A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

(Aaron speaking)
The following story is good. Janet Napolitano is finally figuring out what most of us knew a long time ago. She has still left out the obvious first two steps in immigration reform, but her upcoming change will at least help carryout the third and fourth steps in a complete immigration reform.

Here is the story.

She is going to direct her strikeforces to focus on employers rather than on the employees who are coming into the country illegally (or on temp visas that soon after expire, either way the are now illegal).

Do I think that this will help? Yes. I don't think that it is what should be done first, but per a spanish saying "Something is better than nothing." I will take this change and embrace it. I think that focusing on the people who are helping to perpetuate this negative situation is a good idea. It is a much better idea than going after the families that are working here. I have said for years that "If there isn't any dinner on the table, no one will come sit down to eat" and what I meant by that is that if there aren't any jobs waiting here in the USA, people will slowly (very slowly) stop coming in. If they can continue to make the changes that they are currently making, things will work themselves out in a darwinistic type fashion. The who don't cut it and can't find a job will return to their countries. Those who do successfully assimilate into the culture and become part of multi-national families, they will remain here.

Here is another reason why I think that going after the employers is better than going after the employees via raids. Last May US ICE setup a raid on Agriprocessors, a Kosher meat processing plant in Iowa. 300 of the companies employees were arrested and have since been in jail or been deported. Due to the loss of so many of the companies resources, the plant has since gone out of business. The small town in which the company operated has felt the blow dramatically. Not to mention that this one plant processed 60% of the countries Kosher meat products. This means that the price of Kosher meat has increased dramatically. The towns people of Postville, Iowa feel that they were targeted by federal agents and have been weakened because of them. The isles of some of the local stores now have half as many people as they once did. Not only those people that were taken in the raid have left. Many more have also since left.

This is why the government needs to approach the employers first. They need to give them timelines and milestones that they need to meet in order to stay compliant.

While the changes suggested by Napolitano are good, they will only help if people congress can make the first two changes that are needed to have a successful immigration reform, those being:
1. Tighten the border.
2. Figure out a way to keep those people that are already here. (only the ones who have no criminal records)

It seems that the current fad, due to the slum economy, is to create more jobs by deporting more people. This is a stupid game. It may yield results, but is not the best solution. Once we get out of this slum, we are going to need each and every single one of these people back. The positions that they are currently filling will need to be filled again. The holes in the damn that they are plugging up will still need to be plugged up. Getting rid of them now will only delay the inevitable and obvious solution, which it to have a proper, successful, well thought out immigration reform. In five years from now, when the economy has recovered (praying that it will), and all of the currently job scrambling seems like a thing of the past, we will need these people back. We will need them as bad then as we did two years ago.

Each of us, start the necessary conversations that will spark change in peoples mind. Help everyone work together to get these changes implemented.