Robert Scheer (TruthDig): Legalize the 'Illegals'

[Jack Rabbit]

From TruthDig.com
Dated Tuesday March 28

Legalize the 'Illegals'
By Robert Scheer

There is no immigration crisis — other than the one created by a small but vocal stripe of opportunist politicians, media demagogues and freelance xenophobes. So it has always been throughout the history of this country when anti-immigrant hysteria periodically reigns during low ebbs in our national sense of security and vision.

The script is as old as the Mayflower: A false alarm is sounded that the values, wages and safety of the current roster of credentialed Americans are jeopardized by the “flood” or “tidal wave” or “river” sneaking across our porous borders — be they Irish, Chinese, Jewish, Russian, Mexican or even the freed slaves seeking to earn an honest living in Northern cities after the Civil War. Any and all manner of societal problems are to be laid on these scapegoats, and the same simplistic solution offered: Find and deport them, and don’t let any more in.

Luckily, although it sometimes takes years or even decades, saner voices eventually prevail, acknowledging that the continued influx of immigrants has always fueled America’s astonishing economic and cultural rise ever since the original natives were bum-rushed off their turf. Immigration laws are liberalized, compromises are reached, amnesties are offered, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service bureaucracy grinds on.

Having intermittently covered this issue for the Los Angeles Times over 30 years, I can well recall the peaks of panic in which we reporters were dispatched to the border and out into the fields to witness the arrest of people desperate to find work — only to be embarrassed by the hunted eyes and clutched crosses of the enemy discovered.

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[Mr_Jefferson_24]

1. "I am in favor of...

...anything that brings these workers out of the shadows and into the sunlight; it’s very easy to exploit a population when they’re afraid,” Millan told me Monday. “We would be a better country if we recognized the fact that there are 10 million undocumented workers in our midst, and we would be better off if they were granted the benefits and responsibilities of a legal existence.”

This is about American growers having access to dirt cheap agricultural labor and that's all it's about. The packaging and spin on immigration policy changes from time to time, but the exploitive practices always remains in place. Treating these people fairly with a decent wage and implementing reasonable occupational safety standards has never been tried for an extended period in this country. Given that it's the only decent and honorable thing to do, we ought to try it. The growers could never be convinced of it, but legitimizing farm laborers would actually work out best for everyone in the long run. It might also end the long standing, gross exploitation these workers suffer which every American should feel at least some shame over.

[old_techie]

2. Right, it is all about cheap exploitation

not limited to farm workers, but "legal" H-1B indentured servants as well. Another point: if illegals come out of the shadows and claim their rights, how are they protected from employer retaliation? Is ANYBODY really protected, even by so-called whistleblower laws?