The cartoon images in the pamphlet (as shown above) have the illegals looking like buffed super-heroes invading enemy territory
“This guide is intended to give you some practical advice that could be of use if you already have made the difficult decision to seek new job opportunities outside your country.” — translated from book.
HoustonChronicle.com – Mexican migration pamphlet draws fire here — This is all over the net right now. It’s a how-to booklet published by the Mexican government on how to get into the USA illegally. All part of a long term strategy backed by the Bush administration.
George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary, said the guide sends a message that the Mexican government endorses illegal immigration.
“It is a wink and a nod to illegal immigrants,” Grayson said. “How would they feel if the Guatemalans published a guide on how to get into Mexico?”
Anti-immigration groups in the United States sharply criticized the Mexican government for publishing the pamphlet, saying it shows a flagrant disregard for U.S. border regulations.
“It is a thinly disguised how-to-do-it guide,” said Robert Goldsborough, president of Americans for Immigration Control, a lobby group.
An editorial in Tuesday’s Washington Times also slammed the pamphlet and urged Secretary of State Colin Powell to file a complaint with the Mexican ambassador.
U.S. government officials’ responses to the guide were mixed.
I suspect US Government officials were sending mixed signals because we are somehow behind this pamphlet.
Link to PDF of actual pamphlet for further analysis here.
Also good coverage here on Oregon Live
Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., asked Mexico’s ambassador to Washington to end distribution.
“”Mexico’s state sponsorship of illegal immigration is nothing less than an act of deliberate hostility against the United States,” he wrote to Ambassador Carlos de Icaza.
“If the Mexican government wants to work constructively for immigration reform in general and a guest-worker system in particular, it needs to start becoming a partner in securing our border instead of an accomplice in overrunning it.”
Ludwick says the American government has itself to blame.
He said in 1990 there were more than 14,000 employers fined for hiring illegal immigrants. That figure dropped to 21 in 2002.
He said it is one reason illegal immigrants are not deterred.
One reason I support a guest-worker visa program is because it is more FAIR. Workers from other developing nations have as much “right” to work in the US as do Mexicans. Why should Mexicans be favored just because of proximity? But, that’s exactly how the current “illegal” system works.
The US economy would cease to work without all forms of labor migration: legal and otherwise. Maybe that’s not a very popular thing to say in California where whites find Mexicans frightening: many don’t speak English; some don’t even speak much Spanish–an invading army of Aztecs and Mayans!
But you’re right about the ridiculous nature of the beefed-up invaders from the south portrayed in the pamphlet. Most labor migrants are very poor and in bad physical shape. Many die in the attempt to cross the border; some lose their minds (often with some form of post-traumatic stress disorder); many become trapped just south of the border with not enough money to get across and not enough to return home–they end up living years on filth and garbage, unable to communicate with their relatives.
For better or worse, it’s a big world out there. The US does not generate all its wondrous riches on its own. And it is possible to feel something akin to empathy for these people if one is not already mentally entombed within a fragile fantasy of magic suburbia.
what about the “RIGHT” of Americans to work in America?
…Right now the job market is flooded, with nice, home-grown folk unable to get a job even for $8.00 an hour….because the jobs are held by “undocumentos”. The unemployment rates are misleading….the number of “jobless fell” because they ran out of benefits!!!
It’s not that “we dont’ want the jobs”..is that they’re filled with cheap, undocumented labor that have flooded the market…and there are many more where they came from.
Worse still….these guys don’t spend their money here…they ship it all home. And, we have no idea what kinds of people are coming here….we have these systems in place for MOST immigrants, and our rules are rather strict…what happened to those rules? What is the reason? Is our government trying to destroy our country?
When did we all stop caring about making sure that lower and middle class Americans had a means to make an income? We’re undermining our country with outsourcing, undocumentos roaming the streets in great numbers…and big business doing everything they can to break the unions. It’s CRAZY. How is any of this GOOD for us, and why are the experts telling us that it is? When did we lose our sensibilities?
All I can say….. s it really WORTH saving a buck at Walmart for some cheap piece of plastic that you don’t really NEED in the first place? Is it better having a home contractor charge you 10% less, but have his entire crew undocumentos (and without any health, pay any taxes, and/or social security). It’s not cheaper, because we’re paying for it in higher taxes, the loss of Social Security, and degraded medical care. Because for every undocumento working that means one gringo NOT WORKING…and that gringo would be PAYING his share of taxes, social security, and his contribution towards health care.
Why are we tolerating this any longer?
My conservative farmer friends in California (I have a lot) tell the same story again and again. They can’t get regular Americans to pick their crops. They say this so often that I tend to believe them, even though it sounds self-serving.
Then there is the issue of migrancy (sp?). Most Americas have a home/family and don’t want to be migrant for six months of the year… not for $8 an hour, that’s for sure. Probably not for twice that.
I still support a guest-worker visa program. The first shot at jobs could go to citizens and then open it up to holders of visit visas.
Hank,
You are DEAD wrong, and your farmer friends lie. They’re telling that same old chestnut that Bush likes to bullshit us with…that the undocumented workers are filling jobs that American’s don’t want? What AMERICANS are we talking about…the college educated ones? The rich ones?
No one is talking about the people who are really HURTING in this country…the poorly educated, unskilled masses that are promoted and graduated, who are unemployed right now.
The first problem…is the undocumento’s RULE The market. They control it. Seriously, if you even TRIED to get near picking as a gringo you’d get the snot beat out of you (it’s been that way since the late 70’s). Just like it’s near impossible to work in a kitchen in California, now. The hispanic workers won’t listen to anyone who doesn’t speak in their language, and they’ll do their best to get the gringo’s fired. It’s downright dirty.
It’s not that people wouldn’t JUMP to make any money…..it’s that the avenues are closed, and they’re not welcome. Tell me exactly, who to talk to to GET some migrant jobs…I know a few dozen unemployed who’d JUMP at it in a heartbeat!
Heck, in my area we have guys who work 7 days a week, 12 hour days….finding RECYCLING cans….put them into plastic trash bags on absconded shopping carts…and walk hundreds of miles a week to find as many as possible….and then **literally** sleep all night near the recycling center by-back points to make enough cash to stay alive. A number of these guys dont’ qualify for state funds, and they don’t have an address so can’t get welfare….(a prerequisite to aide), and live in tents in the bushes on the side of the freeway, under overpasses, and in parks. The bay area is FULL of homeless people. ( Some of them are quite proud of the fact that they still send their child support!)
I’m certain that ANY of them would welcome some other way to make a living to support themselves, and having a roof over their heads…..geez! What luxury. I can’t imagine that these guys work less hard than any migrant farm workers.
Hell, just try standing on a street corner, freeway offramp, or on a street median and beg for money for 10 hours a day…rain or shine, see how happy you’d be to have a “real job” at ANY WAGE…especially if it meant having a respectable income, and a roof over your head.
….The line about people NOT WANTING the jobs is utter, and pure HORSESHIT.
I can see how both Hank and meetsy are right. I think farmers would prefer to hire Americans to pick their crops, and homeless and some unemployed people would take those jobs. But clearly there are huge hurdles in the way.
What’s needed are advocates for the American homeless and underclass to step in. Groups who could take on the “Undocumentos’ Mafia” and help homeless people get into those jobs. Cooperation from politicians and law enforcement to shutdown the supply of illegal labor. The migrant community also provides a lot of know-how, financial, emotional and other support to fellow immigrants to get them started in farm jobs, and there would have to be analagous support for Americans who wanted to move to Fresno to pick grapes.
But notice how advocates for the homeless and underclass always talk about “GOOD” jobs. Begging on the street and picking crops are CRAPPY jobs. For most of these advocates, helping their clients take farm jobs that are already there is not even on their radar. They’re all about government assistance, and moving people up into lower-middle class jobs which may or may not exist (and which they may or may not be equipped to keep. Otherwise why do they need help?).
The labor market is a lot more complicated than most people think about. I’m sure we know that our dignity, self-identity, emotions, sense of community and comraderie are all wrapped up in a job, but when we think about (and argue about) this stuff on a daily basis, we tend to reduce it to robots providing a service for a given amount of money. But what does it take to get a homeless or unemployed person to move to Fresno and pick crops? Not just in terms of money and time, but in terms of how they look at themselves as an American human being.
As John would say: “Where are the homeless and welfare advocates on this?$@%! It’s a scandal!”.
Back in college a buddy of mine and I decided to go on a road trip with no money. We picked a little, toured the country, picked a little more, etc. We were never threatened by Mexicans. They out-picked us, though, by quite a margin.
I have also worked as a volunteer on skid-row for several years and I can’t imagine those drunks and crack-heads doing what migrant workers do.
Picking up cans? Of course. Picking crops? No way.
Believe it or not, picking crops is a skilled labor. It’s not rocket science but it’s not for the totally dysfunctional either.
It’s also not for most Americans, even the poor– that seems obvious to me.
I talked to my social-worker housemate, who works in Oakland with wide range of disadvantaged people. First, she harangued me for using the term “underclass”, which the underclass apparently don’t appreciate. Her alternative was “the disadvantaged and disenfranchised”, which seems equally loaded to me (especially the latter word).
She eventually said that most of the people she works with would not take picking, cleaning, or dishwashing jobs. They would find it beneath them. And her reaction when I mentioned homeless people wanting such jobs wasn’t positive either.
> I’m certain that ANY of them would welcome some other way to
> make a living to support themselves
This sounds like you haven’t asked them, meetsy, and I think your presumption may be wrong.
Program on the emergence of civilization.
“14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind.
None from the sub-Saharan African continent.
13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa.”
Favor.
And disfavor.
They point out Africans’ attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it’s applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.
The roots of racism are not of this earth.
Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals, so this nulified diversity of life claims on sub-continental Africa, zebras being a fine example.
The North American continent had none. Now 99% of that population is gone.
god is a computer
And we’re all on auto-pilot.
Organizational Heirarchy
Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:
1. MUCK – perhaps have experienced multiple universal contractions (have seen multiple big bangs), creator of the artificial intelligence humans ignorantly refer to as “god”
2. Perhaps some mid-level alien management –
3. Mafia (evil) aliens – runs day-to-day operations here and perhaps elsewhere (“On planets where they approved evil.”)
Then we come to terrestrial management:
4. Chinese/egyptians – this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds
5. Romans – they answer to the egyptians
6. Mafia – the real-world interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality
7. Jews, corporation, women, politician – Evidence exisits to suggest mafia management over all these groups.
Survival of the favored.
Movies foreshadowing catastrophy
1986 James Bond View to a Kill – 1989 San Fransisco Loma Prieta earthquake.
Journal: 10 composition books + 39 megs of text files