Bush Playing Politics With Mexicans . . . Again

January 7, 2004

Is it election year yet? All you have to do is look around. Naturally, the Howard Deans of the world are promising, kowtowing and capitulating to woo voters. But now so is George W. Bush.

 

Karl Rove, the president's chief political strategist, has cobbled together a plan to match Mexican workers with willing employers in the United States. Sounds good on the surface. The problem is, it does nothing to stem the tide of illegal aliens who now fill many of those positions.

 

I hear all the time that we wouldn't have a construction industry or a fast food industry were it not for foreign workers. That's complete bovine scatology. True, both of those industries have been taken over by immigrant workers, legal and illegal. The reason being, they'll do the work for less. That's the capitalist system at work, right? Not necessarily.

 

You see, many of these workers are illegal and thus exploitable. I've had farmers and construction company owners tell me they have to have these workers yet these same folks are unwilling to sponsor and take responsibility for some of these so-called “valuable” workers. Many are considered valuable simply because they work cheap.

 

That's not to say that they don't work hard. I've seen firsthand how industrious many of these workers are. Many are quite skilled in their trade. Still, that's no excuse to open the floodgates and let every Juan, Ricardo and Pedro into the country.

 

Time was when we had a migrant worker program in this country. Laborers obtained visas and traveled the country performing various tasks on various farms. It seemed to work quite well. Then we took a good thing too far. We started turning a blind eye to wads of illegals traipsing across the border at will. We began setting up lures like free health care, education and a chance to obtain a driver's license. We allow them to wire billions of dollars back across the border - much of it under-the-table, untaxed cash – while the liberals whine that we're not doing enough to help these people.

 

Now the president wants to start a federal work program, matching workers to jobs, something we don't even have for our own citizens, nor do we need for our own citizens. Hiring illegal aliens short-circuits the capitalist system. It artificially deflates the price of labor and damages the working poor who see their jobs going to illegals because they'll work for less.

 

Here in our own state, we see thousands upon thousands of illegals coming here to get on TennCare and obtain driver's licenses. Our unemployment rate is below the national average yet our TennCare rolls are swelling by thousands per month, many of these new recipients are, no doubt, illegal aliens.

 

Mexican President Vicente Fox is urging our president to legitimize illegal aliens in this country. Have you ever stopped to wonder why a president would encourage such a thing? It's because Fox is presiding over a third-world economy. The hard-working, industrious people who come here for work are sick and tired of living in poverty. If forced to stay in Mexico they might rise up and demand change.

 

The only way to solve the problem is for Mexico to raise its standard of living to ours. As long as we allow Vicente Fox to open the pressure valve and let out the steam, things will never change. If we really want to help the people of Mexico we must apply our own pressure. Close the borders to only legal immigrants and force Mexico to deal with its own problems. Mr. President, that's the compassionate conservative way.