May 19, 2003

"Victoria Tragedy Prompts Call for Open Borders"

From this:

Union, Latino, and immigrant rights groups charged today that the U.S. government's 'broken' immigration policies are to blame for the death of 19 immigrants near Victoria Texas last week, and vowed to lobby Congress and the White House for changes.

First, I don't think it was this incident that prompted their call; pro-illegal-immigration groups like these are continually calling for open borders. So, it's more like they're just taking advantage of a tragedy. Not like that hasn't been tried before, in that case by the S.F. Chronical.

The article does use the phrase "illegal immigrants" a few times rather than other euphemisms more common in other articles.

It also mentions that the immigrants are coming here "because U.S. corporations hire them to perform jobs citizens refuse to do."

Well, perhaps instead of opening the borders, we should do something about those illegal-immigration-supporting corporations? Further, FAIR quite capably answers that canard here:

There are no jobs Americans won�t do, only conditions and wages that are unacceptable. The employers who have become economically dependent on immigrants for cheap labor use this argument to justify virtual indentured servitude and then try to shame Americans into accepting it. Job competition by waves of new immigrants depresses the wages and salaries of American workers and hits hardest at minority workers and those without high school degrees.

The article also quotes a pro-illegal-immigration member of the UFW. Perhaps he'd like to look into the history of his own organization; Cesar Chavez was opposed to illegal immigration.

Of course, if we're going to have open borders, does that mean that, say, 10 million U.S. citizens could move to Mexico, buy up property, open shopping malls, start TV stations, vote, and the like? Somehow I don't think so. Apparently, open borders only work one way.

Posted to Immigration2003 at May 19, 2003 11:40 PM

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