Yay!
Posted by Joshua Claybourn on 2 January 2005 | 7 responses
Mexico’s Foreign Ministry has published a 32-page book titled The Guide for the Mexican Migrant. The book offers “safety information for border crossers, a primer on their legal rights and advice on living unobtrusively in the United States.” In essence the book advises and instructs Mexicans on how to break United States federal law.
And most Americans, addicted to the low prices that illegal immigrant labor brings, wouldn’t have it any other way.
Not quite Steve, there are facts concerning such statements like the one you made. Americans agree (85%) that illegal immigration is a “serious” problem, and over half (55%) say it is “very serious.” [cite: Roper poll]
Unless and until the United States, through government and employers, decides to make illegal immigration a top priority, then I don’t think what Mexico is doing is unreasonable.
The fact that Americans have an opinion against illegal immigration and the policies are otherwise demonstrates to me, at least, that political money does buy influence that overrides the will of the majority. Despite all the rhetoric, I could not discern any appreciable difference between policies advocated by Bush and those supported by Kerry.
With few exceptions, the leadership of both major political parties has been indifferent to illegal immigration.
I favor somehwat liberal immigration laws, but whatever those laws are should be enforced. I also think immigration should be slowed when clear economic disruption to lower income workers is shown. As well, immigration should be moderated enough to ensure that those coming here can gain an appreciation for our system of government.
But there is a difference between what people may say in a poll question and how they live their lives (which was my point). I’m guessing that most people wouldn’t like paying significantly more for their produce, their restaurant food (especially fast food), their hotel bills, construction costs, etc - which would be a consequence of cracking down on illegal immigration. These are generally jobs that citizens won’t take at the current wages, so those wages would have to go up significantly (and be passed along to customers in higher prices).
If we were serious about cracking down on illegal immigration, we could stop it pretty quickly - put the employers in jail when they hire undocumented workers. But then, that would force the Republican party to go against its primary source of revenue, wouldn’t it?
Hmmm. Causes one to suspect the credibility of the oft-uttered desire of the Fox Administration to cooperate with the US on illegal immigration.
And how is this different than what our own State Department does?
http://www.state.gov/travel/
Stronger than rubber stamps . . .
I just received an email from a friend which deals with passport and border control issues in France: Subject: Fwd: FW: Passport problem Note: This one has been around before but is still good… An elderly gentleman of 83 arrived…