What about incorporating some values and take responsability for improving the vision and worth in “WORKING” and pull ourselves up by the boot straps and do something about it, like pay better wages to the poor working classes and stomp out loopholes our legislatures and the government feed the the misers with.

This is what happens when the richest economy in the world shares a 2000 mile border with a country of 150 million whose economy continues to implode.

Anyone reading this blog who believes that -put in the same position as a Mexican dirt farmer– he wouldnt do whatever necessary to come here for a job is just plain in denial(and would be apretty irresponsible father or provider).

To believe there is some techno-legal way to “close” or “seal” that border is, I am sorry to say, to understand absolutely fucking nothing. You might as well try to build urban shock absorbers to avoid earthqaukes, giant city-roofs to to fend off rain, or if you prefer, earthen levees to stand against Category 5 hurricanes.

That doesnt mean we standhelpless before a human tide. Rather it means you drop the bullshit from-Mars rhetoric about sealing the unsealable and you find a rational way to control, regulate and manage the best way you can something that is inevitable. Put 2 million troops and 50 foot barbed wire along the entire border if you wish — and if you can afford the tax the American people the billions it would cost. Then watch illegal aliens: dig two mile tunnels, form networks to corrupt American border gaurds, and build an endless flotilla of seacraft to wash up on the shores of California, Oregon, Texas and Florida.

What would u do to feed ur family and escape a Oaxacan village where ur best shot was to make $40 a week? Don’t make me laugh.

Organize the ‘illegals’. There’s no good reason a liberal should oppose their organizing, they’re here now and working, no changing that reality. Besides, who cares if they’re ‘illegal’. How many millions of us are descendants of ‘legal’ immigrants who could come here because the legal immigration of millions of Chinese workers was cut off? What does it mean in America to be ‘legal’ really?

On immigration, like so many other issues, the Republicans are vulnerable to the observation that they are against economic freedom.

While the internationalization of labor is inevitable, driven by the nearly complete globalization of capital, the empowerment of global labor is emphatically not a forgone conclusion.

The migration of global labor cannot be halted or even significantly slowed without imposing unbearable costs on the economies involved. The real issue is how to manage that migration so that the benefits are shared by workers on the bottom rung across the planet.

Democrats have an opportunity to make the connection between global labor rights, U.S corporate responsibility and rights for U.S. workers. This is a difficult, nuanced position and, at the moment, politically risky. But there is no more important economic issue and the party that gets it right will, eventually, win broad support.

This might sound snarky, but weren’t we just arguing recently about how “progressives” can actually give vocal support to issues that the majority of folks care about? Ways of reaching across to red state folks who commonly vote Republican because of issues such as this one? I’m not arguing for Minutemen-style demonization of undocumented workers (give me a break–I worked as an immigrant advocate for years), but I believe there are much more effective ways of engaging the public (including those sympathetic to the Minutemen) on this issue than simply attacking these fringe groups, and identifying once again with the loser position of “defending illegals”. Why not put in this corner the companies who are actually responsible for exacerbating illegal immigration? It’s possible, I suppose, that Marc is being truly sly here: he’s challenging Minutemen to do the work that undocumented laborers are doing, thereby drawing national attention to the labor abuses themselves, thereby forcing us to attempt to resolve the issue not by simply focusing attention on the border, but rather on the locus of abuse: the exploitation of workers. But let’s be clear about one thing: the problem is not that Americans don’t want to do agricultural work for $7.00/hr, but that companies are able to get away with paying a wage so low by cheating the market through illegal hiring practices. Cripes, what American couldn’t get behind that? On the other hand, putting our eggs in the attack-the-Minutemen-support-immigrants basket sounds like an approach straight out of the Gospel According to Answer. Yikes.

*Of course, Rockford has also brought up in previous posts on this issue that U.S. agribusiness can compete by utilizing improved farming technology–i.e, increased mechanization of labor. This kills jobs, of course, but the jobs were essentially “outsourced” (read, performed by undocumented labor) in the first place, so no net loss.

However, my own modest proposal is to hire Mexican journalists for minimum wage, no benefits, and drive wages in journalism to the lowest possible level. There are plenty of hard-working Mexican journalists who would glady work in the US for much less than American journalists.

Any takers?

I agree with Reg 100% on this. I can’t say more than that.

Our immigration policies are among the most liberal in the world. I don’t think we have anything to be ashamed of in the “welcoming immigrants” department, except that we’ve allowed special interests – mostly of the business variety – to override any attempts to find effective ways to enforce the laws.

Personally, I think this is a bargain with the devil and not doing anyone any favors at all in the not-so-long run – not even the desperate folk who slip over the border for the promise of exploitation. I don’t have any easy answers, but frankly anyone who’s not shamed by the working conditions that guarantee availability of super-cheap raw ag produce – or disgusted by the parallel destruction of an organized working class in the meat-packing industry – needs to check their fundamental values. I’m not accusing anyone here of this, but “normalizing” exploitation of immigrant labor isn’t a solution.

I don’t know exactly what a solution looks like – and I’m adamantly against draconian measures like 187 that punish entire families in areas like basic education and access to health care that have nothing to do with the circumstances of the parent’s employment or immigration status, but I know that if employers were afraid to hire illegal immigrants because of more intensive regulation of the labor market, several thing would happen. Far fewer illegals would try to cross if they couldn’t easily get jobs. Wages and working conditions would have to improve to some degree in the labor markets currently populated by illegals in order to draw employees. Legal immigration could be increased if real labor shortages existed in lower-wage markets, which would be a boon to at least a segment of people who currently seek those jobs via illegal immigration.

I don’t think that our borders should be ignored because of “imperialism” or any other leftwing cliches. Nor do I think that American citizenship – or (shades of Pat Buchanan, although my interpretation of this phenomenon is wildly at odds with his) our national culture – is meaningless. Far from it.

I also think it’s idiotic – politically and pragmatically – to view the U.S. labor market as an essential safety valve for the failures of the folk who run Mexico and routinely oppress and exploit their own people, rob their state coffers, and oversee a corrupt and often openly terroristic military/police apparatus.

A few cents, admittedly far from definitive…