by ab0di » Tue 18 Oct 2005, 20:05:23
I'm always amused by complaints about illegal immigrants. People (Lou Dobbs included) always seem to focus on "south of the border" immigrants. No Mexicans, no Guatemalans, no Nicaraguans, etc, ad ifinitum. How many illegal Canadians or Irish are working in the US? How many of these are deported annually?
The current US administration is not going to do anything about illegal immigration, especially immigration from the global south. They have only one goal: to reduce wages in the US. Until US wages are brought down to third world levels, the government will do nothing about illegal immigration. A recent proposal to sell thousands of HB-1 visas for $500 each is more of the same.
In the US we have an immigration problem for many reasons. The first among these is NAFTA. NAFTA has resulted in the dumping of subsidized US agricultural surpluses on Mexico (among others). This has destroyed the agricultural economy of Mexico. Mexican farmers are being forced off their land because they can no longer compete with cheap subsidized corn from the US. Their only option is to come to the US to try to support themselves and their families. Latin America seems to be waking up: no CAFTA, no FTAA. More power to them. Viva Hugo Chavez!
My solution to the Mexican illegal immigrant problem is to kill NAFTA, kill the WTO and the IMF, and give back to Mexico the lands we stole from them in 1846--especially Texas and California. Good riddance!
All politics emanates from a barrel of oil. -- after Mirabeau