Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Anywhere between 100,000 and 250,000 people marched in downtown Phoenix today protesting planned immigration reform. I don't entirely know what to feel on the subject, but I do love that so many people were able to get their voices heard peacefully. That is what America is all about. It doesn't matter if you agree with them or not, it is just good to see this sort of action. 

The pictures of the crowds (from AZcentral.com) are absolutely amazing.










All day long, the news channels were reporting on how many police officers were stationed at the protest. Some channels (Fox 10 News in particular) chose to make it sound like everything was on the brink of chaos. I don't remember doing this for any other marches. But as you can see below, the police sure were busy today.

Of course, due to some stupid desire for equal time, the news stations did their due diligence to show the other side. Hundreds of thousand marching on one side of an issue, and a few dozen protesting on the other side of the issue. Yet those against today's march got a whole lot of camera time.

The news stations also looked at how the march was affecting businesses, calling it an "economic fiasco". They showed some managers complaining about how they weren't going to be able to pay their people, blah blah blah. At the end, the reporter said "And of course, these people may find themselves with no job to go back to." I would hope that nobody would be firing anyone over a one day event. People take days off work all the time and they should have the right to do so. If they have personal time, then that is their personal time to take off. If they don't have that time, then they aren't expecting to get paid. This issue was more important than that to a lot of people. And if anyone does lose their job over this, who will be the one to replace them?

I hope the march did affect some businesses today. It will just show how valuable the Hispanic community is to our economy. People take it for granted every time they go to a restaurant, or get their car washed, or have their trees trimmed. Just look around, and see who is doing this work. Is it work that you would want to do? 

I used to like Jack Cafferty, but he is way off on this. He is claiming that everyone marching has no right to and that they are all illegal. Wolf Blitzer brought up the point that many of them are legal immigrants or were born here, and Jack said that the INS should still pull up with vans and start asking people if they are legal or not. Again, would they do this at any other rally?

I'm not pro-illegal immigration in the sense that I want people running across our borders. We need a secure border. Not just to stem illegal immigration, but also for our own national security. After all, how difficult would it be for a terrorist to run across the border? Once we have the borders secure, we need an expanded plan for legal immigration. We depend on these workers. America has always planned on immigrant workers, both forced and unforced.  From the time of slaves, to the Chinese who built the railroads, to Hispanics who work in our fields, immigrants have done the hard labor. We are a nation of immigrants. Unfortunately, each generation has always been against whatever group was coming in next. First, the Western Europeans were against the Eastern Europeans. Now everyone is against the Hispanics. It's the American way.

People talk about how illegal immigrants are coming here and wasting our tax dollars on health care and education. Obviously, there is spending that is going to illegal immigrants. However, how much do they contribute to our economy? How much money is generated for the state and our cities when they go to Wal-Mart or Fry's to buy things for their families? This is what nobody takes into consideration. I'd like to see a study on how much money goes into the economy due to illegal immigration, rather than the same reports about what is spent.

I'd be willing to bet that most people in this city don't realize just how integral immigrants (both legal and illegal) are to our every day lives. They call up their white landscaper, pay him money, and think nothing more. They pay no attention to the fact that it is very likely that illegal immigrants are the ones doing the work. Or if they do, they have no problem with it, because hey, those palm trees don't trim themselves. Then they go get their Hummer washed. They pay the cashier inside, but who is washing and drying their car? Then when they go to eat dinner, they like their clean plates, but they don't realize who is cleaning them. Or who picked the lettuce for their salad. It just magically appears in front of them. 

I would be willing to say that 99% of the people who come to this country illegally are coming here to work their asses off. These people work harder than you or I ever will just to improve the lives of their families. Yes, there is 1% (or some similarly small percentage, I'm just guessing here) that might be coming here to take advantage of the system. But this is a very, very small percentage. How many of our citizens do the same? 

Anyway, today's march made me proud to be an American. Not because of whether or not I agree with the purpose of the march, but that we have this wonderful right in the first place.

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posted by Jonathan @ 9:46 PM Monday, April 10, 2006   
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