Be Careful What You Wish For
Only time will tell whether the Republican Party has destroyed itself on the Immigration Issue. For my part, securing the border was always a no-brainer.
OTOH, the idea that this economy doesn’t need more labor is patently absurd.
A few days later, when our journey has taken us to Twin Falls, Idaho, we read in a local newspaper that potato farmers are being forced to obtain convict labor because there’s a shortage of the migrants they have traditionally used to work their fields. In fact, the farm worker dearth is national, particularly for growers of labor-intensive fresh produce. Crops are rotting in the fields and prices going up.
Observations recorded during a month-long motoring sweep around the Western U.S. by my wife Jody and me reveal a disconnect between law and reality. A legislative paralysis on immigration reform perhaps helps explain why a new AP-Ipsos opinion poll shows that the performance rating for Congress has slumped 11 percentage points since May, with only 24% of respondents voicing satisfaction with that body’s work. After years of quarreling over reform of the dysfunctional 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act, which made it a crime to knowingly hire illegal immigrants, lawmakers are still batting a big, fat zero. Hence, willing workers are being turned back at the border at a time when growers are desperate for hired help.
Ask yourself this question. “Is there work to be done in America?” Are all our roads in great shape? Do our schools work perfectly? Is everything “finished?
Of course not. There is great deal of work to be done, and we need people to do it. Let us by all means find ways to control our borders and discern who comes in and who doesn’t. But at the end of the day, having an economy that attracts people across the globe is a good thing.
The old saying used to be “Every human has one mouth, but 2 hands.” With the advent of “just in time” knowledge and the ability to deliver it, the new version is “Every human has one mouth, 2 hands, and about 3 billion brain cells.” People are an asset, not a liability.
July 31st, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Convict labor sounds good to me — keeps them paying for their keep and having less time to build muscles at taxpayer expense and less time to cause trouble.
Ditto welfare recipients. Let them earn their keep by doing farm work — have pride that they are contributing a valuable service to the nation and applaud them for their work.
One reason for the lack of field hands is that we pay too many people to sit home, watch TV and get fat.