Why do we need to defeat Donald Trump and ensure that a Democrat occupies the White House? Let’s next consider our government’s response to undocumented immigrants.
In his acceptance speech, Trump, as usual, leaned heavily on “the Biden border problem”. Let’s dig a bit deeper.
Why do people in Latin America seek to enter the U.S.? We are the land of opportunity. Specifically, we are a land of opportunity for undocumented immigrants. Say what?
The opportunity in question is to take one of the millions of jobs that few Americans will touch with a stick but that are critical to our economy. If you visit California, you can see those in question openly. They are working at the car wash; they are shoveling manure at Santa Anita racetrack, they are picking strawberries along the roadside in one hundred degree heat; they are shaping up outside garden stores to do yard work, they are working as nannies for the wealthy, they line up at sweat shop garment factories and grim livestock processing plants. They trim my trees, tent my house for termites and repair my roof. One fact is immediately obvious. A very large majority of them work for Republican bosses. The only place one sees a Trump sign in California is on a farm. How many factory owners do you believe vote Democratic? The conclusion is very obvious. Most of the undocumented immigrants in the U.S work for Republicans – Republicans who know full well that their workers are undocumented. It is pure hypocrisy and cruelty to hire in secret and denigrate in public.
How are these workers treated. When my son was a teen, he shaped up with a friend to clean carpets. All of the other members of the crew were undocumented Latinos. When the brutal day’s work was completed, he and his friend were stiffed, paid far less than promised and far below minimum wage. When I called the owner to complain he laughed at me. When I threatened to call “La Migra” he laughed harder, knowing that it was an open secret that they would do nothing. My threat was empty. I would never have put these workers at risk.
This is just a minor example of how badly undocumented workers are exploited and misused. Farm and factory workers live in unhygeinic hovels at extortionist rents. No American citizen would ever stand to work for such an employer.
If Republicans were serious, the first place to start would be mass raids at businesses known to hire large numbers of undocumented workers. But that will not happen. It would cost Republican business owners their rich livelihoods.
Once the person living outside the U.S. knows that there are many jobs that will welcome him, if not treat him decently, how does he get here? To do so, he has to travel across an inhospitable land -Mexico – and then cross a guarded border. Because the border is almost two thousand miles long, there are many places to cross. It is impossible to guard this much territory night and day. But the easy places to cross are tightly controlled by an army of border agents. That means that crossings have to take place in areas that are dangerous. To get across, you have to be organized and industrious enough to put together a nest egg of thousands of dollars to pay criminal “coyotes” to guide you and your family across the hostile border. Many make it across only to be caught and returned or to die of heat exposure in stark desert terrain.
Stop and think for a moment. Are people who have the courage and intrepidity to make such a journey lazy and shiftless or are they precisely the most industrious, hardworking individuals an employer could hope for? Trump and his party warn that there are many criminals and terrorists among them. This in nonsense. All of the 9/11 terrorists were admitted through U.S. airports; none crossed the Mexican border.
There is no question that the U.S. southern border is a major problem for a long time. Woody Guthrie sang “Deportee” in the 1940’s. But the answer must lie in a reasonable program agreed upon between the two parties. Inhumane policies that separate children from parents and deport “dreamers” who have long lived and contributed to our society are not ethical or decent solutions. Building an “iron curtain” two thousand miles long and claiming that Mexico will pay for it is a fool’s dream and only a fool would believe that it is a possibility. A fit child can climb over this unsightly scar on our national honor in minutes.
Have a heart and vote for Democratic candidates – across the ballot – in November.
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