As a Retired US Border Patrol/ICE Agent, I totally support immigration
reform.
With that
said, I am highly skeptical and mistrustful of what our politicians will do about
immigration reform in 2013. I don't believe what
they say because their predecessors have lied to us before. I don't believe what they say because they do
not reveal their true motives of greed and profit which lurk behind their rhetoric
of immigration reform.
They preached
to us in the mid 1980's that Reagan's amnesty would finally put an end to illegal
immigration. They promised us in the mid
1990's that the economic benefits of NAFTA would do the same.
Were they simply
wrong or did they actually lie?
Sadly, I
believe they lied. They lied just as
they have lied about the our War in Iraq, our failed medical care system, our catastrophic
recession of 2008, our insidious forty year-long drug war which includes the atrocities
committed in Central America in the 1980's
and Calderon's (or now Pena Nieto's) senseless Mexican Drug War that rages on today.
Who pays and
has paid the price of these Amnesty and NAFTA lies? Mexican corn farmers and small business
owners wiped out by NAFTA an Wal-Mart have obviously paid the price. And the truth is American taxpayers are
paying and have paid too.
Generally
Americans are compassionate about suffering people, yet many are rightfully
very angry about the illegal immigration of the past twenty years. Amnesty and NAFTA promised these taxpayers an
end, but the exact opposite happened. Illegal immigration became much worse as it increased
from 3.9 million in 1993 to some 11 or
12 million that it is today.
Yes,
American taxpayers have the right to be very angry. They are the ones who have
to deal with over-crowded hospital emergency rooms and their kids being sent to
over-crowded school rooms. Some
experience their jobs being lost or undercut by companies who hire undocumented
workers working under the table. They
wonder why the problem never stops. And
many unfortunately incorrectly blame the undocumented as the cause of this
problem.
American
taxpayers are as just as much pawns in the 1%'s elites' immigration scheme as the undocumented are. Unfortunately, many American voters believe
the 1%'s hype and this "gang of 8".
They believe that the undocumented are the cause of this immigration
mess, when in fact the undocumented are only a
symptom of a much more treacherous problem .
Last year's
political magicians pulled off the Deferred Action program instead giving real immigration
reform to the Dream Act Kids. As a
result, these kids have no legal status in the US and their future is uncertain.
Deferred Action
is an immigration status similar to TPS (Temporary Protective Status). For
example, I know of a young man who works at the Ridgway Market. He fled El Salvador eighteen years ago. El Salvador suffered a civil war resulting
from the US led Cold War, US trained death squads, US backed regime changes,
and the drug war that continues today. All of this translates to me as the US and El
Salvadoran 1% conspiring together to put politics and profit above human life.
This young
man was granted TPS eighteen years ago. His
status is in indefinite limbo because he
still has not been granted permanent residency or citizenship.
To me TPS
and deferred action are other obvious examples of our politicians taking
advantage of pandering for votes through illusionary immigration promises. It has been eighteen years or longer for some
Central Americans - how long will it be
for the Deferred Action Kids?
To reiterate: I am very skeptical of our government's
intentions about immigration reform. I
am also very mistrustful of our government's relationships with the 1% elite of
the foreign countries who push their undocumented here.
Take the US
and Mexican 1% elite for example. They
both reap profit from cheap labor, remittances sent home, privatized prisons,
border security, bi-national trade, illicit
drug earnings and illicit money laundering.
Mexico is
our number 3 trading partner and our second largest source of oil. 1.25 billion dollars a day is exchanged
between the US and Mexico on a daily basis.
The US invests more money in Mexico than any other country.
The
bi-national 1% enjoy a very profitable economic ties, but how does that apply
to the rest of us? Can we not see that
they profit at the our own expense?
Nowhere is
the conspiracy of the US and Mexican 1% more outrageously demonstrated than the
case of Drug War President Calderon and Harvard University.
Late last
year Harvard rewarded Calderon with the First Angelopoulos Global Leaders
award. Calderon now has a year's fellowship
in the US. He is speaking at US
universities for $100,000 per lecture. Why
do all of these universities refuse to
acknowledge Calderon's 100,00 drug war dead?. Does it have anything to do with the lucrative
trade between the two countries' 1% elite?
The truth is
that the 1% in either country do not care about what their citizens need or
want. They will stand by and profit (as
in the case of Mexico) as their own citizens are forced to flee al Norte in
order to feed their families. They will
stand by and watch as their own citizens are jailed in US immigration prisons
and die as they cross the border. As
for the US 1% , they profit as US citizens lose jobs and see the quality of the
lives diminished.
Most insidious
of all is the bi-national 1% elite standing by and profiting as tens of
thousands of Mexican citizens and some US citizens are slaughtered because of
Calderon's (and now Pena Nieto's) senseless US backed war on drugs.
If the US government
does not now address the issue of the 11 or 12 million undocumented people here
in the US, I say those undocumented should go to ICE and put themselves into immigration
proceedings.
Peacefully gum
up the system. Overload ICE and the
Immigration courts. Force our
politicians to take a stand.
We are all
part of their game until we stop playing it.
