Letter to the editor: On immigration, let's take down the temperature

In 40 years of teaching, not once did I hear parents say they wanted their child to grow up to be a field worker. To own and manage a farm, yes.

Neither did I ever hear parents hoping their child would wait in a Home Depot parking lot, angling for a long day at a construction site for low pay. To run the construction company, sure.

Politicians want jobs to “come back to America.” Why would companies uproot factories to pay higher wages, follow OSHA safety guidelines, and obey environmental regulations? To encourage them, the administration is gutting workplace safety guidelines and environmental regulations.

They oppose any increase to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 — which now won’t buy a pound of ground beef at Safeway.

Do parents aspire for their children to take the place of immigrants, working in meat packing factories for minimum wage, under gutted safety and environmental protections, where workers wear diapers because bathroom breaks aren’t allowed?

Some want teens doing those jobs after school. Never mind whether they’ll have time or energy for homework, or fall asleep in classes: Can after-school teen labor plug the gap of literally millions of migrants being detained and deported? Can Medicaid work requirements? Able-bodied Medicaid recipients already work.

America used to welcome immigrants who worked for the benefits of citizenship. Many did these jobs that others didn’t want. Their children grew up to become small business owners, teachers, nurses: contributing members of our society.

You may think, “Yes, but they went through the legal process.” So do many immigrants ICE rounds up now. Refugees, green card holders and those who crossed the border and registered with authorities are getting arrested — at their immigration hearings.

We ask them to “do it the right way,” then ambush them.

Some resent “lazy illegals” taking services without paying taxes. But they do pay taxes — sales tax whenever they buy groceries or gas up a car. They don’t get food stamps or SNAP benefits, despite what right wing influencers tell you.

It is true that hospitals can’t turn away people needing emergency care. If I got hit by a car in another country, I hope medics would focus on saving my life, not looking for my papers.

If immigrants are lazy, how come ICE picks them up at job sites? Why aren’t employers — who have tools to verify whether someone’s a citizen when they hire them — facing consequences? Haven’t they incentivized “illegals” to come?

It seems to me that we’ve gotten things backwards. Of course we don’t want violent criminals coming here. But ICE admits that most “illegals” getting picked up have no criminal convictions: they’re the low wage workers who pick our fruit and vegetables, build our homes, mop the floors and pull the weeds and clean the bathrooms in our schools and hotels and nursing homes.

Let’s take down the temperature and bring reality and compassion to immigration.

Susanne Weil

Onalaska