A second-grader stole the show today, even as U.S. President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon held a press conference in the Rose Garden at the White House.
While the two Presidents spoke about the need for immigration reform and about concerns over Arizona's harsh new law -- without saying anything new or different -- down the road in Silver Spring, Maryland, First Lady Michele Obama and Mexico’s First Lady Margarita Zavala visited an elementary school to speak with a class of second graders.
ABC News’ Karen Travers reports what happened when a young girl spoke up:
The student shyly raised her hand and said, "My mom ... she says that Barack Obama is taking everybody away that doesn't have papers."Mrs. Obama replied: "Yeah, well that's something that we have to work on, right? To make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers, right? That's exactly right."
The girl then said quietly, "But my mom doesn't have any ..." and trailed off.
Mrs. Obama replied: "Well, we have to work on that. We have to fix that, and everybody's got to work together in Congress to make sure that happens. That's right."
Watch the video of the exchange:
Sadly, this brief exchange says more about the current state of the immigration debate than the remarks of the two Presidents in the Rose Garden today.
The little girl wants her mother to have papers, but hears that the President is sending people away if they don't.
In fact, the Obama Administration is on track this year to exceed the deportation levels of the Bush Administration. Most of those deported are not criminals, but ordinary immigrants whose only violation was to come to this country without papers to work hard and seek better lives. With common-sense comprehensive immigration reform stalled in Congress, and Arizona taking matters into their own hands, this young girl gives voice to the growing frustration and desperation in immigrant families and communities.
Like the "DREAM Act 5" who earlier this week staged a sit-in in John McCain’s office, young people are increasingly underscoring the dysfunction and consequences of our broken immigration system and showing how Washington’s failure to address the unstable and unsustainable status quo is becoming a moral and political crisis.
Cross-posted at America's Voice.
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Should Mexico deport them too or make their crossing illegal? Suck on that!
No one is trying to close it to LEGAL crossings or LEGAL immigration.
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Just curious...
They Militarized their southern border to stop Illegal immigration.
Should also be noted that the Mexican Gov't itself is extremely racist.
It's hard to see because it's between light-brown and dark-brown but it's there BIG TIME.
- Mexican Gov't officials & elite almost entirely consist of light skinned [European-Spanish decent] and are highly racist and discriminatory against the dark skinned [Native Indian decent] and have been for generations.
- If you are dark-skinned you won't get a business loan or a Gov't contract. Those are reserved for light aka white-Mexicans.
- It is the dark skinned Mexicans they encourage to leave Mexico.
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Presenting this story this way plays into the hands of the chamber of commerce which wants the law changed to grant amnesty to the 10-20 million illegal immigrants already here, each of whom would then be given the right to bring their parents, spouses, children, and siblings, which means we would probably get 75 million new poor residents within about 5 years. Who's going to support them, pay for their kids' schools, pay for their share of the police and fire? Because they don't earn much as immigrants. I'm tired of the manipulation of this story. American working people are being crushed by businesses bringing in foreign workers. We need to end it.
"a better life" constitutes a big screen TV and a cell phone.
This parent without papers was willing to break our laws and destroy her own children's lives over a big screen TV and a cell phone.
I don't see someone that selfish and irresponsible as someone I want to have a green card.
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This changes nothing in the debate, or it should not if there is logic and reason involved.
Just substitute "no papers" for "stole a car", or "robbed a bank". Yes, it is not the same crime, with the same direct easily identified victim, but it is a crime, with serious consequences...
No country can afford tens of millions of undocumented people in its midst, but the impact on Mexico is even worse: all these people who come to the US to earn a living should be using their abilities to improve their country, a corrupt and stagnant society ruled by crooks, instead of taking the easy way out and running away which only worsens the problems of their country. By being "kind" to them, actually selfish is more like it because we use their perceived cheaper labor, the US is only enabling the disfunctionality of the corrupt Mexican ruling elites and adding to an ever worsening problem.
It's only a crime to re-enter without proper paperwork after having been deported.
That's the way "Big Business" wants it and we all know who owns our government....
Exactly that which makes today's republicans who worship him to froth off their mouths?
BTW being undocumented is not a crime, it s a civil offense, but not a crime.
http://www.nydailynews.com/latino/2008/04/28/2008-04-28_christie_being_undocumented_not_a_crime_.html
But they are, you see. Being in the US indefinitely without a visa is a crime. It is her mother who put the little girl in the insecure situation she finds herself in, not some Arizona law. I can understand the pain of immigrants, especially those with children, who are forced to leave our country. But the fact remains that they never should have been here to begin with.
There is something like 17% real unemployment in this country among citizens and every year hundreds of thousands of new illegal immigrants arrive and undercut the labor market of those citizens (with US corporations' complicity). These immigrants don't do the jobs that Americans won't do, as many immigrant supporters claim. The immigrants do those jobs for less money than Americans would accept. Just because it is very sad does not mean that sending them back is the wrong thing to do for our citizens.
Calderon's "speech" on what he has done for his country should make all mexican illegals jump up and return to their homeland (and, some of what he said was a direct slap in the face to the demodumbs who sided with him on our immigration and gun control stance): UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE , building of more schools, NO TAXPAYER BAILOUT for the Mexican banks, hundreds of thousands of NEW JOBS for mexicans....what a sales pitch!!!! if all that he said is legitimate, why would mexicans want to continue to live here?..
AttilatheHoneycom
I am really torn on the immigration issue. I have sympathy for the plight of illegals, but at the same time, I don't like having to find the English translation of every sign, pamphlet, or customer service call I make. I don't want to hear Spanish while standing in line at my local grocery store. I don't want Art at my child's school eliminated because they have to pay Spanish speaking teachers to teach children who can't speak English.
I am sure I will catch a lot of flack for my comments, but that is honestly how I feel.
My Great Grandparents were immigrants who came over legally, adapted to the ways of America, did not try to change America to be like their home Country, and I believe that were that the case with the new immigrants, then there would be much more acceptance.
Your great grandparents didn't come over here legally. Your great grandparents came over here because COLONIALISM allowed them to bully their way onto my people's land. They did not adapt to the ways of America or else you and all of those like you would be members of the indigenous nations that settled these lands thousands of years before the first Europeans tumbled onto our shores.
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The mother moved here to have a better live and probably she is working in one of those jobs than Americans do not want to do and there are no line and no way to get a visa to came here to do that kind of jobs ligally
Illegal is illegal - quite trying to make it anything other than what it is.
Only numbers, numbers, numbers.