Payoff From a Lifetime of Dirty Work

There I was in Riverside, on a football field with American flags flying, looking the enemy squarely in the eye. It was deceptive; Jorge is such a nice kid, and he was so proud in his red graduation robe and mortarboard, beaming with high school diploma in hand.

I’ve know Jorge since he was 6, when his grandmother was taking care of my dying mother. She and others of Jorge’s family were there to celebrate as he talked excitedly about entering the University of California in the fall and someday being a doctor. It was like a Norman Rockwell painting, the American dream realized. But then I remembered that these were the very people that Bob Dole had warned us about.

These are the families that sneak across the border risking death by marauders, desert dehydration and Border Patrol car chases so that their kids can get into public school and bankrupt our economy. Jorge had been one of those kids crossing the border. Later his family was made legal thanks to the one-time amnesty Congress passed, but if Dole has his way, the Jorges who came here after amnesty will be stopped at the schoolhouse door.

Dole didn’t always feel that way. He once voted against denying education to children of illegal immigrants and didn’t insist on such a provision in the Senate bill that he shepherded. At the insistence of Newt Gingrich, the House version contains an education ban, and Dole now says he wants it in the final legislation.

The reason for the flip-flop is that Dole is in big trouble in California, so it’s time to follow the lead of Gov. Pete Wilson and play the “divide and conquer” card. Kick the illegal kids out of the schools and there will be more money to educate the “real” Germans--sorry, I meant Americans--and more votes for Dole.

Wilson was way ahead of the curve on this issue, even before Proposition 187. When he was mayor of San Diego, the illegal immigrant cleaning up after him kept her kids in Tijuana. Wilson wants to send the kids back where they came from while the parents stay here and work.

And he does want them here to work. The big agribusiness and other contributors to the Republican Party have made sure of that. According to figures supplied by Wilson’s Labor Department, illegal workers account for 90% of the agricultural, day labor and garment workers, 80% of restaurant workers and 70% of domestic workers. Wilson has no intention of cracking down on employers who hire illegals. Nor do the Republicans in Congress. Go after the kids; it’s easier.

Dole insists he is not anti-immigrant, although the message got garbled when he came out firmly for the “boiling pot.” No, silly, he didn’t intend anything macabre by that reference. What he meant was the “melting pot.” He’s not heartless; it’s just that these kids are taking our money. “The point is that the money at issue belongs to the taxpayers of California and the other states involved,” Dole said. “So it’s really about fairness.”

Yeah, fairness. Jorge’s father has worked for the 13 years that I’ve known him in a supply warehouse in Long Beach from 9 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. Then he goes immediately to his second job cleaning office buildings where he knocks off around midnight. Most nights he stays at his brother’s house, too tired to make the 90-minute trip home. Guess what, Bob Dole, Jorge’s father is one of those California taxpayers that you worry so much about. (And by the way, Senator, if you’re so worried about the burden on California taxpayers, why did you vote against federal assistance to the states most impacted by immigration?)

During all that time, Jorge’s mother has taken long trips daily to Huntington Harbor in solidly Republican Orange County to clean other people’s homes. Somehow, in the midst of mopping all those floors and logging all those long hours on the freeway, Jorge’s parents managed to save enough money to buy a little house in a low-cost but safe working-class neighborhood in Riverside. This they did so their kids could go to a good school. You’re right, Bob Dole, education is a reward, but, as much as with any people who ever came here, these people earned it.

And they will never forget that some politicians are trying to deny kids like their own this chance. Last week, Jorge’s father became a citizen and his mother and grandmother, both legal residents, will soon take their naturalization oaths. They join tens of thousands of legal immigrants panicked by all this immigrant bashing to vigorously pursue citizenship. Those folks won’t need any advice from me about how to vote.