Immigration insanity -- seems to have passed!
About four months ago, the pressing political issue of the day was illegal immigration from Mexico. President Bush made a prime time speech. California's Governator activated the National Guard. Republicans promised massive, comprehensive reform of the "broken" system.
Meanwhile, I kept wondering: who cares? The immigration equilibrium seemed relatively stable -- Mexico would continue to supply American business with cheap labor, keeping consumer prices low, and in return, many Mexican workers would make 5 to 100 times as much as they could expect in their native land. And while one can reasonably debate methods of improving the system -- should we provide political rights to workers? should we limit drains on border-state social welfare systems? -- nothing seemed particularly pressing about the issue.
Once again, turns out I was 100% right. The Republicans appear to be abandoning the issue. There will be no immigration reform. The Republic will continue to function as it did last year, and the year before, and the year before that.
Meanwhile, I kept wondering: who cares? The immigration equilibrium seemed relatively stable -- Mexico would continue to supply American business with cheap labor, keeping consumer prices low, and in return, many Mexican workers would make 5 to 100 times as much as they could expect in their native land. And while one can reasonably debate methods of improving the system -- should we provide political rights to workers? should we limit drains on border-state social welfare systems? -- nothing seemed particularly pressing about the issue.
Once again, turns out I was 100% right. The Republicans appear to be abandoning the issue. There will be no immigration reform. The Republic will continue to function as it did last year, and the year before, and the year before that.
posted by Ben at 12:32 PM
1 Comments:
Smoke screen issue... used to distract from serious bullshit happening elsewhere in the world, and used to browbeat the American public into increased levels of xenophobia, and make Bush look capable of addressing a "domestic policy" issue.
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