Yale Daily News

This article really shows the inhumanity of the anti-immigrant leaders. The only two people who speak with any sort of human decency are Rojas and Ramos.

Dustin Gold, it appears, would be happy to see that family freeze to death. Including, I suppose, their U.S.-born children.

The fact that these anti-immigrant leaders don't have any compassion for the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants shows that their real agenda is anti-Latino racism. They want all the "Mexicans" to go back to Mexico -- even if those "Mexicans" were born in the U.S.

A really fantastic article, Catherine.

thought this was interesting. this is a complex issue and even though I don't agree with him, the guy who talked about the thief stealing from his fridge illustrates why there is such a big gap between those who want to provide services to all and those who want to reserve it only for citizens.

fantastic stuff, Cat! i'm glad you found your story.

- joyce tagal

I am sorry for these people but they are breaking our laws by being here. First they should not get citizenship just because they had a baby on our soil. There is the first problem!. It is done purposely just to gain citizenship. I am having a hard time myself and I have friends who want me to apply for housing and here I am trying not to and yet I should feel sorry for people who want a free ride as they are breaking our laws. I say GO HOME & TRY TO CHANGE THINGS IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY. Have you forgotton out there when these people go to retire they can go home to their country and live well? Where are we going? You know only so many people can fit in a boat and then it sinks. Stop trying to sink us. GO HOME!

Geo. Will recently said it best when he said "it is impossible to reason people out of affilations they have not been reasoned into..." The first comment fits. "Anti-ILLEGAL immgrantion" is incorrectly called "anti-immigration" and, therefore, "racist" and not "compassionate". And since "US born" is mixed with "illegals", would the reader send the parents back to "Mexico" and not the kids? I don't want MY Federal taxes going to illegals, breakers of OUR laws! If the writer does, I suggest they "adopt" a family of illegals and either invite them to live with them or pay for their heating, health care, school, etc.! That would be compassionate to those "human beings". THEN, and only then, come back to me....

Anti,

Right on. Let those "compassionate" individuals pay the Illegals way. Why are they always trying to get me to pay for their charity?

The inhumanity expressed by many of these posts is just sickening.

These are PEOPLE who found that there were no options to stay afloat at home and so worked VERY hard to come to a place where they might be able to support their families. This is EXACTLY WHAT ANY OF YOU WOULD DO if YOUR family were starving. Are you honestly telling me that you would wait years for the government to "fix" things while your kids went hungry (or worse)?

Get real, and grow a heart.

Immigration laws are just above traffic laws when it comes to how "evil" any violations are. If any of your kids were hurt while being "illegal" because they were speeding on the highway, how would YOU act if they were left to die on the pavement because they were "illegal."

Violating a law does not strip a living person of his or her humanity, especially when anyone would do the same thing in the same situation.

States are given a finite amount of money for heating assistance and I know a old woman citizen who went without help because there was no money left.

Also the Illegals send money to their relatives in their home countries but cannot pay for heating oil ? Does anyone think that is fair ?

The Illegals have a choice and can go home,American citizens do not and they should get the help Not the IA's.

It really bothers me that some citizens think Illegals should come before citizens.I consider them traitors to their own country. :(

Another story told in the typical liberal screwball fasshion of the East Coast. The picture of the child that is braving the cold, because her families free supply of energy is cut off. Question, why is it that you liberals on the East Coast and elsewhere were never, ever, concerned, neither in the past or present, about the poor American children in the south or in the Appalachian regions, who often went to bed hungry as has been amply documented. I guess you never heard of the phase charity beginns at home. Morons.

It seems to me that the objection is to the use of tax dollars to pay for services to illegal aliens. It seems to me that the responsibility for providing such services lies with the ethnic and illegal alien advocacy groups. For example, the President of Mexico is here lobbying to "protect the rights of immigrants" but it seems to me it is his RESPONSIBILITY to provide and pay for services for his citizens.

"These are PEOPLE who found that there were no options to stay afloat at home and so worked VERY hard to come to a place where they might be able to support their families. This is EXACTLY WHAT ANY OF YOU WOULD DO if YOUR family were starving."

Yale Med - you have fallen hook, line and sinker for this fairy tail about these folks families starving. They come to America so that they can make money to improve the lives of their families, but most of them are far from starving. First, they pay coyotes a ton of money to bring them here, or they use that money to transport themselves to America. Second, they send a majority of the money back home to their families to build bigger homes, they tell you this themselves. Third, again, if you want to be so chartible, then do like a previous poster suggested, adopt one of these families and provide for their needs out of your pocket. Are you ready and willing to do so?

Yale med student wrote:"These are PEOPLE who found that there were no options to stay afloat at home and so worked VERY hard to come to a place where they might be able to support their families."

That's the whole point of the article. THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT SUPPORTING THEIR FAMILIES HERE, EITHER. WE ARE! Instead of Mexico providing jobs and services for its citizens, we're expected to do it even when it strains our own social services and displaces our own citizens.

http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_3925.html

The above url lists the current bulletin for visas. At present, married children of U.S. citizens must wait 7 1/2 - 17 years, to obtain a visa interview. Although, some countries do not need tourist visas to visit the U.S., the above immigrants are sometimes denied tourist visas for fear that they have too much reason to stay as illegal immigrants. Even children of 15 years of age must have an hiv exam and a chest x-ray before being given a visa. Exorbitant fees must be paid. If the visa is denied, the fees are not refunded. Security clearance must be obtained and documents must be filed in sequential order. Any administrative detail can disqualify an applicant. These are the potential immigrants who wait in silence and have to wait in very long lines when and if they get a chance to have a visa interview.

Ironic, isn't it? Venezuela and its state-owned company CITGO are donating heating oil for US citizens and advertising it heavily on TV. Mexico is a major oil producer and benefiting from sky high oil prices while Americans pay through the nose. Yet, US taxpayers are supposed to provide free heating oil to illegal alien when we can't provide it to our own citizens.

Why are American citizens held accountable for the failure of other countries to provide for their citizens ? Maybe "The Richest Man In The World" in MEXICO might want to create more jobs for his fellow citizens.

I don't like to see people hurting either but do you think allowing everyone who wants to come to America to do so is the a rational idea ? Are we to give up our quality of life,our customs,our language and what we and our forefathers have worked so hard for with their blood sweat and tears and sometimes their lives to take in every hungry person in the world who wants to come here ?

I belong to a Micro Loan group and we lend money to people in other countries to help them get a business started or to buy some livestock etc..I feel I am doing my part and suggest to others to give a hand.

A lot of these people do have jobs in their home countries but want to "Live The American Dream" so they abandon their jobs to come here to strike it rich without any thought they are breaking our laws and stealing our identities and our welfare meant for citizns.

I think I am most angry with employers who want cheap labor so they can get rich on the backs of citizens and the IA's.Dispicable !!

If I were to sneak into Mexico, try to get a job and find a place to live, then go seek help paying for my utility bills, do you think I would stand a chance in HECK of actually getting assistance from Mexican welfare programs? Absolutely NOT!! Mexico has very strict laws that they ENFORCE regarding citizenship and aid for non- citizens of their country. I would be arrested and deported immediately!! Why does Mexico expect the United States to accomodate their citizens without extending the same courtesy? When people choose to ignore the laws of another country, they choose the consequence that comes with that choice. In this case, the consequence is that they have to struggle to find a decent place to live and a safe way to care for themselves. I am not without compassion, however, I would prefer that my tax dollars go to those who have rightful claim to the aid before they go to people who are willing to break the law and siphon from the system wihtout putting back into it. The United States contributes more money than any other country in the world to iad other countries. Mexico has an obligation to start taking care of it's own citizens and quit depending on us to do it for them. Is it right for the immigrants to be taken advantage of? No. But if they can't make it here, they do have the option of returning home to Mexico. At no cost to them, I might add. We have fostered an attitude of learned helplessness with Mexico, and now we must show tough love and let them learn how to start functioning on their own. We would not let our child continually ask for help doing things that they are capable of doing themselves, (tie their shoes, go potty, learn to walk, read, write, etc.) and never learn how to take care of themselves, that would be irresponsible parenting. Mexico is like the 18 year old child who refuses to take care of himself because it's too much of a bother to make the effort to do it himself. Well, it's time to cut them loose and they'll either sink or swim. We've all had to come to that point in our lives, as has every functioning country on earth. C'mon folks...it's not about lack of compassion, it's about the Unites States not being sucked dry of it's resources so we can't even take care of our own anymore.

It is against the law to aid illegal aliens and well it should be. Now the Feds need to shut down La Raza and similar groups who also aid illelgal aliens with our tax dollars. La Raza alone gets more than 5 million a year of our money and has now asked for another 50 million dollars, OUR TAX MONEY! No wonder our country is bankrupt! Our chlidren and grandchildren will have to pay the bill. is that what you want for your kids? This is happening while more than 23 BILLION dollars a year is sent to Mexico alone by the illegal aliens in this country from Mexico! No, this isn't right. You can't make it right. It's wrong in every way! Illegal aliens must be deported. Our borders must be secured! When America finally rises from the dust of what illegal immigration has done to us we can then think what we might do in the future. Until then, take care of our people and our country before it is destroyed beyond repair!

Great reporting, well told.

“We’re not robbing anyone,” Martinez says. “The thing is that black people don’t do the work we do. They won’t clean toilets, and we will, for necessity, to support our family in Mexico, and our children.”

To support her family in Mexico???

Are US citizens now required to pay the heating costs of those who CHOOSE to allow their children to live in such horrible conditions just because they want to send part of their wages to family members who are NOT currently suffering from freezing temperatures? I guess they think our tax dollars play a very big role in THEIR idea of the "American Dream".

I am tired of those who think our tax dollars should be used as charitiable donations to anyone who CHOOSES to illegally cross our borders. I have nothing against people giving to a charity of their choice, and strongly advise advocates of illegal immigration to personally pay any health care costs, legal fees, heating bills and all other costs associated with illegal aliens. I say: put up or shut up! Quit trying to make the rest of us pay for your particular charity...we have a right to choose where our tax dollars go, and a great majority of US citizens do not want them going to illegal aliens!

Personally, I believe the landlord of this apartment should face charges for the deplorable conditions in his apartment building. The illegal aliens should rely on the bleeding heart, open border advocates' charatible donations as their sole means of help and support, while needy US citizens and THEIR children may continue to get assistance through taxpayer provided services intended for them.

"THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT SUPPORTING THEIR FAMILIES HERE, EITHER. WE ARE!"

Your use of the overarching generalization "these people" demonstrates the racism inherent in your argument. All undocumented immigrants are not the same, and most actually do successfully support their families from the U.S. while making rock-bottom wages for jobs citizens refuse to do, enduring years apart from their children for the effort. I actually work with this population on a regular basis - how many undocumented people do YOU really know? What kind of experience allows you to generalize that "these people" lazily live off the system? I would ask the same question of #12 who claims that I have fallen for some "fairy tale." You are mistaken here, not me.

The truth is that most undocumented immigrants are extremely capable and hard-working - they came here to work. It is almost impossible for the undocumented to live off the system. Non-citizens are not eligible for welfare, housing assistance, medicaid, or pretty much anything. They can get emergency room care because it was seen as cruel and un-American to deny PEOPLE this basic human necessity. Heating assistance is the same way - and this assistance goes to people who are actually paying for heat right now but not buying food because nothing is left over after rent. This whole predicament is created by the ENORMOUS difficulty in finding a job without a social security card. The undocumented also have to deal with the constant fear of deportation and thus cannot involve authorities to protect basic human rights like safety from sexual assault, domestic violence or even street crime.

#17 posits a situation: "If I were to sneak into Mexico, try to get a job and find a place to live, then go seek help paying for my utility bills..." I would remind this poster (and everybody else) that if his or her family were in danger, he or she WOULD go to Mexico. How would #17 like to be treated? I do unto others as I would have others do unto me. Do you?

There are many points that need to be made in response to the Yale med student:

1. Nobody had used the words "lazy" or "lazily" before the student did. So nobody was making that accusation. But someone can be a hard worker and still be a freeloader, and a large fraction of illegal aliens are just that.

2. The student's anecdotal experiences interacting with illegal aliens amount to sentimentality. They're not a suitable basis for making public policy that will affect millions of people and, in fact, the survival of an entire society (ours). The numbers have been crunched by Robert Rector, formidable public policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. This video, www.heritage.org/wherewestand/hif/hifvideo.cfm?vid=41 , gives the Cliff's Notes version. Rector has shown that the average household headed by a low-skilled [high school dropout] immigrant or illegal alien consumes about $19,000 per year more in public benefits (schooling, health care, food stamps, ...) than it pays in taxes. Given the number of such households, the aggregate expense to the rest of us is many tens of billions of dollars per year. (The full report by Rector is here: www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/upload/sr_14.pdf )

3. There are 4.5 billion people in the world poorer than the average Mexican. Desires to rescue suffering humanity must take that fact into account. In short, we could ruin our own country without making a dent in the woes of the world.

4. What do I mean by "ruin our own country"? Well, if you haven't had the experience of living in southern California, you may find a few paragraphs from an article ("6 + 4 = 1 Tenuous Existence," by Sam Quinones) in the July 28, 2006 Los Angeles Times to be enlightening. These paragraphs, which are really just a sidebar on the appalling main story, concern Alejandra Magdeleno, a Mexican woman who came illegally to California years ago and, somehow, received legal status at some point [perhaps from the 1986 amnesty]:

"Alejandra was the first to leave. In Los Angeles, she and her husband were barely able to make ends meet. As in Mexico, 'there was little work and it's poorly paid,' she said.

"Eight years ago, she and her family moved to Kentucky, where a friend said there was more work and were fewer Mexican immigrants bidding down the wages for unskilled jobs.

"In Kentucky, Alejandra picked tobacco. The work was hard and she didn't know the language. But soon, life improved. Over the years, she invited her siblings to join her. One sister married a man who managed a Golden Corral, a chain of all-you-can-eat buffets. Soon several Magdaleno siblings were working in Golden Corrals. Their husbands found work installing windows and as farm-labor contractors. They went to night school to learn English because few people in Lexington speak Spanish.

"Today, the Magdalenos in Lexington earn more than they did in Los Angeles, in a city where the cost of living is lower. Kentucky is now their promised land, and they talk about California the way they used to talk about Mexico.

"'What we weren't able to do in many years in California,' Alejandra said, 'we've done quickly here.

"'We're in a state where there's nothing but Americans. The police control the streets. It's clean, no gangs. California now resembles Mexico — everyone thinks like in Mexico. California's broken.'"

So, if a Mexican woman doesn't like what the tsunami from south of the border has done to Los Angeles, why should American citizens be expected to sympathize with the beginnings of the same phenomenon in New Haven?

Load them up and deport them to their very warm countries. They won't need heaters.

3 generations, through Chinese, European and 1986 Amnesty, my family have tried to survive, house, food and clothes, without assistance. Some of the programs for assistance was used temporarily. It is a falsehood that black Americans will not do certain jobs because they are lazy, etc. 3 generations survived the assault of three invasions through family (including our U.S. Government family) and friends. We pray we can carry on.

The assumptions made by the anti-immigrant folk, vigilante and some Yallies alike, are simply false. Here are assumptions vs. facts:

Myth 1: "Illegal Immigrants" take a free ride on the American Economy. "Illegals" use basic services without paying for them.

Fact: All undocumented people pay property taxes (You can't say the same for Yale University by the way) through their landlords or through their own private property. And about 70% of UD are required to have false documents by their employers, through which they pay state and federal taxes. SSA reported about 4B of payment from individuals who do not have a real SSN last year. Except for education of children, most UD are too afraid to access any government services. So the facts are the opposite of the assumption: UD pay into system, but don't use basic services.

Myth 2: "Illegal Aliens" are a net loss to the economy of the U.S.

Fact: Actually most racists wouldn't put it quite this way, since that is so obviously false, but cariants of this myths pop up in various arguments against immigrants. What is probably more true is that the economy of many cities, states, and perhaps the whole U.S. would collapse if the 16 Million UD were to leave. And you don't ned to take my word on it. Here is the testimony of Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of NYC, to COngress in 2006: "Although they broke the law by illegally crossing our borders or overstaying their visas, and our businesses broke the law by employing them, our city’s economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported. The same holds true for the nation.”" So the notion that-they-need-us-we-don't-need-them is upside down. This is from Yale Prof. Gerald Jaynes's testimony to Congress n 2007: "The most methodologically sound estimates of the net effects of immigration on the nation conclude that the United States, as a whole, benefits from contemporary

immigration. Properly measured, this conclusion means that during a period of time reasonably long

enough to allow immigrants to adjust to their new situations, they produce more national income than

they consume in government services."

Myth 3: "Illegals" take jobs away from native-born workers, especially blacks.

Fact: This is not only baseless, but it's only goal is to start up some good old violence between blacks and latinos. And it is being tried in New Haven. What the racists don't tell people is that they are funded by white supremacist groups. The facts are as follows: Jobs that UD take up create other jobs, the way that jobs do. And there isn't a fixed number of jobs in an economy, so this whole notion that one race takes another race's jobs is founded on irrational racist ideas, not fact. Now, why is it that so many blacks are employed, while brown UD are employed? Because this is a deeply racist country, born in slavery, had racist laws for most of its existence, and continues to be sharply divided along race lines. Instead of plantations, we now have prisons, where millions of blacks are taken for "crimes" that whites (including plenty on this campus) do : use, possession, and sale of drugs. Blacks don't get jobs, because white employers don't like blacks. That's what it means to live in a deeply racist country.

Myth 4: Immigrants come here for a better life.

Fact: Neoliberalism has destryed the economies of many countries around the globe, leaving hundreds of millions destitute. You don't need to take my word on this, read George Stiglitz's Globalization and Its Discontents. by the way, he was Chief Economic advisor to CLinton, prez of world bank, and nobel prize winner. Neoliberalism, inflicted by U.S. and European governments has been so devestating that people have to leave their families, spend enormous amounts of money on dangerous trips, to come to a place where they often work 16 hours a day and are the targets of racist rhetoric like that on this page or violent attacks by vigilantes. That's not a better life. To understand why people have been moving here in the amounts since the beginning of neoliberalism, you need to understand the effects of our profit-making policies on the rest of the world.

And I urge the anti-immigrants to stop watching TV, because that's where they hear all the anti-immigrant non-sense. Instead they should actually read books, so they can base their decisions on reality, not on myth and fiction.

This article is irresponsible journalism at its worst. The journalist reaches the conclusion that African Americans despise Latino immigrants who are undocumented by using as a primary source a homeless woman who clearly has mental health issues. What about interviewing African American pastors, teachers, community activists, i.e. leaders who are in touch with their community and can speak to some of these themes with some level of knowledge and insight? Does she have so little respect for the African American community that she thinks this is the best spokesperson to represent them and speak to these issues? In addition to exhibiting contempt for both communities, this speaks to her desperation in supporting a foregone conclusion to sell a sensational story. How shameful. And what a disservice to this city and its residents.

This article will likely stoke the fire of the anti-immigrant groups and lead to racial discord in the community. And here's the thing to remember: this article will serve to move the student's professional agenda, while causing irreparable damage in New Haven. She will soon graduate, leave the city to work some fancy well paid job and quickly forget about the havoc she has wreaked by writing this horribly inaccurate and misleading article. Yet those of us who live here and work day in and day out with the community will be left to pick up the pieces that this incendiary article will have created.

This is what journalists are supposed to do. Great work, Catherine Cheney and YDN.

New Haven resident, thats great that you are trying to sound smart and all but you need learn what irresponsible journalism really is and then re read this article and realize that it is the polar opposite. This journalist is going to go on and do great things after she graduates and you have no basis on which to personally attack her and the YDN with your comments.

Great job Catherine! Keep up the good work!

i have to agree with #26, anybody freezing is a bad thing.But where does Miss Cheney get this Tensions rise between black and spanish etc.??

flaming and divisive is what that is.

Yes there are bad Landlords,and yes there tampering from outsiders of furnaces and pipes etc. You have to be diligent about your basements ,they will rob the copper right off of the furnace .

Another thing is these Hartford appointments of officials who swear they know what's best,but as we read from Newspapers and Television Hartford's a disaster .

It seems like everyone is to benifit from these Migrating families,Students and their resume,Lawyers who can take that cash off of their hands since they don't like bank accounts,even deportation officials are kept busy,i think the only ones getting the shaft is the Hospitals who can't track them down and deploy mean hateful revenge on those that can be tracked down

#28 -- Actually your post is absurd. Poster #26 didn't try to sound smart. In fact he/she made very coherent arguments. You seem to believe that this is impossible for someone who is from New Haven (and thus you apparently assume is not at your level or that of Cheney).

Cheney's article touches on many important issues but is written with so many flaws that it is defenseless.

She determines that there is racial tension in New Haven because a homeless woman who is mentally ill attributes her standing in society to undocumented immigrants. And you defend this as quality reporting?

The majority of African-Americans in New Haven are employed, not homeless and lack mental health issues. Would you consider it acceptable to talk to this woman as a primary source on the academic needs of white students who happen to go to Yale? If not, why is she an appropriate source for any other group with which she shares virtually no meaningful characteristics?

At a minimum, even Cheney should have been able to figure out that this woman did not lose her job to an immigrant.

It is not good journalism to start with a story you believe to be true, find no facts to support your version, and thus concoct them. You may be right that she will go on to a career in journalism, but this is because those who go to places like Yale get a leg up on others, and generally suffer no repercussions for stepping on people with less opportunity than themselves in order to get ahead.

I don't care about whether or not they pay taxes, or use government services, or rape, pillage, and destroy. The somple fact is that they are here ILLEGALLY. They are breaking the law. And like all law breakers, they should be arrested and deported. If you want to debate the inhumanity or fairness of their legal status, talk to your congressman. Otherwise, ENFORCE THE LAW.

ydn, take some journalism notes. this is what your features page should always look like. cat cheney, what a winner.

This issue obviously strikes a chord and prompts some passionate dialogue. Kudos to the YDN for tackling something important beyond the campus boundaries. Well done.

Ali,

I would suggest that before you call people "morons", you learn how to spell.

------

Instead of criticizing a young reporter for stepping out of her box and exploring a world unfamiliar to so many, we should applaud her for shedding light on an issue that many choose to ignore.

To those who criticize - are you doing anything to resolve the illegal immigrant issues in this country? If their presence here is such an issue for you, then perhaps your time would be better spent researching and presenting your opinion in a rational manner, rather than cowardly slating Ms. Cheney by way of anonymous online comments.

these mexicans are just doing what you or the next would. striving for a better life, i love my country, and i love them being here. i have many friends that are hispanic! theyre great people! have a heart! live in there conditions, then you'll see how it is

Great article. Thank you for writing this.

It has been said before, but I believe it to be the most important argument in this madness:

Undocumented immigrants are people. Human beings.

Instead of worrying about who's taking what from whom, we should be talking about why there isn't enough assistance to provide aid to all the families struggling to keep their little ones warm, fed and safe.

Set your politics and racism aside, and think about what it must be like to bundle up your baby, wondering if they are warm enough through the night, or if their belly is full enough to sustain them.

We have a responsibility as citizens of the world to care for those in need. And, I am happy to pay taxes to fund public aid.