I’m wondering what your reaction will be to the title of this article. Is it rage? Incredulity? Outright dismissal as not being serious?
But you don’t have to worry about me advocating the return of slavery.
Slavery has already returned to America.
Right now we have literally 10’s of thousands of immigrant flowing across the border every week, a portion are arrested and then set free into the U.S. with a piece of paper that allows them to stay, at least until their court date. Others are “getaways” who have no papers or status whatsoever.
While I am panic-stricken that this utter invasion of America is happening and disgusted that our current Administration is causing it, I don’t blame these illegal immigrants for wanting to become part of the greatest nation on earth. They are seeking better opportunities, and these people who are mostly hardworking and ambitious Catholics are honest in their reasons for coming. Maybe this is two-faced of me, but I believe that anyone should wholeheartedly take advantage of the stupid things government does, while simultaneously struggling to improve the effectiveness of government.
As the Mandalorian would say: This is the way.
But these hardworking and ambitious folks are now stuck in a difficult situation.
They are not allowed to work.
They also, obviously, cannot prove an income, show a credit rating and will have difficulty opening a bank account, so finding housing in the mainstream market is impossible. They are relegated to the informal real estate market (i.e. living with other immigrants and their relatives).
This does not mean they will not work, they have to survive until their asylum court date three years hence. Not sure what the Biden administration expects to happen, but what happens is what must happen – they work.
My sources have revealed a vast Hispanic-speaking underground network through social media in America that can help immigrants find jobs. Non-English speakers find illegal work opportunities – but not necessarily good ones. This could mean false papers for a legal job, or it could mean prostitution, drug dealing or other criminal activities, or simply the dirtiest, least secure, lowest paying jobs in America. Did I say vast? Remember, some say there are 20 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. – and most of them are working.
These are jobs that hang on a thread, maintained as criminal ventures. There are no protections under the law, and workers do not have many freedoms. They can be forced to work insane hours, cheated out of salary, fired on a whim, and, in the case of females, coerced into sexual abuse. There is no safety net and the bosses in many cases control the housing as well. The utter instability of this situation, the prospect of going from living poorly to living on the street at the whim of an illegal employer is not freedom as we know it in the U.S.
We have created an underclass of illegal immigrants in America, who are essentially slaves, who have no rights, they are controlled by others, their options are purposefully limited, and the consequences of disobedience are severe.
This is slavery. Right here in America.
So back into the facetious mode:
Why not make this a legal class? Why not bring back indentured servitude with all of the brutality that it implies? We could write contracts that say to be a legal slave one would get food and housing, plus $100 sent back to your family every week. We would get tons of takers on that! And no matter how badly we treated them, it still might be better than where they came from (until we got used to treating them as slaves – will we sink that far? Yes, some faster than others…).
At least in that case we could regulate it and tax it. Isn’t that what our elected leaders want anyway? More power and more money?
Close facetious mode.
The final lesson here is don’t think history cannot repeat itself. Don’t think that changing the word “slavery” to something woke and palatable cannot happen and that a new kind of slavery cannot emerge.
Because it already has.
