Mexicans and the Republican Party

According to the Republicans latest flavor of the day, Newt: immigrant good, sort of. Newt doesn't want to deport all of them, he just not sure which ones to deport.

Furthermore as I have always stated here at the Presidio the facts are in our favor. Immigrant good for the United States.

More facts: The most scrupulous study I’ve seen of the economic impact of illegal immigration — by Gordon Hanson, an economist at the University of California, San Diego — weighed the costs to society (schools, health care, etc.) against the benefits (tax revenues, labor productivity, etc.) and concluded that the difference was “close enough to zero to be essentially a wash.” The idea that illegal immigrants are dragging down the economy is just wrong.

But listen to Mitt Romney whose grandfather illegally immigrated to Mexico, by the way.





He can't figure out what he wants, but then he falls back to, "we must secure the border first." His lack of immigration ideas begins at the 4:05 mark. 


And finally some advise to the Republicans, especially those in Texas. Instead of trying to steal our vote why not try to win it?

The English Only Myth or Lie

Should English be the official language?

It already is.  According to the U.S. Census as of December 11, 2011 the US population stands at 312,757,722. No one knows the value of knowing how to speak English more than an immigrant. I would argue that many native born Americans do not appreciate the value of English nor are they interested in using it properly. See any teenager's texting history.

It is true that the U.S. ranks as the fifth largest Spanish speaking nation in the world after Mexico, Spain, Argentina, and Colombia. The total U.S. population that speaks a language other than English at home equals 55,444,485. However, this does not mean that this segment of our population only speaks a non English language.

For example the 5 years and over Spanish speaking population within the United States is about 34,547,077. Again according to the U.S. Census 25,000,000 of this population also speak English Well or Very Well. That means that this segment of the population is bilingual. Furthermore this also means that only 9,547,077 Spanish speakers in the United States speak English well or less. That's 9.5 million out of over 300,000,000 million people in the United States.

A better solution? A commitment towards public education which benefits the entire nation, rather than pushing xenophobic unfunded mandates.

What if the Jamestown colonists in 1607 only spoke English? That colony would have suffered the same fate as the colonists in Roanoke. They had to learn to communicate with the local indigenous populations, i.e. they became bilingual.

English has never been the only language spoken within the United States. Nonetheless, no one would argue that it is not the most important language in the United States, if not the world.