The Immigration Con Artists

By David Sirota,
Creators SyndicatePosted on November 24, 2007, Printed on November 27, 2007http://www.alternet.org/story/68729/

I once got suckered by con artists. As I was walking by, they baited me into betting that I could guess which shell a little ball was under. Moving the shells at lightning speed, they diverted my attention and tricked me into taking my eye off the ball. When I lost the bet, I felt bamboozled, just like we all should feel today watching the illegal immigration debate. After all, we're witnessing the same kind of con.
As our paychecks stagnate, our personal debt climbs and our health care premiums skyrocket, We the People are ticked off. Unfortunately for those in Congress, polls show that America is specifically angry at the big business interests that write big campaign checks.
So now comes the con -- the dishonest argument over illegal immigration trying to divert our ire away from the corporate profiteers, outsourcers, wage cutters and foreclosers that buy influence -- and protection -- in Washington.
Republicans like Rep. Tom Tancredo (Colo.) are demanding the government cut off public services for undocumented workers, build a barrier at the Mexican border and force employers to verify employees' immigration status. Democrats like Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) are urging their allies to either embrace a punitive message aimed at illegal immigrants, or avoid the immigration issue altogether. And nobody asks the taboo question: What is illegal immigration actually about?
The answer is exploitation. Employers looking to maximize profits want an economically desperate, politically disenfranchised population that will accept ever worse pay and working conditions. Illegal immigrants perfectly fit the bill.
Politicians know exploitation fuels illegal immigration. But they refuse to confront it because doing so would mean challenging their financiers.
Instead we get lawmakers chest-thumping about immigration enforcement while avoiding a discussion about strengthening wage and workplace safety enforcement -- proposals that address the real problem.
Equally deplorable, these same lawmakers keep supporting trade policies that make things worse. Just last week, both Emanuel and Tancredo voted to expand NAFTA into the Southern Hemisphere. This is the same trade model that not only decimated American jobs and wages, but also increased illegal immigration by driving millions of Mexican farmers off their land, into poverty and ultimately over our southern border in search of subsistence work.
The con artists' behavior is stunning for its depravity.
First they gut domestic wage and workplace safety enforcement. Then they pass lobbyist-crafted trade pacts that push millions of foreigners into poverty. And presto! When these policies result in a flood of desperate undocumented workers employed at companies skirting domestic labor laws, the con artists follow a deceptive three-step program: 1) Propose building walls that would do nothing but create a market for Mexican ladders 2) Make factually questionable claims about immigrants unduly burdening taxpayers and 3) Scapegoat undocumented workers while sustaining an immoral situation that keeps these workers hiding in the shadows.
The formula allows opportunists in Congress to both deflect heat away from the corporations underwriting their campaigns and preserve an exploitable pool of cheap labor for those same corporations. Additionally, these opportunists get to divide working-class constituencies along racial lines and vilify destitute illegal immigrant populations that don't make campaign donations and therefore have no political voice whatsoever.
Of course, diversionary scapegoating is nothing new. As Ronald Reagan pushed his reverse Robin Hood agenda, he attributed America's economic stagnation to "welfare queens." Similarly, Bill Clinton championed NAFTA while telling displaced workers their enemy was "the era of Big Government." This bogeyman, Clinton said, would be vanquished by ending "welfare as we know it."
Undoubtedly, the media will keep claiming illegal immigration is complicated for both parties. But Republicans or Democrats could begin solving the issue, if they simply stopped letting corporate lawyers write trade pacts and started punishing employers who violate wage and workplace laws.
Sadly, even those modest steps probably won't be taken. In a political system that makes it difficult to tell the difference between a lobbyist and a lawmaker, both parties employ the art of distraction to perpetuate the crises that enrich their campaign contributors. Indeed, whether their target is undocumented workers or indigent recipients of public assistance, the political con artists attack the exploited to avoid cracking down on the exploiters -- and with immigration, they are hoping America once again gets duped.

David Sirota is the author of Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government--and How We Take It Back (Crown, 2006).
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/68729/

More Than One Solution is Required

Opinion Editorial Published in the Fort Collin's Coloradoan

More Than One Solution is Required
by Eric Levine

Glen Colton’s Nov. 5 column, in which he connects and blames everything from global warming and local growth to national immigration rates deserves comment.
Concerning global population, I can readily accept the proposition that given a small enough human population, our problems are solvable, while given rapid and never ending growth, few are.
However, the more Colton gets on his one problem one solution mantra, the greater his error. He ticks off problems such as drought, oil prices, wildfires and climate damage, implying they will all be solved only by lowering national immigration rates.
If the threat of climate disaster has taught us anything, it is that we are truly one planet, one species and one economy. Our resource management, pollution, consumption, economies, communicable diseases, climate change, and habitat loss do have one thing in common, but it is not what Colton suggests. Their true commonality is that they are all international problems.
Because his worldview stops at our borders, Colton confuses real population growth with population distribution; two very different animals. Surely China’s burgeoning economic tidal wave will soon greatly affect our climate, environmental quality, and resources more than anything he’s named. This is a real elephant we must address. So are issues of fair trade policies with the Third World, gross inequities caused by international corporatism, biosphere/habitat damage and extinction, to name several.
Some closed border advocates cynically proclaim that once third world economic refugees enter the United States, their consumption increases, thus exacerbating worldwide resource shortages. There are many mistakes in this flawed reasoning.
U.S./world trade policies largely by and for rich nations have caused many Third World disasters, and produced many of the impoverished refuges wishing to come here.
If immigrants to the United States increase consumption, what does that say about the problems our per capita consumption causes?
Instead of limiting migration here, couldn’t we solve over consumption just as well by “exporting” our citizens to Third World countries, say via a lottery?
If we use the argument that Third World people coming here damage our planet by adopting our consumption, doesn’t that mean we must also forever deny them our level of development and a decent lifestyle in their own countries?
Why wouldn’t accepting more residents in Colorado’s West Slope communities be preferable to the destruction of our planet’s rainforests via desperate slash and burn farming?
There are serious problems in the Front Range, but they are caused by growth concentrations exhausting our infrastructure and going well beyond optimum or even affordable economies of scale. It seems we never assess local growth’s true impacts by acknowledging new growth after a point can cost much more. Never addressing growth’s true rising costs means current residents end up paying more taxes to subsidize new residents, even as our community services and lifestyles decline.
Different problems with different solutions. Let’s stop simplistically lumping them together.

Eric Levine lives in Fort Collins and has been working for solutions to environmental problems for more than two decades.

Opinion Editorial from the Fort Collins Coloradaon

Opinion Editorial from the Fort Collins Coloradaon

by Eric Levine

Glen Colton’s Nov. 5 column, in which he connects and blames everything from global warming and local growth to national immigration rates deserves comment.
Concerning global population, I can readily accept the proposition that given a small enough human population, our problems are solvable, while given rapid and never ending growth, few are.
However, the more Colton gets on his one problem one solution mantra, the greater his error. He ticks off problems such as drought, oil prices, wildfires and climate damage, implying they will all be solved only by lowering national immigration rates.
If the threat of climate disaster has taught us anything, it is that we are truly one planet, one species and one economy. Our resource management, pollution, consumption, economies, communicable diseases, climate change, and habitat loss do have one thing in common, but it is not what Colton suggests. Their true commonality is that they are all international problems.
Because his worldview stops at our borders, Colton confuses real population growth with population distribution; two very different animals. Surely China’s burgeoning economic tidal wave will soon greatly affect our climate, environmental quality, and resources more than anything he’s named. This is a real elephant we must address. So are issues of fair trade policies with the Third World, gross inequities caused by international corporatism, biosphere/habitat damage and extinction, to name several.
Some closed border advocates cynically proclaim that once third world economic refugees enter the United States, their consumption increases, thus exacerbating worldwide resource shortages. There are many mistakes in this flawed reasoning.
> U.S./world trade policies largely by and for rich nations have caused many Third World disasters, and produced many of the impoverished refuges wishing to come here.
> If immigrants to the United States increase consumption, what does that say about the problems our per capita consumption causes?
> Instead of limiting migration here, couldn’t we solve over consumption just as well by “exporting” our citizens to Third World countries, say via a lottery?
> If we use the argument that Third World people coming here damage our planet by adopting our consumption, doesn’t that mean we must also forever deny them our level of development and a decent lifestyle in their own countries?
> Why wouldn’t accepting more residents in Colorado’s West Slope communities be preferable to the destruction of our planet’s rainforests via desperate slash and burn farming?
There are serious problems in the Front Range, but they are caused by growth concentrations exhausting our infrastructure and going well beyond optimum or even affordable economies of scale. It seems we never assess local growth’s true impacts by acknowledging new growth after a point can cost much more. Never addressing growth’s true rising costs means current residents end up paying more taxes to subsidize new residents, even as our community services and lifestyles decline.
Different problems with different solutions. Let’s stop simplistically lumping them together.


Eric Levine lives in Fort Collins and has been working for solutions to environmental problems for more than two decades.

Focus of CBC is uniting by faith, service

Published in the Greeley Tribune
Irma Saenz
November 6, 2007

In response to the letter sent to Greeley residents on Oct. 12, Congregations Building Community refuses to engage in the Colorado Alliance for a Secure America's cheap propaganda tactics.

CBC is not funding anyone's political campaign, nor are we affiliated with any political party. Our focus is in uniting our community by means of faith and social ministry.

CBC did not send Mayor Tom Selders to Washington, D.C., with a "pro-amnesty" agenda, nor did we provide him a script. He presented a statement of the impact of the Dec. 12 ICE raids in our community. He based his report on factual information, not personal opinion.

As the local CBC, through collective work we believe that people will learn to appreciate the cultural richness of each other by transforming faith into action. We empower residents to take action and value safe, clean and prosperous communities. We follow the church's social teaching, which proclaims that "human life is sacred and that the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society."

Colorado Alliance for a Secure America is resorting to divisive political activity to promote its anti-immigrant agenda. The letter it sent to Greeley voters focuses on the myths that feed the anti-immigrant climate in Greeley.

We encourage Greeley residents to look at the facts and not the myths of immigration. Immigrants do not take the jobs of American citizens; instead, they leave millions of dollars of unclaimed federal, state and local taxes.

According to the Urban Institute, National Academy of Sciences and the Social Security Administration, immigrants pay between $90 million and $140 million a year in taxes. Also, the Urban Institute has found that the total immigrants' tax payments make up about $20 million to $30 million more than they use in public services.

CBC's main focus is to be tolerant and respectful of cultural differences in the Greeley community. We do not promote discrimination. Unity and social justice are our main concerns.

Irma Saenz of Evans is a member of Congregations Building Community in Greeley.

Link to original article for comments: http://www.greeleytrib.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007111060137#commentbox