Latino Issues, A Conservative Blog

What does immigration and talk radio have to do with each other, you might ask? Evidently, a lot . What’s most surprising about the recent assault on talk radio is that the criticism came first from a Republican. Sen. Trent Lott (Miss.), who had grown frustrated with the steady drumbeat of opposition to the immigration bill, lashed out at talk-radio hosts , suggesting they were ignorant and needed to be brought into line. When anyone starts lashing out as a result of healthy debate on any political issue, you know the conversation has been poisoned. We cannot let the personal emotions impact our ability to have a rational and respectful debate on the issue of illegal immigration, farm labor, legal immigration, and the American culture. It's detrimental to all and to our country. But for as bad as Lott’s comments were — for him personally and for their negative impact on the immigration bill — they were mild in comparison to the assault coming from the left. Two liberal groups,

Diversity Inc. is reporting "the groups in opposition are the Hispanic Federation, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, and the William C. Velasquez Institute." They are calling it, "immigrant apartheid." Interestingly enough, The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation's largest Latino civil-rights group, was not part of the coalition of six groups. Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute Antonio Gonzalez had this to say: "If enacted, the current Senate proposal would codify a system of immigrant apartheid as United States policy, which is despicable and not supported by the Latino community." I don't know enough about the immigration bill to have an educated opinion, but since I am blogging about it, I'll need to do some further resea

The whole idea that the American economy would collapse without immigration labor is false. It goes against basic economic principles. If American farmers didn't have cheap immigrant labor, they would adjust and figure out a way to get the harvest in. Case in point : Vision Robotics, a San Diego company, is working on a pair of robots that would trundle through orchards plucking oranges, apples or other fruit from the trees. In a few years, troops of these machines could perform the tedious and labor-intensive task of fruit picking that currently employs thousands of migrant workers each season. The robotic work has been funded entirely by agricultural associations, and pushed forward by the uncertainty surrounding the migrant labor force. Farmers are "very, very nervous about the availability and cost of labor in the near future," says Vision Robotics CEO Derek Morikawa . Not that I have any problem with migrant labor or immigration for that matter--I don't. But I