Dear Lord - What is this world coming to? I actually LIKED Ann Coulter's Column today!

I suppose this proves the adage that if you give an infinite number of monkeys and infinite number of typewriters, they will eventually bang out a play by Shakespeare.

with all the nonsense and vitriol that usually spews out of her columns it was inevitable she would come up with one that is sensible. The point is this, why reward lawbreakers. Each country has a set of standards and practices for allow immigration. Most of them are based upon the principle of fairness to both the nation and the immigrants. Illegal aliens violate both those principles.

Of course the problem is added with the fact that many industries exist because of illegal aliens so its not just the people who snuck in but the companies that are turning a blind eye to the status of some if not many of their employees.

It should be noted that 2500 speeding violation in France by diplomats in one year remain unpaid and uncollectable. Just how big is France? Abuse of diplomatic immunity was made more visible by media coverage in the early 1990s. The abuse spans a variety of activities, ranging from parking violations to more serious criminal behavior such as domestic abuse and rape. In February 1995 Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York City forgave $800,000 in parking tickets accumulated by foreign diplomats. Although no clear reason was given, the action, which was perhaps meant as a show of goodwill, sent a message to visiting diplomats that the U.S. government may be willing to allow diplomats greater leniency than its own private citizens. This example serves as the best example of how some diplomatic debts have either been erased or not collected. However, outstanding debts may not be the worst illustration of how diplomatic immunity can be abused. Some financial institutions will not extend credit to diplomats because they have no legal means of ensuring the money is repaid.[citation needed] Diplomats are exempt from duties and tariffs for items for their personal use. In some countries, this has led to charges that diplomatic agents are profiting personally from resale of "tax free" goods. The receiving state may choose to impose restrictions on what may reasonably constitute personal use (for example, only a certain quantity of cigarettes per day). When enacted, such restrictions are generally quite generous (so as to avoid tit-for-tat responses).

In Vladivostok, Russia, U.S. Consul General Douglas Kent was involved in a car accident on October 27, 1998, that left a young man, Alexander Kashin, crippled. Kent was not prosecuted in a U.S. court. Under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963, diplomatic immunity does not apply to civil actions relating to vehicular accidents. However, on 10 August 2006, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that since he was using his own vehicle for consular purposes, Kent may not be sued civilly.[7][8]

In Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, a Russian diplomat, Andrei Knyazev, drove his car into two pedestrians on a quiet residential street in January, 2001, killing one and seriously injuring the other. He had previously been stopped by Ottawa police on two separate occasions on suspicion of impaired driving. The Canadian government requested that Russia waive the diplomat's immunity, although this request was refused. Mr. Knyazev was subsequently prosecuted in Russia for involuntary manslaughter, and sentenced to four years in prison. His appeal of the sentence was denied and he served time in a penal colony.[4][5][6]

On December 3, 2004, a marine guard for the American embassy in Bucharest, Romania, allegedly drunk, collided with a taxi and killed the popular Romanian musician Teo Peter.[3] Marine Christopher Van Goethem did not obey a traffic signal to stop which resulted in the collision of his Ford Expedition with the taxi the rock star was travelling in. Van Goethem's blood alcohol content was estimated at 0.09 from a breathalyser test, but he refused to give a blood sample for further testing and left for Germany before charges could be filed in Romania.[citation needed] The Romanian government requested the American government lift his immunity, which it has refused to do.[citation needed] The Marine was later cleared by a Court Martial of both manslaughter and adultery.[citation needed]}

In January of 1997, Gueorgui Makharadze, the deputy ambassador of the Republic of Georgia in Washington caused an accident that injured four people and killed a sixteen-year-old girl. He was found to have a blood-alcohol level of 0.15, but released from custody because he was a diplomat. The U.S. government asked the Georgian government to waive his immunity, which they did and Makharadze was tried and convicted of manslaughter by the U.S. and sentenced to seven to twenty-one years in prison.[2]

In London in 1984, policewoman Yvonne Fletcher was killed on the street by a person shooting from inside the Libyan embassy. The incident caused a breakdown in diplomatic relations until Libya admitted "general responsibility" in 1999.

Diplomats and their families have also been known to use diplomatic immunity to avoid prosecution for criminal behavior. This is illustrated in a 1983 case where the New York City Police Department suspected a diplomat's son of fifteen different rapes. The son was allowed to leave the United States without ever being taken to court, because he claimed diplomatic immunity. If diplomatic immunity is used as a shield, the police cannot prosecute, no matter how serious the crime may be.

U.S. citizens and businesses are often at a disadvantage when filing civil claims against a diplomat, especially in cases of unpaid debts, such as rent, alimony, and child support. In the summer of 1994 U.S. diplomat Victor Marrero reportedly complained to the United Nations secretariat that foreign diplomats' debts in the United States were $5.3 million. The New Yorker later reported that a well-informed source had said the figure had risen "closer to $7 million."

First there were no horses or rats in America.

Definitions of rat
n. - Any of various long-tailed rodents similar to but larger than a mouse 3
n. - A pad (usually made of hair) worn as part of a woman's coiffure 3
n. - One who reveals confidential information in return for money 3
n. - A person who is deemed to be despicable or contemptible 3
n. - Someone who works (or provides workers) during a strike 3
v. - Give away information about somebody 3
v. - Catch rats, especially with dogs 3
v. - Give (hair) the appearance of being fuller by using a rat 3
v. - Take the place of work of someone on strike 3
v. - Employ scabs or strike breakers in 3
v. - Desert one's party or group of friends, for example, for one's personal advantage 3
n. - One of several species of small rodents of the genus Mus and allied genera, larger than mice, that infest houses, stores, and ships, especially the Norway, or brown, rat (M. decumanus), the black rat (M. rattus), and the roof rat (M. Alexandrinus). These were introduced into America from the Old World. 2
n. - A round and tapering mass of hair, or similar material, used by women to support the puffs and rolls of their natural hair. 2
n. - One who deserts his party or associates; hence, in the trades, one who works for lower wages than those prescribed by a trades union. 2
v. i. - In English politics, to desert one's party from interested motives; to forsake one's associates for one's own advantage; in the trades, to work for less wages, or on other conditions, than those established by a trades union. 2
v. i. - To catch or kill rats. 2

The word "rat" uses 3 letters: A R T.

Hispanic immigration position paper

“I told Phoenix, Arizona’s Channel 3 News that our administration would push for total amnesty for illegal immigrants and family reunification. We would also promote a living wage, benefits (including access to quality health care) and optimal working conditions. And we would promote a move toward a “North American Union” where the borders came down and there was a tremendous increase in work on joint environmental projects, humanitarian aid, business ventures, cultural exchanges… I added we have to move away from our myopic, and quite selfish, American protectionism.” --Joe

*Categories covered below include: 1) the issue; 2) the plan; 3) face of abject poverty south of the border; 4) unjust laws; 5) help in El Paso; 6) tough making it; 7) temporary workers, etc.; 8)“Hispanic Council” means grassroots help; 9) deportation, split families, slow bureaucracy; 10) illegal drug influx; 11) living wage, benefits, better housing…; 12) Help Latin America Drive!; 13) initiatives to help; 14) “North American Union”; 15) “…tremendous opportunity to help.”

1) the issues

There are some 12 million illegal immigrants in this country who have come here, for the most part, to escape abject poverty and / or political oppression in Mexico and throughout Central America.

We went to Juarez, Mexico, to look at this poverty first-hand. There were a series of slums with 200,000 people living in tiny, makeshift shacks, no running water, no electricity. Many were hungry. Children were sick, some dying.

We interviewed Tiffin, Ohio’s Sr. Paulette Schroeder who went to Nicaragua on a “Witness for Peace” Tour. She said Contra forces had undertaken a campaign of terror there to undermine strides toward moving people out of poverty. In one village, she heard the story of a Contra attack. Shots were being fired, grenades exploding and a mother grabbed her eight-month-old child and ran. A bullet pierced her back and lodged in the leg of the baby. The mother survived, barely. The baby lost his leg.

This oppression, this poverty, plays out regularly throughout Latin America -- so some people come here.

But because the need is often immediate and the citizenship process is often arduously slow, and expensive, a Latino rights activist in Fresno told me some desperate people choose the illegal route. Yet given these scenarios, to deport people and sometimes split their families in the process is simply “cruel,” he said.

What’s also ‘cruel,’ we believe, is allowing for the almost exploitive slave labor conditions that have resulted with these illegal immigrants.

We traveled to the San Joaquin Valley in California to look at migrant farm worker conditions. Scores of illegal (and legal) farm workers toiling in 115-degree heat, sun up to sun down for minimum wage, or less. No benefits, seldom any health insurance and continual exposure to toxic farm chemicals.

Similar ‘almost slave conditions’ for illegal immigrants exist in the garment district of Los Angeles and New York, the chicken processing plants in the Midwest, factories all over…

In essence, many of us in America (knowingly or unknowingly) are building our lifestyles on the backs of these illegal immigrants.

Not to mention, just getting a foothold for many of these illegal immigrants is extremely tough in the first place.

We traveled to a hardscrabble area of El Paso, Texas, to a homeless center and transitional living facility for illegal (and legal) immigrants who have just arrived to hear about their struggles. We also went to Eunice, New Mexico, to talk with a man who started the grassroots Hispanic Council and who told us illegal immigrants are tremendously stereotyped when it comes to what Americans believe their working capabilities are.

All these dynamics, in our opinion, add up to: a tremendous social justice travesty. And one that needs to be reversed now!

Note: And there’s an even more systemic problem. That is, in being focused so much on selfish American protectionism, we’ve missed so many more opportunities to help Mexico and all of Latin America and South America to become much more sustainable. It is our contention that many people don’t want to leave their family, their country, their culture… to come to America. But, again, their children are hungry.

2) the plan:

During a talk to a Newman Center student group at Northern Arizona State University, I said the current situation for many illegal immigrants in America amounts to nothing other than institutionalized “slave labor.” And because America espouses “liberty for all,” we’re falling tremendously short in this area.

And in the immediate, our administration would push for total amnesty (no retroactive fines or waiting period for citizenship) for illegal immigrants, family reunification and a much easier citizenship process, I told the Kingman (AZ) Daily Miner newspaper. And for those who want to work here (like the Nicaraguan woman in Ohio) and go back, we would push to pave the way for that as well.

Beyond this, I told Phoenix, Arizona’s Channel 3 News that our administration would try to promote a “living wage” for all these immigrants, much better working conditions, benefits, adequate housing, better education… (For those who want to work here, but maintain their citizenship south of the border, we propose a “Temporary Worker Program” that includes border check points.)

And I told the Hobbs (NM) Sun newspaper that all this is designed not only to benefit the illegal immigrants here, but offers tremendous spiritual benefit to all Americans who choose to get behind these initiatives to help.

Initiatives like the Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas. On a stop there to meet with the director, we learned Annunciation House is a homeless shelter and transitional living facility for new arrivals here (both legal and illegal). It is subsidized by churches and private individuals interested in promoting social justice.

Our administration would also point to projects like Eunice, New Mexico’s Hispanic Council. On a stop in Eunice during a “Border Tour,” we learned this ad hoc, grassroots citizens project is designed to help new arrivals with entering the work force, social service options, education… (The Hispanic Council model would work in any town.)

To help with sustainability south (and north) of the border, we would point to the non-profit “International Good Neighbors Council,” which has 28 chapters, half in the U.S., half in Mexico. In Carlsbad, New Mexico, we met with director Stanley Evans. He explained each chapter backs a charitable project in the other country.

And it was the country of Nicaragua that Minnesota’s Ed and Betty Bryce went with other members of their Catholic Church as part of a “Sister Church” project. Ed told me in the small, rural town of San Pedro (where there is no running water, no electricity, no sewage system…) they helped with several building projects.

We have traveled the country extensively learning about similar “Sister Church” projects between the U.S. and Mexico, El Salvador, Haiti, Guatemala… I told the Grand Rapids Herald newspaper in Minnesota that there is no reason why “every church in America can’t develop a Sister Church.”

And there is no reason more families can’t do what the McCarthy family did. On a stop in Holbrook, Arizona, we learned that Bob McCarthy (as a youth) and his family went to Costa Rica for two years to help train mechanics and equipment operators to repair and build a series of rural roads as part of an AID project.

The list goes on…

But the point is, our nation is capable of mobilizing a lot more help for nations south of the border. And our administration would try to inspire this.

*And more, we believe we should move far, very far, away from our current American protectionist orientation. So far in fact, that we believe we should establish a “North American Union,” like what’s evolving with the European Union.

We believe by letting the borders come further down with this type of “union,” it would promote much more: joint environmental conservation projects, joint business ventures, cultural exchanges… In all this, we believe relations would improve and we would move closer to a ‘globalization’ that would be much more about the common good -- than just economics and political power.

Note: We believe there should still be some form of Border Patrol in relationship to national security when it comes to protecting against, say, terrorists or illegal drug smugglers… But we believe we have wasted all sorts of manpower and money on trying to stop people simply coming here seeking a safer, more secure, life.

3) face of abject poverty south of the border

There are some 12 million illegal immigrants in this country from Mexico and Latin America in general. A majority of these people have come here to escape dead-end abject poverty or volatile political strife in their countries.

At an immigration rally in Flagstaff, Arizona, I told protestors we’d been to the dusty streets of Juarez, Mexico to look at this poverty first hand. And what we saw was 200,000 people living on the west side of Juarez in cobbled together shacks of scrap wood and rusty corrugated metal.

There was no running water, no electricity and young children roamed the streets as both their parents worked at multi-national corporations for $3 a shift – in a country where the inflation rate is higher than America.

The children were hungry.

Many risk climbing or skirting the border fence to come to America, so they can feed their children.

Tragically, some don’t survive the crossing. More than 400 – that border patrol could count -- died in the deserts of the Southwest before (or after) getting to the fence in 2005. According to a USA Today article, those that get lost, or stranded, in the desert eventually die of heat exhaustion. Their temperatures go to 107 degrees. They then become disoriented, then delusional… as all their organs shut down.

And again, these are often Moms, Dads, and others who are desperate for help.

4) unjust laws

During a tour of southern New Mexico, I interviewed a retired Border Patrol agent. The agent, who requested anonymity, said he worked along the border for 32 years in southern California.

He said during this time he pulled a good number of bodies of men, women, and some children out of the All American Canal near Colexico, California, in the aftermath of failed crossings.

This former agent told me candidly that he thought it was a shame, because it was his experience the Hispanics were generally “good, honest and hard working people” who were just trying to better the situation for themselves and their families.

Given this, I asked about whether he had felt qualms about helping capture and deport these people.

He said no, because he was first sworn to “uphold the law” that the American people wanted.

It is our belief that sometimes the law of the land is simply unjust. The laws allowing slavery were wrong. The laws protecting abortion, we believe, are wrong. And, again, we believe the laws around illegal immigration are wrong.

And it is our belief we must stridently work to protest such laws, including, at times, using things like non-violent civil disobedience (as the Civil Rights Movement demonstrated, for example) to bring more attention, awareness, and ultimately, change around an issue.

5) help in El Paso

For those who make it to America as new arrivals (both legal and illegal), they often struggle to get a foothold.

We traveled to El Paso, Texas, to meet with Rubin Garcia who is the director of Annunciation House, a homeless and transitional shelter for legal, and illegal, immigrants who have been in America a short time. Annunciation House is located in a hardscrabble area of El Paso. There is no sign.

Garcia has been here 28 years. He pointed to the poverty in Mexico and the wars in Central America as some of the main reasons for the influx of illegal immigrants.

He said Annunciation House is funded by donations by a loose network of churches and private individuals who are concerned about social justice issues. Issues like people fleeing death squad bullets and getting here with no money, no belongings and no grasp of the language.

While I was doing the interview with Garcia, our children played with a two year old Mexican girl and my wife Liz sat with her mother. A Jesuit volunteer here from Iowa for a year explained the Hispanic woman was a single mother who had recently left Mexico because of the poverty. She spoke no English and the child was in a tiny, threadbare dress.

Garcia said he didn’t see the rationale for sending people like this woman back. But rather he thinks it’s our responsibility to help.

I think so too.

6) tough making it

Once illegal immigrants move into the work force here, many end up in the margins of poverty (the way Americans see poverty) barely scraping by while trying to send as much as money as they can back to their relatives.

On a tour of California to look at migrant farm worker issues, I interviewed a man who formerly worked in the fields of Gilroy picking garlic, sun up to sun down. Eliseo Hinojosa has a wife and two young children. He told me the work in the fields was quite hard, the pay was low and by the time he met expenses here – there was little left (although he tried to send something whenever he could) for his relatives back in Mexico.

He said this situation was not uncommon.

Monterey (CA) Herald columnist Joe Livernois would agree.

In response to all the “crabbing” about undocumented immigrants taking jobs from Americans, Livernois wrote about one of these typical working scenarios. He described getting up at 3 a.m. and catching a bus to “some dewy field in the middle of nowhere.” Then mucking about in the thick mud, bent over, tending to vegetables all day long for wages that will force people to move in with several other families “in somebody’s garage.”

Livernois also wrote as a youth he had a farm worker job that lasted three weeks. He harvested onion seeds “under a scorching sun” during 12 hour days for an extremely low wage. “By the end of the day we were covered in onion husks, which, when mixed with sweat, prickles like fiberglass.

Shortly before I read Livernois’s column in California, in Ohio I learned about an illegal immigrant from Nicaragua who was here to earn money to rebuild a small rural home that had been destroyed in a forest fire. The woman, a single mother, had left her children with a relative, crossed several countries to the north, crossed the border, and through a network of people, ended up at a Catholic Worker House.

A nun who volunteers at the House told me the woman performs hard manual labor at a tire company in the area. The nun said the woman, who is quite slightly built, often has bruises on her arms because of all the heavy lifting. The woman’s hope is to be here several years, make enough money to rebuild, then return to be with her children.

Our administration would not only pave the way for this woman from Nicaragua to be here, but we would make sure she had every advantage any American worker with a living wage, benefits and good working conditions had. (And we would work hard to try and make sure every worker in America had the same.)

*In addition, we would work to suspend fines and other punitive actions against employers who hire illegal immigrants.

7) temporary workers, etc.

We believe there needs to be safe and efficient conduits for people south of the border to be able to work in the U.S, whether they plan to become citizens, or not…

In Sheffield Texas, I interviewed rancher Ron Stuard who said it’s virtually impossible to get American citizens to work the ranches in these parts. The “Catch 22,” he said, is if he hires illegal immigrants (who are indeed willing to work the ranches), he faces sanctions and up to a $10,000 fine.

Our administration would work to suspend fines, jail time and asset forfeiture for businesses who hire illegal immigrants.

Stuard also told me that in the 1950s, under the U.S. “Bracerro Program,” Mexicans and others from south of the border, were allowed to work on these ranches, and the like. He said in Mexico there was a list of people available to work, and as jobs came up in the U.S. (farm working, ranching…), they were simply matched.

Stuard said standard protocol was the U.S. employer would drive to a border check point, sign for the workers he needed (including stating the duration he needed the workers) – then get the workers back to the check point at the stated date.

McClean, Texas’s Steve Calloway likes the checkpoint idea as well for temporary workers here. At a campaign stop in this area, Calloway told me he grew up in South Georgia in the small town of Claxton.

All around were peanut and cotton farms. He said, virtually without exception, that the workers in these fields were Mexican, many illegal. Calloway continued that this hasn’t changed for the most part, and Americans have to face the fact that these Latino workers are an integral part of our economy.

He, too, believes there should be checkpoints at various places along the border. And there should be background checks for criminal records, etc.

Calloway added that if everything is OK with one of these checks, Latinos should be allowed to work here, either short or long term, including being eligible for citizenship after working for a prescribed time.

8) “Hispanic Council” means grassroots help

In Eunice, New Mexico, Leon Navarette told me Hispanics are often capable of doing more than “putting foot to shovel,” but breaking out of the stereotype (even having equal opportunity to do so) is tremendously difficult.

Navarette, and other residents in Eunice started the grassroots “Hispanic Council,” an ad hoc citizens group focused on helping new arrivals here. They conduct seminars to show immigrants the ins and outs of the job market, including how to start their own businesses. They hold seminars on how to access local social service networks. Some Hispanic Council members help tutor immigrant children and others help raise college scholarship funds.

They also lobby the city council for better streets and city services in general for these new arrivals who, for the most part, live in the poorer south section of Eunice. Many living two to three families in quite small homes and trailers there.

9) deportation, split families, slow bureaucracy…

In Dade City, Florida, illegal immigrants live two or three families to small homes and trailers as well. What’s more, they (like all illegal immigrants) live under continual fear about being deported.

I interviewed Fr. Edwin Barker in Dade City, Florida. He told me a good percentage of his church was made up of illegal immigrants. Fr. Barker explained that several years prior some Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents came to Dade City asking questions.

It created such a scare that many of the illegal immigrants, for weeks, wouldn’t leave their homes to go to work, to the grocery, to church, anywhere…

In Fresno, California, I interviewed Thomas Gonzalas who is a Latino Rights activist. He believes it’s unconscionable that people have to live in fear like this and he is pushing for total amnesty for all illegal immigrants – including family reunification.

He said, for instance, to have worked in America for a year and then be deported for 10 years (policy at the time of the interview) is not fair. What’s more, sometimes the illegal person who is deported has to leave his family here. Mr. Gonzalas said it is very “cruel” to split families like that.

Mr. Gonzalas has also worked with many Latinos to help get them citizenship and he said the process is often “long and slow.” This, in turn, discourages people from undertaking it.

Our administration would also push for total amnesty and family reunification. We would also work to make the citizenship process much easier and quicker.

10) illegal drug influx

An issue that comes up consistently around border security is the influx of illegal drugs into America from south of the border.

In Las Cruces, New Mexico, I interviewed Sheriff Department Sgt. Jimmy Beasley. He said it is not uncommon for his department to seize tractor-trailers that have come across the border with a half-ton of marijuana, cocaine…

He said besides the trucks, tunnels have been built below the fence and so on. And Sgt. Beasley said the Drug Cartels are so powerful south of the border, that no matter how much border security, they will figure out some way to get the drugs into the country.

Several months earlier, I met with a human rights activist from Columbia who was here to lobby against U.S. Government spraying of coca plants in her country. The activist, who requested anonymity, said the toxic chemicals used by crop dusters there, also (depending on where the wind is blowing) kills the crops of surrounding subsistence farmers and creates tremendous health hazards (cancer, respiratory problems…) for adults and children in these areas.

What’s more, this activist said if a coca farmer’s crop is destroyed, they, more often than not, simply move to another location and continue to grow.

All this begs the question:

“Are we fighting the war on drugs on the right front?”

That is, should we be spending billions muscling up our border security and DEA activities (such as the Columbia spraying) south of the border? Or should we be spending much more energy and resources on stemming the demand for illegal drugs on this side of the border?

Common sense, we believe, would vote for the latter.

As a former drug & alcohol counselor, I know that there are varying precipitating factors that lead to drug abuse. Probably the most systemic is problems in the nuclear family.

When there isn’t consistent, and quality, parenting time for youth – they grow up feeling empty inside. To fill these emotional voids, the youth then turn to alcohol, sex, drugs… (All we have to do is objectively look around society at this point to see how pervasive these addictive patterns have become, I told the BG News at Bowling Green State University.)

On the Monterey Peninsula in California, I did extensive research on the program: Take A Stand for Kids (TASK). This is a grassroots group of parents who conduct neighborhood meetings, school seminars and open public forums to raise awareness about better parenting techniques. And they have been tremendously successful.

Likewise, the DARE Program in America is starting to make measurable impact on drug abuse among youth. Sgt. Beasley is also the DARE Program coordinator in the Las Cruces, New Mexico public school system.

Sgt. Beasley told me DARE focuses on drug prevention education and sets up peer group support systems.

In addition, we believe there should be much more help in general focused on American inner city youth who are growing up in gang war zones amidst a tremendous amount of drugs. This can’t help but be a recipe for continued drug abuse in the next generation.

I researched a highly effective mentoring program in Wheeling, West Virginia, for inner city youth. There is a 14-week training program for adults who then adopt a youth for a year (although the relationships often last must longer.) Likewise, I interviewed a police officer from Detroit who is involved with a Community Oriented Policing Mentoring Project. Police officers there are assigned six youth who they spend time with every day after school.

Another cause for the high illegal drug demand on this side of the border is the tremendous recidivism (relapse) rate of those who have tried to undertake recovery, either on their own or forced through the court system.

In Needles, California, we researched the highly effective “Drug Court.” (These have been starting up around the country in recent years). First time non-violent offenders (where there was drugs or alcohol involved with the crime), are referred to a long-term, comprehensive treatment program that includes three outpatient groups a week, AA meetings, drug screens…

Common sense says the longer, and more comprehensive, the treatment program, the better the chances for long term recovery.

And common sense also says there needs to be a more wholesome societal climate in general in America at this point. Youth are being raised in an ‘MTV Culture’ saturated with media (television, movie, computer…) messages about the glorification of drugs, and so on.…

During Campaign 2004, I told the Hicksville, Ohio, newspaper that it’s time that “parents again be parents,” and take a more hands on approach to raising their children in a wholesome fashion, which includes limiting a youth’s exposure to all these corrosive influences.

See, we can strengthen the border to stem more of the flow of illegal drugs from the south, but in the long run it doesn’t take away the real problem.

The real problem is on this side of the border.

11) living wage, benefits, better housing…

On a tour of the San Joaquin Valley in California to look at migrant farm worker issues, I interviewed Doug Blaylock, an administrator at the National (Cesar) Chavez Center. Mr. Blaylock told me despite some of the strides the United Farm Workers Union has made, farm workers (both legal and illegal) are still discriminated against when it comes to wages, benefits, housing… Just like Irish immigrants, for instance, were discriminated against at the turn of last century.

We stopped in Arvin, California, a dusty farm worker town just south of Bakersfield. There we learned about farm workers living sometimes two to three families in tiny houses, or trailers.

A recent Mother Jones Magazine article noted Arvin has become “the most crowded community in all of California.” The article gives the example of “Isabel,” a farm worker and single mother of three in Arvin. She lives in a small, 300-square foot home. Two of her sons share bunk beds and her oldest sleeps in the car. Four other relatives sleep on the floor. And she sleeps on a couch.

These situations exist, in large part, because the wages in the fields (garment districts, factories…) are so low.

Translated: The individual farmers and corporate farming entities (garment company owners, factory owners…) pay low wages because they want to maximize their profits. On the other end of the continuum, a majority of consumers simply want to buy the cheapest produce possible, often for just as selfish reasons.

So what we are doing, in essence, is building our lifestyles on the backs of many of these illegal immigrants and, again, have set up what amounts to a slave populace.

I told the Kingman (AZ) Daily Miner newspaper that ironically when it comes to migrant farm workers (as an example), they do some of the most important work on earth. That is, they help provide us with: food. In fact, I said I believed what farm workers (and farmers) do is as important, if not more important, than what lawyers, accountants, CEOs… do. “And they should be compensated accordingly.”

And I told the Lodi (CA) Sentinel News that our administration would push for much better wages for farm workers (garment district workers, factory workers…), better benefits, better housing…

In receiving better wages, for instance, housing would naturally improve for this populace. And our administration would lobby non-profits like Habitat for Humanity to start a home-building program for new arrivals.

On a stop in Americas, Georgia, I met with Millard Fuller who is the co-founder of Habitat for Humanity. He told me the non-profit organization has grown exponentially and revolves around identifying housing needs (both domestically and internationally) – and then meeting them. (Habitat is an ecumenical Christian outreach that is networked through churches and relies solely on volunteer help to build and repair homes for the disadvantaged.)

In tandem with laws to help farm workers with better pay, for instance, we would also call on the American consumer to help in a voluntary fashion. That is, we would propose having “Farm Worker Displays” in produce sections of grocery stores throughout the country. The displays, for instance, would include pictures of farm workers in the hot sun, their children barefoot, the shacks they live in… With each display would be a donation bin for a general fund to help the farm worker (garment worker, factory worker…) and their families.

The Athens (OH) News noted that I had a populist faith in the American people to fix problems with “decency and common sense.”

And I do.

12) Help Latin America Drive!

In Arvin, California, I interviewed Fr. Lucas Azpericueda, who said he is personal friends with Vincente Fox, the president of Mexico.

Before being the leader of Mexico, Fox was the head of the State of Guanaguato. Fr. Azpericueda told me that Fox was extremely proactive in developing a model to help change the infra-structure of Guanaguato, which in turn, created many more jobs in the business and agriculture sectors, improved the quality and access to education and provided better housing and social services.

In kind, the percentage of Mexicans migrating from Guanaguato to the United States dropped considerably, said Fr. Azpericuada. It is our contention many people don’t want to leave their families, their towns, their culture, their country… to move to America. But the poverty often gives them little choice.

Given this, our administration would start a “Help Latin America Drive!” to aid more transformations like the one in Guanaguato. This would include a fund to help with business start ups, more education, more quality housing… This drive would include tremendously increasing the Peace Corps presence in Mexico and throughout South America to help within the context of each country’s culture and sustainable methods for business, farming, etc.

In Blanchester, Ohio, for instance, I interviewed Ed Bailey. He and his wife Dorothy, in their retirement, did a stint with the Peace Corps in the Philippines. They helped arrange micro-loans to small farmers there.

And this drive would also target inspiring more church groups and private citizens to help on as many levels as possible.

13) initiatives to help

There are a good number of models already in place for Americans to get behind in the effort to help south of the border.

One that is growing in popularity is the “Fair Trade” movement.

In Bluffton, Ohio, I interviewed Missy Schrock, who was the manager of Ten Thousand Villages. A Mennonite outreach project, Ten Thousand Villages sells craft and clothing items from Central and South America at fair trade prices to help improve the standard of living for artisans and their families.

Besides craft and clothing items, Ten Thousand Villages promotes fair trade coffee. (Coffee is a staple crop for some 25 million subsistence farmers in countries around the globe, including many in Central and South America.) And it is this growing support that is starting to help some of these farmers, not only stay on their land -- but stave off destitution.

Many stores, churches and coffee shops across America have started to sell fair trade coffee. And Caribou Coffee has even gone a step further. On a trip to Minnesota (Caribou headquarters), company representative Paul Turek told me they have established medical clinics in several of their growers’ towns in Latin America as the next step in trying to bring more equity and social justice help to those regions.

In Bluffton, Ohio, I also learned a “Global Concerns Group” connected with St. Mary’s Church there, did fundraising for Heifer International. The crux of the program is that Heifer International funds are used to purchase cows, chickens and other animals – which are shipped to communities around the world, including Central and South America. The livestock arrive in the impoverished villages bringing milk, wool, draft power, eggs – and offspring to pass on to other impoverished families.

And it is these impoverished families in Nicaragua that Ed and Gwen Bryce are concerned about. The Minnesota couple, along with 10 others from the St. Paul Diocese traveled into the back-country (no electricity, no cars, no sewage system, no school…) to help in San Pedro de la Norte. During an interview, Ed told me the families live in tiny 20 ft. by 20 ft. shacks and most of the children sleep on dirt floors in those shacks.

The Americans helped these villagers build a much needed, rice-drying shed.

In Bonita Springs, Florida, I interviewed Judy Black. After retirement in 1985, Judy and her husband Tom moved to modest trailer in Guazmas, Mexico, for several years. Working with the Franciscan Order there, Judy taught local women there sewing and pottery to help them get cottage businesses going. Tom told me he hired local workers there to help with small construction projects, and the like, around the trailer – giving them what he’d pay an American worker, not the standard $3 a day.

Taking all this a step further, we have researched a series of ongoing “Sister Church” projects between America and Central America. With most of these projects, there is not only a regular flow of funds to help, but church members in America regularly travel to their Sister Church countries to help in a hands on fashion.

And it was the McCarthy family (of 10) who headed to a small rural peninsula in Costa Rica to help in 1964. They went as part of AID, a U.S. Government Rural Development outreach. In Holbrook, Arizona, Bob McCarthy said he was a 10-year-old youth at the time and his father went there to train heavy equipment operators and mechanics for the purpose of improving old roads and building new ones.

Bob told me while people in Costa Rica got help, he also benefited tremendously by the trip. For one, seeing poverty first hand increased his empathy for the plight of the poor. And two, he said learning the culture and Spanish language was invaluable to him. He said as a result, he has a good number of Hispanic friends in this country.

Bob added that, reciprocally, he believed the friends he made in Costa Rica benefited from learning about his culture and language. And in all this, the countries grew closer.

And our administration would like to see all the countries grow a lot closer.

14) “North American Union’

At a campaign stop in Seaside, California, I interviewed Ruben De Anda during the height of the Immigration Rallies across the country in the Spring of 2006.

Mr. De Anda came from the town of Lagus de Moreno in the state of Jalisco in Mexico. He is now a U.S. citizen. And he had a fascinating proposal.

Mr. De Anda pointed to the evolving European Union and said he believed a similar “North American Union” would work quite nicely.

That is, he said he’d like to see the borders start to come down and a formal union formed between Canada, the U.S., Mexico and the countries in Central America.

Our administration would lean heavily in that direction as well. We believe this type of union would open the door to more: joint environmental conservation projects, more mutually advantageous joint business ventures, more tourism (including more eco-tourism) to help boost economies, more cultural exchanges… And as we got to know each other better, more of a flow of humanitarian help all the way around – in the form of Sister City projects, Sister Church projects, individual to individual projects…

We are, after all, fellow human beings – borders or no borders. And the more we do to promote the common good for everyone, the closer we’ll come to a “globalization,” not based solely on material gain and political power, but rather a globalization based on spiritual principle.

15) “…tremendous opportunity to help.”

I said to the Hobbs (NM) Sun newspaper that America shouldn’t look at the impoverished immigrants who come here as burdens, but rather as a “tremendous opportunity to help.”

And our campaign manager in Georgia, Tom Farmer, recently wrote a poignant letter-to-the-editor for the Rome (GA) Tribune about foregoing some of our American protectionism and helping illegal immigrants in as many ways as possible. It ended with: “Let us not fence our compassion in.”

Enough said.

http://wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/577/590960/powerpoints/ppt/chp02.ppt

GW said amnesty first I agree

If you can't control the drugs, why do you think you can control aliens

Neo conservatives thought that they would impose their will in Iraq/Mideast, they have yet to cry uncle. Trust me someone who straps on a bomb believes in their cause. This game is far from over and my suggestion is that we cry uncle and get out of that conflict. If and when they come here I'll strap on a bomb and match their will/cause. Don't start no fecal matter and there won't be any fecal matter. They don't hate America just because we are America. No Americas actions have caused bad relations.

Que sera sera

rule number 1 is never ever screw with people who handle you food

It's not as bad as all that. You should read the Justice Department's rationale (pdf) for the arrests before coming to your conclusions. I am of the opinion that the border agents most likely acted inappropriately.
Here is a rebuttal of the above (also pdf).

I think that the law sometimes has to take precedence over what we see as "justice" in a situation like this. Did the agents shoot a drug-runner? Yes. Did they do so in a manner that is consistent with the law...it does not appear so. And if the law isn't followed then there's no point, really...

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/txw/press_releases/2007/compean_ramos_suttonstatement_1_17_07.pdf

This is the disposition of the case and the defendant opted for a jury of their peers in federal action against them. Unfortunately, for them, they didn't prevail and I'm sure that the case is under appeal. I'm almost certain that their union would withdraw their greivance in light of what has transpired. But thats not my call.