Romancing Immigrants...

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

AUSTIN, Texas - So, you're one of those - ahem - patriots who doesn't think this country treats undocumented immigrants with all the propriety of a coonhound? And you tell me you've heard all that noise moving from Arizona to Georgia and to other points in the country, where these same hard-working immigrants are now being targeted by local police.

Well, Redneck, things aren't as they seem.

The gent pictured in the photo atop this story, one Lamar Smith, a Republican congressman from San Antonio, is doing his damndest to hide his efforts to keep these immigrants doing the country's dirty work. What's that?! You say all you've ever heard about Mr. Smith is that he is one die-hard anti-immigrant, that he has sided over and over by these same harsh laws aimed at the people who come here to work our fields for peanuts?

Yes, that same racist paleface.

Smith is now sponsoring a legislative bill to flood American agriculture with as many as half-a-million visas for guest workers.

Absolutely, you damn sure read that correctly. This anti-immigrant hard-liner, respresenting a congressional district made up of the wealthiest sectors of San Antonio and Austin (with part of the Hill Country), is looking the other way on the many harsh laws many communities have passed to rid themselves of these "guest workers". Why, Mabel, hear me out - these darn crops have to be picked by someone...

But it's not all good for the farmworkers. Smith's bill would make it easier for farmers and ranchers to pay even lower wages and pretty much write-off regulations requiring these same agri-business employers to provide transportation costs and some form of housing. Smith, a Christian Scientist, is all heart, huh?

What's more, oversight of this program would be transferred from the Labor Department to the Department of Agriculture, an agency that has never done anything of the sort.

Smith's wild idea, wild because it is both hypocritcal and perhaps too-bold for the Far Right psycho-babblers in this country, confirms yet again that the U.S. simply cannot live without the undocumented immigrant labor force. It is cheap and it is here. Use it, but on our terms, says Smith.

Critics further note that Smith is ignoring the foreign labor force already here, the oft-cited 11 million immigrants, but are now being run down like dogs by local police. Visas, say those same critics, that will be handed out under Lamar Smith's plan to those outside the country, ought to be availed to immigrants already here.

Five-hundred thousand visas at the ready?

My, my. What a wicked web we weave...

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