When the topic of illegal immigration comes up, I get fired up.
But not for the reasons people think.
No, honestly, I believe that anyone should have a right to go to work to feed their family. While I don't like illegal immigration as a whole, I see it as a new form of civil disobedience. Whether I agree with it or not, these people are trying to make a better world for their families, a cause with which I cannot disagree.
My problem with illegal immigration comes from the knowledge I gained during six months' employment at American Borate Company's Billie Mine in Death Valley, California. These illegals were my coworkers, and I trusted my life to their knowledge.
But I also gained insight into the trade in illegals that has become slavery for a new generation. Here's how it works, in one instance with which I was familiar:
Company X pays $5,000 per head for illegals. The traffickers pay "mules" (usually illegals who've been in the US a few years and have their forged paperwork in order) $1200 a head to drive to border communities and pick up a carload. This is, for the mules, substantial payment with little real risk.
Once the illegals are across the border, they work for company X for a pre-set period of time (in this case, 6 months) at $2-3 an hour. They then live in substandard housing run by shady landlords in the middle of the desert at about $100 a month, and must pay vastly inflated prices for food and grocery items. They work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.
At the end of their term of indenture, they are given their paperwork and move on to other businesses, which are usually aware of their illegal status, but overlook it and exploit it to the fullest by paying subsistence wages, again, in the middle of the desert where the cost of real goods is substantially higher in larger community. There they work for several years, learning the language and the culture. After some time, they are virtually indistinguishable from legal immigrants and they move on to legal employ, the families they intended to send for long forgotten.
A number of good, noble Americans worked hard to eliminate slavery and indentured servanthood in the 19th century. To see it continuing today is a travesty beyond description. Support for the illegals means support for a lifestyle that exploits and endangers them. There is NO REASON 100 illegals should have to die in the back of a semi trailer when they simply attempted to find a better life.
While I sympathize with these individuals, however, we as a country have an obligation to the safety and security of our citizens. While their motivation to a better life is understandable, it is OUR obligation to our citizens to patrol and deport these individuals when they are found. In my exposure to the illegal alien situation, neither the INS nor the BATF (illegal aliens handling heavy explosives) showed the slightest bit of interest in the documentation I and another worker provided.