominantly of Latino students have low academic performance rates due solely to a lack of enough funding or a lack of enough teachers offering methods in increasing self-esteem in pupils.

Sophia on October 11, 2009, at 12:37PM – #28

Matthew Jackson Cooper writes: "I calls 'em like I sees 'em... Some of the posts on this topic have a nastiness that seems to spring less from legitimate civic concern and more from a garden-variety xenophobia, or, dare I say it again, racism.

More than one of the above comments uses the expression "these people," which is kind of a red-flag, lumping everyone together in that way. I saw yesterday's march, it passed right below my window, in fact; but I couldn't tell just by looking who was "legal" and who was "illegal"... and there but for the grace of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo go I."

No, you don't call them like you see them. You are a typical agenda driven racemonger who can't make a single valid argument to support illegal immigration, so instead you do the only thing you can do, which is to call names of those who are opposed to illegal immigration. This is typical of bleeding heart liberals who base everything on how they feel. So, you say you can't tell by looking at someone (presumably a Latino) whether they're a legal immigrant or an illegal alien? Can you tell if an American citizen is a lawbreaker by looking at him or her?

47% of Latino voters voted in favor of Proposition 200, the tough anti-illegal immigration measure that Arizona's voters passed into law in 2004. I guess, according to you, those Latino voters are a bunch of xenophobic racists who hate Latinos, right?

By the way, a person could easily make the argument that people who support illegal aliens are racists.

Sophia on October 11, 2009, at 01:00PM – #29

Matthew Jackson Cooper writes:

"For all those on this thread engaging in immigrant bashing, just remember: Pretty much every immigrant group in the history of this country (Germans, Jews, the Irish, Italians, Chinese, etc.) faced your particular brand veiled or unveiled racism, and found themselves being blamed for a cornucopia of societal ills, from crime to disease to being a drain on public coffers.

But the fact remains: Those groups are still here. And yet, our country is still here. And together, we the the people are only stronger for it."

Actually, people are engaging in illegal alien bashing. Illegal aliens aren't immigrants. Illegal aliens are lawbreakers, pure and simple. The large waves of Germans, Jews, Irish, Italians, Chinese, etc., who came here in the past were legal immigrants, not illegal aliens. Legal immigration, for the most part, is good for the United States. Illegal immigration, or the "importing" of millions of lawbreakers, is not good for the United States in any way.

By the way, it was white Americans who complained the most about those white Germans, white Irish, white Jews, and white Italians. According to you, it couldn't have been anything other than racism that fueled these Americans' complaints, right?

Joe on October 11, 2009, at 01:43PM – #30

@Port "If you look at American History AMERICANS DID THEIR OWN WORK. EVEN THE PICKING OF VEGGIES!"

Before the Native Americans were killed off by the diseases and weapons of colonizing invaders?

Tyler on October 11, 2009, at 02:06PM – #31

Personally, I'm far less concerned about poor, indigent "illegals" taking advantage of "the system" than I am about the fairness of the wealthy one-percent having a level of access and accommodation that most of the rest us will never see.

People like you (not "those people," but people like YOU, or, as described by Sophia, "bleeding hearts," who are found in all races and ethnicities) can be beautifully idealistic from the walls of your protected cocoons. But when most of you latch onto a spouse, have children to protect, and a successful job to preserve, your idealism and hollow populism will be tossed out with yesterday's garbage as you head straight for the door to some community far removed from the strife and chaos (or the crushing mediocrity on display in the border and non-border towns of Mexico) of "those people."

At the very least, most of you will find yourselves avoiding the parts of Los Angeles whose economy and culture are associated with "those people," meaning areas where safety issues never seem to be resolved, and where a dismal hand-to-mouth economy never advances to the next level. You'll definitely not be happy at the thought of sending your precious kids to a school dominated by children whose culture is associated with "those people," meaning a location plagued with a lot of academic underachievement and a chronic high rate of students dropping out of grade school.

One does not have to be wealthy (or Anglo, or Latino, or African-American, or Asian, or Jewish or Christian, or anything else) to think and act like a limousine liberal.