How am I an immigrant?

Ah, you're speaking to the: "everyone in this country is an immigrant" thing. I always loved that one. Ok, for a second go with that argument. But at what point do we actually get to call ourselves natives? I mean, the Native Americans aren't really native if you go back far enough. Really we are all from some swamp in Africa or something. Or Iraq if you'd like. So at what point do I get to call somewhere home?

No, it doesn't! The Law comes into play here and mitigates many "definitions". There is a time factor that is not explained either. In order to make this statemet 100% valid, you would have to eliminate all the variables or explain all the variables and make them constants. For example: If someone says "we are all immigrants". The statemet could be true if we realize that perhaps our great, great, great, great grandparents came to this country 25 or 30 generations ago. However, if the majority of the people were born on the soil they have settled in, then they could no longer be considered an immigrant because without a time frame, the person is and has been permanently established throughout his/her and their parents' lifetime. Add one more factor -- legality. If the person has illegally entered a space (trespass) then that person is, at best, a squatter, at worst an invader. Therefore, the immigrant terminology becomes irrelevant because the law takes precedence.

Really, wild, huh? Nothing is ever black and white. That's why there are millions of colors that we see every day. That's why the government passes vague laws -- they don't have to answer for their mistakes and their stupidity.

Indeed. This brings to mind an interesting problem. Some of the "illegal immigrants" do not enter America to settle. Some are here to make some money to send home and want to eventually return to their home countries. So the use of the term "illegal immigrant" is erroneous in that context. Yet when people say "illegal immigrant" many think of the cheap non-settling labor that comes from across the border. So what do we call them? Illegal job-seekers?

As far as everyone being an immigrant, yes, I see that as a weak argument. The more accurate statement would be that everyone's ancestors were at one point immigrants. Of course in the strict definition of immigrant, even that would be false statement since some peoples' ancestors settled in places that were merely geographical regions devoid to the geo-political status of country. But I believe the spirit is that at one point almost everyone's ancestors packed up and moved somewhere else and sometimes displaced, killed, or integrated the people already there.

In truth, when people use the argument 'everyone's an immigrant', they really mean everyone in the United States is either an immigrant or a descendant of an immigrant. When our ancestors came to the United States, they made it their homeland. However, even those whose family has been here for generations on end often cling to the country their family was originally from. So long as American citizens proudly proclaim their family's country of origin, we are still a nation of immigrants, because we ALWAYS remember the immigrants we sprung from.

Our ancestors may have been immigrants, but if we live in the same country we were born in, then no, we today are not immigrants. What really gets me with that whole argument are the U.S. citizens that descend from slaves. Slaves were probably the only ones that weren't immigrants - they were brought agaisnt thier will, not choosing to relocate. They are not, nor are they descended from, immigrants.

Well, yes it does, but a lot of families who live here legally, did start out as immigrants. I guess the people who like to say we are all immigrants just want us to let all the illegals in, because that is how they got here!

Well once you have established your self you have ownership then people who come there are looking to live of your infrastructure and they are immigrants.

That is why they had claims back in the day.

You fall under category 2

You are right, the catch words illegals and their misguided Friends use over and over, like racist, diversity, immigrant, and crap like "do the jobs Americans won't do" are the only argument they have.

illegal is illegal. That's pretty clear.

Sounds OK to me, it looks as if all people from failed countries want to emigrate to the west, this is no solution to world poverty, they are often well qualified and should work to make their own countries better.