In a classic example of cutting off the nose to spite the face, Colorado — led by Democrats no less — passed a draconian anti-immigrant law last summer, heedless of the havoc this would cause businesses which depended on immigrant labor. Crops were left to rot in the field as field workers cleared out. Well, now in case of hasty plastic surgery to hide the botched nose job it is proposed to bring prisoners into the fields, to pay them 60 cents a day — which will still cost more than the immigrant laborers because of the cost of prison guards, transportation, etc.
Ever since passing what its Legislature touted as the toughest anti-illegal immigrant laws in the nation last summer, Colorado has struggled with a labor shortage as migrants fled the state. This week, officials announced a novel solution: use convicts as farmworkers.
Hmph! Why not require highschoolers and stay-at-home moms to go pick the crops? If it was good enough for our grandparents, as they say, it’s good enough for us. Or, we could drop back a few decades and round up the homeless and bottle-bound on the streets of the cities and ship ’em out to the country. Or, in the land of great belief in the markets, pay and benefits could be offered that might attract regular workers…
Of course there is also the news of recent days:
Two new studies by California researchers counter negative perceptions that immigrants increase crime and job competition, showing that they are incarcerated at far lower rates than native-born citizens and actually help boost their wages.
While I’m sure these studies will be pooh-poohed by immigrant haters they will also get right to work to gin up new reasons to “clarify” the ethnic mix.
It is interesting by the way that, according to the studies, while the immigrants themselves are more law-abiding than their native-born peers this is not so for immigrant offspring — which leads immediately to the question: what is happening here in the US that turns people into law-breakers, good-for-nothings, contemptuous, arrogant so-and-sos? What is it that elevates such folks into positions of high power? What is it in the cultures of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador that produces hard-working, generous, sharing migrants, whose children turn into numbskulls growing up in the US? Inquiring minds want to know.