Illegal Immigrants and Wage Slavery

After reading The Jungle, I thought about situations today where we have conditions some what similar to Packingtown. What occurred to me is that we do have this with illegal aliens. They live outside of our laws and are taken advantage of by businesses.

I find it interesting that we are polarized on the immigration debate. Republicans want border security and to expel illegals currently in the country. Democrats want to legalize them or some say that currently nothing is that bad. Phrases like “they do jobs Americans won’t do” were common from the Democrats in the immigration debate in 2007. In the recession currently I think they would like to revise that statement.

The point i think is that currently they are fleeing a country that is so bad that wage slavery is a better opportunity. This has a lot to do with class warefare in Mexico and their terrible poverty. They also have many places that are in utter anarchy. Juarez Mexico had a murder toll of almost 1600 people in 2008. Juarez is across the border from El Paso Texas and has 1.4 million people living there. That’s a very bad place.

So I think this would be a picture of what immigrants saw coming to America in the early 1900s. We know the Irish were fleeing in the 1800s. As Americans we look in at them and think they must be in hell, but is it that they are stepping up out of hell? I don’t want to sound insensitive, but my existense and ability to cope with my conditions is based off of my experience. I would love everyone to live as I do, but I will not covet my neighbor’s goods to give to others. I will give charitably, but I won’t advocate that people have their goods siezed by the government.

Laws don’t always work anyway. I know many people who have broken the law without being reprimanded. They cut back on a behavior but they don’t stop it. With illegal immigration we should be looking at the cause and not how to deal with the people here. Mexico has big problems and we need to deal with it. We don’t need to bail out the current regime, but we need to use diplomatic pressure to help Mexico get their ducks in a row. We should also make it easier for legal immigration.

I think we are too busy trying to fix things with other people’s money. That is a sin in my religion. We do not covet our neighbor’s goods. If you want to help give your money and the money of people who want to give.