The new bipartisan immigration legislation is very bad legislation and we can and must do better. I agree with a lot of what people are saying about the Hispanics being criminals since just by crossing our borders without proper documents they are breaking our laws. I also agree that they are costing our school districts because they tend to have large families. I can also agree that they are filling up hospital emergency rooms and it is wrong to automatically give citizenship to the children born in this country to illegal aliens. But people all these things agreed upon doesn’t change the facts that there are anywhere from a low of 12,000,000 to 30,000,000 illegal immigrants in our country right now and we have a problem much larger than a few dollars for schools or medical treatment. We have a society within a society that we are keeping out and therefore keeping them from thinking of themselves as Americans with loyalties to the United States. And, more are coming in every day swelling the ranks of what is becoming a large and disenfranchised and angry portion of our population.

          The so-called illegal immigrants have been berated (wink, wink) for years as they have been welcomed. They have been welcomed with all kinds of low paying, back breaking labor intensive jobs at the same time that Americans are benefiting from their labors with relatively cheap food stuffs of all kinds but chiefly fruits, vegetables and meats. We in the United States do not pay $40 a pound for steak as they do in Japan. Or $25 per pound as they do in Europe. We don’t pay that for two reasons, 1) we are a large country with space to raise cattle, and 2) Hispanics man our slaughter houses which are jobs that most Americans would demand 4 times the pay to do. (That is if spoiled squeamish Americans would even take the jobs for any amount of money!) These people are becoming angry and they have a right to be. They see themselves rightly as being a vital part of our society and as making it possible for Americans to live as well as we do.

        I have asked the simple question: Are you willing to pay $5 for a head of lettuce? And invariably get the answer, Yes I would or I would do without. Well, you would also be doing without all other vegetables and fruits whether fresh, frozen or canned because the price without low paid immigrant farm workers would become beyond the average Americans pocketbook at the very beginning: planting and harvesting. The same goes for meat, poultry and fish. It is estimated that 80% of ranch, farm workers and fishermen are immigrants. And most probably illegal immigrants because our immigration laws would not let undereducated poverty stricken people into our country legally. The immigrants who are welcomed legally must have something to “offer” our economy and as such will not migrate here to take a job in a slaughter house. But, these slave laborers are not seen as offering anything so they are welcomed with a wink and lip service is paid to berating them in public.

          I would just once love to see a grocery bill at the check out that reflected the costs of our foods with the workers being paid the much talked about “living wage”, and then stand back and see how long we Americans would berate these people for taking up space in our schools and needing to use our medical facilities without the money to pay for the privilege.

         So yes, we have a huge illegal immigrant problem in this country but for Gods sake people please begin to face the facts concerning this problem as they are and not with a lot of hate filled, unreasoning rhetoric.

        Before we can get a handle on this problem we must first lock down our borders! I mean lock them down tight and begin enforcing the legislation we already have on the books before Washington parades out any more meaningless verbiage. I have spend much time on our southern border where security is an absolute joke. All day and all night Hispanics cross the border the way we would cross a busy street: with care and looking out for the few border patrolmen (traffic) but crossing none the less. And their families are starving down there so anyone of you would do the same thing. I have described accurately the border crossing between the US and Mexico from California to Brownsville, Texas as one huge parking lot moving into the United States that are so blocked up the border guards just pass the cars and trucks thru. This is how most drugs come into this country and a lot of immigrants. We have the technology to x-ray trucks and trained dogs to find contraband but it is expensive and even where it is provided the harried border guards don’t take the time to use it. This has to change and if the crossing can not be made larger to accommodate more traffic then the blockage is in Mexico so just let them wait while we do a better job of checking what is coming in.

        The border between US and Canada is even more open. At one Lew and I drove thru a border crossing without seeing it and without stopping and were 5 kilometers into Canada before we could find a place large enough to turn the rv around to go back. They weren’t even aware that we had passed thru. (that was with a loud diesel truck and 35 foot trailer!)

        We also often hear, “Gather them all up and ship ‘em back to Mexico!“ Just how in the world do you expect to gather t30 million people up and ship them south? The job is overwhelming. It is not that they are hard to find fore as some have pointed out they are everywhere. Just go to a hospital emergency room and grab up a truck load. This isn’t and won’t happen People, no matter how much we wish it would. So what can reasonably be done about the ones already here once we lock down our borders.

       Some sound proposals that are workable: deport any and all who can not proved citizenship when they are charged with a crime no matter what the crime is. If they have family deport the family with them. Round up and deport any who are caught using drugs or other substances that keep them from being self supporting. These two groups are already being caught by our police so it would be an easy issue to ship them south.

        As for the ones already here who are decent citizens treat them with dignity. If they are working they are paying taxes and Medicare and social security taxes and they are not getting any back because as illegals they are afraid to file income tax forms for any refunds and neither will they apply for Social Security, Disability (SSI) Medicaid or Medicare for the same reason; they are afraid of being caught and sent back. So they are indeed paying taxes and getting little for them. We should open up Medicaid clinics to them to get them out of the vastly more expensive emergency rooms where they are forced to go because they know they will not be turned away regardless of whether or not they have the money to pay. Educate the children and assimilate them into the American culture so that the second generation are truly Americans.   And offer adult English language and history classes as was done for the immigrants in the early 1900's so the adults can prepare for citizenship.

          Most of all stop the hating and making noises and try to come up with a viable solution to a problem that has been years in the making. The one our government is now proposing is not the one mainly because they have yet to lock down the borders. The currently proposed legislation is an invitation for hordes of illegals to storm our borders It will be much like the chaos that occurred when the Oklahoma Territory was opened up. I am sure most of you have read or seen movies or documentaries of this mad rush for land. Well, this will be a stampede for citizenship in the United States.

            By the way, I am second generation American and my grandparents came in by way of Ellis Island.

          Oh, one more thing about raising the wages in the areas where illegals are now employed: I can not for the life of me see how this would be much different than raising the minimum wage which all you conservatives are against (I am too by the way) because if food prices go up, which they certainly will, then everyone is going to be clambering for higher wages. Higher wages always have the same ripple effect on the economy. Minimum wage goes up employer must charge more for his goods and/or lay off workers putting us all back where we started and the spiral starts again. One highly intelligent person said greed plays a huge role in all of this wage thing. I agree that the income of CEO’s has much to do with the wage scales in this country, and the more serious change in demographics where the middle class is being wiped out with some moving up, but the vast majority moving downwards. But to connect this to the immigrant population and the low wages they are getting in the mainly food industry they work in will not wash. CEO’s in ALL industries are greedy hogs given outrageous incomes by their boards of directors who are also CEO’s being given outrageous incomes by their boards, and the cycle goes on. When the American people get tired of this obscenity they will do something about the situation, and until that time the practice will continue and the middleclass will continue to disintegrate.

         Sorry to get so long winded here people, but I have blogged on this issue so much and for so long . We need some logical suggestions for a solution to these problems, and we needed them yesterday.