by Editors

BUSH’S IMMIGRATION POLICY – 

A   COVERT  MEXICAN STAND-OFF

A DW “E X C L U S I V E” and…. A “MUST-READ”

 

By: Dr. Leonard Carrier, D.W. In-House Historian and Philosopher and Robert Foster*, DW Contributor and In-House Conservative Counsel , with an Introduction and preface by DW Foreign Policy Editor, Dusty Schoch outlining the unique circumstances where DW “art” (Len Carrier’s Article) induced—in dreamlike fashion– our DW writer in Georgia to deal with 5 illegal Mexican Aliens in a manner and under  circumstances I predict you will find unique and memorable.  I labeled this article a “must read” because it is one of Len Carrier’s most compelling commentaries on our immigration policy, followed by Foster’s real-life reactions recorded by the author (Foster) himself  and recounted in his entertaining and  inimitable short-story style.

 

 

Dear DW and B.E.A. Staff and friends,

As DW writers and contributors, I know we all wonder from time to time whether—or to what extent—our expressions and polemic offerings actually have an effect on the readership. The sequel to the Carrier article  provides us substantial incentive never to question what we remedial bloggers are about.

Robert Foster is an amazing thinker and personality I had the privilege of becoming friends with while attending law school in Tuscaloosa Alabama (U. of Ala.’s home site).  Foster is a life-long conservative Republican and we have enjoyed sparring from time to time on Bush policies, domestic and foreign.  Foster was among those “DW friends” I sent a preview of Carrier’s presently-featured article on corporate American complicity in our illegal alien problems.

Without further waxing, I give you (some of you for the second time) Len Carrier’s piece, preceded by my little introduction, following which I urge you all to relish and derive encouragement and hope from Foster’s letter to me…which I have elected to share with its proper audience (the world).

Thanks, Len,  for placing the focus and blame on proper target. Corporate hiring of illegals is the hole in our national dyke, and criminal prosecution (of employing corporations) is the only mortar.  Thanks, R.F., for showing us all that the mark of true intelligence is not always being right, but rather always being able and willing  to readjust one’s vision and actions in order to see—and/or imagine, and/or do– what is right.

 

Best,

 

Dusty

 

BUSH’S IMMIGRATION SLOGAN:

“Welcome, Guest Workers…

 

To the Corporate States of America”

 

By DW In-House Historian and Philosopher, Leonard Carrier, who points us poignantly to the fact that Bush’s newest Neo-Con euphemism is calling our immigrant slave population, “Guest Workers”.

 

The problem of illegal immigrants has been exacerbated since President Bush took office.

    The chief cause is that of corporations seeking cheap labor. Most of these people came here legally under “guest worker”  H-2A and H-2B programs.  They not only got low wages but they also suffered other abuses.

    See the Southern Poverty Law Center’s report, “Close to Slavery,” that outlines all this.  When their visas ran out, many of them didn’t go back to their countries but stayed in illegal status rather than work legally under deplorable conditions.  The corporations then asked for more “guest workers,” and the process continued. Big business has had a sweet deal. They pay lousy wages, treat the workers like indentured servants, and let the government (that’s you and me) pick up the tab for social services. Then they ask for more cheap labor when the current crew has gone underground.

     Now the Bush administration hopes to get even more “guest workers,” and it is willing to throw more money at security fences (which won’t solve the real problem) and to mollify Hispanics by offering a tortuous path to legality for those illegals already here.  I was glad to see this so-called “reform” bill strangled in its crib. I think that the problem should be attacked at its root, which is corporate desire for an underclass of workers whom they can exploit.  If the penalties are made severe enough for employers who hire illegals, then the ones already here won’t be able to work and they won’t stay. If the “guest worker” programs are forced to pay a living wage and provide health benefits,  then corporations will seek out citizens and legal immigrants to hire, instead.

    I don’t think it’s fair to blame the illegals already here for the situation in which they find themselves. If you’re poor and desperate you’ll take advantage of all the services that are offered.  I’m afraid that much of the criticism of the immigrant reform bill is misplaced, and it results in a nativism that tends to blame the victim. I think that we have sufficient immigration laws on the books to deport illegal immigrants if we had the will to do it.

     Big business would prefer things as they are–an inexhaustible supply of cheap labor, with the average taxpayer picking up the tab for health and social services. Unfortunately, if social services are cut off for illegals, then it will probably be cut for poor people who are here legally, as well. I don’t think it’s a good idea to make war on poor people.

     I remember Emma Lazarus’s words, “Give me your tired and your poor…” inscribed at the Statue of Liberty.  We are a nation of immigrants.  What we need is an orderly process for immigration to take place.  Big business doesn’t care about that, because it doesn’t enhance their bottom line.

 Leonard Carrier

 

 

 

FOSTER’S DREAM

 (in Cobb County, Georgia):

 Dusty,

I received your e-mail at 3:57 PM yesterday  and immediately read Carrier’s piece with great interest and reflection – particularly given the fact that I had scheduled 5 guest workers to come tomorrow and  clean up a pile of tree limbs, cross ties and whatnot that I have accumulated on the back of my property over the past 30 years.

Several days ago I was speaking with a friend and lamenting that I could find no one interested in cleaning up my property; mentioning that I had even spoken with a law-enforcement friend about getting some prisoners lend-leased to me but found that questionable practice had been discontinued in our state some decades earlier.   But my friend said that last year he had used some Mexicans to work at his house.  He told me they congregated at the town square in Marietta and if I got up there early morning, I could pick up as many as I wanted at $5.00 hour plus food.  Problem solved – or so I thought.

You know how dreams sometimes serve to solve problems that, confronted in the daylight you find impossible of resolution. Well, with the situation of my back yard property sort of weighing on my subconscious, and with the reading of Carrier’s article still fresh on my mind, I went to sleep last night and had the most extraordinary dream, which I will here share with you.

At 6:00AM in the morning, before first light, I pulled up to the square in my big fully-Loaded 1994  Lincoln Town Car.  I quickly deduced that this was a no-miss proposition–only me and a circa 1958 yellow GMC school bus with “Cobb County Schools” on the side of the bus having been crudely crossed out and the single word “Jesus” painted above (or was it Jose’–couldn’t quite make out in the existing light).  There could only be one winner in such a one-sided pairing and it damn sure wasn’t colored yellow.

However, my sense of a forthcoming triumph quickly evaporated when I realized that only the big Lincoln and the yellow GMC were on the square – not one single Mexican was in sight.  I thought maybe it was a little early as the sun was just starting to break over the trees that line the square.  At this point, I noticed someone standing next to the bus, so I decided to head over and see if he could tell me if I were at the right place to pick up Mexicans.  I didn’t know if I were on the way to church or a cutting but in either event I needed 5 hard-working Mexicans and this was the only guy around–or at least I thought it was a guy.

As I neared the bus I saw that the guy was in fact a very attractive lady wearing white linen slacks and with her blond hair pulled back in a tight bun.  Had I not been focused on her as I approached, I would have noticed that every Mexican in Marietta, Georgia (and possibly all outlying cities) was packed inside the bus.  It was as if this were the last chance to cross the Rio Grande.  As I introduced myself to the lady, whose name as it turns out was “June” * and not Jose’ or Jesus, several Mexicans came from between some buildings, shot across the street at full gallop and pushed through the bus doors.  There was no way to get another soul on the bus, let alone a person but they kept coming.  It was like a run of herring.  They just kept coming and coming but none were hopping in the Big Lincoln.

Well, Dusty, when Robert Foster has his mind set on something, the table isn’t going to be cleared before he has dessert, which in this case was 5 Mexicans today – not tomorrow or next week.  The brush pile was going and it was going today.  First, I turned on the charm and asked June if she could let me have a few of her Mexicans (I was coy – holding in reserve the fact that “few” correlated to 5).  When she responded that she couldn’t help me, I asked her why the hell not (charm and coyness aside – time to become aggressive).  You will not believe what I learned.

June was an executive of a large multi- national firm (she speaks five languages and is fluent in Spanish) and worked 15 hour days which left no time for housekeeping or gardening. So she got in her car one day, went to the square in Marietta and found a gardener and a housekeeper/cook.  She lives in East Cobb County (where the elite reside as opposed to us outcasts down here in lower Cobb County).  June hosts many parties and her friends begin to notice the quality of the maid and gardener’s work.  This leads the friends to ask how they could get such good (but principally cheap) help.  I will fast forward as it is getting late.

June buys a bus at a Marietta School Board surplus equipment auction, quits her job and starts supplying domestic help (guest workers) to every social climber in East Cobb.  She picks up at the square between 6 and 6:45 Monday thru Saturday and delivers the workers to the homes and then picks them up and returns to the square at the end of the day.  She spends approximately 5 hours a day driving the bus and another hour on paper work (all requests for domestics come via e-mail).  It is totally a cash operation.  She pays the Mexicans $7.00/hr and bills them at $15.00.  After minimal expenses, June figures she clears $6.50/hr x 8 hours x 6 days x 46 domestics = $14,352 or $746,304 per year.  I bit for 5 @ $15 and she dropped them off at the house around 8:30 this morning and gave them instructions as to what I wanted done (none of them spoke English).  Now here is where it gets interesting.

At 4:30 P.M., after some soul searching prompted by Carrier’s piece, I decided to put the Mexicans in my car and return to the square.  None of them could understand what I wanted until I flashed a wad of $20’s and then it was a chicken on a June bug.  All 5 hopped in the Big Lincoln and I dropped them off at the square after stopping at the cash machine so I could give them each $120 (8 hours x $15).  I returned home and this gets us to 6:15PM when June arrives to pick up the 5 Mexicans only to find that I had already returned them to the square.  She was fine with this until she asked for payment and I told her I gave $120 to each worker and handed her a copy of Carrier’s piece.

As I compose this letter, the 5 Mexican guest workers are patiently awaiting my arrival at the square  and I am in the process of deciding what I—today, in real life and realtime—intend to do with the problem before me. Whether I will perform in conformance with the version of myself which appeared to me in my dreams—who I consider to be idealistic to the point of being “heroic”, or whether I will do otherwise, is yet to be determined…somewhat in a scenario similar to the problem American presently faces in regard to its illegal Mexican population in general.  What each of us as individuals—in the microcosm—in deed do will determine what our country as a macrocosmic whole becomes.

I do plan to respond hereafter more definitively  to Carrier’s piece which has some good points and valid observations.  However, I believe the problem runs much deeper than big business.  It would not surprise me if over 50% of the “guest workers” are employed by small business and /or individuals.  Where everyone is living in sin, it is hard to find anyone willing to cast the first stone.  I sincerely hope that —in either my dream state or my  waking words– I haven’t hit a friend.

Foster

July 13, 2007

P.S. As an afterthought, I wonder: Would $200,000 be too much for the Atlanta Franchise rights??

**Robert Foster is a legal scholar and businessman and humorist living in South  Georgia; this is his initial (hopefully of  many) contribution to DW. Names (including “June”) have been changed to protect the guilty and innocent alike.

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