Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [MLUG][Politics]The great immigration wash-out

["Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On 5/2/06, Vern Green <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> The place I normally visit for lunch closed down today, I won't be
> darkening their doorway again, I don't want to support any place that
> supports people who break the law.

Unless California has changed a lot since I was there, I'm afraid
you'll have to leave the state then.  The whole SoCal economy anyway
is completely dependent on the availability of docile, low-wage
workers, and that includes hundreds of thousands of undocumened
workers.  For that matter, you'll probably be growing your own food as
well.

This is not to say that I think the current system is find and dandy,
since it isn't.  But I can't really take very seriously anybody who
suggests that the answer to the problem is building an "impenetrable"
wall (a House GOP proposal) or just massively deporting a lot of
people.  To be fair about that one, you'd be getting rid of about 12
million people.

You and Mike seem to agree the problem is primarily with the
employers, and that's spot on.  Right now, we aren't even trying to
prevent illegal hiring.  In the Clinton administration, they weren't
trying very hard, either, but the rate of enforcement against illegal
hiring (and the fines that such hiring create) are both way down under
GWB.  It's a reasonable goal to reduce the rate of illegal immigration
by enforcing employer sanctions, but it's unreasonable to expect this
alone will cure the problem.  I think another creative thing you could
do would be to raise the minimum wage to the real level it was at when
it last went up, and enforce medieval sanctions against any company
hiring anybody for less than that amount.

Mike is also correct about one of the big political problems this is
scausing for Republicans: their money comes from people who would, if
it were possible, *increase* the number of illegals in the US since it
would decrease their labor costs.  On the other hand, they get the
votes to remain in power by people who are pretty strongly (and
increasingly) opposed to undocumented workers.  In the short run, they
can probably make this work.  In the long run, they're really in
trouble, since this is one of only several issues that have gotten
very tricky for the GOP.

One other point:

> thing. Not to mention the environmental impact, all of those 1968
> Impala station wagons, 1971 Chevy Endura Vans, and 1975 Ford pickup
> trucks belch all kinds of greenhouse gases.

Once upon a time there was a policy and a program to remove those
vehicles from the car population in California, by buying them and
junking them all (they have been grandfathered in essentially, so
these are getting very old now).  They would have all been gone by
about now, but some brilliant statesman canned the program.  I'd have
to research this, but I'm pretty sure this was a Pete "Prop 187 will
win me the election" Wilson maneuver.

jking

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