Realism, compassion lacking in immigration debate

[Doondoo]

Perhaps the most striking thing about our national debate over immigration is the utter lack of attention to the root causes of mass migration from Mexico or to the moral dimensions of the injustice and human tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes.
Mexicans and other Latinos have been coming to our country for more than a century -- lured by businesses seeking cheap labor and by government policies that promote temporary work programs.

This migration accelerated greatly in the 1990s, in part because of the devastating impact on Mexican agricultural workers from the North American Free Trade Agreement. About two-thirds of the 12 million undocumented immigrants in our country have arrived since 1995, shortly after NAFTA took effect. The vast majority of unauthorized immigrants, about eight in 10, are from Latin American countries. And three-fourths of those are Mexican.

Today, these immigrants are among the most abused, exploited and denigrated people in our society.

.......

Yes, many cross the border illegally, in search of a better way of life. But tens of thousands of Latino "guest workers" are recruited each year by major U.S. corporations seeking cheap labor to harvest vegetables, plant pine trees on giant timber plantations in the South or fill other low-wage jobs. Many lured here find only broken promises, pain and misery. Unscrupulous companies routinely cheat immigrants out of their rightful pay or force them to work in unsafe conditions, knowing they have little recourse.

As a nation, we can and should do better. We should greet immigrants with compassion and treat them with dignity.

And we must seek realistic solutions. As we've seen repeatedly in these first years of this new century, belligerence and ideological rigidity do not work.



http://www.splcenter.org/center/splcreport/article.jsp?aid=224&splcnewsletter=newsgen-021407

[fasttense]

1. But is there any compassion in anything the repukes and bushes do? n/t