Welcome, Guests!

It ain’t 5:01 pm yet. In fact, it’s only 4:17 pm est here on the edge of the Green Swamp, so I guess logging on to FA involves time travel. Cool.

Jeeze, I hope we weren’t expecting anything honest, competent, or motivated by concerns for constructive governance.

Pete Pequot writes, “Can we make this policy retroactive to the 17th century?”

According to my laptop, which might be in its own independent time-space discontinuum,it’s 4:31 pm est (my mind wanders a lot). Wonder what time it is at FA.

Ehhh, it’s still more coherent than the “rules” for allowing legal immigrants to work, which involve dozens of trips to the “local” INS office (often located hundreds of miles from the legal immigrant’s residence); reams of paperwork that needs to be filled out and then re-filled out when INS loses it; surly, officious, belligerent, incoherent, or simply overworked INS employees who are only permitted to answer three questions per phone call; and more sets of fingerprints than your typical mass murderer. All done under threat of deportation should said immigrant decide to get uppity about the level of service from the good folks at the INS.

And don’t get me started about the Homeland Security thugs at airports who terrorize and threaten new arrivals while the people waiting for them are cut off from any information about their status. Or the inability to get basic insurance coverage, or a driver’s license, while hospital emergency rooms are filled with illegal immigrants who got there driving unregistered cars. (And this is just the stuff that’s happened to a friend’s husband in the past two years.) Illegal immigrants actually have a much better deal, and have to deal with far less paperwork.

Oh, you Americans are so funny! Do what we do - turn all refugees away, and hunt down those that do make it, bung ‘em all in a compound in the middle of the desert, restrict all humanitarian and journalistic access to these people, keep ‘em here under the pretense of “applying for asylum” until you’ve got enough to fill an airplane, then ship ‘em back to whatever Lobster-forsaken hellhole they came from under armed guard. We’re Christians here! Oh - and if ordinary citizens start making a fuss, fake photos and release press statements that “show” the immigrants throwing their children overboard. Best if you do this in the week before a federal election.

Oh, that’s right, you’re not surrounded by water… hey, get the illegals to dig a big ditch around the US, that should take 2 or 3 years, then ship ‘em back over! Problem solved!

No one mentions what all that paperwork costs…legally getting a person into the country and work-enabled can easily cost over $1000, even without a lawyer to wade through the muck for you. That also doesn’t count the cost of supporting the “guest” while (s)he waits for the work permit (standard EAD paperwork takes no less than three months and must be initiated after one legally enters the country). There’s no indication of how many forms will be required for guest worker registration, but I’m betting it won’t be free.

I’m sure “guest working,” like legal immigration, will offer a great opportunity for people who want to come to the United States in order to escape poverty…oh wait a minute…

Yeah, so Bush is catering towards those who favor paying Mexican (or Canadian!!! No one mentions those…probably because they’re white though…still, an interesting point that only Mexican labor is mentioned heavily) laborers lower than prevailing wage. What an amazing strike for Truth, Justice, and the AMERCAN Way.

Yes, that’s right. AMERCAN. I’s are unpatriotic if yer from Texas, or possibly yer just unedgimicated like the Presedent.

I have a friend who had enough bravado (and lack of foresight) to get his wife pregnant and have a child while he was working for an American company in Canada.

This is an intelligent, capable human being, who very often joked that is profession was just his part-time job… his real full-time endeavor was writing the INS.

My mother-in-law went through similar difficulties. She was born on a US MILITARY BASE in Kent, England. Her father retired as a Senior Master Sergeant from the US Army, but my mother-in-law had a hard time during a background screening (she’s an early childhood development specialist and works with the kiddies).

What we have to remember is that the problem is a lot bigger than Bush is willing to tackle. This is, after all, a PRE 9-11 priority. Remember how well things were going? Remember how great all the solutions were?

This must have been left-over policy from BEFORE Bush “ran around the White House taking genius pills”, as David Cross puts it. At least we can be assured that without the War on Terror (“that’s like having a War on Jealousy,” says Cross) – we really would have a lame duck in the oval office.

The INS folks are permitted to answer only three questions per phone call?! Who’s the employee trainer over there, the guy in charge of the Kwik E Marts up in the Himalayas?

(clipped from a Simpsons script)

Apu: He is the benevolent and enlightened president and C.E.O. of Kwik-E-Mart — and in Ohio, Stop-O-Mart. He is the one we must ask for my job back.

Master: Approach, my sons. You may ask me three questions.

Apu: That’s great, because all I need is one –

Homer: Are you _really_ the head of the Kwik-E-Mart?

Master: Yes.

Homer: Really?

Master: Yes.

Homer: You?

Master: Yes. I hope this has been enlightening for you.

Apu: But I must –

Master: Thank you, come again.

Apu: But –

Master: Thank you, come again.

Speaking of money talking:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051130/ts_usatoday/contractorspends bigonkeylawmakers

I think the GOP euphemism for this “business-friendly”

Does anyone, besides Nigel, have an idea on how we solve illegal immigration?

Base our troops on our borders.
Continue the fence in San Diego until it reaches Brownsville, TX.
Punitive fines for employers hiring illegals.
Prompt imprisonment or return for all illegals, not just the Mexicans.
And cuidado, mi habla poquito es Spanol.
I know y’all hate the monkey, but can’t you agree, WE need to do something on this issue.

O.T. Why does Bush only give speeches in front of huge crowds filled with lunatic applause monkeys?

fouler, personally, I’d rather just bitch and moan.

But let me take a weak, uneducated stab at it, just for argument’s sake. There are basically 2 questions to address. Why do they want to leave their country? AND When they do leave their country, why do they want to come here?

Why do they leave - they’re starving or just barely scratching out a living and working themselves to death in the bargin. Obviously Central America is broken, the governments are corrupt from top to bottom and do not function in such a way as to provide the basic support (infrastructure, education, health services) needed by their citizens. I don’t know if I can do anything about that.

Why do they come here? Why not? If they go south, it’s just more of the same. If they go to Canada, they freeze their collective butts off. The good ol’ US of A is reasonably accommodating and they probably have cousins here already with a spare couch to sleep on. Our southern border leaks like a sieve. How do we fix that? I don’t know if a wall is the answer. Maybe an array of high tech infra red satelites in geosynchronous orbit to spot the illegals coming across. Or here’s a wild hair, maybe get Bush and Fox to actually meet and talk about the problem and work together to solve it to the benefit of both nations.

Whooo Hoooo.

It’s a slice to know Adam is watching. (great concept on the blog. The emphasis, the comment count, are unmatched by any other blog I follow.

Fowler:

We in Canada do NOT freeze our collective butts off. If you’d like to check your facts, WE (hewers of wood and drawers of waters), ship YOU guys more energy than you get from the “Land of Osama”.

Mind you, it’s not the stuff you stick into your SUV’s, it’s mostly the really vunerable stuff that travels by pipeline, like natural gas.

Y’know, a pipeline that crosses a border.

Part of that pipeline is not on YOUR side of the border.

Did I mention the word “vunerable”?

Let me tell you what is really pissing off Canadians.

It’s the U.S. holding back billions of dollars contrary to NAFTA rulings on softwood lumber.

(check the news. People are being laid off here because we can’t sell our softwood products).

It’s the U.S. blocking Beef Imports from Canada (having managed to cover up their own BSE cases).

I’d bet the Roman proletariate didn’t forsee the end of pax romana either.

I’ll gratefully be dead before the next dark age. . . but I do worry about my grandkids.

bramster, for your consideration… you may already be in the next Dark Ages and just not be recognizing it, heh?

Adam, interesting defense, but no suggestion in your argument as to how to discourage the masses of unwashed, yearning to be here. Another set of laws? So what? It’s illegal to cross the border without permission now. That won’t dissuade people from trying to come. We need regional summits and cooperation to make life bearable in Central America, so the desire to emigrate to suppressed.

Anyone else notice that Bush annunciates the word “condom” so it sounds like “goddamn”. It must really bother him to have to say that word today in all those AIDS speeches he’ll be giving.
I must admit it bothered me at first, but after you said it a few thousand times, it gets easier. An old cowpoke like W. ought to know that all it takes is time in the saddle.

Can we talk about this in terms that mean something?

First, bush is the king of the cheap-labor conservatives. That phrase may sound like rhetoric but it means something. It means that when he bleats about “immigration” what he really means is preserving the right for corporations (or individuals for that matter, there a lot of nice homes in Rancho Santa Fe that need landscaping) to have access to cheap labor. Bottom line. There really isn’t more of explanation needed.

So let’s drop the pretense that there is a “plan” to “stop illegal immigration” anymore than bush actually had a plan for the Iraq war. As Adam much more humourously pointed out, this is a plan to ensure people can get cheap workers.

Cooper, I’m not Adam, but I think his solution is implied and it’s one I’ve long talked about. That is, harsh penalties on anyone (corporate or individual) who employs an illegal immigrant. I think Adam is a bit soft. I would vote for jail time on a first offense and ridiculously prohibitive fines from the start. I’m not preaching some brain-dead “zero tolerance” bullshit. I’m saying that we need to apply a harsh penalty with judgment and enforce with zeal. It’s the only way we will ever get a handle on this. There is almost no way to “seal” our borders. So the best, cheapest and most effective means we have to take away the reason to come here, which is, that undocumented workers can find work.

Past that, I don’t have a lot of ideas. While I’ve spent a good portion of my life living in border communities, I haven’t studied the situation and the impact. Perhaps others with more insight will chime in.

One final thing, I think the suggestion to locat military bases on borders are interesting. It obviously makes some kind of tactical sense but I wonder about it’s strategic logic. Near? Maybe. On? Maybe not so much. And as I recall, we have tons of bases “near” borders. But is our military for this purpose? I think there’s a certain faction in this country that love to invoke the “guys with guns” as though they can solve a myriad of problems. Our military is pretty cool and it’s amazing what they can do, but there are some things it’s not such a good idea for them to be doing. At least with mission specific training and guidelines.

I’d have to say I’m a “Soft Adamist”. Which came first, the private employment of these vulnerable people, or the ineluctable use of such a resource by Big Bidness? Either way, as Adam pointed out, it’s not the cunning use of cleverly forged documents by the chameleonic SuperWorkers, it’s the personal greed and refusal to accept responsibility by the employers (not surprising since it seems that the blame always goes on the immigrant, not the employer) that is stopping a working solution (pardon the pun) from being found.

Going for the crotch from the first (jail and fines) just makes the people targeted by these tactics more defensive about their illegal abuse of the workers, and will force ‘em to lie harder.

I’d suggest a softer (and far more nasty) line of attack : “outing” the employer. You know, have a list on the front page of all local community papers with the names and addresses (and political leanings would be great) of all people and corporations known to, or found to, be illegally employing these workers. And maybe a caricature of the greedy bastards.

Speaking of caricatures, I’m just waiting to see the re-emergence of the “anti-german” propaganda cartoons, but this time with mexicans as the target. You know, Lady Liberty, with one or more breasts exposed, helpless and unconscious and bleeding, draped over the shoulder of a gorilla-like Mexican wrestler, complete with bandoleer and moustache. I’m sure they can’t be far off, appearing around schools, Republican institutions, and vigilante neighbourhoods. Perhaps some enterprising American business could re-use the anti-semitic posters from around WWII? Or the Russian anti-semitic posters. There’s just so many examples of “anti-someone” propaganda to choose from, that kind of “free speech” must be just around the corner, right? Or maybe Rove’s teams of boys and girls will start handing them out a few weeks before the next election…

So true, Harold. My own esteemed father loves to vacation in Mexico, and he always buys beautiful boots and leather jackets there at a fraction of what he’d pay in the U.S. But he deeply resents the presence of illegal workers here at home in the fields and at the local meat-packing plant. He just can’t seem to grasp that it’s the same phenomenon–the workers just have to come here to process the grain and meat, because they can’t do it all from Mexico.
Then he suggests that all the people on welfare are just too lazy and/or proud to take these jobs, when the fact is that the jobs don’t pay enough to be legal! If citizens/legal immigrants took those jobs, they’d have to pay taxes, Social Security, etc. What’s the solution? Raise the pay level so that the jobs can be held by legal workers. But that would raise the prices on food, and Dad would throw a fit! (Actually, Mom would–but they’re a team.)
If the employers had to pay a living wage, we’d have to pay more for their goods. There’s the rub.

Bramster, Did I say anything about Canada?

Everyone brace yourself…..

I agree almost completely w/ ice weasel.

Adam, If we were in that “less polarized America”, I might agree w/ “ludicrous”, but we ain’t…

I see the problem as being very similar to illegal drugs.

There is an insatiable demand for cheap labor, (Wal-Mart, nannies, dishwashers in your local mom and pop restaurant), and a willing group ready to supply this demand. Stopping the migration across our borders is as doomed to failure as stopping drugs. (They can just hide the illegals in a bale of Marijuana).

America needs the poor. And the richer you are the more you need poor people around you. You need them to clean your house, take care of your children, work in your factory and cut your grass. The only thing better than American poor is illegal poor who can’t complain if you mistreat, or shortchange them. The one thing this issue has in spades is hypocrisy and dishonesty.

We COULD just enforce minimum wage laws for everybody, and hope that Americans would wash our dishes, pick our cucumbers, and clean Wal-Mart.

Or we could just accept the fact that America wants what the illegals have to offer, open the border, register and keep track of them, give them a social safety net, educate their children, take care of them if they are injured and need health care and pay them as little as they will take.

Is this exploiting them? Well, less than we do now as we vilify them for all of our problems. And I’m not sure that you can exploit someone who consents to what you offer.

I agree with Cooper, We don’t have a crush of Canadians trying to get into the USA. They are quite content to live their lives where they were born, (well, most of them). The difference between Canada and Mexico and Central America is that Canada is prosperous. Life in the US wouldn’t be a big step up. What we need to do is try to make the situation better for them down south so that they are happy to stay there. Perhaps we should set up a colony in Nicaragua were we build a resort, manufacturing facilities to build cars, tennis shoes, pasties and g straps, print Bibles, build Ipods etc. Every one who wants to work for a couple of $ a day can come. We get cheap labor, they get more money than they made at home, Nicaragua gets some income and we don’t have to complain about Latino’s coming across the border.

Murray, doesn’t “register and keep track of them, give them a social safety net, educate their children, take care of them if they are injured and need health care and pay them as little as they will take” pretty much describe the current plan for legal workers?

Billy, do you live anywhere near Seattle?

Ann I’m on the East Coast, Boston

I would love amnesty. as a small vineyard owner,I know how difficult it is to find good legal workers. The gringos don’t stay long (it’s hard work) and all of the legal immigrants have jobs. I don’t hire illegals and I do pay over $12/hr. The punishment part needs to be nuanced. For large employers/exploiters, there should be huge fines, but for small business people who faithfully try to get legal workers and get duped by phony papers, jail time sounds a little harsh. Immigrants in my line of work are just doing the jobs that mainstream lazy americans don’t want.

Gosh, Billy. It was fun while it lasted.

Ann, now I’m bummed out. I thought you were an East Coast hottie.

Billy, you and 250,000 other Irish are in Boston. My mom’s family (Joyce) had been in that fine town from 1634 until WWII. I do try to get in at least one trip there/year - as yankees go, they’re not too insufferable.

Re: Felberpalooza - Good idea Ann! We should all pick a Wait Wait show that Adam will be at and meet up there some time next year. Adam, any chance you know your schedule a while in advance?

I’ve been looking for a reason to go to Chicago to see the show. Every time that it has come local to me I didn’t find out until tickets were sold out.

Ann, Billy is like so many other Irish men, we tell you a beautiful story and then break your heart. It’s best you learn early and get on with your life.

Did you literally flip a coin? I haven’t made a life altering decision that way, but an end to a relationship and happenstance left me in Great Falls, Mt. for a year and it was a very good year at that. Lemons to lemonade - nothing tastes so sweet.

Oh, Cooper, I learned that about Irish men several years ago. The Scots aren’t too dependable either. I just thought that marrying for a green card might be a nice way to sidestep the romantic nonsense!
And no, I didn’t really flip a coin–I followed some college friends out here and then never wanted to go back. The problem with leaving a place like Iowa, though, is that’s where you have to spend all your vacations!

Ann - it’s not just the Irish, or Scots, or any Celts per se : all men are bastards. I know - I are one.
(OK, OK, some are just little itty-bitty bastards, but scratch a man, you’ll see bastard shining through). ‘Course, it could just be me… Any bastardsmen wanna argue the point? (tee hee hee)

Absolutely, Pete. I shall argue the point. I am not a bastard. In any way, shape, or form. Nosiree, uh-uh, no, nay, never, no more.

-sigh- Okay, I’m a -lying- bastard–a particular subspecies of bastard. Others varieties include the rat bastard and the raging bastard.

However, I would like to maintain that bastardliness is not limited to the male gender. Many of my female friends are proud to say they had their sneaky bastard credentials conferred on them by me after a particularly amusing pub story, back in the days when I was still certifying.

Thompson - my point exactly. We may be upholstered bastards, but we are bastards nonetheless. I majored in Lazy Bastardry, Summa Cum Sal, to add to my Cheeky Bastard bloodline. (Plus, I’m adopted and my biological father has never been identified, so I’ve even got some pure bastard in me… is ‘pure bastard’ an oxymoron?)

Ann, I’m sure that a non-bastard male is out there somewhere, in fact he must exist or we lesser bastards have nothing to strive for… it’s just that I’ve never met one. And you’re right, I stuck my bloody hand up first.

Apparently I’m not a bastard. Scratch me, and I might attempt to hurt you, but as best I can tell, I didn’t get the bastard gene. My brother did, and according to my mother (rest her soul), my biological father authored the manual. I did get some other traits I could do without, but not that one.

Watching “Frontline” and listening to a replay of Colin Powell’s testimony to the UN. What a cowardly frontman for a gaggle of bastards, including America’s premier black female bastard, also known as the Imelda of the Bush administration.

At least you could tell that Colon’s heart wasn’t in it when he bullshitted to the UN. Kinda like getting your favourite uncle to be in your “play” when you’re a little kid - he might be the CEO of a major corporation, but he’d stand up and pretend to die when you shot him with your golden sixshooter. That’s why he was your favourite nuncle.

Condy, on the other hand, truly believes the shit she spouts. You can see the light of faith in her dark, empty, soulless eyes… That’s why her trip to Europe (the “other” America) was soooo much fun to watch… Although, to be honest, it was hard to tell if it was her being naturally stupid, or professionally stupid!