Shanghaiist: Extra! Extra! Online cemetaries, Yao Ming and 'Mrs. David Mao'

Pancho Villa

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 15:50:19 +0800

The discussion on immigration issues in the US is much more complicated than could possibly be addressed here. UC, agreed that illegal immigration hurts those aspiring to immigrate legally. And Steph, what exactly do you fear from the swarming hordes of illegal Mexicans? First, although many of the illegal immigrants in the US are indeed from Mexico, they are not alone. Second, I'm fairly certain they are not after YOUR job. Illegal immigrants perform the dangerous, dirty, low-paying jobs that most Americans refuse to take. I'm not attempting to defend illegal activities. But the reality is if we deported all illegal immigrants tomorrow, the US economy would come to a grinding halt. No question. This is not so different from the situation in China. Would Shanghai have grown, or continue to grow, as it has without many illegal migrant workers from across China?

Steph

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 14:56:38 +0800

Forget the Chinese illegals. The bigger problem here is the Mexicans. They should be focusing their resources on stemming the Mexican migration/"immigration" instead. There are millions of Mexican illegals swarming in. Why pick on a measly 39,000 Chinese?

UC

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 14:00:01 +0800

"United States, built by immigrants, wants its 39,000 illegal Chinese immigrants to get the f*ck out." The United States was built primarily by LEGAL immigrants. As someone who has worked to obtain a number of legal visas for Chinese to visit the US, and made sure that they stayed within their legal obligations while in the US, I can tell you that throwing out these guys is a generous fate for them. Allowing them to stay hurts those who want to visit the country legally by forcing immigration officials to deny many visas because they are not sure if they will return to China. If the officials were comfortable that those who are unable to follow the laws would be deported and not allowed to return, everyone could easily get a visa. As it is now, hundreds of thousands of honest hard working Chinese are denied the opportunity to visit the US because of those "immigrants" who failed to live up to their obligations. It's a huge problem and the misguided tongue-in-cheek criticism of actually enforcing immigration law your brief comment represents is harmful to both America and Chinese. To suggest that these people shouldn't be deported is to suggest that anyone who obtains a 30 day tourist visa to the US should be allowed to immigrate. If that were true, there would be no 30 day visas and America would truly be isolated.

Dan

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 13:06:33 +0800

Well, that makes sense. Guess I need to study up on the first family.

SJ

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 12:52:22 +0800

Well, Hu Jintao's daughter IS a Mrs. Mao. Hu Haiqing married Mao Daolin, Sina.com's former CEO and a Shanghai native, a little while ago. But I thought Mao Daolin's English name was Daniel... maybe it was a typo.