Washblog

On a show where he mixed a screed against the Spanish panguage, multi-culturalism and a call for Paris police to use rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) against "loony muslim" protesters, Medved immediately refused when offered to join a listener and see the locations of construction sites (see note) employing illegal workers - right in his own community!

This is natural. Medved will revile poor immigrants for disobedience to his reich, but some big builder like a Noland Homes? No, of course not.

But how do I know that he received and declined this offer and that the offer was really genuine? I know because I made the offer. And I know it was genuine because when walking around Seattle lately I have - just to satisfy my curiosity - taken a little time to talk to the fellows we have imported to build this city bigger and better.

They seem to be nice guys and they are certainly hard workers, but employing them is a crime. It is a crime done for money by people who already have plenty. It is a crime done without fear of prosecution or even embarrassment - with ostentatious venality and disregard for the law.

Now is it a crime to be here illegally? Sure, and the folks who are here under those circumstances feel sheepish about it. They feel embarrassed. They also feel unwelcome and unable to take pride in their work. They're also frightened. It takes a little work to get them to talk. But this "shadow economy" of hiring illegals is actually so huge so open and workaday that even some of these worried workers will drop their guard. It's really more a "partly shaded" economy, the contours of which are known by millions and millions of people - just not the people who feel the most threatened by it. Interesting.

Could I speak more than rudimentary, antic Spanish, I'm sure I could have had even better conversations, but I enjoyed myself and learned all I needed. Besides, these are men with work to do. But I was embarrassed to find myself hampered by the English/Spanish divide the Republicans seek so desperately to maintain. To keep these workers down and obedient, it is important to isolate them and I'm sorry I haven't learned to bridge that gap. Fortunately, English is taking over the world, so there are a reasonable number of illegales who can tell the stories of their illegal employment in fluent, if accented English.

But not to Michael Medved, because he doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to give the people who profit the most from illegal immigration a hard time. Why not? We can only speculate, but you'd be surprised how closely conservative Republicans and large employers of illegal labor asssociate. One of KTTH's sponsors that Medved plugs personally is a roofing contractor. The National Roofing Contractors Association - an organization that supported vastly more Republicans than Democrats in 2006 (including, George Allen, Jon Kyl and Mike McGavick) said the following on the Newshour:

RAY SUAREZ: Well, I guess the bottom line is, can your members put roofs on houses and comply with the law?

CRAIG SILVERTOOTH, National Roofing Contractors Association: We will put fewer roofs on houses. We'll put fewer roofs on commercial buildings. And you're going to see the prices skyrocket. There's absolutely no way that we can deal with this type of regulation and continue to provide the services that the country demands.

Does Medved's roofer-sponsor use illegal labor? No reason to think he does - except the fact the both the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Roofing Contractors Association confirm that about a third of roofing workers are illegals. Thanks to people like Medved, illegal workers are still not integrated into our nation socially, but thanks to the people who support people like Medved financially, they are completely integrated into our society economically. Is that a bad thing? The people aren't bad, certainly, but their status is a problem. I've worked alongside dozens of illegals - hard-working people all. But their illegal status both makes them vulnerable and undermines the protection of law we all expect, in many ways. I want all immigrants to be legal immigrants. I'd be overjoyed at having 10 million people or more become American citizens in the next couple years. Business people would not and that's why there is no immigration reform.

Note: When questions of immigration violations come up, assume that it will become confusing to figure out who is employing whom, who had who's I-9 forms and who's responsibility it all was. What is not difficult is to go to a construction site in Seattle and find people working there who will tell even strangers that they are illegal immigrants working illegally and that their supervisors know this perfectly well.

"Not difficult", that is, unless you are a construction company owner or executive or Michael Medved. In those cases everything is muddied but the blamelessness of the people who employ illegal workers - that dreaded "fifth column" of multi-culturalism and mayhem we have to kill with RPGs.

Well, um, after they've finished their work.