I have repeatedly expressed appreciation for the naive, almost childlike honesty which keeps the Minneapolis Star-Tribune a wonderful source of stories on the disastrous impact of recent immigration on its formerly highly functional region. News more experienced publications automatically repress keeps surfacing.

Generally, though, the Star Tribune stories are professionally constructed and written. This cannot be said about the latest specimen Bienvendo a Blackduck –by Larry Werner Star Tribune May 30 2005 [ Access requires free registration]

Essentially, this is a formulaic ra-ra immigration cheerleading story about the wonderful deeds of an immigrant Peruvian woman, Doris Ruiz, who is operating Olen Staff, a “Minneapolis staffing agency” currently specializing in locating large quantities of Hispanics from sweatshop industries in their home countries and distributing them to factories deep in rural Minnesota. (In the literature this function is being a “gangmaster” and is the focus of sustained attack in for instance the UK where immigration employer enforcement has not been abandoned)

Werner deploys all the usual cliches about revitalizing the town, bolstering the education tax base, and improving the local cuisine. He showcases the happy local businessman who is the primary beneficiary in Blackduck, Ron Anderson of Anderson Fabrics:

“the workers she’s brought to Blackduck not only make up 10 percent of Anderson Fabrics’ workforce–”She’s quite an entrepreneur,” said Ron Anderson, a Blackduck native who founded the fabric company 25 years ago. Since he heard about Ruiz a little over a year ago, Anderson has been working with her to staff his sewing stations with workers who did similar jobs, for far less money, in Central and South America before they immigrated to the Twin Cities.”

Perhaps it would be demanding too much economic sophistication of Werner to expect him to consider the costs thrown onto the community by a huge influx of low-wage Non-English speakers like this. But one obvious question should have been asked, but isn’t: what is the visa status of these people? How could they have obtained the status to legally immigrate to take these semi-skilled jobs?

The word “visa” is never mentioned in the story.

Unsurprisingly, all Blackduck residents quoted gush with enthusiasm about the invasion. Less than five seconds Googling, however, produces the news that one important element is deeply unhappy: the local Red Lake Indians — 9% of the population, according to Werner.

Some minorities matter more than others, it seems.

Ask Larry Werner about his omissions.

Ask Ron Anderson about the visa status of his new employees.

It must be something in the air. Here is a third blog with a powerful, well documented essay on the US immigration disaster – Confederate Yankee’s Buried Alive by Illegals
(The reference, for those who choose not to register to read the first link, is to a Florida atrocity also noticed by Your Lying Eyes)

As my brother has observed, when the lava is hot, when men volunteer the time to write and post in obscurity pieces long enough to cause most professional journalists to retire to the bar for the rest of the week (Assembling a 600-word essay with 14 relevant links is work).

Unlike the scholarly, even scientific air of the previous cases, however, Confederate Yankee displays the élan of his namesakes and runs the bayonet right home:

The threat to the healthcare of legal American working men and women and legal immigrants became so overwhelming that taxpayers like you and I are paying a one billion dollar bailout of local hospitals nationwide.

This is money taken away from our children; money that could have been used to vaccinate our rural and inner city poor against crippling, potentially fatal childhood diseases, money that could have helped our working and middle class parents find quality affordable childcare so that they can be sure that their kids are in a safe and supportive environment while the parents work hard to give them a better life.

The flooding of the country with large quantities of unskilled labor is a zero-sum game: resources are redistributed away from the native-born working and middle classes to the owners of capital, and the immigrants themselves. But it takes a brave man to put it so bluntly.

Applaud Confederate Yankee

Ooops, it looks like the global marketplace isn’t working out exactly as planned. Seems that those cheapo call-center employees in Bangalore, etc. aren’t being appreciated as a wonderful ambassadors of diversity [ "Indian call staff quit over abuse on the line" - The Guardian, 5/29]. In fact, a number of American and Brit recipients of Indian callers are downright miffed about being poked in the eye with the outsourced jobs, and some are responding with creative rudeness:

Vijay Mukhi, a call centre analyst, said websites have sprung up in the US giving phone numbers of companies which use call centres in India, and listing Hindi swear words to be used to abuse staff. ‘When you move jobs away from a country, there’s going to be a lot of pent-up frustration which gets let out on Indian workers,’ he said.

The loss of civility is regrettable but understandable: multiculturalism is destructive to social cohesion, and the damage to polite conversation is therefore not surprising.

The Honorable Russell K. Pearce of State District 18 in Arizona wrote a marvelous opinion editorial for the Arizona Republic about the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act (S.1033).

Amnesty plan puts citizenship up for sale by Russell K. Pearce for
My Turn May. 31, 2005

There were several salient points in Mr. Pearce’s column:

1. He assesses the illegal immigrant population at 23 million. D.A. King isn’t looking so crazy with his earlier estimate of 20 million—well, that is to say his estimate doesn’t seem crazy…

[BB note to DAK: I only tease you because I want to be you when I grow up—but with hair of course.]

2. He focuses on the “America for Sale” element of the bill which I mentioned in my column last week. (Not to appear haughty but I was hoping someone would pick up on this.)

Lastly, Mr. Pearce aggressively attacks the shady dealings of Congressmen Kolbe and Flake as well as Senator John McCain…the pseudo-conservatives behind the madness.

It is important to attack the members of the OBL (Open Border Lobby) but likewise I think we should applaud those willing to fight.

Mr. Pearce deserves a standing ovation.

rpearce@azleg.state.az.us