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Senate Reaches Compromise On Immigration Proposal
News:
The Senate announced today that it had reached a bipartisan compromise on immigration reform legislation, ending a protracted internal GOP standoff that had delayed the long-promised bill and embarrassed the party in an election year. The agreement features a slightly watered-down version of the “guest worker” program, offering undocumented workers a chance at citizenship provided they can prove they’ve been in the country for at least five years. The workers would then have to pay back taxes (in addition to a $2,000 penalty), learn to speak English, undergo a criminal background check, and remain working for 11 years. Senator John McCain, who had co-sponsored a more lenient version of the bill with Sen. Edward Kennedy, warned that pending amendments to the bill could still reverse the bipartisan truce. Angry conservatives have said the plan is tantamount to granting amnesty to criminals, while some advocates of immigration rights say that it's a cynical corporatist ploy to offer false hope of citizenship in exchange for indentured servitude.
Reform Fraud!
The standards contained in this bill, for current undocumented illegal workers to qualify for the guest worker program virtually guarantee none will apply. But that is of course the idea. This is not reform aimed at aiding non-citizens. There is one and only one interest group that can be helped by this bill. With this program in place, those criminals who regularly employ undocumented workers will have legal cover for doing so. No undocumented worker is going to pony up $2,000 cash, let alone back taxes. They send that money home. These people are practiced at remaining out of sought and unnoticed, what proof will they offer to demonstrate they have been here five years? Will they have the time or will to take English classes that they will likely have to pay for them selves? Most despicable of all remain employed for 11 years! Should they meet all the other criteria they be come indentured servants to what ever job they can find, subject to deportation at the whim of their employer. This is little better than reinstituting slavery.
If we as a notion want to end illegal immigration then address the causes for migration existent in their home countries. Take the redundant portions of the INS, FBI, and Homeland Security budgets and spend them organizing labor unions in the American owned manufacturing based in Mexico. Require all American industry operating abroad to abide by American labor laws in those countries, including paying the US minimum wage. Force companies such as Wal-Mart to verify humane conditions in the factories of their suppliers, backed up with surprise inspections by U.S. authorities. If they have good jobs at home they won’t come here. Grant full amnesty and citizenship to current US residents, providing them the legal status necessary to form collective bargaining units, thus supporting a higher standard of working conditions and wages rather than weakening the landmarks unions have established. Take no Half measure, make no second class citizens, grant these people their full dignity. Hard work should be respected and supported.
Big and small business alike would love to see a labor pool with no civil rights, no access to collective action, low wage expectations, and unable to seek better jobs individually for fear of failing the eleven years of employment! You may hear people say we need these workers to take jobs Americans don’t want to do. These are jobs poisonous to the human spirit. Working conditions that reduce the individual to a piece of machinery are created by people who regard their workers no better than their property, slaves again. Any political action taken under the auspices of aid to the working classes which in fact benefits the wealthy, and either directly or indirectly supports their continued economic domination is Reform Fraud!