EXODUS TWO
I’m happy to report that after — yet one more day– on the Mexican border, we didn’t detect any decline in the BIBILICAL EXODUS of Mexicans heading north, And latest reports indicate that no such let up is predicted for the next 15–20 years – regardless if the U.S. builds its 700 mile, $2 billion border wall — or not.
The jokes around the border this morning have changed: "Hear abut the new jobs for us?" asks one Mexicn ditty, "who do u thin’s gonna wind up building that wall?" Another story now circulating: "New Wall 50Ft, New Ladders for Sale 51ft."
Anyway, the new crossing season has just gotten uderway this week. The Border Parol have changed the oil in their trucks. The coyotes have raised the prices to about $1500 per pollo with two failed trys for free. The US Atorney’s office has stepped up its probe into corrupt Border Patrol and National Guardsmen pocketing bribes for the smugglers — so far 40 have been indicted. The nine passenger vans that shuttle hundreds per hour to the border have had their seats yanked and replaced by benches that hold 27 passengers. The seedy, secret tenements on the side streets off the twon of Altar– principal launching pad into America for the unoducmeneted, ilegal, unlawful, unidentified, desperate, destittute inidigenous famers,their chilrdre and their wives.
The subhuman boarding houses in Altar charging $10 a nite for a slot on a dity floor with 30 others are busy building extra cubicles.
Everyone thinks this year might be a record in crossings… maybe a million in Arizona. Maybe even a new record of migrant deaths whicle crossing the desert, THis past year was a record with 270. With a little luck, that number can easily be topped.
Let the games begin.
January 13th, 2006 at 1:05 am
I read a couple of Luis Urea’s books over the holidays. Devils Highway and Across the Wire. Both were fantastic books and one cannot read about the lives of the poor in Mexico without gaining understanding as to why so many migrants are willing to risk life the limb to come to the US.
The other tid bit that I learned from a friend in the LAPD is that during the 90′s Tyson foods used to recruit migrants in Central America. I am sure that is no surprise to most of you who follow this issue, but it seems pretty damn cynical. I mean, Tyson recruiting immigrants is one thing. But take into account the difficulty of getting across. Pretty damn cynical if you ask me.
January 13th, 2006 at 7:55 am
Two comments: one in response to Josh – if we’re really serious about ending illegal immigration the place to start is with the employers that exploit undocumented labor, employers like the slaughter houses, construction firms, big agriculture, and the contractors rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Let the Minutemen park their lawn chairs in front of Tyson Foods and train their binoculars on the employees entrance if they want to catch illegals. The second comment to Marc – looks like you posted this entry with one too many tequilas under your belt.
January 13th, 2006 at 8:32 am
This seems to be an issue were those on the extremes of this issue have a good idea or two. In a saner world, they would be combined:
1. Put Tom Tancredo in charge of building a wall.
2. Pass constitutional amendment repealing automatic citizenship for babies born in USA to noncitizens.
3. Like David Martin says, deal with employers who depend on undocumented labor
AND
4. Pass Kennedy-McCain immigration bill, establishing guest worker program, sharply increasing the number of green cards every year, etc..
3.
January 13th, 2006 at 8:47 am
The key points of the Bush plan work fine by me:
• Workers in the United States illegally join a temporary labor program.
• Those now-illegal immigrants then can apply for permanent residence but get no preferential consideration.
• Employers hiring these workers must show they cannot find U.S. laborers to fill their jobs.
• These undocumented workers get guaranteed wage and employment rights.
• These workers receive a temporary three-year visa, renewable once. They are expected to return to their countries of birth once their visas expire.
• Congress is urged to increase current annual limit of 140,000 “Green Cards.”.
• The Department of Homeland Security is to administer the program.
January 13th, 2006 at 9:09 am
David Monty —
“…fine by me:
…Employers hiring these workers must show they cannot find U.S. laborers to fill their jobs.”
Hear this all the time. The thing is, there ARE citizens and other documented workers willing to change bed pans in nursing homes…provided the pay is, say, $15 an hour+health benefits, rather than $7.00+no benefits.
How much do you think bed pan changers ought to make? If your answer is ‘whatever the market will bear’, which labor market are you talking about?
January 13th, 2006 at 10:04 am
Proving there is no one else here to take a specific job sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare to me. It’ll never happen in practice.
January 13th, 2006 at 10:36 am
[...] Marc Cooper has been on the southern United States border for a while now. He is chronicling the “biblical exodus” of Mexicans into the United States. As far as I can tell, Marc Cooper is the only “lefty” out there paying any attention to this problem. [...]
January 13th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Proving there is no one else here to take a specific job sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare to me.
Your sentence is unclear so I am not sure what your are trying to say. But even you would admit the democrat’s alternative plan is more bureaucratic.
January 13th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
As long as we believe that the only labor that should be rewarded with good wages and working conditions are Lobbyists, lawayers and beltway journalists there will be a huge pressure for illegal i9mmigrants to do jobs and keep “greedy” American worker’s wages down.
January 13th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
“Your sentence is unclear so I am not sure what your [sic] are trying to say. But even you would admit the democrat’s [sic] alternative plan is more bureaucratic. ”
In media we use quotes around statements from other writers. It’s perfectly clear. It ain’t happening. No one will show up. There won’t be a job. No one will make a bigger bureaucracy than a Republican.
January 13th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
The exodus is not biblical until the Red Sea parts and Fox is struck with ten plagues. Actually, I think Fox should have a lot more than ten; perhaps, twenty would be appropriate for that autocratic AH.
January 13th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
Kings, Chronicles and Samuel…but no Exodus II.
Just saying…
Changing bed pans with no health benefits ? Uh…yeah. But we should at least give those hardy souls a living wage and medical insurance.
January 14th, 2006 at 2:37 am
one wonders how come Marc is so supportive of another guest-worker plan that will make it easy to exploit the holy moses out of immigrant workers during their ‘temporary’ stays?
January 14th, 2006 at 7:02 am
With all the radical solutions on offer here, nobody has come up with the ideal one: invade Mexico, and make it part of the U.S. Workers from Mexico will no longer be illegal. End of story.
I’m sure some pretext could be whipped up, but why invent one? Isn’t this immigration wave a casus belli in itself? Surely, if illegal workers are the menace some think they are, and the Mexican government isn’t doing its part — nay, even appreciates all the repatriated income — that’s reason enough, isn’t it?
The masses converging on the border are Masses. They destroy American livelihoods with their acceptance of low-ball wages — so that’s Destruction. And the Mexican government doesn’t seem to mind, so it’s almost like they are using this Mass Destruction against the U.S. — it’s like a … a … a kind of weapon! A Weapon of Mass Destruction. WMD! Slam-dunk, Mr. President.
Also, Mexico has oil. But let’s play that fact down for now.
January 14th, 2006 at 9:39 am
rlc: you’ve neglected to mention major league sports folks, popular musicians, and certain movie star types. i could be convinced to live the sort of life they enjoy.
January 14th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
Damn MT. You had me actually agreeing with you, but hoping it could be done without bloodshed, until I read on and found you was just ribbing us…aw shucks.
Anyway. It would be the best solution for both, but just politically impossible….wouldn’t it?
January 14th, 2006 at 11:57 pm
Well, this is one of those situations where all the pontificating in the world won’t change the reality of a situation. The truth is that things will continue exactly as they are as long as people find justification for dividing humans up into categories: We, Americans, them, Mexicans. Now of course I expect very few people to agree that we should dispense with such distinctions, either on the US-Mexico border or any other border in the world. So, as I say, things will continue just as they are no matter what anyone here says and no matter how many brilliant plans people come up with.
January 15th, 2006 at 2:38 am
Michael Turner says:
“With all the radical solutions on offer here, nobody has come up with the ideal one: invade Mexico, and make it part of the U.S.”
I assume that this is rhetoric, but let’s take the idea seriously.
Instead of proposing invasion or even offering it as a possibility, let’s float the idea that we would like to welcome Mexico into the Union.
Will the Mexicans go for it? They either will or they won’t. If they won’t, nothing has been lost.
Our sincere argument will go as follows:
Look, Southern friends, sorry about those crazy Filibusters like William Walker and sorry about taking half your country, but you know as well as we do that our hands are no dirtier than yours. That’s why you bear us no grudge, and why we bear you no grudge, and why we get along so well.
Here is the deal: you ratify the US Constitution and then we will work on the details, but the US Constitution will control, because for all the ways
in which we admire you, we don’t envy you your system of government.
The above is far less fanciful than supposing that Britons and Germans and Greeks and Poles and Italians and the French can live under a single government.
January 17th, 2006 at 7:37 am
Great idea Sam!
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Talk about a way to expand mega-government and increase the welfare state. Eh gad these people have bad ideas.
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