Something for every corporation

The reality is that there are many people on the other side of our border who will do anything to come to America to work and build a better life. They walk across miles of desert in the summer heat, or hide in the back of 18-wheelers to reach our country. This creates enormous pressure on our border that walls and patrols alone will not stop. To secure the border effectively, we must reduce the numbers of people trying to sneak across.

-- W, last night

I don't see "securing the border" as all that important, and what he says here kind of contradicts a few paragraphs earlier about giving the Border Patrol the people and technology to secure the border. But in general I agree with the four sentences above. Immigrants face dire, even life-threatening, economic difficulties, and are willing to risk their lives to get crappy jobs to ensure the survival of their families. Implied, although not exactly said, is that it is absurd to treat people without any real choice as criminals. So far, so good.

But, of course, this is aWol--four sentences is pretty much the maximum amount of sense he is capable of delivering. Rather than question the economic situation that makes it impossible for the immigrants to make a living (AH-AH---NAFTA!!!!), Bush only uses the tragedy of the situation as an excuse to do what he wants to do anyway: a temporary worker program. Because the tragedy of people willing to risk their lives to get crappy jobs because their home economy has been sold out pales in comparison, in W's tiny mind, to the potential tragedy of American corporations having to pay their workers a decent wage.