The Immigration Debate

A great deal has been in the news lately about immigration. Apparently, Middle America woke up a few weeks ago and noticed a great many Mexicans had popped up unexpectedly in their midst.

Notice that I say Mexicans and not immigrants. On Fox News and NPR you will hear the word immigrant bandied about, but this is, in actuality, a code. When Fox news talks abut immigrants, they aren't referring to Mr. Gopal who is the engineer at my factory, or my Italian chemist friend, or the lily-white Irish construction workers who are constructing NYC one girder at a time. They are really talking about Mexicans. And occasionally about other Hispanics- But mostly Mexicans. Actually, lets be really honest; when we say Mexican, we are of course referring to anyone who speaks Spanish and is from somewhere south of Laredo. Also, to anyone who speaks Portuguese, as that is indistinguishable to us from Spanish, although occasionally we notice that thy have strange rituals that involve dancing semi-naked in large groups in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, which is a well known city in the south of Mexico.
It may surprise some of you, but Hispanics come in many varieties. For an in-depth exposition, take a look at what El Guapo has to say about it.



We prefer our immigrants from countries that end in "-land." That is, Ireland, Poland, England, Scotland, and, of course Germanland and Swedenland. This is due to the mistaken belief that the folks from these areas are economically, intellectually, and culturally more advanced that those south of the border. Economically, most definitely. Culturally? I refute that idea thusly. Intellectually? Not from the continent that came up with such wonderful ideological novelties as fascism and salted cod. Anything that needs to be soaked for three days before it becomes edible is edible only in the most conflated sense of that word.

Any society that produces such an abomination (Swedenland in this case) ought to have its citizens permanently barred not only from immigrating to, but from even setting foot on the sacred soil of the New Jerusalem that we have constructed here amongst the savages (by New Jerusalem I mean Jersey City, and savages refers, as always, to people from Connecticut). It's bad enough to make me listen to country music, but to mix it with techno is a provocation that cannot be ignored. Why has our fearless leader not placed these folks in the axis of evil?



This sudden appearance of large cohorts of Mexicans (excuse me, immigrants) would not have been so bad, except, according to an inexorable natural law which is hard to describe in discrete mathematical terms, yet inexorable none the less, the existence of a concentration of Mexicans tends to cause the spontaneous generation of Taquerias. I, for one, have no problem with taquerias, except in that the ones here usually suck. Here's a key- if you ask the guy at a Taqueria what an Antojito is, and he doesn't know, run, run for your life.

Taqueria concentrations aren't necessarily such a bad thing to middle America, at least when they are unobtrusive in the same way that the folks who pick your fruit, mow your lawn, and take care of your little middle American babies for non-union wages are unobtrusive. But when taquerias get to close to Presbyterian churches in places like Rolla, Missouri, the locals get a tad nervous. The Mexicans have been doing inconvenient things as of late, like marching in parades demanding civil rights, wanting to become citizens like "us" (we can't have that, after all, citizens do pesky things like getting social security numbers and demanding minimum wage), and marrying into the Bush family. I myself can forgive them for most all of that, except for those who have married into the Bush family, but most Mexicans have more pride than that.

We are awash, my friend- Americans are tenuously clinging to a life raft of mom and apple pie dangerously awash upon a sea of job-seeking terrorist samba-dancing foreigners. Middle America has just noticed this. Apparently, they have never visited my lovely town of Jersey City, New Jersey, which is overrun by Mexicans from all over the world- including Mexicans from the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Pakistan, and (occasionally) from Mexico.

the fact of the matter is that this is an immigrant nation. We are all immigrants, or descendants of immigrants. Or descendants of indentured servants or descendants of chattel slaves brought here, strangely enough, to do back breaking agricultural work for wages even lower than those of illegal immigrants. Or occasionally descendents of Melungeons. And almost all of us are descendants of folks who got here in questionable ways- either by getting off a boat and swindling some natives out of prime Manhattan real estate (how's that for legal immigration), or chained up in the hold of a slave ship, or packed into steerage class on a tramp steamer, very few immigrant stories are nice and tidy. In fact, I would say that, until the advent of cheap air travel, which would be the seventies, most immigrant trips were made in desperate conditions and for desperate reasons. Up until recently, a trip to America was a one way trip, with no hope of going back and very little chance of communication with loved ones except by long distance letter. To immigrate to America was to cut yourself off from your roots. As we drive to our local PTA meeting in our immaculate SUV's, let us not forget that back in the day our great grandfathers were fleeing debtors prison, or the boot heels of czarist secret police on their necks, or bigamy charges back in Merry Olde England, or a shotgun toting angry Bavarian father trailed by an underage fraulein with an inconveniently swollen midriff. Or simply the fact that nothing awaited them in Ruritania except an endless future of dirt, poverty, and cholera.

Nativist Americans today remind me of the hordes of pompous scum in Central Europe who try to lord it over other people by claiming to be related to the Hapsburgs, while failing to mention that this connection comes from an ill-used chambermaid. Those Habsburgs got around.

So I can't fault folks for going over a fence, or under a wire, or doing whatever it is they have to do to get here. Of course I don't like the fact that our borders leak like a TJ hooker. If Armando from Puebla can get through undetected, so can Ahmad from Peshawar. And Ahmad may have different intentions than Armando, or he may not- the fact remains that it is important in this modern world to know who these folks are, and where they are; to facilitate good intentions and to frustrate evil ones.

The borders are leaky because we want them that way. We say we support American Workers, but we aren't willing to bay $5 per lb. for apples, or $25,000 a year for child care. Last week I was in New Orleans and saw a McDonald's advertising fast food jobs for $10.75 an hour! Guess What? They couldn't get enough workers to run the place. So it’s clear that jobs aren't being "stolen" from anyone. If only I could quit my job as a high paid blogger and work in a cane field, but alas, some Haitians have stolen my dream.

H1B or not H1B, that is the question...

We say we want folks to go the "legal" immigration route, rather than the illegal one. Of course, the folks that say this have never had to deal with the INS in any way shape or form. I was lucky enough to win the genetic lottery and be born in this, the greatest of all countries. But my bebezinho was less fortunate, and was born in Portugal. She, obviously, moved to correct this gross injustice as soon as possible, but was given a green card (obtained entirely legally) by the INS with a Typo. This was 5 years ago. She still hasn't gotten a correct card reissued and may be deported for the simple act of going to visit her family for Christmas, without her green card, which the INS took to "correct". Apparently fixing a typo, laminating a new card, and sticking it in the mail requires Herculean effort. But that's for another post some day. My Italian friend, who is blonde-haired, blue-eyed (from Padania, wouldn't you now) has lovely British accented English, a PhD in Chemistry and cooks the best Risotto in Jersey, submits herself to a monthly ritual of humiliation with the INS in an attempt to get her H1B converted into a green card. It's been eight years. No luck yet. By the way, I know a guy in Texas who needs to hire eight chemists to run his lab. He's had openings for over a year. There are no Americans with the proper degrees who want the jobs. There are dozens of qualified chemists in India, Romania, England, and even Italy who would love them. Also, my friend is single. And hot. I'm just sayin'!


We don't want people to speak Spanish instead of English, but we make nothing available to help them learn English

Mexicans are not here to be dirty, or corrupt, or lazy, or shiftless, or to remain a permanent underclass. These are precisely the things they are running away from. I understand that the law is the law, and must be obeyed. Having been an expat for a few years myself, I know what its like to live in a place with no rule of law. It's an awful thing to be at the total mercy of a vindictive and powerful state that will humiliate, exploit, or steal from you at their whim. Few Americans appreciate how this feels, unless they have had to request something from the INS. In theory, I am against illegal immigration.

In practice, how do you look an honest, hardworking, ambitious person in the eye and say, "No, this American Dream, it is not for you. It is only for me."