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Immigration Reform
So far, what I've seen and read on Bush's new immigration initiative is long on concept and short on details, but it at least acknowledges two truths: there are some jobs that Americans won't perform at almost any pay rate, let alone at an economically realistic rate, and that we can't deport 8 million people who we can't easily locate. The problem on the right are too many people who scream for "law enforcement" directed at a huge number of people who are mostly interested in keeping their heads down and working hard for next to nothing. In a way, it's sort of like our nation's drug problem: we have a huge agricultural industry that relies on cheap labor. We can't get it here, but no one wants to allow nearly enough people across the border (as permanent residents) to work the fields, so we wind up with a smuggling problem of monstrous proportions. The border patrol tries interdiction, which fails miserably across a 1,500-mile border.
[Captain's Quarters]
For years I have been hearing from both sides that we need immigration reform. The only two solutions I have heard are to completely close the borders or give complete amnesty. Now that someone finally offers a workable solution all I hear is that its nothing but an election ploy. The Captain's Quarters calmly annualizes the problem and the offered solutions instead of adding to the knee jerk response that has been spewing from all directions the last few days.
As a child growing up in ND I remember visiting my uncle's sugar beet farm in the Red River Valley once or twice a year. I remember the Mexican workers coming up from Brownsville on the same day every year and leaving six months later on the same day. They made enough in the six months to live all year and were very happy to get it. They were very careful to leave so they would have enough time to get back across the border in time. They did not want to endanger their worker status by being late. The system seemed to work fine and everyone was happy. The biggest day for them every year was the day my uncle would hand them the piece of paper they needed to come back the next year. I swear they wanted to kneel down and kiss his feet every year on that day. What happened to the system that seemed to work so well back then? CP
6:57:22 AM 
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