Blame the R's and D's

The treatment of immigrants has a history that goes back to the founding of our country.? Over time, various groups took a lot of crap from existing ‘Mericans including the Irish, Asians, Germans, Mexicans and Middle Eastern folks.

The news today is all about Texas and their willingness to take matters into their own hands.? The real question is, “how did we get here in the first place?”? The short answer is “Inaction.”? Inaction by both parties driven by a historical context that no one wants to talk about.

As agriculture in the west outgrew the ability of local people to actually harvest crops, people from Mexico were encouraged to go north and help with the harvests.? This became legitimized by passage of the Bracero Act in 1942.? Democrat FDR signed the bill. Because of WWII there was a huge shortage of farm labor.? Thousands of Mexicans responded and the Act covered this assistance until 1964.? Meanwhile, most ‘Mericans don’t know that Mexico declared war on the Axis in 1942, and allowed the United States to draft Mexican citizens in the U.S. to be drafted.? Many Mexicans in fact, enlisted.

My grandfather was a farmer in the Willamette Valley and worked multiple farms for his friends that went to war.? He relied on Mexican labor and eventually advocated for his county to build decent labor camps for families to live in.? Oh, and he was an R….

Meanwhile, the The McCarran-Walter Act was passed in 1952, but had no impact on people coming from Mexico.? It did however, favor immigration of certain racial groups over others. Not so great...Democrat Harry Truman signed the bill.

The next significant policy change was the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Celler Act, abolished an earlier quota system based on national origin and established a new immigration policy based on reuniting immigrant families and attracting skilled labor to the United States.? Democrat Lyndon Johnson signed the bill into law.

?This legislation led to a huge surge in immigration.? According to History.com, between 1965 and 2000, the highest number of immigrants (4.3 million) to the U.S. came from Mexico. Other major contributors were some 1.4 million from the Philippines. Korea, the Dominican Republic, and India.? Cuba and Vietnam were also leading sources of immigrants, each sending between 700,000 and 800,000 over this period.

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Republican President Reagan next weighed in by signing the Immigration Reform Act in 1986 attempted to address the issue by providing better enforcement of immigration policies and creating more possibilities to seek legal immigration. The act included two amnesty programs for unauthorized aliens, and collectively granted amnesty to more than 3 million illegal aliens.?

None of the above went far enough to create a process for doing background checks and granting work visas to immigrants.? Since 1986 there were no less than 23 attempts at legislation to address immigration, including some that had bi-partisan support.? The central question still seems to be whether Congress really wants to solve the problem or not.? Agriculture still heavily relies on immigrants.? The work they do is backbreaking and few citizens will do that work.? The service industry thrives on immigrant help.? And construction.? When the temperature hits 115 in Arizona, there are ONLY Mexican workers are putting mission tile on the roof…

The facts are clear.? Border states are rightfully frustrated!? We need a comprehensive policy and the President and Congress need to quit pointing fingers and get on with it. Other elected officials need to support this!