Reply #224: on the contrary [View All]

"I said that it didn't matter whether they were legal or illegal immigrants because that wasn't germane to the issue of the city government purposely letting the neighborhood deteriorate."

Isn't that the entire point of your OP? To suggest that "illegals" as you put it ARE germane to the issue of the city government letting neighborhoods deteriorate? Or was it to show that there's a link between ALL immigrants and deterioration of our neighborhoods?

And wasn't that the point of this effort to spread the idea that there is, in fact a very direct link between the two things?

"So my relative thinks that the illegals are being USED by the powers-that-be to degrade the neighborhood so that the upscale developers can be brought in."

Otherwise you would have an OP about the evils of eminent domain in general, without referencing immigrants at all. You are right - context IS everything.

I know I'm coming across rather harsh here, but really I feel for you. I imagine it's exhausting trying to find a consistent explanation that works for racial profiling while not appearing racist; and implying immigrants are dirty smelly ill behaved creatures as a whole (part of the "scope of the problem") that drive down the value of a neighborhoods once they move in, without sounding like the people who have said these exact things about blacks moving into their neighborhoods.

It's also probably hard to consistently explain the concern about the "flood" of immigrants, legal or not, who use up this country's resources when your own family has come here and done the exact same thing, or to explain your concern about our resources being depleted by foreigners when, in fact, the exact opposite is the real problem in the world - the lifestyle of the vast majority of Americans depends upon depleting the resources of foreign countries.