Well, I must admit to typing this tongue in cheek, but wondering whether it would work. In the area of Florida I live in, the unemployment rate is higher than the national average. Companies are laying off or have hiring freezes. Many have said that the economic and political crises of many Latin American countries was driving the undocumented border crossings. But, where I am, there is no economic growth to pull people in. Thus though we have many Spanish-speakers (this is Florida, after all) over 98% of those I have met are fully bilingual. In fact, at least a couple of people have left the mission because they were moving out to greener pastures.
Nevertheless, there are places in the USA were people are being hired. For instance, the federal government is looking for multiple allied health professionals who are willing to work in Montana. There are also multiple allied health jobs in South Dakota, etc. But, these are locations in which few people wish to leave. In passing, the same is true in any of several other job categories.
So, we are in the odd position that there are some areas of the country looking for professionals and paying high wages to get them while there are areas of the country where those same professionals cannot find a job.
Like many, I wish I had an easy solution to our economic problems. I wish there were a simple solution to our job problems. Sadly, there are some “selling” easy solutions on the political circuit, both on the left and on the right. But, there are going to be no easy solutions. Frankly, I suspect the solution will be a mixture of lowering costs and raising income. To put it in the way that no one likes, I suspect that the solution will be a mixture of cutting budgets and raising taxes. In other words, a moderate budgetary and financial approach.
Meantime, I suspect that the solution to the illegal border crossings, may very well be closer to that in the cartoon above than to some of those being proposed nowadays.
An illegal immigrant is a termed coined when people who wanted to move from one country to another refused to go through an application process in order to make the move. Those who moved to another country without going through the application process became illegal immigrants.
To be sure, the illegal aliens should be thought of as the original tea baggers.
And, to be sure, there is an underlying despondency among the unemployment population. Many don’t have the resources to pay for their shill training, and, despite President Obama valiant efforts, government resources are insufficient to meet the basis training needs of this group of people. At the same time many illegal immigrants have the needed skills.
The American economy is entering a new era where our former enemies and friends are now our competitors. Our 9 ½ percent unemployment rate indicates that our employment policies that worked in the cold war era are not working in this global competitive era.
As the November 2010 election season begins illegal immigrants will be blamed for whatever. And because most Americans depend on employment in order to obtain an income, and because we are in a new global competitive era, an era where steady employment will become a slippery thing, the attacks will be seem as righteous and well reasoned.
But as Christians what should our response be to these attacks? How does God’s fruits display it self in this economic environments?
More than once in the history of this nation, immigrants (even if they had all their documents) were blamed for various ills. One need only look at the history of the “Irish need not apply” signs, etc., to see how often this has been true. In each and every case the dominant population felt justified in their stance, and in each and every case the dominant population made up lies about the immigrant population in order to further justify their stance.
In this case, the same process is happening when one looks at the statements of people like Gov. Brewer of Arizona or Rep. Bachmann of Minnesota.