Crossing Arizona
Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian. - Robert Orben

“Welcome to Confederacy 101. As the syllabus is passed around, I want to remind everybody that our first quiz over states’ rights will be in two weeks and there will be an essay on Abraham Lincoln and nation building. Who is in charge now, Honest Abe? Trying to take away our Southern heritage. Sorry, sorry, I just get worked up thinking about those occupational troops. Also, I would like to announce that the beautiful southern bell Katherine Harris, former Florida Secretary of State and current Congresswoman, will be here next week to give us a lecture on how to keep African-Americans disenfranchised almost 40 years after that Benedict Arnold, Lyndon Johnson, stabbed us in the back with his voting rights bill. The title of her lecture will be 'How can 57,700 voters be wrong? They cannot if we illegally scrub them off the voting rolls.' If Ms. Harris gets caught up in this whole Jack Abramoff mess, then Prisoner 1465435754 will be giving the lecture. "

"Okay, today’s lesson is on using the common man’s fear and resentment to our advantage. Have you ever wondered how we got so many non-slave owners to fight in the Noble Cause? And don’t be fooled by those revisionist historians, read the statements of the Congressmen and Senators at the time, our Noble Cause was owning other human beings. I mean, slavery was not to the economic advantage of the poor Southern boy.  They were never going to own a slave and the Plantation owner could keep wages paid to free persons low because of this pool of slave labor. Getting the average Southern boy to fight is like getting chickens to pick up arms in defense of Col. Sanders. So how did they do it? First, you emphasize an outside bogeyman that is trying to destroy 'our' way of life. Much like today, there are these mysterious liberal elite that somehow control everything, in the 19th century, there were abolitionists, and later during the Civil Right era, the Communist and outside agitator, and they were in a grand conspiracy against Southerners. So, we have a common heritage and an outside bogeyman, here I the most important aspect, a minority group or groups that you can exploit, deride, feel better than, and fear at the same time, the other in your midst. The Confederate soldier might not have a pot to piss in, but at least they were not black. If that was not enough, there was always the fear of the menace within."

The Republicans are continuing to use to use this age-old Southern strategy to their advantage when it comes to Mexican labor. They are playing both sides of the issue. Cheap labor is the marrow of our society. Big business loves these workers. They work for almost nothing and more importantly suppress wages across an entire industry. For example, the meat packing industry.  In the 1970s, it was not unheard of for a guy working on the line to earn up to $25 an hour, plus a slew of benefits, but cut throat big business practices and the influx of workers from South of the border lowered the hourly rate to $8. Blue collar America, like a wife who discovers her husband cheating with another woman and then gets mad at the other woman, gets resentful of the workers instead of the people who hire them. Conservatives then turn around and hold the hands of citizens expressing concern about this wave of Spanish speakers in their midst. Like many of the cultural issues, it is one that the people in power don’t want solved. If they did, someone a lot smarter than myself would have proposed fining companies or businesses $50,000 for hiring an illegal immigrant, $500,000 for a second offense. You cut off the demand; the supply dries up. People want the southern border closed, never mind that NAFTA and GATT make that almost impossible. (“But Trevor, terrorists might smuggle WMD across the border.” This is a red herring. Most security experts will admit that WMDs are more likely to enter the US from north of the border, Canada. There are 1/10th the number of border guards as patrolling the Mexican border and nearly 4,000 miles to guard. With Canada’s coasts lightly patrolled and many ports of entry having only one-man patrol staffs. A cursory examination of past terrorist activity, the Seattle New Year’s Eve attack and Ahmed Ressam, shows that our Northern border is more likely to be breached by those who want to kill us Yet, I don’t hear anyone talking about building a great northern wall. Racism?)

We need to have an adult discussion on our cheap labor policies instead of this southern fried mentality towards those who meet our labor needs. After all, there is not an American who cannot put themselves in the shoes of an illegal immigrant. Your family lives in poverty. Even if you are lucky enough to have a job, you can make more in an hour than you could make in an entire week. What would you do? With security tightened along the Texas and California borders, more migrant laborers are going through the Arizona/Sonora border. Every day 4,500 undocumented individuals make the 4-to-5 day journey across this desert landscape in temperatures up to 120 degrees and scant natural water sources. Their guides, “coyotes,” do little to prepare them for the journey ahead and the body count is piling up as the sick and injured are left behind. Since 1995 over 1,000 bodies have been discovered by law enforcement. This wave of human beings has triggered impassioned feelings by those who feel sympathy for them and those who see them as a problem. The documentary Cross Arizona examines this dangerous journey to America and what Americans feel needs to be done about the issue. The audience is introduced to ranchers and property owners who have to spend millions of dollars repairing fences and fixing property damage, members of the US border patrol, Minutemen leader Chris Simcox, Native American whose tribal land is being violated, Republican Congressman Tom Tangredo, humanitarian groups who are leaving stores of water and food in the desert, Latino activists, and the emigrants themselves. The only thing that everyone can agree on is that our current policies are not working.

Verdict: A Great Doc