Dakota Today's Douglas Wiken and I have corresponded in a gentlemanly fashion on a number of issues. It is thus with some hesitation that I question part of his commentary on the Cottonwood, MN, bus crash that killed four children:
Cottonwood, Minnesota is reaping the wonders of diversity and a porous border. An illegal alien driving so fast through a stop sign that when she hit railroad tracks went airborne apparently. Flew through the air and crashed into the side of a schoolbus high enough up on the bus that it rolled on its side tipping unto a pickup truck coming from the opposite direction. Four young children were killed and a dozen or so injured..some seriously.
Aliens and immigrants are now expressing concern that this might generate backlash. My guess is the parents of the dead children hope so... [Douglas Wiken, "Sue the Federal Government for Failing to Control Borders," Dakota Today, 2008.02.26].
Attentive readers know that I'm no diversity hawk, and no law-abiding citizen can be in favor of illegal immigration. But Doug's first sentence and the tone of the entire post bug me. Wishing backlash on immigrants? Eesh. That smells of illogic, of scapegoating, of outright xenophobia.
I understand and agree with a fair portion of Doug's argument. He faults the Bush Administration for failing to implement a serious border security policy. He criticizes the wealthy folks who hire illegal immigrants as cheap labor. He wags his finger at our desire for cheap lettuce and tomatoes that can only be harvested and sold at those low prices thanks to the illegal immigrants whom the corporate farmers take advantage of.
But to link Olga Marina Franco's act of vehicular homicide (that's the formal charge) with the politics of diversity and immigration policy is a stretch. The "invading hordes," as Doug refers to them, are not responsible as a group for the death of those four Minnesota children. We have enough reason -- the law -- to deport the illegal immigrants in our midst. To portray them all as irresponsible threats to our safety is unnecessary scapegoating, no more sensible than discriminating against all ex-governors, or all teenagers.
Doug continues:
It all reminded a Sioux Falls family of their husband and father who was killed by another illegal alien who arrogantly disregarded stop signs and speed limits. Arrogant disregard for our borders is followed with arrogant disregard for our driving laws and language. I guess "STOP" is not in the vocabulary of illegal aliens [Wiken, 2008.02.26].
Again, the desire to cast illegal immigrants as scapegoats -- complete with an anti-foreigner slur tied to language -- leads Doug to what feels like a bad mash-up of ad hominem, hasty generalization, and post hoc ergo propter hoc. A career as attorney general, governor, Congressman, as a man deeply involved with the creation and enforcement of laws, did not temper Bill Janklow's leadfoot arrogance. Artyom Koval's family immigrated here legally from Ukraine, but he still raced down Sycamore Avenue at 100 miles per hour, and killed himself, killed Ashleigh, and almost killed at least two other people. Linking arrogant driving to illegal immigration is at least a logical stretch, if not a flat wrong and thinly disguised swipe at foreigners.
Understand that I'm not taking issue with the general policy position that Doug stakes out. The government has an obligation to secure the borders, and the government is doing a rotten job of fulfilling that obligation. The government needs to get serious about controlling illegal immigration.
But where Doug suggests the families of the children injured or killed in this crash sue the federal government for failing to control the borders, I suggest another approach. If blame is to be thrown anywhere beyond Olga Marina Franco -- and please, don't throw it at everyone who speaks Spanish -- perhaps the families should file suit against the employers, the red-blooded, flag-waving American citizens who give jobs to Olga and her boyfriend and 12 million other illegal immigrants. If we want to generalize, these employers who get rich by breaking the law and paying people less than what their work is worth are a much greater threat to the integrity of our country than any illegal immigrant.
It's tempting to blame others for our problems. But the people driving this problem aren't just the illegal immigrants who don't look or talk like us. They aren't just those darn politicians way off in Washington. They are people who look just like us, who run businesses in our communities, who go to our Chamber meetings and fly their flags... and break the law to make a buck.
Wow, talk about ad hominem attacks and hasty generalizations! If it took authorities that long to find out who she really was, why do you assume the employer should know she was illegal? So do you assume every employer who has Hispanic employees is low-down scum, just out to make a bigger buck?
ReplyDeleteYes, these parents should sue the government, because if immigration laws were followed and enforced their children would still be alive. This is not the first time this woman has broken the law and been involved in accidents. Why was she still here?
Following your logic, why would you sue the employers, they had nothing to do with her driving habits?
DRK
That's pretty much my point, DRK. Nothing in Doug's article had anything to do with the woman's driving habits. Bad driving habits have no more correlation with immigration status than with employment, age, sex, religion, or eye color.
ReplyDeleteAs for employers, well, let's play Republican for a moment: the private sector always outperforms the government, right? Who ought to be able to do a better job of weeding out illegal immigrants with false papers: the employer dealing with a small workforce whom he deals with face to face, or some far-off bureaucrat?
It's not that the flag-waving Chamber of Commerce types (this still isn't an ad hominem attack -- I didn't call anyone "low-down scum") can't check for bogus papers and keep illegal immigrants out of their workplaces: it's that they don't want to. Look at Arizona, where business leaders sued the state to prevent the enactment of a measure to suspend or revoke a business's license if it knowingly hired illegal immigrants. (A federal judge dismissed the suit; word is still out on whether the law will do any good.) Feel free to prove the hastiness of my generalization by showing me employers who are willing to work to root out illegal immigrants.
Let's look at it this way: if the government isn't willing to get serious about illegal immigration, if business leaders refuse to take responsibility for the problem, and if we all keep buying goods and services priced artificially low thanks to illegal immigrant labor, then who has any authority left to gripe about illegal immigration?
I hope he shows the same outrage when members of congress run stop signs and kill men on motorcycles, or young white adults who get drunk and drive.
ReplyDeleteAll societies, ethnic groups, income brackets, etc. have irresponsible people who do irresponsible things.
Thank God they didn't kick all the Irish immigrants out 150 years ago. That would have been a bummer for me and a few million other Americans.
I must explain that there is a big difference between the Irish immigrants of 150 years ago and the current immigrants. 150 years ago there were no laws prohibiting immigration therefore the Irish came legally. There are now laws against illegal immigration, that should and must be followed.
ReplyDeleteAnon 9:51 your argument is comparing apples to oranges and can not be taken seriously in this post.
Thanks for comments on the post I wrote at Dakota Today.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of going after employers of illegal aliens is just something I missed when I wrote the post. That is also something that needs to be done.
I understand where you are coming from. It is the moral position that may be something like these people are only here to work, etc. etc. and thus we should feel sorry for them, etc.
There are very good immigrants and bad immigrants, there are very good illegal aliens and very bad illegal aliens. To an extent that is all irrelevant in terms of the legal aspects of the illegal immigration issue. Corn is a good crop; but corn in a beanfield is a weed. The same applies to good people in the wrong place. Illegal aliens are in the wrong place and to the extent there presence causes problems for citizens and legal aliens, their goodness or badness is not significant in comparison to the illegal nature of their very presence.
The arrogance of the former Mexican president and the current Mexican president demanding that the US accept more illegal aliens for face bad reactions from Mexico is insulting to our country and to our intelligence.
George Bush today spent a lot of time dispensing assertions regarding terrorism and the need to wiretap us all. It is all humbug until we control our borders. Illegal aliens invading the US have probably killed more US citizens with crappy driving than had the whole Iraq nation prior to our invasions.
There is a mixture of unfunded mandates in this issue and gross distortion of federal priorities. The tolerance of the Bush and prior Republican administrations for the porous border allowing labor which can be exploited in the interests of large corporations and business is a form of fascistic connections between state and business.
A commenter at my blog also noted that driving past stop signs and killing somebody is not limited to illegal aliens, but then Janklow always seemed like he was actually from a whole 'nother planet of arrogance.
I don't usually agree with Doug Wiken, but I do in this case. Being against ILLEGAL aliens, people who broke the law to come here, who contribute little back to the tax system but who take much from the same, who overtax the social systems, who then continue illegal actions by driving without licenses, is not being against immigrants. It's just wanting the laws followed and applied equally to everyone.
ReplyDeleteI blame politicians of both parties who are pandering to the Hispanic vote, employers who knowingly employ illegals, people who scream unfair and discrimination when local communities or states try to enforce the laws that the feds refuse to, those who refuse to enforce existing laws, and the Mexican gov't itself.
Face it. If the country had been serious about illegal immigration, this woman wouldn't have been in the country, and those kids would be alive. It has nothing to do with driving habits of anyone else. It has to do with the driving habit of this particular ILLEGAL alien, period.
Nonnie
Thanks, Doug. Again, I'm with you on the illegal immigration issue. It is another strong example of plutocracy run rampant: business interests don't want the law enforced when it cuts into their profits. Our President and the Mexican President are complicit with the plutocrats on this issue. As you point out, our President talks a good game on Homeland Security and curtails the rights of regular American citizens, but he won't get in the way of his business buddies using cheap labor to make more money.
ReplyDeleteIllegal immigration is a serious issue. But we don't need to venture into potential racial/ethnic scapegoating to push for action on it.