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We are going to be SPINNING OUR WHEELS yapping about "immigration" for years to come. The blowhards follow one another, one right after the other, giving their If-I-were-King-of-the-world dictums: "They have to learn English. They have to pay a fine. They have to go back to Mexico. They have to go to the end of the line." And on and on. Hoops and more hoops to jump through, with the usual Lucy-snatching-the-football-away always a probability. The real problem on both sides is IMMEDIACY: Business owners and managers want/need cheap labor NOW. The laborers want/need money and food NOW. And BOTH of them are willing to break laws to get what they want NOW.
We in this country have to face some ugly truths about ourselves here: It's all a matter of good old American capitalistic Suppy and Demand:: If the U.S. didn't DEMAND drugs and if the U.S. didn't DEMAND cheap labor, they WOULDN'T BE HERE. Only slightly tangentially, on to the military-industrial complex, if the U.S.'s business were not the manufacture and sale of arms, a certain amount of conflict in the world would be lessened, or as they say it another way, "The U.S.'s business is to manufacture and sell arms, then they get all upset when shooting breaks out."
But we yak and yak, ignorant of history and past solutions (like guest worker programs) and blind by choice, DENIAL, of unpleasant realities: We DENY that "illegals do the work Americans won't do," whereas anybody has known or heard somebody say, "I wouldn't take that job for less than $15 an hour," or said it ourselves. And as for cheap labor, what do we think OUTSOURCING by big businesses is all about? No, blame NAFTA. Deny. Resume the yakking.
SOLUTIONS:
* Labor: In the '60s there was a guest worker program. They applied/enlisted/registered, entered to live and work in an orderly manner, and went home and returned the next season. No, most Americans will NOT do stoop labor and other menial jobs, admit it, certainly not at the wages offered.
* Drugs: The U.S. needs to sink the cash into rehab and preventative education programs----or else LEGALIZE the damned stuff and get it all regulated and taxed. In Mexico, the peons do NOT use pot recreationally. They know it is a pain management tool, "When a woman gives birth or a man breaks a limb..."
* Crime: If AZ, or wherever, is infested with drop houses, shootings, kidnappings, dangerous dog neighborhoods-----------arrest THOSE perpetrators aggressively. If they happen to be undocumented, found out AFTER the crime arrest, then deport THOSE. Not a fakey gimmick that goes after everybody (notice the "immediacy" angle).
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