Think it's all about vigilante Minuteman shooting up some Mexicans and evildoers getting drivers' licenses?
Think again:
Another more extensive study produced by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston drew on census data to conclude that for the first time since World War II, new immigrants accounted for all the growth in nationwide employment between 2000 and 2004.
The immigration issue is a bottom-line pocketbook kitchen table issue that affects virtually every American working family by driving down wages at the same time corporations see fit to selfishly gorge themselves on profits that they neither reinvest nor share with their employees.
See the entire article at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/05/05/MNGIUCK4P51.DTL
The radical conservatives think they currently own this issue because Bubba don't like them furiners. Too often Democrats are forced into knee-jerk defense of the status quo because of assumptions they make about minority sentiment.
Here in California Proposition 187 blew up in former Governor Pete Wilson's face and ensured that the Golden State's Latinos wouldn't be following Florida's Cubanos toward the Republican party for generations to come. Now Ahnold has just about made his reelection impossible due to similar racebaiting and disingenuous denial.
If Democrats could frame this issue in terms of fairness, and pound home the message that it is corporate profits that benefit most from illegal immigration, we would have ourselves one hell of a wedge issue to separate Bubba from the plutocratic corporate Republicans. Instead of attacking those who, like our own ancestors, were just looking for a better life for their families, FOLLOW THE MONEY to show who really benefits from the status quo.
Most working people understand that the current labor market is a race to the bottom, whether it is illegal construction workers here, or programming jobs in India. Before things can get better, they have to stop getting worse. Enforcing the laws against employing people here illegally, maybe with penalties that recover their "windfall profits" would change the practice right away.
And focusing on that end of the immigration equation takes the issue away from the Right, the racists and the just plain Wrong and allows us to frame the issue in a humane, truly progressive way that embodies the best of what it means to be an American.
