The realpolitik of Illegal immigration

Michelle Malkin is highlighting an LA Times story that supports President Bush's oft-repeated claim that the illegal immigrants "do jobs Americans won't do":

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times ran a piece of open-borders propaganda masquerading as journalism, which featured a Riverside, Calif., landscaper named Cyndi Smallwood who claims she can't find workers to dig ditches even at $34 an hour.

Her excellent rebuttal makes two strong points. One, that the LA Times either purposely misled or was just downright sloppy on reporting this story, and two, that the real problem with illegal immigration is not at the border, but well inland.

Ms. Smallwood is but one of millions of contractors, small business people and corporations would simply cannot resist the temptation to hire a pool of people eager and ready to work hard without much complaint. If succombing to this temptation means they must offhandedly betray their country by ignoring the hiring laws, so be it--good workers ARE hard to find. Besides, if they won't do it their competitors will. Baby needs new shoes and the mortgage is due.

None of this would be possible if the federal government hadn't officially looked the other way since the last reform laws were passed in 1986. The nasty side effect has been to produce an outrageously arrogant Mexican government who's leader Vincente Fox knows the extent of the barrel he's got us over. He knows how many Cyndi Smallwoods exist out there. He's got some cards to play.

Tancredo's vision is correct--if we were to enforce the law on hiring illegals the job market would dry up and many would go back home. However, the lobby consisting of activists like Ms. Smallwood is large and powerful, and lots of money is involved.

Therefore when the dust settles we'll probably end up with a border wall and better security to appease the vocal conservatives, with a guest worker program featuring delayed amnesty to appease the business class. The republicans will try to make it happen before November, because if they wait too long the democrats might seize Congress and it's likely they will push for immediate amnesty with rhetoric such as, "Jose has been acting like a model citizen for 15 years yet can't even vote...". Ah yes, voting.

The democrats probably see those 11 million illegal aliens as 11 million unregistered democrat voters. Let's face it, based on the show of force on May 1, if the dems give all those people amnesty which side do you think they will forever be beholden to in the voting booth? And how close have the past few elections been?

No matter which side prevails, realpolitik stands to win the day.