Make It Legal (Editorial)
The Nation
October 6, 2010
http://www.thenation.com/article/155228/make-it-legal

On September 29 we witnessed the tearful press
conference of Nicky Diaz, the former housekeeper for
California gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman. Diaz had
been in Whitman's employ for nine years, cleaning her
opulent house and fetching her kids from school while
Whitman rose to become Forbes's top woman in business.
It was only after Whitman decided to run for public
office, launching a campaign that has at times been
vehemently anti-immigrant, that she "discovered" that
Diaz was undocumented and fired her.

Now Lou Dobbs, the former CNN host who made his name
with nightly rants against "illegal aliens" and their
"illegal employers," joins Whitman's ranks. It turns
out that Dobbs has employed at least five undocumented
workers in recent years through his landscaping and
horse stable contractors. Like Whitman, who may have
received a Social Security no-match letter and knew
Diaz was unable to travel outside the country, Dobbs
and his champion horse-riding daughter, Hillary, must
have been in deep denial. The landscaping and horse
grooming trades depend heavily on undocumented workers.
One immigrant who tended the gardens at a Dobbs estate
said the landscaping contractor who employed him never
pushed for a "good Social Security number." Dobbs told
his gardener to call him "Luis." Whitman described Diaz
as "a friend of our family." Yet there appears to have
been a tacit understanding in these friendly
relationships: some things would not be discussed.

With the investigative report in this issue by Isabel
Macdonald, we are not out merely to play a game of
gotcha. Of course Whitman and Dobbs are hypocrites:
they have called publicly for tougher enforcement of
immigration laws, claiming it is necessary to protect
American workers and their wages, while privately
refusing fair pay and humane treatment to their own
immigrant workers, who were too afraid of getting
caught in the enforcement net to stand up for their
rights. Instead they were left working extra hours off
the clock (Whitman's maid) or earning poverty wages
(Dobbs's gardeners). But the more important revelation
here is that undocumented workers are so thoroughly
woven into the fabric of our economy that even two
professional immigrant-bashers found it difficult to
avoid relying on their labor.

On any given day, we've all probably eaten fruit
harvested by undocumented workers or meat they
butchered. These workers also make possible the
lifestyles enjoyed by wealthy Americans like Dobbs and
Whitman, with their estates and grounds and stables.
How these millions of workers could be extracted from
their jobs and deported without causing massive
disruption not only to their lives but to the entire
economy defies the imagination. Yet this is what Dobbs
demands with his call for ever tougher enforcement.

Despite its populist veneer, the anti-immigration
hysteria fomented by Dobbs and his ilk pits American
workers against immigrants for the benefit of the
corporate class. The United Farm Workers recently
called the bluff of those who accuse immigrants of job-
stealing with their Take Our Jobs campaign, in which US
workers were invited to join them in their backbreaking
toil—and found very few takers (aside from Stephen
Colbert).

If immigrants had a straightforward path to
legalization, they could step out of the shadows of the
US economy and stand with American workers to demand
decent treatment for all. That might make it slightly
more expensive for Lou Dobbs to maintain his
multimillion-dollar properties—but it's a price he
ought to pay. Source URL:
http://www.thenation.com/article/155228/make-it-legal

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