Jonathan Tasini (a union activist who’s running against Hillary Clinton for the NY Democratic senatorial nomination) makes this important point about immigration to the U.S.:
What has been lost in the debate about immigration is this fact: our country’s foreign and economic policy is largely to blame for the flow of people who come here illegally…If you think about the hundreds of thousands of people who have come here over the past several decades from countries like El Salvador and Guatemala, many of them fled to the U.S. because they would have been killed or imprisoned by their government’s repressive regimes or forced to live as refugees. These were often regimes that our government supported for many years, if not decades, with large infusions of weapons and money…
When I was growing up near Washington, DC it was hard not to notice the upsurge in people there from Central America, particularly El Salvador. This was right when the Reagan administration was trying to do for indigenous people in Latin America what our forefathers did for American Indians; i.e., wipe them off the face of the earth.
The neat thing was that as Washington policymakers were doing this, they were able to hire people fleeing those countries for $$$cheap$$$. During that time you’d see Central American refugees all over the wealthy DC suburbs, working as nannys, gardeners, etc.
I’ve always thought that was one of the greatest geopolitical bankshots in history.
Hey, Rosa—did you like the way I finalized that deal to send attack helicopters to the folks who cut off your father’s balls and stuffed them in his mouth? I bet you did! Now, do the laundry and change my kid’s diapers!
But the story doesn’t end there. If things continue to go well, Stephen Hadley will soon be able to afford a entire squad of strapping young Iraqi lads to edge his lawn.