The Tweet Diversion

Two of the many Trump dog whistles in April included

Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. “Caravans” coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2018

Mexico has the absolute power not to let these large “Caravans” of people enter their country. They must stop them at their Northern Border, which they can do because their border laws work, not allow them to pass through into our country, which has no effective border laws.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 2, 2018

It is because of tweets like these, though on a variety of subjects, that human weathervane Paul Ryan on May 2 told an audience of business leaders and investors "we definitely could do with a few less tweets. The President and I have had that conversation more times than I can count. Later in the month- one in which he tweeted 259 times- a survey found that 72% of registered voters believe the President's use of the platform is excessive.

Still, the President's policies toward immigrants and refugees may demonstrate that this habit contributes toward his political popularity.

Politifact has explained that once the US Department of Health and Human Services receives an "illegal entry referral" from the Department of Homeland Security, it "is responsible for placing the child with a sponsor as the child’s immigration case is resolved." As a professor of immigration law and national security remarked, "Previous administrations felt broad use of the 'prosecute-first' option was needlessly harsh."

The Trump Administration is referring far more individuals for prosecution, thus ruthlessly separating parents and children. While some voters- even some conservatives- are discomfited by views of children locked in cages, Trump's tweets divert attention from them and toward Mexico, Mexicans, border security, and the general resentment which fuels the popular base.

And away even from immigration policy.  We learned recently from Tracy Jan of the Washington Post

Despite his administration’s "Hire American” stance, Trump and the GOP leadership have gone quiet on mandating E-Verify, draining momentum from a top policy goal of grass-roots Republicans.

“The president has been very weak on this subject,” said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, an organization that has campaigned for a national E-Verify mandate since 1996 in its quest for reduced immigration. “Even though he’s not pushing hard for it and even though the Republican leadership has been really sluggish on this, the Republican Party as a whole is overwhelmingly for this.”

Three days later, Nick Miroff of the Post reported

The Department of Homeland Security said Friday it will issue 15,000 additional guest worker visas for 2018, facing an outcry from business owners who say they’re being hurt by the country’s labor squeeze.

It was the second year in a row that DHS agreed to allocate an extra 15,000 guest worker visas, on top of the 66,000 annual cap established by Congress. Lawmakers have granted DHS the authority to exceed the cap, and in recent weeks they have urged Nielsen to allow more foreigners to alleviate the tight labor market, with the unemployment rate at 3.9 percent.

The H-2B visas are for foreigners who take seasonal jobs in seafood, tourism, landscaping, construction and others industries — but not farmworkers. Critics of the guest worker program say such jobs should pay more to attract more teenagers and American workers who have dropped out of the labor force.

Lest we think that the Administration has undergone a compassion transplant and is concerned about immigrants

In a statement, DHS said Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen determined that not enough “qualified, U.S. workers [were] available . . . to satisfy the needs of American businesses.”

“The limitations on H-2B visas were originally meant to protect American workers, but when we enter a situation where the program unintentionally harms American businesses it needs to be reformed,” said Nielsen, whose statement urged lawmakers to pass legislation to establish an appropriate number of seasonal visas....

It was a near-repeat of what happened last year under then-Secretary John F. Kelly. At that time, DHS described its decision to allocate 15,000 extra visas as a “one-time” increase. There was no such wording in Friday’s statement.

Critics of illegal immigration would do well to remember that parents everywhere tell their children "choose your friends carefully":

“It shouldn’t become a habit, but I’m afraid it will,” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, who has written articles in recent weeks praising the labor shortages as a sign of the success of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Krikorian said he was not surprised at the visa increase because Trump is not an opponent of the guest worker system, and has hired seasonal foreign labor for his golf courses and resorts.

“The President is for H-2B visas, so this is one area where his ‘Buy American, Hire American’ doesn’t apply — it’s hire foreign,” said Krikorian.

Trump has used the H-2B visa program to hire workers at his golf resorts in Palm Beach, Fla., and Jupiter, Fla., saying he “could not get help” during the tourist high season.

“Everybody agrees with me on that,” Trump said during a 2015 presidential debate. “They were part-time jobs. You needed them, or we just might as well close the doors, because you couldn’t get help in those hot, hot sections of Florida.”

Donald Trump has insisted he knows nothing about David Duke; Chicago has the strongest gun laws in the nation; terrorism is so rare it's ignored by the media; he won the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election amid "serious voter fraud" in Virginia, North Carolina, and California; Obama "actively supported" Al Qaeda and "founded" ISIS; and made dozens of other assertions rated "pants on fire" by Politifact. 

It's nearly as absurd that Trump would be forced to hire immigrants on visas for his properties in Florida, when there are (or were) unemployed Americans everywhere who would have moved there for a job, rather than to Wyoming, the Dakotas, Minnesota, or Maine, or elsewhere deep in the snow  belt.  However, if he can keep on tweeting, people will never remember when he said wages are "too high"- and in a rarity, meant what he said.

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Kennedy And Clinton Were Wrong. Hillary Still Is.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders fundamentally agree about the twin issues of immigration and illegal immigration. However, at their recent debate in Milwaukee, Clinton maintained

I am against the raids. I'm against the kind of inhumane treatment that is now being visited upon families, waking them up in the middle of the night, rounding them up. We should be deporting criminals, not hardworking immigrant families who do the very best they can and often are keeping economies going in many places in our country.

No doubt the do. Generally willing to accept lower wages, they are more attractive for employers trying to maximize income; for those individuals looking for work, not so good.

Clinton continued

I'm a strong supporter of comprehensive immigration reform. Have been ever since I was in the Senate. I was one of the original sponsors of the DREAM Act. I voted for comprehensive immigration reform in 2007.

Senator Sanders voted against it at that time. Because I think we have to get to comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship. And as president I would expand enormous energy, literally call every member of Congress that I thought I could persuade.

Sanders replied

In terms of 2007 immigration reform, yeah, I did vote against it. I voted against it because the Southern Poverty Law Center, among other groups, said that the guest-worker programs that were embedded in this agreement were akin to slavery. Akin to slavery, where people came into this country to do guest work were abused, were exploited, and if they stood up for their rights, they'd be thrown out of this country.

So it wasn't just me who opposed it. It was LULAC, one of the large Latino organizations in this country. It was the AFL-CIO. It was some of the most progressive members of the United States Congress who opposed it for that reason.

Comparing guest-worker programs to slavery is a little- a little- extreme, but only because there are very, very few things which should be compared to slavery. In her reply,  Mrs. Clinton demonstrated she believes Barack Obama is not the only man who can do wrong when she added  "and with respect to the 2007 bill, this was Ted Kennedy's bill. And I think Ted Kennedy had a very clear idea about what needed to be done. And I was proud to stand with him and support it."

Not that she knew, or knows, what needed to be done. Ted Kennedy was for it, and that was good enough for her. But Kennedy erred in strongly supporting No Child Left Behind and he was wrong to support temporary worker programs.

"I loved Ted Kennedy," Sanders then stated, but

.... on this issue, when you have one of the large Latino organizations in America saying vote no, and you have the AFL-CIO saying vote no, and you have leading progressive Democrats, in fact, voting no, I don't apologize for that vote.

There is no reason to apologize for the vote, Senator.  Tied to an employer, guest workers lack the freedom of other workers, leaving them vulnerable to abuse by an employer. The primary problem in the nation is not insufficient immigration, nor insufficient labor or lazy American-born workers. . Stagnant wages, deteriorating benefits, and job insecurity contribute to the income inequality Hillary Clinton claims to deplore. Guest worker programs are but one part- but are a part- of the decline of the American workforce.














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If It's Broken, Expand It


The thermometer may be plunging, with rain, snow, or sleet the forecast in your area.      But it's always a good day to criticize Newt Gingrich's immigration plan.

Two of the litmus tests for a Republican is a demand that taxes be lowered for the wealthy and reasonable regulations on the business community be minimized.        Joining those non-negotiable items now is the determination to "control the border."        Though far more reasonable than the other GOP demands, no Republican has yet acknowledged that President Obama has been far more successful pursuing this goal than was either George W. Bush or Ronald(6) Wilson(6) Reagan(6).          (Bush the Elder has become largely disowned by the party faithful.)       Part of Gingrich's immigration policy, at various times described as "compassionate" and "humane" is the idea Newt often repeats, as he did at last night's GOP presidential debate (transcript, here) in Florida:

You should have a guest worker program, probably run by American Express, Visa or MasterCard so they minimize fraud, which the federal government won’t do. And you should have much stronger employer penalties at that point because you can validate it.

The federal government's current temporary worker program consists of the H-2 visa, broken down into the H-2a visa (agricultural) and the H-2b (non-agricultural) visa.       Owing to the greater worker protections afforded under its terms, H-2b alone has grown in favor among employers.          

Mary Bauer and Sarah Reynolds of the Southern Poverty Law Center explained in March, 2007

In the process of attaining a H-2 guest worker visa, workers typically fall victim to bait-and-switch schemes that force them to borrow huge sums of money at high interest rates (often leveraging family homes) in order to land short-term, low-wage jobs that all too often end up shorter-term and lower-waged than promised. Under crushing debt, and legally bound to work only for the employer who filed petition for them, these workers often face the most dangerous and harsh of working conditions in places like shipyards, the forestry department, or construction, with no medical benefits for on-the-job injuries or access to legal services. Bosses often hold workers’ documents to make sure they don’t “jump jobs.”

There are two levels of the current guest worker program—H-2a for agricultural work, and H-2b for non-agricultural work. Though the H-2a program provides legal protections for foreign farm workers—such as a guarantee of at least three quarters of the total employment hours promised, free housing, transportation compensation, medical benefits, and legal representation—many of these protections exist only on paper. H-2b workers, on the other hand, have no rights or protections.

The exploitation of guest workers begins with the initial recruitment in their home country—a process that often leaves them in a precarious economic state and therefore extremely vulnerable to abuse by unscrupulous employers in this country. US employers almost universally rely on private agencies to find and recruit guest workers in their home countries.

These labor recruiters usually charge fees to the worker—sometimes many thousands of dollars to cover travel, visas, and other costs, including profit for the recruiters. The workers, most of whom live in poverty, frequently obtain high-interest loans to come up with the money to pay the fees. In addition, recruiters sometimes require them to leave collateral, such as the deed to their house or car, to ensure that they fulfill the terms of their individual labor contract.

The entirely unregulated recruiting business is quite lucrative. With more than 121,000 workers recruited in 2005 alone, tens of millions of dollars in recruiting fees are at stake. This financial bonanza provides a powerful incentive for recruiters and agencies to import as many workers as possible, with little or no regard to the impact on individual workers and their families.

Shorter explanation:   workers are exploited by unscrupulous employers and manipulative middle-men. Expansion of the guest worker concept is a truly terrible idea.      Its only saving grace is that it makes Newt Gingrich's harebrained scheme for "citizen" panels seem almost reasonable by comparison.     Barely.

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Exploitation, Utah-Style


"Utah," a misguided member of the Washington Post editorial staff writes," has passed the nation's most liberal and most reality-based policy on illegal immigration. And the Republican governor is expected to sign it."

For that we are all to stand up and applaud. It is "a milestone," Les Hockstader opines, which began with

the "Utah Compact," a pithy declaration of reform principles drafted last fall by business leaders and conservative elites, who feared Utah would follow in Arizona's footsteps and risk losing tens of millions of dollars in tourism and convention business, as Arizona did. The compact helped swing public opinion in Utah away from the illegal-immigrant bashers who admired Arizona's law.

The effort, which an impressed Hockstader finds all the more "interesting" because it "is coming from unimpeachable conservatives," consists of a package of three laws, one a less controversial version of Arizona SB 1070, a second which, The New York Times reports

authorized the creation of a state guest worker program by 2013, and instructed the governor and the state attorney general to negotiate with federal authorities for a waiver to allow Utah employers to hire illegal immigrants.

State Attorney General Mark Shurtleff noted "it's a federal crime to employ an illegal alien. I don't know how you get a waiver for a federal crime. I'm going to try."

If the waiver is granted, it may open a whole new role for the federal government. Perhaps businesses in Utah, or another state, can apply for a waiver to pay workers less than the middle wage or to employ child laborers. The possibilities, truly, are endless. And what could be better than waiving application of a law by a "government of laws, and not of men?"

The third new immigration law aims to facilitates the transfer of laborers from Mexico to Utah through existing federal guest-worker programs.

Perspective comes from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who in October explained

Germany's attempt to create a multicultural society has "failed, utterly failed."

Merkel, speaking October 16 at a meeting of her Christian Democratic party in the city of Potsdam, said decades of allowing people of different cultural backgrounds to live side by side without integrating into mainstream society has not worked for Germany.

"In Frankfurt on the Main, two out of three children under the age of five have an immigrant background,” Merkel said.

“We are a country which, at the beginning of the 1960s, actually brought guest workers to Germany. Now they live with us and we lied to ourselves for a while, saying that they won't stay and that they will have disappeared again one day. That's not the reality. This [multicultural] approach -- saying that we simply live side by side and are happy about each other -- this approach has failed, utterly failed."

Germany's failed guest worker program, evidently, invited laborers who were to "have disappeared again one day." Similarly, Hockstader indicates "Utah's guest-worker bill doesn't grant citizenship, of course."

Of course it doesn't- if it did, the labors would be more difficult to exploit and might actually integrate into society, enriching the American mosaic. It's easy, therefore, to understand corporate America's delight at the thought of an extensive network of temporary workers. But it's disconcerting that a portion of the left does not understand that such programs, which treat immigrants as disposable, second-class citizens, incorporate the seeds of the destruction of the very multiculturalism they purport to promote. Just ask Angela Merkel.

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Lower Wages? Hooray!


On the Dylan Ratigan Show on Friday, Robert Reich (video below, from msnbc. via gawkk.com) explained that not only the business cycle, but also structural obstacles, have impeded recovery of the economy. Reich points out that the average male worker earns less now than he did 30 years ago, adjusted for inflation. (That may be true of the average worker, but here, Reich refers to the median male worker earning less, which is at least a little less damning.)

Guest host Cenk Uygur, who usually is progressive, clear-thinking, and entertaining (and what better name could there be than Cenk Uygur?), was a little off his game, asking (beginning at approximately 7:50) Reich "look, everybody wants increased wages. Who out there doesn't want wages to go higher?"

The answer had been revealed on that same network the previous day as Chris Matthews interviewed Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, and Maria Teresa Kumar MSNBC consultant and executive director of Voto Latino. The exchange included:

MATTHEWS: Maria Teresa, fill me in on beheadings. Is that an issue? I mean, it`s a serious issue, I`m not going to play it down. I want illegal immigration stopped. I want a legal system -- a liberal system, but I want it enforced.

So, I may not be with a lot of liberals on this, but I think we ought to have a system of guest workers, a system of liberal immigration. But I want it on paper.

MARIA TERESA KUMAR, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Right.

MATTHEWS: I want the game to end. I want the cheap exploitation of labor to end. I don`t want anybody getting hired in this country under the table anymore. I want everybody getting Social Security, everybody paying taxes and getting the benefits of residence, legal residence, when they`re working here.

I don`t want any more game-playing by the Democrats or the businesspeople or anybody else, even the civil liberties people. Everybody is playing a game on this issue. That`s my setup to our conversation.

So, let`s have a serious conversation. There are no good guys in the suit. Everybody is playing a game. Tell me seriously where this is going to play politically this November. How is this issue going to cut, this illegal immigration issue?

KUMAR: I mean, I think, first of all, the Republicans are actually feeling leadership backing when it comes to immigration, sadly enough. And they`re using it by creating racial profiling. And that`s one of the reasons that Brewer bill was gutted by the federal court.

What needs to happen, and this is a prime opportunity for the Democrats really to space it is instead of cowering to the Republicans, they have to come up with a comprehensive (ph) solution.

And in fact, the comprehensive immigration reform bill that was recently offered, that does exactly what you`re saying, Chris. It`s incredibly tough on undocumented individuals. They have to pay taxes. They have to get to the back of the line. They have to secure the border, more than anything. And more importantly, there`s E-verify.

So, that means every single person in the United States --

MATTHEWS: I`m with you on that.

KUMAR: Right.

MATTHEWS: What`s your view? You have a different view.

ALFONSO AGUILAR, LATINO PARTNERSHIP FOR CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES: I think we`re oversimplifying.

MATTHEWS: But just to respond her. She says let`s do something on verification, no more illegal hiring. Let`s have some kind of border control. Let`s let people become Americans if they`re willing to pay the price and do it right.

What`s your alternative?

AGUILAR: I think you made the point. We need to strengthen border security, but at the same time, we need a guest worker program. The root of the problem here --

MATTHEWS: Who`s against that?

AGUILAR: The Democrats are.

MATTHEWS: What?

AGUILAR: Because they`re controlled by the unions. The president of the AFL-CIO is going around the country saying that comprehensive -- that you cannot have comprehensive immigration reform with a guest worker program. They`re against it.

Obama, so far, has only mentioned employer sanctions and legalization. That`s not comprehensive -- without a guest worker program to facilitate the legal flow workers that our economy needs, we`re not going to solve this problem.

And guess what? Only Republicans are mentioning a guest worker program. Carly Fiorina (INAUDIBLE) --

MATTHEWS: OK. That`s part of the issue. Is -- let me get back to you so you can respond -- Maria.

KUMAR: I think, I mean, fundamentally, what the Republican Party, the only thing that you found with the 20 states that you mentioned that are introducing this tough on undocumented individuals is basically, you know, promoting racial profiling. Those are not solutions.

MATTHEWS: Why do -- respond to what he said, though. Respond to what he said. Part of the solution is, to me, clean up the system, no more games. No more under illegality, no more under the table, no more cheap hiring and exploitation of labor. No more ethnic game-playing by the Democrats.

Let me ask you this: Are you for guest worker program as part of the solution or not? He said you`re not?

KUMAR: No. I think, I mean, we have to have smart solutions. That`s part of the legislation.

MATTHEWS: No, but you`re not answering the question.

KUMAR: No, no, but I am, Chris. That`s part of -- that`s actually one of the -- that`s part of the project -- excuse me, part of the legislation that Schumer introduced was a guest worker program. Now, it`s also talking about making sure that you`re talking about E-verify.

(CROSSTALK)

KUMAR: No. Pardon?

AGUILAR: It`s a commission.

MATTHEWS: It`s a commission that does what?

AGUILAR: What they would create is a commission, another bureaucracy.

MATTHEWS: To do what?

AGUILAR: To determine how many people come in each year. In the Obama administration, he would appoint people with ties to the labor unions. Let the market determine how many people come in.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Who`s going to help this election, Maria Teresa?

KUMAR: Right now, it`s going to help the Republicans because the Latino vote right now doesn`t see any leadership from either the Republicans or the Democrats.

MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you very much, Maria Teresa Kumar, as always.

Alfonso Aguilar, nice to meet you.

AGUILAR: Thank you.

Here, Cenk, is the answer to your question: Alfonso Aguilar (including, presumably, his organization) is opposed to higher wages. We need to strengthen border security, but at the same time, we need a guest worker program. A guest worker program is designed to lower wages. That is its objective and that is why corporate America has always been partial to it. And the tipoff here is Aguilar's supplement: "we need to strengthen border security." He is telling the audience clearly: it's not as if we like immigrants- after all, we have to strengthen border security" (as the GOP continually emphasizes in response to President Obama tightening border security)- we just want the ones who are here to be under the thumb of employers.

Matthews has no clue. He begins by saying "So, I may not be with a lot of liberals on this, but I think we ought to have a system of guest workers, a system of liberal immigration," then a moment later incomprehensibly comments "I want the cheap exploitation of labor to end." In case the audience failed to understand that he is confused, Matthews later emphasizes "no more cheap hiring and exploitation of labor."

Exactly what is a guest-worker program? It is cheap hiring and exploitation of labor. That's the way it has worked (destructively) in Europe and that's the way it's intended to work here, as Aguilar made clear when he urged "the market (to) determine how many people come in." Aguilar also takes a shot at unions and Democrats, as any good Republican would.

It's not surprising, inasmuch as the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles includes on its board of directors one Grover Norquist, co-designer of the Contract On With America, founder of the K Street Project, and major supporter of the presidential bid of George W. Bush.

So be aware, Cenk. There are plenty of Republicans pushing for lower wages, Grover Norquist, Alfonso Aguilar, and many in the corporate sector among them.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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Another GOP Motive

First, it was former Republican Senatorial candidate Carly Fiorina of California telling GOP TV's Fox & Friends on July 2 (at 4:02 of the video, below)

We must have a temporary worker program that works.

Later that same day, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told the network's Greta van Susteren

I think, in the end, both a solution to the border and a solution to having some kind of guest worker program that's real.

Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, on Fox News Sunday, was more specific when on July 11 he responded to a question from host Chris Wallace by maintaining (beginning at 1:58 of video, way below):

We do need a temporary worker program. But the labor unions in this country that -- at least some of whom were willing to support that three years ago are no longer willing to do it.

And you're right, a temporary worker program would have to be a part of any comprehensive immigration reform, and there isn't support for that in the Congress right now.

This is only three Republicans, but you would have to look long and hard to find a Republican who explicitly opposes a guest worker program.

In the short term, any form of comprehensive immigration reform faces nearly insurmountable obstacles. But the demand for the federal government to "do something" will only grow over time and the temptation to worsen the situation will grow. A temporary worker program is popular among Republicans- and some Democrats- eager to see increased comptetition for a diminishing number of jobs and an immigrant workforce beholden to employers. It may prove to be the component drawing enough moderates and conservatives to "reform" to enable passage of truly destructive legislation.

If so, we may go the way of Germany where, as The New Republic noted in an article no longer available online

more than two million Muslims of Turkish origin--whose families came as guest workers four decades ago--live today. They live in Germany not as Germans, but in a strange sort of nationless limbo--afforded certain benefits of citizenship (such as health care) but denied the privilege of actually being citizens. Which, of course, denies them any incentive to assimilate to their new country. The prospect of such a thing happening in the United States with mexican guest workers is only too real.

This possiblity is enhanced because the GOP fears nothing more than a wave of immigrants, currently in the U.S.A. or to come, which would have the right to vote. Republicans increasingly are staking their claim to office by appealing to non-Hispanics dead set against increased immigration. These voters generally are not partial to a temporary-worker program- but the GOP core of corporate interests and small business owners is.

The party may find a way to make the dreams of their economic base come true. After all, what this nation so desperately needs are more workers competing for an ever-diminishing pool of jobs with reduced benefits and incomes that don't keep up with the cost of living.

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Taking A Stab At Immigration Reform

On April 5 Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote favorably of the "framework" by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) to effect the legalization of illegal immigrants.

The main facets of the plan are a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, a program to let in future workers, the improvements in enforcement and the biometric Social Security cards to help employers weed out illegal workers.

Tucker notes that the effort of Senators Schumer and Graham, which includes both accomodation of illegal immigrants and more than a nod to enforcement, constitutes a "pledge of bipartisanship." Nevertheless, she understands, "few think the process will be anything but long and bloody — just like health care reform. And, in the end, there’s no guarantee of Republican votes."

But a portion of her reasoning is deeply flawed. Tucker rhetorically, and eloquently, asks "What kind of country would deport promising teen-aged Americans just because their parents came from Guatemala or Gambia without permission? What kind of country would exploit the labor of workers but refuse to allow them the chance at legal status?"

Apparently, the kind of country with a Senator Schumer and a Senator Graham, who write their

blueprint also creates a rational system for admitting lower-skilled workers. Our current system prohibits lower-skilled immigrants from coming here to earn money and then returning home. Our framework would facilitate this desired circular migration by allowing employers to hire immigrants if they can show they were unsuccessful in recruiting an American to fill an open position; allowing more lower-skilled immigrants to come here when our economy is creating jobs and fewer in a recession; and permitting workers who have succeeded in the workplace, and contributed to their communities over many years, the chance to earn a green card.

The guest worker program scheme rears its ugly head- and apparently is supported by a columnist who moments earlier typed "What kind of country would exploit the labor of workers...." Rightfully aghast at exploitation of human labor, Tucker should not avert her eyes from the temporary worker aspect of the Schumer-Graham framework.

Failing to recognize the nexus between temporary worker programs and exploitation of human labor, Tucker goes on to add two and two and come up with five. She approvingly quotes James Carville, who was two-thirds accurate when he commented that immigration reform "divides them (Republicans) worse than us. Politically, I think it is a good issue for Democrats to bring up. It gives them (the GOP) fits, real fits.”

The issue of immigration reform does divide Republicans more than Democrats and give the GOP "fits." Or rather, it has given Republicans more trouble than it has Democrats because the latter have merely "brought it up." Make immigration reform ("amnesty! amnesty!") a major issue and the political calculus shifts dramatically.

Several weeks ago, The Washington Times reported

President Obama gave a thumbs up Thursday to the outline of a plan to legalize illegal immigrants and create a flow of low-skilled foreign workers for the future, saying the immigration bill being worked on by a Republican and a Democrat is "promising"....

"I congratulate Senators Schumer and Graham for their leadership, and pledge to do everything in my power to forge a bipartisan consensus this year on this important issue so we can continue to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform," Mr. Obama said in a statement soon after the two senators published their blueprint in a column submitted to The Washington Post.

The carefully orchestrated rollout came just three days before immigrant-rights advocates expect at least 50,000 supporters to rally and march in Washington, D.C., calling for Congress to act. The organizers of the rally had met with Mr. Obama last week and told him he needed to embrace a bill or else the thousands of marchers would be told that he had failed to live up to his promises on this issue.

The President, wisely, signaled to marchers his support in a manner geared to avoid widespread publicity. The immigration reform position is salient primarily to supporters of legal/illegal immigration. It is not a pivotal issue to individuals, probably in the majority among the American populace, who oppose measures congenial to illegal immigrants. Advocates of the reform position would do well not to awaken the majority- or at least plurality- of voters who do not agree with them, but for whom the issue now is below the radar.

If Mr. Obama, unlike Carville and Tucker, appears to recognize the popular opposition to making illegal immigrants more comfortable, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) surely does. On March 31, Menendez- a strong support of comprehensive reform who regrets only that the Schumer-Graham blueprint has an enforcement component- told a New Jersey newspaper "I think the time to get it done is in November, right after the elections."

This wasn't (to be condescending) a bad effort on the part of a Pulitzer Prize winner. But Tucker, as well as Democratic strategists who support a path to legalization, need to recognize both the political explosiveness of immigration and the threat to the American worker posed by any temporary, or guest, worker program.

Making Immigration Policy The Worst It Can Be

Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.
- Winston Churchill

Democracy is a little like our immigration/illegal immigration system. There are at least three bad ways to go about reform:

- "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" would enable illegal immigrants to gain legal status if certain conditions, such as paying a fine and learning English, were met;

- Amnesty, which, unlike "comprehensive immigration reform," would grant illegal immigrants immediate legal status, but is a term mostly used by immigration hawks to undermine liberalization of immigration policy. For obvious political reasons, no politician (and practically no one else) has the courage to advocate actual amnesty, though it is what comprehensive reform eventually would evolve into;

- Maintaining the status quo, which clearly is not working, given that nothing has had as much effect on stemming the flow of illegal immigrants as the severe recession we're currently undergoing north of the border.

But there is one other option- and it's much worse than all the others. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.), mentioned it on the June 28 Fox News Sunday on GOP TV:

We're open to looking at immigration reform. We've tried it in the past. It's very tough. If we get the borders secure and we need -- we can go on from there and hopefully develop a guest worker program that actually works.

That's disturbing- or should be. In an article (apparently no longer available) appearing in the 4/17/06 issue, the editors of The New Republic explain

Indeed, to see the pernicious (and un-American) nature of a guest-worker program, one need only look across the Atlantic at the misery such programs have wrought in Europe. Spurred by extreme labor shortages in the 1950s, a host of European countries--including West Germany, France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands--adopted guest-worker programs. Those nations sought temporary immigrants to address their manpower problems, because they believed the labor shortages themselves were temporary and would end once the generation born after World War II entered the workforce. They also hoped that foreign workers would fill low-status jobs while allowing citizens to enjoy better-paying positions.

But the guest-worker programs also reflected European notions of nationhood--attitudes that could not be more different than those of the United States. The guest-worker programs were a way in which these European countries could avoid becoming ethnically plural societies. Of course, those nations became ethnically heterogeneous when the guest workers did not go home. But the workers, while remaining in those European countries, never became of them. Consider Germany, for instance, where more than two million Muslims of Turkish origin--whose families came as guest workers four decades ago--live today. They live in Germany not as Germans, but in a strange sort of nationless limbo--afforded certain benefits of citizenship (such as health care) but denied the privilege of actually being citizens. Which, of course, denies them any incentive to assimilate to their new country. The prospect of such a thing happening in the United States with mexican guest workers is only too real.

At least European nations turned to guest worker programs during "extreme labor shortages." It is, therefore, curious at first glance, troubling thereafter, that McConnell would raise the spectre of a guest worker program at a period of great and growing unemployment and severe labor surplus in the U.S.A. Generally, we should learn from the Europeans and adopt, with modification, what is best in their societies- including health care- and reject what is worst. And the worst is guest worker programs. When the debate over reform of illegal immigration policy gets under way, we need to remember that as inadequate as our current policy is, and as dangerous as the euphemistic "comprehensive immigrative reform" (or dysphemistic "amnesty") would be, there is a far greater danger.

Why Not McCain?- 3

John McCain and the mainstream media are unabashed enthusiasts of John McCain's "straight talk." Here is YouTube video of some straight talk the campaign of the Arizonan (that is where most of his homes are) is reluctant to publicize. Thanks go to smitheus of dailykos, who credited the site's blogger paulVA . He writes that he was at this April, 2006 union conference and apparently the video was only recently made available.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_jMmiiWsdQ&NR=1)

Here is the transcript of the remarks:

John McCain: "I don't think I need to tell you that there are jobs that Americans will not do. I don't think I have to tell you that there are ... the backbone of our economy...
Audience members: "Pay them the right wages."
John McCain: "You know I've heard that statement before. Now, my friends, I'll offer anybody here fifty dollars an hour if you'll go pick lettuce in Yuma this season and pick for the whole season. So, ok, sign up! Ok, when you sign up, you sign up, and you'll be there for the whole season, the whole season, ok, not just one day. Because you can't do it, my friend."

Though field hands don't work a 9 to 5 schedule, five days a week, 50 weeks a year, we'll use those numbers to add some perspective. Forty hours a week at fifty dollars an hour would be two thousand dollars a week. Figure in the fifty weeks a year and you make $100,000 a year, paltry to a man married to someone worth nearly $100 million as chairwoman and heiress to a beer distributorship, but awfully good for most of us.

And lest we forget: this contempt for the American worker is coming from a fellow who believes that $5,000,000 barely qualifies an individual as "rich," an advocate of a guest worker program, and one of the two primary Senate sponsors of "comprehensive immigration reform."

McCain On Border Security

When John McCain spoke (before Barack Obama) on July 8, 2008 before the League of United Latin American Citizens, he commented only briefly on immigration/illegal immigration. But he did remark

Many Americans, with good cause, did not believe us when we said we would secure our borders, and so we failed in our efforts. We must prove to them that we can and will secure our borders first, while respecting the dignity and rights of citizens and legal residents of the United States of America...

Note McCain said: a) "We must prove to them that we can and will secure our borders first"(emphasis mine) and b) Americans did not believe us when we said we would secure borders and so we failed in our efforts" (emphasis mine). Taken together (or even the second remark alone), the statement does not mean that he believes that the borders must be secured first (and does anyone believe that we're going to secure the Canadian border first, second, or even third?) but merely that people need to believe that the border(s) will be "secured first."

Perhaps if elected, McCain will start the snow job with his signature "a little straight talk," then try to convince the American people that the border will be "secured" (and how does one measure "secured"?) prior to laying a path for citizenship. I don't want to give my liberal/progressive readers a reason to vote for John McCain for President; there isn't much of a reason. But if you favor "comprehensive immigration reform," "amnesty," or (far worse) a guest worker program, rest easy: so does John McCain.

Playing It Wrong- McCain

I don't have much patience for the vacillation of Barack Obama at the meeting of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. But what of the Straight Talk Express, the chosen vehicle of the candidate who was for comprehensive immigration reform before he was against it before he was for it?

John McCain stated "We have to secure our borders ... but we also must proceed with a temporary worker program that is verifiable and truly temporary. We must also understand that 12 million people are here, and they are here illegally, and they are God's children." Gone, for the day, was McCain's assurance that the borders would be secured "first." Instead, we learn that illegal immigrants are God's children, an assertion so banal it would apply also to thiefs, rapists, and murderers.

And those individuals who oppose McCain's prescription for illegal immigrants? Apparently, they fail to recognize them as "God's children" and so, presumably, are not themselves part of that group McCain has claimed on God's behalf.

But McCain's arrogance in presuming to know the mind of the Almighty pales in significance compared to the guest worker scam he is peddling. He argued "we also must proceed with a temporary worker program that is verifiable and truly temporary." Whatever your posion- "amnesty" or instead deporting all illegal immigrants- a guest worker program would be more destructive to American society. In its april 17, 2006 article entitled "That's Hospitality," the editors of The New Republic explained how such programs have backfired in Europe and would do the same in the U.S.A.

But a guest worker and his family have no such opportunity for transcendence. They are slotted into a caste, with no real hope of ever rising above it. Indeed, Bush's guest-worker program would codify a large group of people in the United States as second-class citizens. Although they would enjoy many of the same legal protections as American-born workers, they would never be viewed by Americans as equals. Instead, they would be seen as transient figures here only to make a buck. They would not be immigrants or future Americans. They would merely be janitors, construction workers, and housekeepers.

Indeed, to see the pernicious (and un-American) nature of a guest-worker program, one need only look across the Atlantic at the misery such programs have wrought in Europe. Spurred by extreme labor shortages in the 1950s, a host of European countries--including West Germany, France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands--adopted guest-worker programs. Those nations sought temporary immigrants to address their manpower problems, because they believed the labor shortages themselves were temporary and would end once the generation born after World War II entered the workforce. They also hoped that foreign workers would fill low-status jobs while allowing citizens to enjoy better-paying positions.

But the guest-worker programs also reflected European notions of nationhood--attitudes that could not be more different than those of the United States. The guest-worker programs were a way in which these European countries could avoid becoming ethnically plural societies. Of course, those nations became ethnically heterogeneous when the guest workers did not go home. But the workers, while remaining in those European countries, never became of them. Consider Germany, for instance, where more than two million Muslims of Turkish origin--whose families came as guest workers four decades ago--live today. They live in Germany not as Germans, but in a strange sort of nationless limbo--afforded certain benefits of citizenship (such as health care) but denied the privilege of actually being citizens. Which, of course, denies them any incentive to assimilate to their new country. The prospect of such a thing happening in the United States with mexican guest workers is only too real.

We don't know whether John McCain is for or against illegal immigration- it may depend on the day of the week or whether the sun is shining- but we do know that he is in favor of exploitation of foreign-born workers.