By Craig P. Dixon, southcoast247.com correspondent Social Commentary 117
June 28th, 2007
From the halls of Congress to the pickup conversations of misguided
fratboys, everyone's talking about illegal immigration. It's a hot button
issue. And, like most big issues, I touched upon the subject before it was
deemed cool to do so. http://www.southcoast247.com/stories/craig82.shtml
As citizens of the South Coast, we know all too well the human face of
illegal immigration. The ICE raid on the Bianco plant in New Bedford's South
End brought the problem to the local, as well as national, fore. If anything
good came from the raid, it precipitated the most significant, useful
Congressional dialogue on the topic in years.
No matter whom you talk to regarding this (as well as any other) subject,
you're going to hear many vague solutions to the problem. "Build a 90 foot
high wall across the Mexican border." "Give all current illegals blanket
amnesty." "Have the National Guard man the borders." "Send any captured
illegals to Iraq to fight the war. Grant them citizenship if they make it
back alive." Etcetera.
One thing's for certain. With the current political climate hamstringing our
nation, we won't see real solutions without some out of the blue compromise.
So: What's to be done about illegal immigration? Most importantly, who is to
be crucified, I mean, punished, for this?
To start, blanket amnesty should be given to all current illegals. There are
just too many to deal with in any other way without putting serious drains
on American resources. Of course, these will actually want American
citizenship. There will be others that stay under the radar. But there will
always be others. We'll just have to cut our losses.
We need to get the people that we can on the books. They've got to be
documented. Fingerprinted and identified. Most importantly, we've got to tax
them. American citizens don't have a problem with immigrants if they're
legal. Unless they are Moslems. Then they're scared shitless no matter what.
The whole idea of a Mexican border wall is ludicrous. People will still find
a way to cross over. There are tunnels large enough to drive a Humvee under
the border. If people want in badly enough, they're getting in.
The idea of a border wall is the ethos of the great new American racism: The
hatred of the evil Latino. Ask an American what an illegal immigrant looks
like, and he'll likely describe a Mexican.
That's a common falsehood. Though up to fifty percent of illegals may be
Latinos, the other fifty are made up of people not commonly thought of as
such: the Irish, Eastern Europeans, Africans, Asians, people from the Middle
East, etc. Furthermore, there's a huge influx of individuals who'd initially
entered the country legally to travel or on work visas and haven't left. The
idea that the illegal is Latino needs to be countered at every turn.
The National Guard should not man our borders. They are already required to
do too much. From fighting numerous tours without proper R&R in Iraq, to
providing on-call disaster relief in the States, our National Guard is
already overextended and improperly equipped. The current treatment of the
National Guard is a disgrace. Congress should be doing something to fix that
as well.
Lastly, we must punish the employers of illegal immigrants. They are handing
out jobs to illegals, giving them a reason to come to the United States. If
they didn't have any work to look forward to here, they wouldn't come. Such
employers should be heavily fined and imprisoned for their discretions. And
that's about all you can do to fight illegal immigration.
Now, I don't think of illegal immigration as a big deal. Rather, it's
inevitable. And the idea that a country founded by illegal immigrants is so
up in arms against it, as well as the fact that most New Bedford illegals
are of Mayan descent, making them the most native of Native Americans, is
highly ironic.
Over the years, I've worked with quite a few illegals. And they were all
decent, normal people. Men and women you'd meet in passing. Like it or not,
you've procured the services of an illegal immigrant. If you've ever eaten
at a restaurant, bought produce or food at a supermarket or clothes at a
store, you've fed into the problem. And that's ok. After all, you've gotta
live.
It's an omnipresent issue. No matter what's done about illegal immigration,
the problem is not going away. There is no surefire solution. Like the War
on Drugs or the War on Terror, all we can do is endlessly fight the
problem....
And hope to be on the winning side.
From the halls of Congress to the pickup conversations of misguided
fratboys, everyone's talking about illegal immigration. It's a hot button
issue. And, like most big issues, I touched upon the subject before it was
deemed cool to do so. http://www.southcoast247.com/stories/craig82.shtml
