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Illegal immigration won't be solved by Virginia's top executive
BY ANDREA HOPKINS
Opinion Page Editor
Bristol Herald Courier
Sunday, October 30, 2005


Someone moved the border.

That’s the logical explanation for a Virginia Republican Party mailer featuring an unflattering photo of Tim Kaine against a backdrop of barbed wire and scrub brush, apparently meant to depict the U.S./Mexico border. The mailer was delivered to homes in our region last week.

The glossy, green postcard is the latest low blow in an election not distinguished by elevated discourse. It is loaded with inflammatory language. Kaine, it says, "supports using our tax dollars to subsidize illegal immigrants," supports giving "illegal immigrants in-state tuition discounts" and supports funding "job centers where they can meet to find jobs." The dreaded label, "liberal," appears four times.

THE HARSH anti-immigrant rhetoric is disheartening but not surprising. The national debate on immigration frequently reduces a complicated matter to sound bites filled with demagoguery, fear and hatred. But this isn’t Texas, Arizona or New Mexico; Virginia is hundreds of miles from the border. The issue here is more a matter of economics than safety.

Most reasonable people agree border security needs a tune-up – who wants there to even be a possibility of al-Qaida operatives sneaking across the border –but it’s going to take congressional or presidential action to do it. The border can’t be shored up from the Virginia executive’s mansion.

However, in this last-minute sprint to the polls, details don’t matter. Winning is the real concern.

The illegal immigration issue first reared its head here weeks ago as the candidates postured over a publicly funded day laborer center in Herndon – a Washington D.C. suburb. The center, approved not by state leaders, but by the Herndon Town Council, is supposed to provide a safe, central place for day workers to congregate while waiting for employers to hire them. Right now, the immigrants – some in the country legally, some not – gather in a convenience store parking lot, where they have become a nuisance.

Town leaders didn’t decide to spend $150,000 on the day laborer center on a whim. The center emerged as the best solution to a complicated local matter. The leaders who made the decision deserve respect, not second-guessing.

PREDICTABLY, Republican candidate Jerry Kilgore took a strong stand against the Herndon center. Kilgore, taking points from national right-wingers, adopted a posture that can be summed up simply: Illegal immigrants bad.

Kaine, the Democratic candidate, and independent Russell Potts, a centrist Republican, pronounced the Herndon center a local matter and took two steps to the side of this political hot potato.

The debate ignores economic realities. The immigrants are gathering in Herndon because the employers are hiring. Construction and agriculture rely heavily on immigrant workers. That’s true in Northern Virginia and here in the mountains, where immigrants pick strawberries, harvest Christmas trees and help with the tobacco crop.

The thorny issues surrounding immigration deserve a thorough national debate, but they won’t be solved by trotting out angry rhetoric to stir up voters.

THIS LATEST smarmy political attack piece didn’t come from the Kilgore campaign. The state’s Republican Party did the dirty work, noting only that the mailer is "intended to benefit Kilgore."

Whether it benefits Kilgore is anyone’s guess. Virginia residents don’t rank illegal immigration as a top concern. Instead, roads, schools, the state budget and taxes are on their minds.

Most middle-of-the-road folks in our region express similar concerns. They want to know how their elderly neighbor will pay to heat her home this winter. They want to know why gasoline prices are so high. They want to know whether their child’s teacher will get a raise. They want to know whether they will one day be forced to pay tolls to drive on Interstate 81.

Illegal immigration simply isn’t on their radar screen. The politicians would do well to take note.

Andrea Hopkins is opinion editor of the Bristol Herald Courier. She may be reached at ahopkins@bristolnews.com or (276) 645-2534.