How much of the immigration argument is racially motivated?

[Razor Jim]

The illegal immigrant controversy has nothing to do with race. Right next to the white and black folks at that water cooler are Hispanics who came in legally talking the same trash about the illegals.

[Unluckymint706]

Most of it. Illegal has nothing got to do with country of origin but people constantly use Mexicans & illegals as interchangable words. The ignorace is incrediable!

[wish4b13]

If illegals come and have jobs, pay taxes, have medical and car insurance, and don't commit crimes, then I don't care if they stay. Everyone has some level of racism in them. But I think the main reason people are coming down on illegals is not that. It's a combination of things. Where I live now, it was always a nice small town, no crime what so ever, but now there are a lot of drugs and shootings, the people that were arrested were illegals. So that set off a fire storm and people were pointing fingers at illegals. Our hospitals too are going bankrupt from large volumes of illegals that are coming with no insurance, the hospitals have to take them in whether they can pay for it or not. This never happened in the history of the town. It's like the old saying, one bad apple spoils the bunch.

Me personally, I am against it for a number of reasons as well. I am not racially motivated, my biggest reason is finding out who is actually coming here. I don't know if illegals are good law biding citizens, ( a lot are ) its the ones that have criminal backgrounds that scare me. For example, if I knew that a person moving in my town was once sexual predator, I would find out because of such laws as Megan's law. If and illegal comes here and is a sexual predator, well he can move right next door to me and I would never know until maybe its too late.There's just too many illegals here and no one knows there background. You may say they have a right to be here, but I have a right to know who they are. That's my motivation.

[shawnLacey]

If you are relating to civil rights issues, you are in left field. If whites and blacks are sitting by the water cooler discussing anything, it's about how illegals are coming into the country feeling entitled. They are talking about how illegals are breaking the laws. They are talking about how tillegals are pushing the crime rate sky high. They are talking about the millions of Americans who have lost jobs due to illegals. They are talking about illiterates who refuse to learn English. Oh by the way, the whites and blacks are called Americans. If you were an American, you would be at the water cooler also.

[shawnLacey]

Well that depends on who's arguing. Many above addressed the average American Joe arguer, but what about politicians?

IMO the immigration 'argument' is just another bait and switch tactic cooked up by W's administration (similar to Gay Marriage) to distract everyone from talking about the real issues, like the war in Iraq, WMD's, UN affairs, Global warming, the Katrina fiasco...etc, etc, ect.

Both the immigration and gay marriage issues were front-runner debates after having been put on the ballot during the 2004 presidential election; knowing that the neo-conservative voters would come crawling out of the woodwork come voting day to voice religious or bigotous views, and while in the election booth would just so happen to think W would make a good president for the next 4 years.

IMO, it has nothing to do with race, it's just political deception pulling the age-old 'look over here so you won't look over there'

Just my opinion.........