News Bits!

"The simple way to do this today is to require that all non-refugee immigrants go through the same process to become American citizens or legal workers in this country (no amnesties, no "guest workers," no "legalizations") regardless of how they got here; to confront employers who hire illegals with draconian financial and criminal penalties; and to affirm that while health care (and the right to provide humanitarian care to all humans) is an absolute right for all people within our boundaries regardless of status, a paycheck, education, or subsidy is not."


This paragraph is a good example of how many issues are being conflated in this immigration debate. As to his first point, I think most "illegal" immigrants would try to become "legal" workers if the legal quotas for Mexican immigration were not so low and out of touch with the high demand for them. I mean, seriously, I think we can agree it's safer to come in legally on a Mexicana flight than ride a coyote across the desert and then cross the Rio Grande. Second, there ARE pretty stiff penalties for knowingly hiring undocumented workers. The notion that big, huge corporations are hiring illegal workers in droves is exaggerated. Most companies are way too scared to knowingly hire illegals. I know this from my mission trying to get hotels to hire Spanish-speaking undocumenteds. The truth is most illegals do small scale sporadic work and deal in cash and would never try to get work at a big place. They are not punching a time clock at Wal-mart. Finally, as to his last point, since when is health care an absolute right for all people within our boundaries? That's news to me. I understand the lament about the eroding middle class -- you and I have discussed this very point -- but you can't lay it at the feet of illegal immigration, at least not all of it. Illegal immigration has become (in the last week it seems) the scapegoat du jour for the growing divide between rich and poor in the US.