Immigration

There is a good discussion on MPR at: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/12/15/midmorning1/

As we digest the stories of immigration raids in the Swift plants this week I, again, think about our immigration policy. Are these raids helping us to improve anything at all?

Did the raids benefit anyone?
Did they benefit the towns where they were conducted?
Did they benefit the Swift company?
Did they benefit the workers?
Did they benefit the “rule of law?”
Did they benefit or promote effective immigration policy?
Did they benefit the Bush Administration.?

I suspect that these raids only benefit the Bush Administration by improving their status with the right wing of their party. As we have seen over and over, the administration has made a decision pandering to a narrow political constituency, but these raids are very poor public policy. Most importantly they are not effective beginning to solve the immigration "problem." Politics over policy is a recurrent theme with this crowd. All the interested parties are hurt in their effort to solidify power. They play while we pay.