Immigration

The problem as I see it isn't the current state of affairs but what has led to where we are today.

There are 11 to 12 million people here illegally (if you believe the politicians.) Why? This is simple: Corporations who own our politicians need cheap labor. If someone is here illegally, they aren't paid according to our minimum wage standards, aren't given health benefits, can't complain to OSHA and just plain aren't generally treated like human beings ought to be treated.

Is this a problem caused by both political parties? Sure. But, as you could probably predict, I believe Republicans are significantly more hypocritical than Democrats. My thoughts:

1. Republicans are, in my opinion, more in the pockets of big business. This is proven out year after year by the amount of money contributed to the Republican Party by business. As we've seen, the Republicans have repaid their contributors generously. Big business likes cheap labor.
2. Democrats are closely tied to labor unions. Labor unions don't benefit from illegal workers, they're actually hurt by them. Cheap alternative labor drives down union bargaining power and hourly wages.
3. Amnesty (or expanded immigration) will bring millions of new voters into states like Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California. Since most of these voters will be "working poor" if they become citizens, you'd expect they'd disproportionately vote Democratic. This is even truer now given the stand being taken by Republicans and the damage it's done to their reputations with Hispanic voters. These new voters could swing elections in Texas and other Republican strongholds.

Over the last 5 years countless numbers of illegals have crossed our borders. 99.9% of these people have been good folks looking for a days pay. No biggie. But some of them have been terrorists. So, while Republicans have been in complete control of our government during and since 9/11, they've done nothing about this illegal immigration problem until now. They've sold out our national security so their big business constituents could continue to have cheap illegal labor. This is a big problem and should be a big scandal.

You see, this wasn't important until it recently became a political football; just before an election with their President low in the polls. If Bush had 60% approval, this still wouldn't be an issue. But with the Republicans in trouble they're looking for wedge issues even between themselves. Usually, they're more interested in throwing out gay marriage, flag burning and abortion to get their base fired up. But now they need to come up with something that separates them from their own. A new way to push hate into the campaign. "Vote for me because those dirty Mexicans are stealing your jobs. THEY want to live in your neighborhood!"

The hate-machine is just getting fired up again and as is typical, the men pulling the levers are wearing business suits. And they all voted for this President a few months ago.