Posted on 03/09/2006 8:01:12 AM PST by SmithL
Waiting for a burger Wednesday near Concord's day labor center, where many unauthorized workers seek jobs, Mina Metropoulos considered America's newest immigrant population.
Metropoulos, whose family owns the Monument Boulevard shopping center where Monument Futures sits, said she realizes that the men at the day labor center work hard, are considerate and are trying to make it here in the ways available to them.
"They're seeking what our parents thought was the American Dream," she said.
Her benign view seems to be spreading around the state, according to a poll released today.
Nearly half of Californians now say unauthorized immigrants favorably affect the state, a sentiment that has grown dramatically in the past 12 years, according to the poll.
Last month, the California Field Poll asked 500 Californians about their attitudes toward illegal immigration. While overall approval of the undocumented population splits almost down the middle, the number of people with a favorable view has grown from 26 percent in 1994, the last time the Field Poll asked, to 47 percent now.
"Some of it is economic," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. "There's less of a feeling of a threat that illegal immigrants are taking jobs away."
Some of the change in attitude can also be attributed to high levels of immigration - more poll respondents are now immigrants, DiCamillo said.
Among Latinos and noncitizens, illegal immigration is viewed much more favorably, while a majority of Republicans and white non-Hispanics have more negative opinions, the poll found.
The poll, conducted by telephone in English and Spanish, has a sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
The poll was released the same week that the Pew Hispanic Center estimated the nation's undocumented population at nearly 12 million people, including large numbers who arrived in the past five years.
The poll results did not resonate with some Concord residents interviewed Wednesday.
"I'm not against the people themselves," said Keri Mallon of Concord. "I understand their plight in wanting to come to this country, but I am concerned that American citizens don't receive that same free medical and public benefits as illegal immigrants."
Leslie Bolin, who was picking up boxes at a moving truck rental store on Monument Boulevard, said illegal immigration has driven her from her neighborhood.
"I don't like them bugging me as I go into different places," she said. As she spoke, a half-dozen immigrant workers waited at the gate for jobs helping people move. "I'd rather have them where they belong; I'm sorry about that."
Activists on both sides of the debate blamed the media for irresponsibly shaping public opinion.
"I think this is due to the fact that the media -- I have to blame the media -- have not shown the factual impacts of illegal immigration," said Yeh Ling-Ling, an Orindan and director of the Diversity Alliance for a Sustainable America, which advocates limiting immigration.
"If Californians were told all these devastating facts, I am very confident that the vast majority of Californians would want drastic reductions in illegal immigration."
Immigrant advocates also blame the media, particularly AM talk radio for fanning the anti-immigrant flames.
"Some of the media coverage, particularly if you look at some of the radio talk shows and some of the television coverage, it's been quite negative," said Reshma Shamasunder, director of the California Immigrant Welfare Collaborative.
The Field Poll also found that a large majority - 65 percent - of Californians support a temporary worker program; and an increasing number, 44 percent, approve of driver's licenses for undocumented workers.
"Immigrants are more integrated than we realize," said state Sen. Gilbert Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, a leader in the fight for driver's licenses. "I think that the anti-immigrant lobby, while very shrill and very well-organized, does not reflect the sentiments of the people of California and the American people."
When the day labor center on Monument Boulevard opened a few years ago, program manager Jorge Vallejo said very few women came in to hire the workers.
Now, half of the clients that come into the Monument Futures center looking for painters, landscapers, movers, masons and plumbers are women, and they are increasingly comfortable around the all-male work force.
"I can see the changes at the center," Vallejo said. "How that translates into the street I don't know."
Bernardino Juarez, a recently arrived immigrant from Mexico City has gone to the center for the past 15 days waiting for work. He wants to make enough money to study a trade in the United States.
"If the government made it possible for us to get papers, we would do it with pleasure," he said in Spanish. "I have documents, but they are from God."
There is no doubt that there is a rising tide of resentment against the illegal invasion, and this article seeks to counteract it using an MSM Jedi Mind Trick.
These are not the aliens you are angry about.
name, Vincent Fox. Runs on Vincente fox to sound hispanic enough to run for office.
More illegal aliens in the sample, makes the sentiment grow.
I stand corrected, it is in fact a cultural issue as well.
That is true, but alot of people in this country like to live in emptier places, and I feel like they should have the right. I really hate the fact that it is up to our gov't to decide what our population should be.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0603/06/ldt.01.html Aired Mar. 6, 2006
Thanks for the info."Eighty eight percent of those asked felt illegal immigration was a serious problem."Now those numbers sound more realistic.The number of dims who agree is surprising.Maybe even dims are starting to catch on?What dem gov just asked to have the Nat'l Guard secure the border?Napolitano?
I wish more would resist, but few do.
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