For the robber-baron right-wing, illegal immigration works

It delivers what the right-wing wants -- dirt-cheap labor and sky-high profits. It delivers a class of people who can be trampled without worries about their rights. And best of all, it delivers deluded voters, hyped up and worried about illegal immigrants, casting their ballots for candidates who fan that outrage ... and will fan that outrage again at the next election, and the election after that, for as many elections, as many years or decades as the suckers are willing to suck on that lie.

by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News June 21, 2006

Like all of America, we're swimming through lies every day of the week. The Bush-Cheney administration is a veritable lie machine, lying about Iraq, lying about the economy, lying about sex and drugs and civil rights, lying about terrorism, lying about all matters of policy, and smearing anyone who exposes their lies and gets any attention.

They lie because if they told the truth, many millions of deluded Americans would know they'd been had, taken as suckers.

The leading lie of the moment is that the Bush-Cheney administration is doing something about illegal immigration. And like all lies told by slick, well-practiced liars, a lot of people are swallowing it.

Oooh, illegal immigrants -- scary. Or I'm chatting with a stranger on the bus, thinking I've found an ally because he's wearing an "Impeach Bush" button, and all of the sudden he starts repeating lies to me about "damn illegals." Or I'm listening to Mike Malloy or Sam Seder or one of the few other sane voices on talk radio, and a caller will start lying, "We need to round up the illegal immigrants and ship 'em back to Mexico."

People, please scrub the Republicans' lies out of your brain. All this recent panic over illegal immigrants -- it's a smokescreen, designed to divert Americans' attention from all the real problems, designed to fool people into voting Republican this fall. If you're buying their line of crap, please, stop and think.

There's nothing wrong with America's immigration policy that wasn't wrong a year ago, or five years ago. There's been no sudden flood of illegal immigrants streaming across the border, just a sudden flood of publicity about it.

The Republicans control the White House, the Congress, the Courts, and they have had this complete control for several years. Why are we only hearing about illegal immigration now, a few months before the mid-term elections?

Bingo. The elections are coming, so it's time for the Republicans to scare the good sense out of voters, so suddenly a new major issue appears out of nowhere. Sometimes it's gay marriage, sometimes it's affirmative action, this time it's illegal immigration, but always it's about fear, about scaring you into voting Republican.

And when the election is over, the issue will be forgotten again, because there's nothing wrong with America's immigration policy that isn't wrong on purpose, by design. The so-called "problem" of a huge influx of illegal immigrants taking America's crappiest jobs at illegally low wages is created by policies specifically crafted to do exactly that.

Do you work for a living in corporate America? Then you've probably noticed that the people in charge prefer paying low wages instead of high wages, and they like people who don't complain. It's no coincidence that the long-standing US immigration policy delivers a steady supply of people who will work for illegally low wages and won't complain about it. That's what the robber-baron right-wing wants, and that's the policy they've purchased.

Illegal immigration is a problem, but it's not a problem to the political elite in the Bush-Cheney administration. It might sound "tough" when the liars promise to arrest and deport the many, many millions of illegal immigrants in America, but it's impossible. It can't be done without a horrendously expensive program, without hiring millions of armed officers, building millions of new prison cells, processing millions and millions of deportation papers and buying all those millions of bus, plane, or train tickets to Mexico -- all at a cost that would rival or exceed the war in Iraq.

Not to mention, of course, that the first thing the millions of deported Mexicans would do, upon returning to their native country, is come back to America.

And not to mention what's even more obvious, that it's inhuman and impossible to "solve" the problem just by punishing the victims -- illegal immigrants.

It would be simple to really solve the problem of illegal immigration. Punish employers who hire illegal immigrants. That's all it would take, to end illegal immigration. Start punishing corporate giants like Tyson Chicken and Wal-Mart when they hire illegal immigrants, and work your way down to the farms, fast food operations, and local construction firms that hire illegal immigrants. Make the penalties truly tough, not for the worker but for the employer, and the immigration flow will almost immediately slow, then stop, and start flowing in the other direction across the border. Millions and millions of Mexicans, unable to find work in America, will find their way home to Mexico.

None of this is rocket science. It's easy and obvious.

But for all their hate-mongering, the Republican panic-artists will never, ever advocate such a solution, because it would work. Because to them, illegal immigration isn't a problem.

For the robber-baron right-wing, illegal immigration works. It delivers what the right-wing wants -- dirt-cheap labor and sky-high profits. It delivers a class of people who can be trampled without worries about their rights. And best of all, it delivers deluded voters, hyped up and worried about illegal immigrants, casting their ballots for candidates who fan that outrage ... and will fan that outrage again at the next election, and the election after that, for as many elections, as many years or decades as the suckers are willing to suck on that lie.

Don't be one of the suckers who believe the lies.

The only solution to illegal immigration is to go after the employers, and Republicans will never, never do that. A vote for the Republicans, then, is a vote for more and more illegal immigration, and more and more lies.