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June 21, 2008
Blame for worker's death extends to many parties
By Joe Guzzardi
Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, the pregnant 17-year-old Mexican illegal
alien laborer who died last month while working in a Lodi vineyard, has
sparked a host of controversies.
The debate's focus centers on who is to blame for the sad death of this
young girl.
Most of the attention correctly falls on Jimenez's employer, Merced Farm
Labor, a contractor with a history of disregarding worker safety.
But the list of accomplices is long.
First comes Mexico, a country that steadfastly refuses to carry out the
basic governmental responsibility of providing for its citizens.
Even though Mexico is one of the world's wealthiest nations and home to
the richest man in the world, Carlos Slim, it will not lift a finger —
or should I say tax its elites? — on behalf of its people.
Accordingly, with Mexico's blessing and encouragement, the most
desperate of its populace seeks haven in the United States.
Unbelievably and without a critical word from the U.S., two years ago
Mexico issued a comic book titled "Guide for the Mexican Migrant" with
helpful hints about how to cross into America and stay out of trouble
once you arrive.
Mexican presidents, the unabashed hypocrites Vicente Fox and Felipe
Calderon, have come to the U.S. to praise alien workers as "heroes" and
vital to our economy.
Is, I wonder, Jimenez one of Fox's heroes?
Second on my list is President George W. Bush, a primary abettor of
illegal immigration. Since his first days in the White House, Bush has
repeatedly uttered such nonsense as "family values don't stop at the Rio
Grande," "America is a nation of immigrants" and "immigrants do jobs
Americans won't."
Each statement grossly distorts the truth and is interpreted in Mexico
as an open invitation to come north.
Not only has Bush refused to secure the border, he sanctioned the
outrageous jail sentence handed down to Border Patrol agents Ignacio
Ramos and Jose Compean for pursuing a known Mexican drug dealer.
As recently as a week ago, Bush pulled the National Guard from the
border, making it easier yet to cross into the southwestern United
States.
The third culprit is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, highly visible at
Jimenez's funeral and making the same old predictable promises about
reform.
As an enormously popular Hollywood movie star and legal immigrant,
Schwarzenegger could have shifted the state's bitter argument about
illegal immigration to a higher plane by reinforcing the concept of
obeying immigration law.
Instead, Schwarzenegger fell in line with Bush by endorsing amnesty. Any
statement that encourages amnesty welcomes illegal immigrants — come on
over, you may get lucky!
Fourth, the Mexican ethnic identity organizations and Washington, D.C.
lobbyists like La Raza and League of United Latin American Citizens, who
feign compassion for Mexicans but are only concerned about protecting
their six-figure salaries.
For the last three years, you've seen them waving their placards at
illegal alien May Day protest marches: "No human is illegal!" — as if
enforcing immigration law were a statement about the human condition.
Fifth, the mainstream media, which for 20 years has refused to report
honestly on illegal immigration.
The phrase "undocumented worker" never existed until the media coined
it. And America's debate is not — as the media would have you believe —
about "immigrants and immigration" — but about illegal immigration.
As the media knows but ignores, an immigrant is someone who enters the
U.S through a port of entry with a valid visa — not someone who climbs
over a wire fence in the dark of night.
For as long as anyone can remember, America has laid out the red carpet:
Get to the U.S. and claim an array of social services. The statistical
probability of deportation is infinitesimally small.
And in the last 10 years, the U.S. has become even more gracious to
illegal immigrants — offering home mortgages, accepting transparently
fake identification as valid work documents and even, in some states,
issuing driver's licenses.
At the same time, obvious flaws in our immigration system remain
unchecked. Jimenez's case brings to mind the foolish birthright
citizenship clause that would have allowed her child to become an
American citizen.
Birthright citizenship was ended years ago in most Western countries.
California has revoked Merced Farm Labor's license.
That's not enough. I'd like to see the principals sentenced to long jail
terms and meaningful monetary fines.
For those indirectly responsible, listed above, may they come to their
senses before more lives are needlessly lost.
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