Don't Fall for Bush's Immigration Scam

Editor's note: This is one of two pieces in a point/ counterpoint format. Please see Joshua Holland's response here.

Traditional conservative William F. Buckley was once asked how he would describe a "liberal." He thought for moment, his snakelike tongue darting about just behind open lips, then spoke.

"A liberal is someone who overwaters their house plants."

Ouch! That hurt. Because he was right. I knew exactly what he meant. Why would a liberal overwater a house plant? Because they were mean? No. Quite the opposite. They were just trying to help. Because liberals are nice people -- sometimes too nice. Liberals have overdeveloped empathy glands. When they tell you they "feel your pain," they mean it -- even if at that particular moment you're not feeling it.

Now, before you jump all over me, I'm a liberal. (Well, a social liberal anyway, though I tend to be more conservative when it comes to things like balancing the federal checkbook.) But on social issues I'm right there -- choice for women, equality for everyone and more than a little suspicious about what the domestic Axis of Evil -- corporate/political/media nexus -- are up to.

But, just as conservatives always go too far with their proclivities, so too do liberals. And for both, that is always their downfall. We are coming to the end -- whew! -- of a conservative cycle and just beginning the next liberal cycle. Be assured, it too will inevitably end in excess. But maybe we can avoid some obvious mistakes early on.

Which is why I am risking the ire of the liberal/progressive community to speak frankly about immigration reform. I know the war in Iraq is currently consuming almost all the available attention -- and rightfully so. But there are other festering wounds on America's body-politic that require immediate attention, and one of the biggest is immigration.

But before I put the war aside for a moment, we should all remind ourselves that the Democrats were also on the wrong side of that issue -- and for way too long. And, though they seem to have now gotten it right, it's too late. The damage is done, and it's irreversible. Simply put, Democrats were snookered, bamboozled and herded like sheep to the slaughter by conservatives on the war.

And now they are now being led to the slaughter again, by the same bunch, on immigration reform.

Yes, the Neocons are at it again. On the war they played on Democrat's fear of being seen as sissies. This time Neocons are playing on liberal empathy for the very real plight of illegal immigrants from Mexico. But as laudable as that empathy is, it's a trap and Democrats have taken the bait -- again.

By falling in step with the Bush administration's so-called "comprehensive immigration reform," Democrats are driving a dagger into the hearts of working class Americans, particularly those struggling to survive at the bottom of the income scale. In other words, they are about to screw the very people they claim should vote Democrat because only Democrats will help them.

Four years ago the Neocons sold the Iraq war with a lie ... that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Now they are selling their version of "comprehensive immigration reform" with another lie ... that immigrants, legal or otherwise, are simply taking jobs Americans won't do.

Well, then, how do you explain this story:

Wall Street Journal -- Jan. 17, 2007

Immigration Raid Aids Blacks

After a wave of raids by federal immigration agents in Stillmore, Ga., on Labor Day weekend, a local chicken processing company called Crider Inc. lost 75 percent of its mostly Hispanic 900-member work force. The crackdown threatened to cripple the economic anchor of this fading rural town.

But for local African-Americans, the dramatic appearance of federal agents presented an unexpected opportunity. Crider suddenly raised pay at the plant. An advertisement in the weekly Forest-Blade newspaper blared "Increased Wages" at Crider, starting at $7 to $9 an hour -- more than a dollar above what the company had paid many immigrant workers. The company began offering free transportation from nearby towns and free rooms in a company-owned dormitory near the plant. For the first time in years, local officials say, Crider aggressively sought workers from the area's state-funded employment office -- a key avenue for low-skilled workers to find jobs. Of 400 candidates sent to Crider -- most of them black -- the plant hired about 200. (Full Story)

So, what happened there? This local Stillmore chicken processing plant had been perking right along for years paying illegals immigrants wages so low it made more sense for American workers right there in town to remain unemployed. But once those those illegals were gone, forcing the company to offer a reasonable wage, local (American) workers stampeded to get a job there. The job hadn't changed. It was the same, dirty, smelly, messy chicken gut-flinging work as before -- the kind of work the company claimed "Americans won't do."