Mother Jones Article on Immigration.

[JayB]

Heard the author being interviewed on NPR today, and followed up by reading his article at lunch. There's a lot of historo-politico-economic analysis in the article that I'd take issue with, but it's worth reading for the in-the-trenches perspective, and the sober assesment of some of the facts on the ground.

 

"They are no longer migratory workers. And it is not seasonal labor. The people walking north all around me are not going home again. This is an exodus from a failed economy and a barbarous government and their journey is biblical."

 

Link to Article

[G-spotter]

if the indians hadn't let the damn europeans into the country, i guess they'd all have high paying jobs today, right

[foraker]

Kind of puts Bush in a bind: does he kowtow to cheap labor business leaders or to the anti-immigration advocates?

The interesting thing is that the environmental orgs haven't come out against illegal immigration since the impact of such is felt most strongly in the West where available resources such as, oh, water aren't in large supply. But that's the political cost when you forge alliances with other groups in order to gain strength.

[Dechristo]

In this world, if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

[JayB]

Kind of puts Bush in a bind: does he kowtow to cheap labor business leaders or to the anti-immigration advocates?

The interesting thing is that the environmental orgs haven't come out against illegal immigration since the impact of such is felt most strongly in the West where available resources such as, oh, water aren't in large supply. But that's the political cost when you forge alliances with other groups in order to gain strength.

 

Maybe they're thinking of all of the habitat reverting back to its original state south of the border as small, isolated villages lose population to El Norte.

 

It seems kind of trivial next to the plight of the people who traverse it, but the desert on the border is slowly being converted to a diffuse landfill.

 

To return to a familiar topic of conversation, the guy who wrote the article had a good chuckle when asked about the threat of Islamic terrorists using the Mexican border crossing to infiltrate the US. He said something to the effect that any Islamic terrorist who had the temerity to set foot in a northern border town would be spit-roasted in hours of setting foot there, and they know it. He didn't go into detail, but it sounded as though he thought the combination of lawlessness, ruthlessness, and old-school catholicism would not make for very friendly territory. Plus an attack routed through the Mexican border would probably be bad for the people-smuggling business. I have not idea if he's wrong or right, but he's lived on the ground there for decades so it was interesting to hear his thoughts on this topic.

[lI1|1!]

those immigrants have been giving us a hard time ever since my family came to this country.

[G-spotter]

and my ancestors shot them full of arrows

[JayB]

and my ancestors shot them full of arrows

 

Seems strange to me that more Mexicans aren't flocking to Canada.

[G-spotter]

Too far to walk.

[tivoli_mike]

Chinese holding them off