The Presidential Candidates and the Rio Grande Valley
Every remaining presidential candidate remaining voted affirmatively for the construction of the border fence. A Democratic Congress as a whole failed to provide for the immigration reform that was needed. The presumed Republican nominee John McCain is pledging he will be attuned to Hispanic interests but says the immigration reform he backed last year must take a back seat to securing the border. Our local Congressman Cuellar and Hinojosa are fighting to stop the destruction of Valley habitats and the construction of the border fence without careful study but they are not getting a lot of help from either the Democrats or the Republicans. There seems to be among Valley residents of all political persuasions and parties a strong consensus that the national policy of the border fence and immigration is heading in the wrong direction. You will notice that no candidate for either party is really talking about immigration reform except in the most vague manner. The other day, several hundred people alleged to be illegal aliens where rounded up and placed in the middle of a cattle yard in Iowa. If not for members of the Catholic church and concerned community members their children in schools would have been left alone and without support. For me the idea of arresting people who have families and are working peaceable and placing them in a cattle yard brings up memories of another regime that kept people in cattle cars in 1930’s and 1940’s. No presidential candidate made a single statement about that action they closed their eyes as the world did seventy years ago. Many wondered why the authorities picked a Kosher meat plant as the target.
We now have record low unemployment, a booming economy, and the best living standard ever seen for at least the Greater McAllen area. If being overrun with illegal immigrants was the true current status then our local economy would be the worst in the nation rather than the best. I am concerned that well meaning pro-labor forces who wrongly attribute the decline of the “rustbelt” to NAFTA concept and immigration may push for laws that could kill our Valley trade with Mexico. At the same time I am concerned that those on the radical right of the Republican party will alienate Hispanics from the mainstream of American life.
This election could offer great promise or great peril for the Valley economy.