Bring us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses… ‘cause Corporate America needs cheap labor.

Illegal immigration. Everybody agrees that it is a problem; nobody seems to agree on a solution. Some have suggested a “guest worker” program, some have suggested amnesty, and some have suggested sending illegals back. However, there seems to be no consensus on the subject. This issue is not new, although you’d think, based on their recent interest, that Congress just discovered there was a problem. As usual, our leaders are late coming to the table.

Corporate America of course, would just like the issue to be swept back under the rug, so they can go back to business as usual. After all, how can they make record profits if they have to pay workers a decent wage and provide them with benefits? The workers are happy, because they earn in a day what they used to earn in a month south of the border. The CEOs and CFOs are happy, because they make those record profits, and get their big performance bonuses. And now the Congress is happy, because they have an issue that plays well in the media in advance of the mid-term elections, making them look “tough” on homeland security. Never mind the fact that both sides of the aisle have effectively ignored this issue for decades.

So who’s not happy? Middle class America, that’s who. Because, as always, no matter what ridiculous “solution” Congress comes up with, it’s likely the middle class that will get screwed. If we adopt a guest worker program, the incentive continues for Corporate America to pay slave wages and no benefits to non-citizens, while simultaneously eliminating higher-paid U.S. workers. If we offer amnesty, again, the incentive continues for corporations, but this time, we’ve added a big welcome sign at the border for other illegals to enter the country. And if we “ship ‘em all back”, as some have suggested, we take on the truly insurmountable task of rounding up 10-15 million illegal immigrants, and sending them back home (kicking and screaming, no doubt), at the expense of, you guessed it, the middle class.

Don’t misunderstand me here; I don’t blame the illegal immigrants for entering our country. We’ve all but invited them in, and I too would jump at the chance of providing a better life for myself and my family in the proverbial land of milk & honey. My beef is with the foot-draggers in Washington who act like they just woke up yesterday to discover we have a problem with illegal immigration. This is a problem that has gone on for multiple generations!! It would have been hard enough to deal with when we had 1 million undocumented aliens in this country. But to wait until we have between 10 and 15 million illegals in our country (depending on whose numbers you believe), and to politicize the sh*t out of the issue… it’s more than irresponsible, it’s criminal.

I’ve got an idea… let’s build a big wall across the entire southern border of the country, and then ship Congress back to Mexico. That way, everybody will be happy.