Kow-towing to the Minutemen
by Anthony Moss Tuesday, May. 16, 2006 at 6:32 AM
yayotl@yahoo.com

In a prime-time speech Monday, May 16, Bush outlined his "plan" for border security. This comes just months after the Minutemen demanded Bush to authorize the National Guard's presence to secure the border.

Many of the undocumented workers who come up through Mexico from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador have no choice. Many don't speak Spanish. There is nothing that is theirs, no land, no rights, no freedom. They risk life and limb to come here, not for a better life, but because if they don't their families will starve unless they get the money that the workers send back. Wholemarket slave labor in the name of the bottom line.

Now, with the militarization of the border, these workers will not have a chance. If they cannot work down there, if they get displaced by subsidized farms and maquiladoras, then their families will put in far greater danger than any of the Minutemen or Tancredo would like you to believe.

I wonder what Tancredo would think if he were deported? Or maybe he should spend a few weeks as a migrant worker under NAFTA. He just might appreciate the struggle of the Other Mexico and the Other Central America. But I doubt it.

Myopic visions of security that come from those states and lawmakers who aren't on the border with any country give no pretext of protection, oversight, accountability, or civilian participation. If border security becomes privatized, prisons being run by the likes of Halliburton, then there will be no way to account for those who do cross and are caught. Conservatives and Neo-cons keep saying that the U.S. is a state of law, that the rule of law must be respected. I ask those lawmakers, what rule of law, what state can a migrant worker respect when he or she is forced out by the economic policies of those states?

The more this administration tightens the border, the more people it will kill. The workers will be forced to find even more dangerous routes to cross.

This isn't about border security. It's about securing the status quo. Clearly, the displaced, the poor, the workers, those below, mean nothing to the administration of this nation.

From the Other Albuquerque, Anthony Moss

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