KUHL IS WRONG ON ILLEGALS
You've got it backwards, Randy.
We don't want you to keep the illegal aliens here, we want you to ship them home. Then we want you to make sure no more of them come here. And we'd like you to do everything you can to make sure that American jobs don't go to foreign workers.
This is a message to Randy Kuhl -- a member of Congress from rural upstate New York. He won re-election last year by the narrowest of margins. He's back in Washington by the skin of his teeth and by the generosity of conservative voters who decided, in his case, not to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Which should be good cause for him to be grateful. See, people don't vote for politicians out of the goodness of their hearts. We vote for them because we want things. Mostly we want them not to screw up our country. But sometimes we want them to do specific things.
Unfortunately, Randy Kuhl seems intent on doing exactly the opposite of what the people who re-elected him want. Last week, in a conference call with reporters, he said the nation's Number One domestic priority was getting working papers for illegal aliens. He said that he and the president were going to work very hard to make sure that illegal aliens get the paperwork they need to stay here and that they are replaced when they leave with an ample supply of legal foreign workers.
Well, if that's their priority, Randy and the president can go pound salt.
And the conservatives in Randy Kuhl's district can begin looking right now for a Republican to take him on in a primary.
Because the knuckleheads in Washington need to get one thing straight: Americans don't like illegal immigration, we believe it is gutting and bankrupting our country, and any politician who thinks he owes more allegiance to big businesses -- or to racial minorities -- than he does to working people has got a fight on his hands.
Randy Kuhl says that the farmers in his district need their illegal aliens or they'll go out of business. Randy Kuhl says the economy of rural upstate New York needs these workers or it will collapse. Randy Kuhl says that the illegal farmworkers who are here now need to get some sort of amnesty -- though, of course, he's allergic to the word -- and that some kind of guest worker program needs to be set up so that his pals the farmers can continue to pay Third World wages.
If he believes those things, then while he's got his head up there he might as well look around and see if he can find any polyps.
Because the narrow interests of those who employ illegal aliens are less important than the interests of the United States and the interests of the people whose communities are damaged by the presence of illegal labor.
See, Randy Kuhl's district is short on jobs. It's got the cancerous burden of New York taxation and regulation, and the economic enemia that comes with a shrinking economy. Randy Kuhl's district has learned a great deal about outsourcing. The call centers have gone to India and the manufacturing centers have gone to China and with the jobs gone people have moved away. This is one of just two or three places in the country where the population is actually shrinking.
And what the farmers have taken to is a little outsourcing of their own.
That's what illegal labor is. If American business wants to make more money, it looks to the Third World. In this region of New York, that means Kodak and Xerox have moved a bunch of jobs to China and India. That's pretty simple, unless you're a farmer. You can't very easily move a couple hundred acres and a couple hundred head to China or Mexico. But you can do the next best thing. If you can't take your business to Third World labor, you can bring Third World labor to you.
That's what illegal aliens are.
That's what farmers and dairymen and orchardmen and grape growers are doing all through Randy Kuhl's district. They are selling out our country and its people just like the outsourcing businesses. An agricultural industry which until five years ago had virtually no foreign nationals working in it is dominated now by foreigners -- many of whom are here illegally. The transformation has been astounding, and illegal.
And it has taken jobs away from Americans. Forget this crap about illegals doing the jobs Americans won't do. Yes, welfare has gotten rid of most entry-level and low-skill American workers. But the reason farmers don't get local labor is because they don't pay enough. When an hour of hard manual labor involving a fair amount of specialized skill pays less than an hour of salting the fries at McDonald's you can't expect people to line up to work on your farm. Further, have you ever seen a farmer advertise for help? Look at the want ads in the paper any Sunday -- see any in there for farm help?
Further, when they're paying these illegals $8 or $9 an hour, what sort of benefits package do you think there is?
Right. None. It's called Medicaid, or just go to the emergency room and get what you need and walk out leaving it for others to pay.
Farmers are in a tight spot. There is much good their congressman can do them. But breaking the law, and giving American jobs to foreign workers, simply isn't right. It is wrong.
If farmers don't get enough for their product to pay good wages -- and agricultural producers sadly do get obscenely low prices -- then a good congressman could pressure processors, truckers and grocers into sharing the wealth. If labor laws make it harder to legally hire people, then a good congressman would work to change those laws. If our Cadillac welfare system makes people permanently and comfortably idle, a good congressman would work to change that.
But Randy Kuhl's doing none of those things. He's working to make it so today's illegals can stay, and he's working so tomorrow's jobs can be taken by temporary foreigners. He's working to make sure that New York's largest industry -- agriculture -- employs as few New Yorkers as possible. It's ironic that a part of the country that fought harder than any other to get rid of slavery 140 years ago has now so completely embraced a new breed of slavery. Antebellum southern agriculture depended on slave wages, so sadly does modern northern agriculture.
A good congressman shouldn't facilitate that, he should change it.
No, Randy, we don't want you to keep them here. We want you to kick them out. And we don't want you to get guest workers, we want you to help employ New York workers. In an economically depressed district, it is insane that the congressman is working to find jobs for Mexicans instead of jobs for Americans.
Another point worth considering -- from a politician's perspective -- is that far more people in the district are hurt by illegal immigration than are helped by it. Translation: You can suck up all the farmer votes you want and you're still not going to get re-elected. Agriculture is vastly important, but at the ballot box it's noses that count, and the tiniest country village has more voters than a vast stretch of countryside has farmers.
You've got it backwards, Randy.
And you need to turn it around.
Or we'll start campaigning for your primary opponent before the spring corn goes in.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2007
