LTE: April 22, 2007

The cynicism exhibited by the anti-immigrant crowd, headed by U.S. Representatives Tom Tancredo, CO, and Iowa’s own Steve King, can only be topped by the Register editorial board's hypocrisy in its April 22, 2007 editorial “Iowa should lead way on immigration.”



It is a long held business school mantra; labor is the only cost variable which management can totally control. Low wages equal high profits and stock prices. Toward that end, for the past twenty-five years, business has engaged in a winning strategy of union busting, global outsourcing and encouraging illegal immigration.



Illegal immigrants flood into this nation from the world over, but the greatest numbers come from Central America and southern Mexico. It should be remembered that the adventurism of the Reagan/Bush I administrations in Central America is in large part responsible for the economic conditions in that part of the continent. Moreover, President Bill Clinton reneged on so-called “side agreements,” permitting organizing by American labor unions in Mexico, after signing the North America Free Trade Agreement.



The Register’s contention of a looming labor shortage, due to falling birth rates and the aging Baby Boomer generation, is as pernicious as the anti-Latino slanders throw round by the anti-immigrant crowd, and ignores the simple and contrary logic: The smaller the labor pool, the higher the wage for the laborer.