It's easier to denounce illegal workers than illegal hirings

[struggle4progress]

By Cynthia Tucker
Sat Jul 8, 8:07 PM ET

U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (news, bio, voting record), R-Ga. -- then a congressman -- was annoyed at the old Immigration and Naturalization Service for trying to enforce the nation's laws. In 1998, when INS agents rounded up illegal workers at the Vidalia onion fields in southeast Georgia, Chambliss and a handful of other Georgia congressmen denounced the agency. Chambliss accused INS of using "bullying tactics."

These days, Chambliss is better known for his tough stance against illegal workers. A member of a hard-core group of Republicans who have rebelled against President Bush's sensible call for immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship, Chambliss has said that such an approach "sends the message to the American people that we are more eager to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship than we are to secure our borders from further illegal immigration and the smuggling of illegal drugs and weapons. That is not the message my constituents in Georgia want to hear."

Veteran politicians are practiced at doing 180-degree turns while pretending to remain steadfastly on course, but that's not what Chambliss has done. He hasn't really reversed himself. He stands on the same side he's always stood on -- the side of Big Business, which wants to exploit illegal workers without giving them the benefits of legal status. When Chambliss criticized INS eight years ago, he did so because farmers were upset about losing their workers at harvest time, not out of any concern for exploited migrants.

Of course, this unsubtle hypocrisy -- targeting illegal workers while protecting illegal hiring -- is aided and abetted by constituents who find it easier to blame darker-skinned Latinos than white business owners. While the Minutemen have stood guard at the border and various factions have organized protests aimed at Mexicans, Guatemalans or Salvadorans, those groups have not targeted onion growers or homebuilders ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucas/20060709/cm_ucas/itseasiertodenounceillegalworkersthanillegalhiring