Quote:
Originally Posted by Brush Okie
I got a better idea. When they do INS raids have a few officers go in and grab the owners of the businesses hiring illegals. Throw the people responsible for hiring them in prison for 20 years of hard labor and I bet the hiring of illegals will drop like a rock.
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For years, I've been of the view that those who want significant, sustainable solutions to the problems posed by illegal immigration needed to change drastically the direction of the debate. (The tenor of some of the current arguments reminds me too much of the Nativism of the nineteenth century. YMMV.)
How about this variation on Brush Okie's solution. As suggested, go after the employers of illegal aliens, go after them hard. Concurrently, point out that the issue here is about the exploitation of laborers. Develop the argument that this exploitation is a type of indentured servitude in which the laborers are reluctant participants. (If a credible argument that it constitutes a twenty first century iteration of Jim Crow America, so much the better.
) Point out that employers who use illegal aliens are not only exploiting these laborers, but are also damaging American labor as well.
This approach offers the following benefits in addition to addressing the issue of illegal immigration.
- It highlights the GOP's core values that oppose the exploitation of human beings.
- It allows some of the more strident rhetoric that many Americans find off putting to mellow. (I suspect some of the rhetoric cost the GOP votes.)
- It points to the hypocrisy of those who present themselves as enlightened. That is, people who call for full amnesty and a fast track to American citizenship ignore the fact that illegal aliens are being exploited by their employers as a cheap source of labor.
- It challenges the current administration's alleged commitment to America's labor unions. The unions need to be reminded that some of their members are in competition with illegal aliens. Which ever way the president goes on this issue, he's going to demonstrate a fact long known on this BB: he cannot satisfy the demands of all of his constituents.
