Today I attended an event ‘A CONVERSATION ON IMMIGRATION with Senator John McCain and Senator Jeff Flake’ at Mesa Art Centre. My knowledge on the topic is limited so my mentor advised me to go there as an outsider – to observe and learn – and try not to judge.
This is what I observed and/or learned at ‘azbordertalk’ (twitter name/trend of the event):
- To understand American society it is important to understand the issue of immigration.
- Americans feel proud of the fact that people from all over the world come to the US to become part of this world. The huge number of immigrants is one of the main things that define America.
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With Jeff Flake - the most good looking US Senator. - There are 11 million illegal immigrants in the US and they make a good work force.
- A good number of illegal immigrants are actually people who entered the US legally and their visas have expired.
- There are some immigrants who gave their lives for America (as soldiers) before they got their citizenship so it was awarded to them posthumously.
- Controlling human movement across the US-Mexico border is a daunting task because of the size of the border and different kinds of terrain.
While concluding the debate we were told that due to time constraints a lot of questions were not entertained. - A lot of American citizens living along the US-Mexico border lost their loved ones during robberies and other crimes allegedly conducted by the illegal immigrants and there is no consolation for them so far.
- Many graduates from American universities, engineers in particular, are foreign students and most of them end up working in China and India, instead of the US, because of their citizenship status.
- Immigration reform bill is a huge piece of legislation which heavily relies on surveillance radars and biometric cards, most of these measures focus on the surveillance of the immigrants.
People had some tough questions for Senator John McCain regarding immigration reforms. - The radar system has been tested in Iraq and it can trace people’s location back to their homes. However, it doesn’t give 100% solution man power and other logistical investment are indispensable.
- Giving immigrants the right to citizenship is a long process and it involves lots of complications.
- You can use Twitter to ask questions to the US Senators.
