A final solution

Any story about anyone with a vaguely Spanish name in my local paper is invariably received with comments like "Illegal - Illegal!" and "Deport the illegals!" Sometimes the suggestions are much more violent. Witnesses to crimes will sometimes speak to reporters through an interpreter even if they do have some facility with English, but the word "interpreter" will elicit the same calls for deportation and tirades against people who don't speak English fluently.

Last week I watched a TV story about two Florida fishermen whose boat sank some miles off Boynton Beach. They were in the water a long time and one died of a heart attack while boat after boat passed by, waved and disappeared. Why? because they were black and despite the mandate that a boat captain render assistance to those in peril, the presumption was that they were among the Haitian illegals who sometimes show up here, dead and alive. America's children of immigrants hate immigrants and nearly always have. Smile and wave and let the black men drown - lets' catch some fish and snicker about Liberals and the War on Christmas. Cubans of course are different. If they make it to shore, not only do we not drown them or lynch them; they are usually legal and are usually treated as human beings.

Early this morning, reports the Miami Herald, 11 soaking wet and shivering Hispanic immigrants, men women and children, showed up at a Key Biscayne toll booth and were given coffee and blankets. They were allowed to call relatives in Miami and unlike similar water soaked Haitians, or Hispanics from other countries, they were not beaten by police, thrown into trucks and held incommunicado until they were deported. Why? Cuba is a Communist country. We will do anything to help economic refugees from some Communist countries although those from other countries like China, might be held for decades without a hearing, but not Cuba. Cuba is right on our border. Cubans look almost like we (white people) do.

Now I'm not going to lecture about the inherent racism or the random inequities and contradictions of US immigration policies; I'm going to make a suggestion. The US can afford to eat better if we allow migrant labor to pick our crops, cut our lawns, dig our ditches and wash our dishes. Mexico can ease its burden of millions of economically deprived and hopeless people by sending them here and here's the way to make it all palatable to the xenophobic, Budweiser drinking unwashed of America: Mexico should have a successful Communist revolution and nationalize US assets. That would bring manufacturing jobs back to the US and leave the mucky, back-breaking work to immigrants we could now welcome as refugees from Communism. Everybody's happy - up the revolution!