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 Editorials | December 2005 
Neither Party has Answers to Immigration
 Dick Little - Paradise Post
| | We were getting "fat and happy" as our living standard spiraled, so we started hiring labor from Mexico - some legal immigrants, some illegal immigrants - to work in our homes and yards. |
Illegal immigration. We can't live with it. We can't live without it, particularly when it comes from Mexico. Democrats and Republicans both profit from it. Because of organizations like the Minute Men, Republicans are under more pressure to crack down on border security, while Democrats provide no constructive solutions.
We know it's a serious problem because of Sept. 11. Up until that time most of us didn't think it was a big deal. "They take jobs Americans don't want anyway" was the general response.
Neither political party has a workable solution.
Many farmers - Democrat and Republican - are concerned. They know massive border crossing between Mexico and the United States is creating a lot of anger, yet they need those border crossers to pick their crops. They say Americans won't do it.
Sixty years ago, a lot of young people in rural areas picked all kinds of crops to earn extra cash. Then they stopped doing it! The Mexican farmworker took up the slack, and farmers found the groups coming in from Mexico were better workers anyway.
Advances in agricultural science helped produce crops for spring, summer and fall. Farm work suddenly developed into a full-time job, and the Bracero program was born. Mexicans came to the United States, worked 10 months and went back home. It was win-win for everyone. Many farmers built housing for their temporary crews.
The state of California, using federal funds, built a lot of farmworker housing as well. The result: farmworkers came here with their wives and their children. Suddenly, living in the United States became a must for many who did not want to give up their Mexican citizenship.
Farmworkers sent the word back home that America was the land of opportunity. All this while Mexico itself was getting more corrupt by the year.
Meanwhile, we were getting "fat and happy" as our living standard spiraled, so we started hiring labor from Mexico - some legal immigrants, some illegal immigrants - to work in our homes and yards. The workers from Mexico proved they understood the free enterprise system better than we do.
Some of the farm workers went into the construction industry. A few branched out and set up their own construction operations, while others set up house cleaning and gardening operations. In effect, while more and more Americans were getting college degrees in engineering, medicine and the like, farm workers started setting up set up their own work crews and contracting their services with the ag industry as well cleaning our houses and taking care of our yards.
Then came Sept. 11, and with it a new look at our borders. We found out if honest, hard-working Mexicans could come across, so could illegal drugs, drug dealers, and members of the al-Qaida network, the same organization that destroyed the twin towers in New York, killing three thousand of our citizens.
The labor force from Mexico became entrenched, and illegal border crossings increased because of the jobs available here. In Mexico, construction workers earn from $2 to $10 an hour. Here the same work will earn $40 an hour.
Americans won't work for low wages anymore. Mexicans will in order to get a foothold in this country because they still believe hard work will pay off, and they have numerous friends in the United States that prove it! Drive by any Home Depot in any major city and you'll find a group of 20 or more illegal immigrants willing to do any chore you have for $10 an hour.
Many got interested in citizenship. The Democrats courted these potential citizens as they had courted immigrants from Europe who poured into our country during the 1800s. That's how they built their party.
But times change, and the Hispanic vote has become very powerful in our country. Both parties are working hard to win it over. Democrats have been less than enthusiastic toward bringing a halt to illegal immigration; they got 60 percent of the Hispanic vote in the last presidential election. There's an element of the Republican Party that does want to bring it to a halt, but they are receiving a less than enthusiastic response from their leadership.
Democrats generally like to look the other way when illegal immigrants come in because they help build their base. Many have relatives here and a majority of them are Democrats.
Republicans are split: Farmers make up a large portion of their core and they need the labor. The party's elite is not enthusiastic about changing things. The rank and file wants an end to it.
The president wants a guest worker program that would allow immigrants (primarily Mexican) to come here and work for three years before they would have to go home. That idea has fallen on deaf ears on both sides of the aisle.
The state of California, run by Democrats, will give driver's licenses to virtually anyone who still has a heartbeat regardless of the inability to speak or where they come from - legal or illegal, it doesn't matter. This state has attempted to make itself as "illegal immigrant friendly" as it can. Democrats believe (they would never admit this in public) all illegal immigrants are potential Democrats.
The old Bracero Program where workers were allowed in for seasonal occupations worked well. If they wanted to become citizens, of course they were welcome to sign up, take the classes and pass the tests like everyone else.
Maybe if we send our politicians to Mexico for a few months on what you might call a reverse Bracero work crew, the rest of us just might work this problem out.
Dick Little is a Paradise, California resident who also contributes to a local NPR station. |
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