A Revolution Of One

If You Tell I'll Deny It:
Ok, I'm going to say something you might find repulsive. I'm going to congratulate the Bush administration on the immigration arrests of the past few days. I'm not congratulating them for all the arrests, just the arrests of the 9 IFCO employees. Please don't tell anyone I said something good about the administration. If you do, I'll deny it. It's not like I believe the administration's hype when they say that this raid is not in response to public pressure regarding immigration reform. Or that I believe this operation has been "in the planning stages for months," as Homeland Security officials claim. Those kinds of statements set off my paranoidar (paranioa + radar).

But I do believe it is time the government focused, not on the illegal immigrants themselves, who are the exploited in this scenario. And who are the people least economically and politically able as individuals to do much about it. Immigration enforcement is now at least somewhat focused on the corporate employers who are the exploiters. I don't expect this to become a trend or anything, but if it does you are going to see illegal immigration drop to almost zero in no time flat. Which won't necessarily be good for the people who want to immigrate. Unless, of course, it is accompanied by good jobs either in their own countries of origin, or by legal immigration and good jobs here.

Photo is of an immigration rally in downtown Manhattan 4/10/06. Photo by Michael Brandon.