hypocrisy and illegal immigration

The Tancredo flap about him hiring illegal aliens to do some work on his house, then calling illegal aliens terrorists, really yanks my chain. I guess I don’t really give a damn what he does, it just brings this whole immigration discussion out again and that’s what pisses me off. We shouldn’t have to discuss it over and over again. It is right there in front of all of us, the writing on the wall. Think about it. If there were no employers hiring illegals, there would be any jobs. If there were no jobs, no one would come here illegally to work. It isn’t a worker problem. It isn’t an illegal immigration problem. It isn’t a terrorism or security problem. It is plain and simple a discrimination problem. Let’s start saying what it is instead of dancing around the elephant in the room. We have dog pounds, not animal shelters, we have old folks homes, not elderly care facilities, and we have dishwashers, not hydro-ceramic engineers. Now, we have discrimination towards anyone that has a Mexican accent to their English, or that speaks in their ancestral tongue, but we disguise it in an attempt to be politically correct, and call it illegal immigration. I live up North. I’m near the Canadian border. For so many years, the Canadian dollar was worth twenty or thirty cents less than the greenback. The motels and restaurants along the border area in Minnesota, for example, would have signs in their windows and on their marquees that said, “Canadian money at par”, or “Canadians Welcome”. Of course now in 2008, the American dollar is worth less than the Canadian dollar, so I’m not sure if the Canadians are returning the favors of years past, but that aside, we welcomed the Canadians and their money across the border for a visit. Come often and spend much. Cross my border, please. I spend a lot of time in New Mexico and Arizona in the Winter. I see no such signs welcoming our neighbors to the South to the good ole USA. There are no “Welcome” signs and their money is not wanted I guess. Unless, of course, you can throw a fastball at 100 miles per hour or play shortstop, then you’d be welcome. Or skate on ice and shoot the puck accurately. The skaters are usually from the Baltic or Northern Europe and Scandinavia by the way.

Let’s face the truth. This country doesn’t want the Mexican people to come here. They are afraid of something. They want their lettuce to be grown picked, packaged and shipped and be cheap in price, but they don’t want to have illegal immigrants to do the work? Is that right? Or if they do pick and wrap the lettuce, they don’t want them to have drivers licenses, health care, education or rights. Just pick the lettuce so we don’t have to pay much for green lettuce when we live in the part of the country that is frozen solid and nothing can be grown until Spring. If illegal immigrants, and legal ones for that matter, didn’t pick the lettuce, it would cost you $6.00 a head or more. And it should anyway. Why is it okay to pay an illegal or legal immigrant, or anyone that speaks with a Mexican accent for that matter, a less-than-living wage? And they accept these jobs because it staves off starvation in their own family in many cases. By the way, if they paid the living wages, the migrant workers would be making enough money so as to not be eligible for welfare.

I hear the complaints. “They [the Mexican immigrants], have health care and welfare while American families don’t have any benefits”. This may be the case in some instances. But it is not totally decreed that if you are an illegal you can have health care, education and every benefit of our decadent American lifestyle strewn at your feet as soon as you reach El Paso. It is a simple matter of discrimination. Discrimination from fear. Fear that the Hispanic population has the impetus to reach a majority in the United States of America. Fear that someone may choose to speak the tongue they were born with instead of the King’s English. Fear of what many don’t know a thing about. Fear that they will vote as Democrats as labor is apt to do. Funny. When I travel around the United States, I see many billboards, store marquees and magazine ads printed using Spanish. They want the money from the immigrants and Spanish speaking Americans, but little else. Cross the border, or be born here from parents who were born here, and have an accent in your speech or brown skin, and you are categorized as un-American or an illegal. I admit that there are problems when someone breaks the law. There is a law against crossing the border into the United States without declaring yourself as a citizen of another country. This law was broken and continues to be broken by people wanting to hide their identity for whatever reason. In years past, the early 1900’s for example, the United States of America welcomed immigrants from all over the world. The Italians and Irish along with the Chinese built the railroads. The Welsh and Cornish went to the mines. All you had to do was say you want to be an American and that you’d abide by the laws. What has changed? Do we have too many people here now? Do we who are here and American citizens not want any other person to have the same opportunities? What gives?

When the media hype channels and politicians talk about immigration they are talking only about Mexican people. It is a lie to say you mean otherwise. It is the most blatant display of discrimination against a people ever. And not until we accept, not tolerate, but accept, other human beings as human beings, we will have this dialog about immigration, and it will be a lie that it is for National security or to uphold the law. Laws have been in place to fine and prosecute employers that break the law. Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics. In 1999, the United States initiated fines against 417 companies. In 2004, it issued fine notices to three. Notices!

My rant here is not in favor of letting illegals into the United Sates of America. My rant is not saying that we should ship every illegal out and back to Mexico. What I am saying is that if you have laws, and don’t enforce them, and allow corporations to continue to hire anybody at a sub par wage, illegal or not, then don’t pretend that this problem is about the security of this land and the influx of illegal immigrants. It is about discrimination plain and simple. All the scenarios have some truth to them. An illegal comes across the Mexican border. The whole family comes. They have another child. That child is a citizen and the whole family can stay here in America. The child may have a health problem, welfare, our taxes pay for it and subsidizes the entire family with food stamps and other benefits from social programs. This has happened and will continue to happen. If this bothers you as a tax paying American, then make the government uphold the law, not discriminate because of race, language or skin color as you buy your sixty nine cent head of lettuce and bitch at the store manager if the price rises to a buck and a half. To get the cheap labor and the cheap prices, immigration is what makes it work. With immigration laws so ridiculous to come across the border legally, and coming illegally is worth the chance because there is a secure feeling that you’ll be able to get a job right away, the illegals will continue to come. And corporations will continue to hire them and pay them next to nothing so their costs are low and the stock holders make money. Your benefit is to pay the sixty nine cents and allow your taxes go to a needy family once in a while. You can’t have both ways.

Every politician has his or her idea of a working immigration law. Some of these are based on the district that they represent. Politicians from Arizona have different ideas than those in other places, but not to a large degree. There are many legal and illegal migrant workers in many states. The migrants come in to an area, you don’t know if they are legal or illegal. It is not your job or business to check their green cards. When they do the work, others go into business to help them spend their money. So a Scandinavian stronghold like Olivia , Minnesota for example, has a few Mexican restaurants. The people are up in arms because their community is taken over by illegal immigrants when they have no idea of who is legal and who is illegal. Some of them don’t want the Mexicans there, legal or not. So it goes. Truthful honest non judgmental accepting people want to see an end to a problem where there is a problem. Discriminatory, bigoted self righteous, intolerant people want to kick all the Mexicans out, or at least have them pick the lettuce and take no other benefits. Like this country did to the black slaves that were taken from their homes in Africa for the first 200 years of this countries existence. This is the truth of the matter of illegal immigrants. Pay $6.00 for a head of lettuce so a white worker can make $15.00 per hour picking it, or live with your discrimination as you do now. Just be honest about it.

Peace to All.

tags:tancredo, illegal immigration, discrimination