Don't Feed the Immigrants

http://www.buffalobeast.com/96/immigration.htm

Don’t Feed the Immigrants
Huddled masses threaten America’s borders
by Allan Uthman

<snip>

Beyond L.A., there were large protests in Chicago, Phoenix, Milwaukee and Denver. In Georgia, “tens of thousands” (CNN) participated in a work stoppage to protest a bill which would bar illegals from state services and charge them extra to wire money home. It’s a sad state of affairs when illegal immigrants are the only group in America willing to assert their power to strike. If everyone in this country who was against the war, for example, didn’t show up for work next week, you can bet the farm that the last US soldier in Iraq would be flying out in the last plane by Friday. Instead, the poorest, least empowered people in the country are schooling us on how to protest effectively. Perhaps an unintended but fortunate consequence of the seemingly unstoppable influx of Hispanics will be that they’ll teach us how real popular resistance works. (Certainly, the ‘60s reenactment strategy hasn’t helped much.)

<snip>

Just as it makes no sense to target a limitless supply of cocaine, it makes no sense to target an unending stream of undocumented workers, when two or three CEO arrests would do the trick. Hiring illegal immigrants is just that: illegal. If the people in charge of businesses felt that they could be prosecuted for illegal aliens hired by their underlings, they could easily put a stop to it, dramatically reducing the demand for such workers and necessitating a raise in wages. If the president or your congressman was at all interested in stopping such things, then that would be thing to do. It wouldn’t end the “scourge” of Mexican maids and dishwashers, but it would go a long way toward reducing demand for undocumented labor, which would naturally cut the number of people coming here, pleasing even the racists. As a solution, simply enforcing preexisting labor laws seems elegant—and it’s the president who’s charged with enforcing the law.

So why doesn’t he? Because in the end it is not regular racist hicks, but business lobbyists that decide Bush’s positions. And a lot of domestic industries—agriculture, food processing, contracting, retail—are quite happily exploiting illegal labor, and like junkies with full wallets, they’re not planning on quitting anytime soon. They, their lobbying group (the Essential Workers Immigration Coalition), and Bush all say that illegal immigrants do the jobs “Americans won’t do.” This is a lie. Americans will eat gorilla testicles on television. Illegal immigrants do jobs Americans would do, but for a lot less money than Americans would do them for.

<snip>

There’s nothing wrong with people who speak different languages coming to America—that’s how everyone got here. What we really should be stemming is an influx of poverty, which a guest worker program would do nothing to alleviate. If Mexicans could immigrate legally, they’d be entitled to the same employee protections we all enjoy, including minimum wage—and they’d have as hard (or harder) a time getting a job. If we want to stop illegal immigration and its deleterious impact on our job pool, then we need to make legal immigration a realistic possibility for these people, and stop pretending there’s not enough room. What we should not do is tell them, “sure you can come here and clean our toilets, but you’re not good enough to be one of us.” What we should not do is actually legislate a second-class category of American. I can’t believe we’re even thinking about it.

http://www.buffalobeast.com/96/immigration.htm

All those protesters make me nauseous. I'm a legal immigrant and had to wait 12 years to get the visa.

Seriously, even Christopher Hitchens can't become a citizen. The point is, they really can't immigrate legally--it's just not feasible. I'm a legal immigrant myself (too young to remember), but I don't hold a grudge.

As the author says, an easy way to curb illegal immigration would be to hold employers accountable.

& thereby increasing profits. It has to do with union busting and reducing wages/benefits of formerly well paying skilled trades.

Why are we being manipulated into thinking its a racial thing and why oh why does everything have to reduce to "democrat" vs. "repub." Im so sick of that s***!!!

Employers should be held accountable. They're the ones hiring under the table at indecent wages. With all the washington lobbyists I doubt a crackdown's going to happen anytime soon.