Court to Congress: Do Your Damn Work!

https://www.startribune.com/some-minnesota-employers-decry-end-to-temporary-deportation-reprieve-programs/469048753/

America hates lazy. We like smart work, don't get me wrong, but we hate the lazy who accept "what is" bcause it is easier than making the needed changes to make tomorrow better... Convicting Derek Chauvin? That was easy, in retrospect. Convincing people in Minneapolis that the underlying legacy power structure has changed? It hasn't and people know that, more and more white people are dying in random gunfire here now too. That might bring about the needed changes that the black deaths up here can't. There's no Critical Mass and the people in power don't care enough to do the real work of making change... Yesterday, in a 'uge Court ruling that should be on everyone's lips and the front-page of the papers if we were an educated nation like that: Legal American citizenhip depends on lawful status AND admission. Meaning if you crossed the border illegally and later gained Temporary Protected Status because of some crisis occuring in your homeland, you can't stay. In Minneapolis, where Lutheran Services and Catholic Charities have resettled hundreds of refugees (legally), we have created a haven to welcome immigrant workers -- a destination for other international newcomers*, not all of whom enter legally but hear of work opportunities in the backs of restaurants here, in the hospitality industry, mostly on the properties of farmers and landowners in Minnesota agricultural areas and Western Wisconsin. That's the unseen -- and underpaid -- labor that keeps legacy places going when their own sons can no longer afford to work or pay American labor rates. Many countries now represented here are on the list of TPS nations. It's newsworthy when they get a reprieve -- those who entered illegally, and received deportation notices when condidtions in their homeland were deemed survivable to return. (The reason so many immigrants -- women especially -- claim "violence" is because that allows one to enter illegally, and never face return, if a judge can be convinced that it wasn't economic reasons and the lure of low-paid wages, but the threat of violence that led a person to cross five or six international border to feel safe... working in the US. Hm.) How Does This News Affect ME? (Let me assume you have the attention deficit of our younger readers who are spoonfed their news by the new outlets...) Imagine if you've been living and working faithfully here, thinking yourself as American as the babies you've birthed since arriving illegally in this country. You have TPS status but want a legal green card. And you've WORKED with the promise of American citizenship and this new life you are building dangling like a carrot in front of you, every day you got up to do the work to build America... Then the Court is forced to enforce the rules: It's an "AND", meaning you have had to be admitted legally AND have current legal status. The liberal justices on the Court, you know, hated to rule this way. They pretty much threw the responsibility back onto our Do-Nothing (but impeach!) Congress. If the rule that the Court is bound by is to change, it must come from Congress. Not likely, in our polarized street-fightin' days... Vice President Harris is down in Guatemala now, telling workers please not to come to America, despite what they are hearing about worker shortages in restaurant and hospitality industries, and well-fed Americans demanding the serfs return to serve them, and soon~! This summer, in Minneapolis and elsewhere, is turning into a hot take of last summer, except white people are getting killed too, and it's random gunfire in the streets -- and the Federal Marshall killing a man they were arresting downtown who was allegedly shooting at them; no body camera footage available; I trust the Marshalls' story, not everyone does though... shame they had to serve that black man in downtown Minneapolis, and could not take him down safely at a time and place when he was unable to shoot at them... Poor planning, it seems. Let's just hope as those who entered the country ilegally but were gifted green cards will accept yesterday's Court decision non-violently, as authorities work to remove them from their families and deport them, given that it is unlikely Congress will re-write any immigration laws to keep them here now... You would hate to see a modern-day slave story played out as the children are spilt from their parents, and the promise they held: if they only worked hard enough, and stayed unseen in their service, that they might one day acheive the American Dream too. It was always a lie, of course. Those Dreams are only afforded to those who were faithful to the rules from the beginning, who entered legally, and worked through the generations to build the capital to advance. Those who cheated, and entered under foggy circumstances -- and make no mistake, these are not all peasant laborers but au pairs and gardners/domestic house servants to the finest families too... often continue cheating, underpaying taxes, claiming residency when it foists bills onto the State, manipulating the system by making false claims, etc. I suppose once you start to enrich yourself, and your children this way, it's hard to stop... Let's hope everyone keeps cool this summer, those facing deportation and those facing longer service-delivery wait times too.

----------- ADDED:

“TPS was not created to provide low-wage workers to employers,” said Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, an influential group that backs reducing immigration. “It was a humanitarian program that has been extended far beyond any definition of ‘temporary.’ ”

I wished we lived in America willing to do the hard intellectual work of addressing and grappling with issues of today's labor and immigration crisis, before these problems were more fully addressed by gangs on our streets. Personally, I'm not a racist and I support legal immigration, but not open borders and cheap wages incentivizing workers to cross illegally. I think more American farms need to mechanize, as they have in Europe. There is no need for a peasant, slave-like workforce except American companies support cheap labor, without paying the associated social and assimilation costs, and leaving the newcomers to fend for themselves essentially, with no citizenship rights. Our folks in America whose lifestyles relied on eating out -- someone else feeding and cleaning for them -- took full advantage, pre-pandemic. These are some of the honest issues that divide us as a nation, Red State and Blue, often living alongside each other with some making the border-crossings daily. Throw in this legitimate Brown Grievance then into the Hot Summer of 2021 shaping up. If our leaders in the safer suites refuse to do the work and address these problems, the guns on the street sadly will, as we see the death counts grow now every weekend... What do American leaders think will happen as more and more warm bodies, citizens or not, compete for limited living places because of lack of housing starts and an unpassed infrastructure bill? I think it is obvious in terms of social costs what this country is currently facing -- today, not 200 years ago -- but do the people in power yet understand this, how precarious the power balance is? Shouldn't we be urging them to get to work, or be working to elect American workers, not showpeople to populate our politico-drama scenes of late? Sometimes I wonder if America really understands what is coming down the pipeline, and if we do, why we refuse to prepare or better yet, work to prevent it. Laws, not guns. Leaders, not brutes. Honesty and transparency, not the Dead Hand of property law making promises from the past.