BUT WHO WILL BRING IN THE CROPS?

COMMENTARY

FULL CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS FOR ALL WHO MAKE IT HERE!


FORGET REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS AND GREENS! BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR SOCIALISM!

Apparently Congress is getting ready to pass an immigration reform bill that contains many provisions in it that are, frankly, bizarre from a militant leftist point of view. Let us be clear at the start. We do not support this bill. We are not in the business of advising capitalist society about how to better rationalize its immigration policies. Over the last year or so I have argued that we call for and support a general amnesty but that is far removed from the nuts and bolts of this legislation. To the extent that this bill triggers a general amnesty we support that, and that alone. The rest of it is an immigrant’s nightmare. Hell, I think the ‘choice’ of my forbears to come on the ‘famine’ ships from Ireland and sneak ashore made more sense. Today, if I were an immigrant from Mexico I would rather take my chances of coming over through the desert than get caught up in the bureaucratic red tape and cost of becoming a ‘second class’ citizen under the provisions of this program.

One comment about the pending legislation sticks in my mind as it really epitomizes the thinking behind these ‘reforms’. One unnamed immigrant, on hearing that the legislation would favor those who had skills or education, noted that there was no lack of ‘native’ Americans with such qualifications. What he and his like do is bring in the crops and other dirty and dangerous tasks that ‘native’ Americans no longer will do. Thus, he is in need of legal protection far more the those middle class types the legislation is tilted toward. Simply put, those types are not coming here. And that unnamed immigrant's statement makes sense. Virtually no one who has anything going for themselves in their own country voluntarily leaves home and hearth to go elsewhere except under extreme conditions. Those twelve million ‘illegal’ immigrants speak to the desperate plight of many in Mexico and other places in Latin America in the wake the impact of NAFTA- type treaties. Thus, at the end of the day our call is still the same. Full Citizenship Rights for All Who Make It Here.