Swine Flu Hoopla’s Silver Lining ?

 

Swine Flu – oops! H1N1 virus – may accomplish something besides boosting the sale of dust masks and giving newspapers a chance to cover deaths other than their own. Since it seems to have started in Mexico, it may revive the debate on illegal, mostly Mexican immigration.

 

Those in the public arena with exceptionally long memories – say 18 months, or even longer – will recall when the 12 million or so illegal immigrants were a Big Issue, with the Radio Right calling for mass deportations and the Looney Left demanding no-strings-attached amnesty.

 

The Bush administration failed to get immigration reform legislation passed and then, except for a few storm-trooper raids on factories, focused all its talents on the presidential election and the economy.

 

The results there speak for themselves.

 

Questioned at his Wednesday press conference about accomplishing something on immigration reform within his first year, President Obama didn’t completely embrace the deadline, but gave a very clear summary of the issues:

 

“We can’t continue with a broken immigration system. It’s not good for anybody. It’s not good for American workers. It’s dangerous for Mexican would-be workers who are trying to cross a dangerous border. It is putting a strain on border communities who oftentimes have to deal with a host of undocumented workers, and it keeps those undocumented workers in the shadows, which means they can be exploited at the same time as they’re depressing U.S. wages.”

 

Things that President Obama didn’t mention but should also be considered:

 

Walls and border patrols can’t close a 2,000-mile-long border as though it were some sort of corral. “Sealing our borders” makes great talk radio but impossible policy.

 

Deportation is an equal fantasy. Even if all 12 million cooperated, which they won’t – would you?—we’d have to deport 23 persons every minute of every hour of every day for a year. And while we were keeping the Exit busy, the 2,000-mile-wide Entrance wouldn’t be loafing either.

 

Those who work in the shadows are generally thought to be five percent of the U.S. labor force, and if we could wave a wand of evil magic and deport them all, we’d deliver a one-two punch to our own economy, removing both the goods and services they produce and the customers they are.

 

Organized labor has finally figured out that allowing any workers to be exploited has negative effects on all workers and is trying to focus less on whether that worker has a Green Card and more on whether or not he has a union card. That’s going to be an uphill sell with the rank-and-file, but so was equal opportunity and integration.

 

Conservative Republicans, who lately are beginning to notice that they’re the only kind of Republicans left, might wish to reconsider their anti-immigrant thunder, since on life and family issues, most of the illegal immigrants agree with them.

 

Even if the Obama administration can’t get Congress to go along with significant immigration reform before January, if it can at least get a calm, fact-and-reality-based discussion going, it will have made a good beginning.

 

Let’s hope the opportunity won’t pass when the current Flu Follies closes its run.

 

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