The swiftly resolved but engrossing case of Linda Chavez is, at least for the moment, over. She has bowed out gracefully. But the issues behind this newest case–with all the usual politically correct suspects hectoring candidates for public office to political death–are far from over.
Who is actually sponsoring and encouraging illegal immigration? Whose responsibility is it to control immigration? What forces in American society depend upon such illegal behavior for power? And where do we as a society draw the line between what is legal or illegal, and what is personal or moral?
Because Linda Chavez has fervently opposed hot-button policy issues such as bilingual education and affirmative action, the “professional Hispanics” who run the lobbies (and get their generous salaries from huge foundations so long as they fight without second thought for all the p.c. issues) can’t stand her. But in fact, she is courageously her own individual.
Having said that, one wonders that she did not understand the trouble she could get into l0 years ago when she took into her home Marta Mercado, a Guatemalan woman who was down on her luck. In fact, the former labor secretary-designate has now admitted that she did know that Mercado was in the United States illegally.
Since Chavez works in, and writes gutsily about, these areas, it seems odd that she would not have realized she might eventually be open to prosecution for harboring an illegal immigrant.
Her case becomes even more important considering the fact that, as labor secretary, she would have been charged with enforcing and interpreting workplace laws for the entire nation.
But any failings on her side pale in contrast to the seemingly endless cheap tricks of the other side, which includes major parts of the Democratic Party left, of the unions and of some of the media.
Sen. Teddy Kennedy was “troubled” by the allegations. The Rev. Jesse Jackson called Mercado’s relationship with Chavez “indentured servitude.” Yet, these parts of the Democratic Party have been the stalwart political powers against any real immigration control, much less reform, for decades.
And they were also the ones, curiously, who, before and after the time when Linda Chavez was helping Marta Mercado, were pushing for amnesties for Central Americans. At present, the campaign is to push through another mass amnesty for approximately 6 million illegal immigrants who came after the last amnesty (which was supposed to be the last).
So immigrants all over the world are learning that you just come to this country and manage to stay here long enough and, presto, you’re an American!
With sympathizers in the Immigration and Naturalization Service and among the various pro-immigration lobbies (including the cheap-labor sympathizers on the right), it is these politicians who have declared in effect: “It’s fine to let illegals into the country but, if it’s in our political interest, we’re going to go out and `get’ anyone we don’t like on hiring illegals.” (Some illegal things are more illegal than others, says the Wise Old Sage.)
Then there is the AFL-CIO. With its numbers declining (and with 40 percent of union members having voted for George W. Bush this election), the union group announced a year ago that it would begin organizing illegal immigrants. Curious, isn’t it? These men and women, whatever their possible virtues, are here illegally–and now they’re going to be organized to bargain with the American society that ought, by law, to be arresting them!
Finally, there is the majority of the media, which refuses to seriously criticize illegal immigration in part out of a politically correct sentimentality and in part out of the general adversarial journalistic impulse these days.
So, to appear righteous, these groups look at some political person they don’t like in terms of how to get him or her on these issues. The idea that individual compassion and religious or moral responsibility, as contrasted to state and secular welfare, might enter into a case like Linda Chavez’s would be greeted with a cynical snicker.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, neatly summed up the situation when he commented to me this week: “What it really shows is the insidious nature of illegal immigration. It now finds its way into all areas of American life, this corrupting element of illegality.”
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Georgie Anne Geyer Georgie Anne Geyer is a syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C. E-mail: [email protected]