Remarks in New Hampshire over the weekend at the “Democracy Fest,” sponsored by Democracy for America.

I just love the snark here, but there is a lot more here than snark. I’ve been saying for years that our immigration problems and outsourcing crisis can be directly attributed to NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). Granny agrees and gives a little history on NAFTA’s impact on Mexico and a history lesson for the “throw the illegals out” - every single one of them crowd. This is a good and enlightning read.

Unauthorized immigration seems to be a big issue right now with our Republican candidates, as they are well-known to be the “law and order party.” That, after all, is why they are insisting that Scooter Libby pay the full price for his perjuries and obstructions of justice. They are for law and order, with the normal exceptions of the Geneva Conventions and the US Constitution, especially its Bill of Rights. But we know what they mean: When they say they are for law and order, they are talking mostly about keeping down the uppity poor folk. They are certainly not talking about the big corporations, hotel companies, agribusiness giants and retailers who employ millions of unauthorized immigrants but who make up for that sin many times over with their large campaign donations.

    But I do not come here to talk about corrupting campaign donations and the need for public campaign financing. I come to talk of unauthorized immigration and a little about corn and something about tortillas. I call it unauthorized immigration, not illegal, because I don’t want to use words that confuse my Republican friends.

    By the way, in saying that Republicans are very interested in the immigration issue, I do not mean to imply that it is less important for any of us.

    If you will look around the grocery store check-out lines and notice the widening measurements of our fellow citizens, we can certainly see for ourselves the problem of having too much cheap labor around to do all our yardwork and housework for us. By my calculations, the roughly three billion pounds of extra weight now being carried on the hips of working-age American citizens is roughly equivalent to the combined weight of the unauthorized immigrants now in our communities. The math is clear and persuasive. Cheap labor is bad for everybody.

    But why are so many people risking their lives to come into our country now? When did this big rush begin?

    It began when Mr. Clinton approved NAFTA - the North American Free Trade Agreement - and when he militarized our southern border at the same time. Prior to these combined actions, families crossed the border very commonly and casually, especially during harvest seasons. After harvest, they would go home to Mexico or Central America because that’s where they lived with their families in quite happy communities.

    When the border was militarized, it became too risky to go back and forth. So they stayed.