Get your money for nothin' and your illegal immigrants for free

If you read the U.S. mainstream news stream, you can’t help but notice the rising chorus of panic mongering over the issue of illegal immigration.

Narco-trafficking, human-smuggling, terrorism-channeling are all equated with this bogeyman called illegal immigration. It’s pretty clear someone has an agenda to scare the masses in the states. Check out this recent report from the Associate Press:

Scores of illegal aliens working as cooks, laborers, janitors, even foreign-language instructors have been seized at military bases around the country in the past year, raising concerns in some quarters about security and troop safety.  

The aliens did not work directly for the military but for private contractors, as part of a large-scale effort by the Pentagon to outsource many routine rear-echelon jobs and free up the troops to concentrate on waging war.

Some worry that this fast-growing practice could make U.S. military installations more vulnerable to security breaches.

You can bet that it won’t be the lucrative private-contracting system that will be abandoned to address this infiltration by the “dirty hordes.” No, it will be the cooks, janitors and maybe a few chief bottle washers who will play the role of scapegoats.

With this backdrop in mind, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao testified this past week before the Senate Judiciary Committee. They used the rising hysteria over illegal immigration – which is being pumped into the press by their own minions of spin – to promote the Bush administration’s agenda for battling the supposed threat to America’s borders.

And what is that proposal? Well, if you take a close look at it, you’d have to conclude bureaucrats with lobotomies drafted the plan. On the one hand, Bush is backing tough border enforcement, which coincidentally dovetails with the mission of vigilante “border-guard” groups such as the Minutemen and Ranch Rescue — the kind of folks who couldn’t make the grade as real law enforcers so now have resorted to playing “cowboys and Indians” with real bullets and people’s lives along the border.

On the other hand, Bush is calling for the creation of a guest-worker program, which essentially allows illegal immigrants to stay in the country as long as they sign up for what amounts to an indentured-servant program.

CNN reported the following concerning the testimony given by Chertoff and Chao before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Oct. 18:

"We're going to need more than just brute enforcement," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "We're going to need a temporary worker program as well."

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao provided a general outline of the plan Bush introduced last year, emphasizing that undocumented workers accepted into the program would receive no advantages over immigrants in the country legally and that they would be required to return home after their work period ends.

"Those who come forward will not be offered an automatic pass to citizenship and should be expected to pay a substantial fine or penalty to participate in the temporary program," she said.

So essentially, the Bush immigration policy is all about butter and guns: use lots of guns to prevent immigrants from illegally crossing the border, but offer those same illegal immigrants butter and a pass into the “the land of the free” if they agree to pay a hefty price to work as indentured servants for U.S. employers.

That is the height of cynicism and hypocrisy expressed in an immigration policy. That might explain why it has to be sold along with a heavy dose of fear mongering.

But there is another route to take, if the White House is really serious about stemming illegal immigration. U.S. Rep. Charles Gonzalez, D-Texas, presented that alternative in a press release issued in the wake of the testimony by Chao and Chertoff.

From the press release issued by Gonzalez’ office:

“If the White House is serious about stopping illegal immigration, they will step up enforcement against lawbreaking employers,” said Congressman Gonzalez.  “Because financially penalizing employers who knowingly hire illegal workers will stem the flow of illegal immigration, I introduced the Unlawful Employers Accountability Act of 2005. Reducing the demand for illegal labor will decrease the incentive for illegal aliens to enter the United States.”

“Not only will real enforcement and substantive fines reduce illegal entry, but it will also encourage employers to pay decent wages to legal workers and American citizens since the source of cheap labor will dry up,” Congressman Gonzalez continued.

“But, I suspect the White House and Republicans are not interested in penalizing employers and corporations who knowingly flout laws against hiring illegal aliens. This is yet another instance of empty rhetoric taking precedence over solving America’s problems.”

Now that’s a novel idea, holding employers accountable for hiring illegal immigrants, instead of shooting or enslaving the illegal immigrants. It may not be a perfect solution, but at least it strips away the hypocrisy of the guns and butter approach being advanced by the White House.

Another trick that could do some good would be to hike the minimum wage substantially, so that the jobs now being used to lure desperately poor illegal immigrants across the border would also be more attractive to slightly better-fed U.S. citizens. This, too, would require that some well-heeled employers sacrifice a bit by shaving a few points off of profit expectations (and maybe drive a Ford Taurus instead of a Land Rover). However, it would be the patriotic thing to do if they are really behind the effort to stem the flow of illegal immigrants invading our shores to take away substandard jobs from God-fearing Americans.

But my guess is that neither Gonzalez’ proposal nor an increase in the minimum wage would be politically palatable to the White House or America’s corporate class.

So be it then.

All I ask is that they shut up and quit pretending that they oppose illegal immigration. Because if we have learned anything about American history, it is that the slave ships will keep coming as long as there is a demand for and tolerance of slave labor.

… Or, until justice and freedom are accorded to all people.

In that vein, and in pursuit of a more perfect union in a far off distant future, I suggest the following immigration policy be adopted by the White House:

That on the first day of January …, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State … shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

Hey, it’s just a thought….