U.S. Immigration policy - Who's on first?

Two recent news items:

WASHINGTON -- President Bush generally favors plans to give millions of illegal immigrants a chance at U.S. citizenship without leaving the country, but does not want to be more publicly supportive because of opposition among conservative House Republicans, according to senators who attended a recent White House meeting.

WASHINGTON - A day after federal agents arrested 1,187 people on illegal immigration charges in the nation's largest-ever work-site enforcement action, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Thursday warned of an intensified campaign to target employers whose businesses rely on large numbers of undocumented workers

Let me make the formal introductions. Michael, meet George. George, this is Michael. He works for you.

Of course, Michael was at least politically aware enough to not conduct raids on agricultural businesses or restaurants where the U.S. is heavily indebted to the labors of millions of “illegals.” Remembering the ill-fated Operation Vanguard of a few years ago, he conducted an all out attack on the insidious Dutch-owned pallet industry, instead.

So let’s all ignore the elephant in the room and stomp on the flea on its butt.

On Monday, most Latinos living in the U.S. legally or illegally, are planning on staying at home. They’ll do no work, buy no products, attend no schools, tote no bales, haul no barges – just disappear for 24 hours.

If you’re living in the upper Midwest or most of New England, you probably won’t notice a thing. If you’re one of the C.O.W. staters (California, Oregon, Washington) or live in a state that relies heavily on agriculture, the commute to work Monday morning is likely to be much easier.

Whether planned or unplanned, dozens of meat plants will be closed. Most will shut down to allow many of their employees to participate in one of the largest political movements of its kind since the civil rights actions 40 years ago. A few won’t willingly allow employee absences but will have to close their doors for the day, anyway, due to a lack of people to man their production lines.

Those few might make the mistake of firing workers who didn’t show for taking unexcused absences. Plant management might want to put in a call to Wolverine Packing before they start handing out pink slips. Although they might be on firm legal ground, the social repercussions could be painful.

The ill-conceived, turn-of-the-century Operation Vanguard was a symptom of our confused and occasionally racially motivated policy toward migrant workers. We sometimes take an out-of-sight, out-of-mind attitude toward them. They’re OK as long as they stay in those migrant worker camps and don’t require social services like schooling for their children and health care for their families.

We sometimes reverse our attitudes, though, and complain long and loud that they’re taking jobs from real Americans even though most “real” Americans would rather collect unemployment than work in the menial and sometimes less-than-minimum-wage jobs many Latinos willingly take.

It’s way past time to face the issue of migrant labor. We either open the screen door on our Southern border and allow it to happen, controlled only by the free market need, or we say absolutely no and build that fence that a few crazies are insisting is the only solution. God forbid we show the world our denial of the phrase carved into the Statue of Liberty and officially recognize the end the noble pursuit of freedom we began in 1776. But, if we do make that tragic decision, I suggest we build our version of the Brandenburg Gate in Brownsville, Texas at the entrance to Matamoros