Another Look

Fox in the henhouse

Former Coca Cola exec and Bush best buddy, Mexican President Vicente Fox put his foot in it this past week when he said Mexicans were "doing the work that not even blacks want to do there." While Jesse Jackson contorts into positions previously unknown in the Kama Sutra to try to avoid labelling Fox's obviously racist comments racist, journo supreme Richard Prince reminds us of this Reuters story, which says, "Racism against blacks and Indians runs deep in Mexico and other parts of Latin America." In contrast to Jesse, the State Department had it right: "That level of dialogue doesn't merit comment." Fox doesn't get it, as witness his non-apology. What he also doesn't get is the new approach to illegal immigration in the post-9/11 world. What Fox said has been true in a sense for a long time. An unholy combination of liberals and big businesses has long condoned, if not encouraged, illegal immigrants from south of the border. From Wal-Mart to the local landscaper, these immigrants have enabled employers to push salaries down in that race to the bottom. As long as our borders are poorly policed, not only are Al-Qaeda operatives free to stroll across, so too is the economic threat to American workers and our way of life. Why would an employer pay an honest, hard-working American at least minimum wage and overtime and benefits when he can exploit a vulnerable illegal immigrant? Of course I may be completely wrong on this, as Sebastian Mallaby persuasively argues in the Washington Post, or I may be completely right, as union official Mark Erlich argues just as persuasively in the Boston Globe, but either way, let's have the argument. The McCain/Kennedy bill may be a good place to start. Like drug use, we try to choke off the supply elsewhere because the people with the demand vote. That doesn't work for drugs and it doesn't work for illegal immigration. The important part of Kennedy/McCain, if it works is described in this piece from GovExec.com that says: "The Labor Department would take on a new role, enforcing employer sanctions against the hiring of illegal workers. That is currently the province of the Homeland Security Department, which enforces employer sanctions rarely because of opposition from businesses and some in Congress."

You don't say!

posted by Andy Mais @ 6:32 AM