I listen to Thom, most often while running around in my car.
This morning, I heard him ranting just a bit about illegal or undocumented workers - ala Lou Dobbs. I was a little surprised by what sounded like a pretty negative tone on this issue, and wanted to throw out some thoughts on the subject.
First, to ignore that these undocumented workers are a vital part of our economy, and are subsidizing to an extent our wonderful standard of living would be equivalent to burying one's head in the sand. They make it possible for us to buy produce, stay in motels and hotels, and buy many goods that would be considerably more expensive if all these jobs were held by "legal" citizens who would be organized and demanding higher wages and benefits than are typically paid to undocumented workers.
The idea that we can somehow "manage" 10 or 11 million people spread across this nation when we often have trouble finding a single criminal who can hide from massive law enforcement searches is simply politicians playing on the fears and/or racism of voters. Rounding them up and sending them back, and building walls along our border is not a solution - it's a political ploy to win votes.
Stop and think about the United States. We have people moving around the country constantly based on available jobs, cost of living, and just trying to find a better place to live. We don't try to keep people from Oklahoma from moving to California, or Washington, simply because they are poor, uneducated, or have a different culture. Why do we have to do that with people from Mexico?
We hear the drumbeat of terrorism from the conservatives, but to my knowledge not a single Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran, or any other Latino has come to this country to be a suicide bomber. The worst "bombing" we've seen in this nation was perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh, an American citizen.
Obviously, working with Mexico to allow workers to flow as freely across borders between nations as they do between states is a complicated process. Many agreements and changes in the way Mexico does business would have to be implemented, but that is the only long-term solution that will every make sense. We might consider setting up the model for that process with Canada where the problems would be less in terms of compatibility of labor and trade laws.
In the mean time, we need to take the profit motive out of businesses, like agriculture, where they have all kinds of exceptions under the labor laws. They should be paying the federal minimum wage for workers. They should also be required to provide health insurance to their workers, paid in part by the employer and part by the workers. The workers themselves, in order to obtain these benefits, would have to register as migrant workers in this country without legal status. They should be free to return to their country for visits - with a reasonable time limit applied - and return to work here.
Making the farm and business owners into criminals is not going to solve this problem. We need to work with everyone, and FOR THE BENEFIT OF EVERYONE including the workers, business owners, and consumers to resolve this.
If, as citizens, we aren't willing to work this problem sensibly and humanely, we will see chaos, rising prices for products and services, and in the end, we'll be trying to build prisons for people who are doing what every damn one of us has done - try to make a better life for themselves, and in my book that is not a crime.
amusedpen
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