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Border Security: Do we see it differently.
Every thing was going along at a slow boil. No one was happy with the way our elected representatives were running our country with regards to border security and illegal immigration. Then draconian measures passed by the right-wing of the House of Representatives set everything off into a full-blown kitchen fire. And you have to wonder. What were they thinking.
No, we are not going to go rounding up 12-20 million illegal aliens and incarcerate them, imprison them and/or deport them. So to light the fuse with rhetoric that would have made it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally must have been part of a plan. Did those who voted for it just think that we were all going to let a gestapo like action take place in our neighborhoods, schools and businesses??? Someone must have convinced them that it was a good idea. Obviously, it was not that difficult.
But, for us on the border, illegal immigration has been a part of life since we can remember. Maids that used to cross on a day pass or visa to shop... "good for business", would stay a week and live in a garage, basement or spare room and clean and cook and make life so much easier for those who could afford this kind of "illegal worker".
Gardeners and janitors were working here on the same day pass.
Then a Republican President, Reagan, decided to promote an amnesty program. Without securing the borders, which wasn't done on purpose, the flood was on.
So now it is an issue of jobs being taken from our citizens and/or their children. We know that the wages that are paid to "illegal" workers is sub-par and that they don't report criminal mistreatment. Without real wages and sending $Billions home to Mexico each year; of course, they can't afford health care... and they don't pay Medicare either... but, neither do their employers.
Here on the border, it has been a status quo of exploitation of the undocumented immigrant and our whole economy is supported and weakened at the same time by this work force and the practices of business persons not treating them fairly.
So then the issue of security comes up. The chant is "We have to seal our borders because there is "a War" going on". It would be a stretch of all but the most diehard anti-imigration fanatic's imagination; to suggest that in the nearly 5 years since 9/11, all of the former Soviet Union's weapon's grade plutonium has not ALREADY been smuggled into our country.
We do need to either enforce our laws or change them. If you look at how this debate is shaping up... it looks like the corporatations and small businesses that work for those corporations are pleased as punch to have more, not less, illegal immigration.
For those on the border... it's business as usual. Fix it... sure, but do it "Mañana". We like to be both righteous and at the same time enjoy the fruit of THEIR labor.
(Photos: Brax - Valley Publishing Company)
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Editor, Upper Valley Beacon
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