2/02/2005 11:04:37 AM|||Toni|||VDH's Private Papers::Illegal Immigration is a moral issue

If you haven't read VDH's Mexifornia, I can tell you it's well worth the read. VDH is well acquainted with Mexican culture and heritage since that's his heritage. He counterpoints the issue of 'filling jobs no one else will do' that is a usual excuse for acceptance of illegal aliens from Mexico. What the true situation is that the illegals drive down the wages in a cash basis system and what used to be entry level jobs have become permanent jobs for illegals. I get pretty angry when listening to Hugh Hewitt or Michael Medved or a slew of other radio talk hosts who poo poo the issue on illegals taking jobs from Americans.

Excerpt from VDH:
As President Bush's guest worker proposals slog through Congress, new reports suggest that there may be not 8 million, but almost 20 million illegal aliens in the United States, a population larger than most entire states. $400 billion in taxes—almost the current annual budget deficit —are not collected due to a growing underground cash economy.
AND:
The hallowed assimilationist formula has too few overt defenders these days —even though measured, legal immigration, English emersion, multiracialism instead of multiculturalism, and integration have ensured that past legal immigrants from Mexico are among America's finest citizens.
AND:
Is it moral for employers to count on illegal industrious workers, usually without English or education, to undercut the wages of American citizens—as if a laborer remains youthful and hale in perpetuity with no need of social entitlements when disabled or impoverished years later? No wonder employers claim that they are only providing a service to Mexico's poor.
AND FINALLY:
And is it equitable that laws must be sacred for most, but not for some? Do we really want a bureaucratic system near collapse from fraudulent Social Security numbers, off-the-books wages, false names, cars without registration and insurance, even as millions abroad queue up to enter our shores lawfully? Are we to tell waiting Punjabis or Filipinos to certify their education, skills and method of support—even as we ask far less of those who break the law to cross the border from Mexico?

Who, then, is the real moralist? Is it the police officer who stops an illegal alien but cannot call immigration authorities? The contractor who knowingly accepts falsified identification and pays untaxed cash wages? The La Raza ("The Race") activist who promotes ethnic chauvinism for those to whom it will prove most deleterious? Perhaps the grandstanding Mexican consul who faults the United States for his own country's callousness?

Or is it the rest of us, who in fear of being slurred as "racists" or "nativists" often keep silent—just when candor and honesty on all sides are needed now if we are to avoid becoming an amoral apartheid society with a permanent underclass in the shadows?

Anyone who thinks a 'Guest Worker' program will entice Mexican workers to come to the US and work for a couple years and then go home is delusional.




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