August 13, 2007

Larry Craig on no-match: without "reform" it's the end of the American Dream

Yet another sign that the Bush administration's current pledge to enforce our immigration laws is a scam comes from the thoughts of Senator Larry Craig, who spoke to a Rotary Club to promote his AgJobs amnesty:

Pressure to pass immigration reform will intensify as millions of undocumented workers lose jobs as a result of a crackdown by the Social Security Administration, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said Thursday... ...Craig said $3.5 billion worth of crops rotted for lack of workers last year. He predicted that figure will double because many crops are "highly dependent on the hands of working people."

But, wait, things could get even worse (according to him):

"What will happen over the course of the next two months is several million workers will be laid off or fired and there is no one to take their place... [No match letters are] the law. It's being enforced, and it should be enforced... If the borders are shut and we become a closed society, then the most we can grow is about 1.2 percent a year... Control it, legalize it, manage it, but recognize that if we want to continue to grow and that our grandchildren would wish to achieve the American Dream as we have, then growth is essential."

It'd certainly be interesting to know what he means by "shutting the borders", since we're likely to have large amounts of legal immigration for a long time. I suppose he means either a) preventing illegal entry, or b) reducing the flow of low-wage labor from Mexico. And, it'd be interesting to know who he actually reports to:

Craig said he's already had word from an ally in his fight for a guest worker program, a California agricultural company that laid off about 200 of its 500 employees as a result of "mismatch" letters.

Posted to Immigration2007a at August 13, 2007 11:16 AM