1.07.2007

Call me what you will, but I'm annoyed as hell at a story I read this morning. It seems that Toys R' Us was forced to reverse a decision it made regarding the award given to the first American baby born in 2007.

The first baby born on American soil was born to an illegal immigrant from China and so the company had decided that the baby was not the winner and awarded the prize to another child, born 19 seconds after midnight.

Chinese-American adovocate groups immediatley pitched a hissy fit, forcing the company to award the three babies in the grand prize pool $25,000 savings bonds each.

Now, before anyone goes running about calling me a racist, here's my point. The mother is not a legal citizen of this country and therefore WAS NOT ELIGIBLE TO ENTER THE SWEEPSTAKES IN THE FIRST PLACE. Contest rules state clearly that the person entering must be a U.S citizen.

Yes, I realize that the child is now a U.S citizen because she was born here. The fact remains that the mother was never eligible to enter in the first place, negating all other arguments.

It makes me angry that Toys R Us caved to the pressure. It makes me angry that any pressure was brought to bear in the first place. Where did common sense disappear to? There need to be consequences surrounding coming to this country illegally in order to make people stop doing it.

I've said it before, immigration is a wonderful way to improve the diversity and cultural pool that exists in this country, but it needs to be legal immigration. It takes time, but then allowing people to come into the country to live, work and be a part of our society should take time. If you think it takes to much time, help work on ways to make it more streamlined. Please spare me the "they take jobs American's don't want" and " everyone deserves a better life" speeches. The jobs illegal immigrants take are jobs that Americans demand higher pay for and rightly so. If anyone actually believes that illegal immigrants enjoy doing back breaking work for less than minimum wage, they are just plain ignorant. As legal US citizens, these men and women would be able to stand up for themselves and deman decent wages, there by actualy giving them a better life.

The whole "everyone deserves a better life" speech plays well for politicians, but in reality, we can not fix or save everyone on the planet. Opening our borders wide and allowing everyone who wants to to flood in will only overtax an already burdened social system. Work on fixing the problems where they are, not by simply bringing the people here and letting things continue to go downhill.