DIALOGUE WITH LAROUCHE
A New Approach to Immigration Policy
This interchange occurred at a private discussion between Lyndon LaRouche and a number of constituency leaders after LaRouche's April 27 webcast.
Q: In the last Presidential election, a lot of states enacted the gay rights marriage act, and even though in Michigan, we have a state law saying that same-sex couples cannot get married, there's still a push to see it in our Constitution. This year we have a gubernatorial race, and the constitutional push is affirmative action, and they're talking about banning affirmative action, which I understand they've done in California. And I see it as a political ploy. But Michigan is very divisive. With a Republican majority in the House and the Legislature, they actually enact laws that exempt Detroit, because it's 88% African-American. Revenue-sharing is one. If you receive so much in revenue already, you're not going to get this kick increase, and Detroit's the only one affected, I was reading in today's paper.
But what effect would this affirmative action constitutional proposal have? I have heard that it's not just getting away with preferences in job selection, or colleges, etc., it could also affect, like WIC programs [Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children], and counselling for women, or whatever—it's not gender specific, it's not race-specific, it's just says all affirmative action, entirely.
LaRouche: The problem is that this has been a game, which has developed especially since the 1960s. It's a game to destroy politics, both sides. There should be no position either way. There are things which deserve affirmative action, period. Because they're human interest, general welfare cases, and they should be supported on their merits. But not on the basis of single-issuism, but on the basis of justice, the basis of right care.
But what's happened is, you see it in politics, is people use this, as they use games with religion, in order to manipulate the population. Without that you wouldn't have Bush as a President.
So, therefore, you say, "Cut it out."
Let's take a concrete case now, which is what they're not dealing with. Let's take the case of the immigration bill, which is a real abomination. Because the point is that the United States shut down Mexico's economy in 1982, and worsened it ever since. Therefore, there are no jobs in Mexico. There's not the chance of living of the existing population in Mexico. On the other side, north of the Mexican border, there are many people who are hungry to get Chicano labor, or other cheap labor. You wouldn't have a housing boom unless you had people who didn't know how to put a nail in something, working in construction. Because they work cheap. They may not get the nails in, but they work cheap.
So, but this is an integral part of the process.
So now, what happens is, certain gameplayers play games, including drug games across borders, and we have a major problem which involves the Mexican population, and the U.S. population. The persons of Hispanic American descent, are the largest single designated minority group in the United States. This is only counting the legal ones. If you count the illegals, it's maybe 15-20 million more. So, therefore, what are you going to do? Are you going to shut down the border, and let them scream? Is that a solution?
It's not a solution. But the politicians who are trying to appeal to something, all play this game.
Two things: First of all, as I dealt with President [José] López Portillo of Mexico on this thing back in '81-82, on this specific question, what you do is you document everybody. It's an open documentation. And the person who is documented, thereby by virtue of documentation, has access to a Mexican consular official, so that whatever his problem is, whoever he wants to talk to, he can talk to a Mexican consular official.
The United States government through the State Department, and the internal functions, deals government to government, with this problem.
The Core Issue Is Economic
Now, our objective should be what? Our objective should be to attack the problem at its core. The core is, northern Mexico is not developing. If the jobs were in northern Mexico, many of these people would not be taking risks to get across the border with drug runners! The drug runners will help them across the border. And the drug runners include corrupt people, officials, in government agencies. And this is a very dangerous operation. I know something about it. It's extremely dangerous.
You have former U.S. Special Forces-trained people, who are running a section in Nuevo Leon, near the border, which used to be an area which was enjoyed by women who went to shop from Texas, to get certain goodies. And this area has been taken over by these Mexican Special Forces-trained—they were trained at Fort Bragg. They left the Army, and are running a little empire, like a Colombian-style empire, where they are running a drug organization, they're buying up politicians, killing police chiefs they don't like, and so forth, all this kind of stuff, and that is a base for this cross-border operation. It's an intelligence operation!
So, therefore, the obvious interest of the United States is to neutralize the problem, by helping Mexico to develop northern Mexico. If we develop northern Mexico, people who are frightened people, are not going to go running with drug runners across borders, getting killed and drowned, getting across the borders. They're going to stay with their families. If they come to the United States, they'll be happy to come in a legal way. But the basic thing is, what happens is, whole villages, whole areas in northern Mexico, depend upon remittances from Mexicans who are living in the United States, often as illegals. And they're working at starvation wages, under starvation conditions here.
So, if we don't address the reality of the cross-border relationship, you're not doing anything! You're masturbating, with legislation. One is trying to prove, "I've got a tough bill, but it's fair. I kill people fairly, not unfairly! I shoot them down fairly, not unfairly. I let them turn themselves in, and then I throw them back across the border!"
Look, we created this system, and I know it. Because, in 1982, I was involved in a fight on this thing.... Under the Reagan Administration, Kissinger and company were running an operation, to shut down Mexico's economy, and grab Mexico's oil. And this resulted in the destruction of what was a viable Mexican economy, which was then in a growth mode. Since López Portillo left office, Mexico has been going downhill, step by step, every inch. Therefore, you have a growing population, which is starving, living under miserable conditions, and fleeing across the border to steal a job in the United States, where somebody is willing to hire them. It's an escape. And they hope they'll have enough money to send something home for remittances to their starving family back in Mexico.
A Program for the Future
So, our interest is to have an international program, of the United States and Mexico, to develop both sides of the border, because economic development is the first basis for security in this area.
And look, Mexico has oil. Mexico's oil industry would take about six or seven years to bring it back to 1982 level. Now, Mexican oil has not got a great future as a fuel, because we need nuclear power. But therefore, if you develop the nuclear industry in Mexico, for power and water and energy and so forth, ... now you can use petroleum partly as a fuel. You can use it also as a petrochemical base, for various kinds of production, which means that now you can have a healthier economy.
And we need water on both sides of the border. We've got the Ogallala aquifer, which is collapsing, one of the big problems of the United States. We're losing whole parts of the United States because of groundwater loss. And why not develop both sides of the border, in cooperation between the two government? That's your best thing. If there's no reason to go running back and forth across the border, but simply wander back and visit relatives and friends, back and forth, what's the problem? And that's the only way to do it.
Do two things: Regularize the thing. If we do what they've never done—give the undocumented Mexican a document, which allows him to have access to a Mexican consular official for anything relevant. Negotiate status, government to government, through the appropriate institutions. Orient for a long-term solution, which is developing both sides of the border, economically. And we need that. We also know how to do it.
But they won't do that! They want to go on with some of these crazy things. And some of the people who do it are fairly intelligent people, but it shows the disease is spreading, that they get into that wingding.
