Immigration threatens middle class prosperity
To the editor:
We are facing a very difficult period in American history. For the first time in this generation’s memory, the current working (read middle) class in our country is facing a substantial long-term decline in their standard of living. One area that many feel is to blame is a deluge of illegal immigrants taxing our services. Everyday working folks have begun to fight back but they are facing a stacked deck from most of our mainstream media, the current Federal administration and a fair number of well-placed judges and prosecutors.
In the last few weeks, concerned citizens have watched as the Federal judiciary emasculated the law in Arizona; a law supported by the majority of us, but fought at every turn by powerful forces.
Arizona is not the only place this is ocurring just the best publicized example. Just last week, the city council in Fremont, Nebraska, voted to delay enforcement of a new illegal immigration law in light of court challenges by civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
The law was approved by local voters in a special election and was scheduled to go into effect last week. It would have prohibited businesses from hiring and landlords from renting to illegal immigrants.
Before we think that Nebraskans were mimicking Arizona consider what the Freemont City Manager. Robert Hartwig, had to say:
“What’s happening here in Fremont, Nebraska, is really very different from what’s happening in Arizona,” Hartwig said. “I think the voters here have looked down the road and they don’t see the federal government effectively dealing with illegal immigration. We are a small city of 25,000 with great quality of life including good schools and quality health care. I think the voters want to make sure that it stays that way.”
A close look at multiple articles that followed these two decisions underscore two familiar themes highlights of the fear illegals face because these law and the costs towns and states will occur if the laws are enforced. If we are to allow a threat of legal costs by groups supported by the illegals themselves or their allies in the ACLU to cause us to sway from supporting what has been properly voted in, then we are already doomed. And to factor in the fear an illegal must “endure” because of an ordinance is akin to saying we should worry about criminals fear of committing crimes. Both of these positions, advanced inside the storylines carried by media groups are designed to make us feel guilty we are insisting on enforcement of our laws. It is quite disingenuous to say the least; patently misleading would be a better description.
Some say that an intended demise of our middle class – long the envy of the world and the very reason so many want to come here, legal or not – is the reason for support from media, powerful corporate interests and their overly liberal political accomplices. It may be true when you consider some of the other programs that have been adopted such as NAFTA and CAFTA.
Seen further in light of outsourcing and other workplace changes that have replaced Union and manufacturing salaries with more prevalent service worker wages and a good case can be made that this is an underlying reason. The rich get richer and the poor suffer. Ironically, the very poor who suffer the most are being bought off by entitlements from those who would, in the long run, deny them the opportunity to ever aspire to the almost lost American middle class dream.
Carl Conley
Fort Myers Beach