Between Herman Cain calling for an “electrified fence” to keep out “illegals,” and Michele Bachmann saying she’ll do nothing to help the children of undocumented immigrants — all while Alabama (and now South Carolina) are trying to scare immigrants back to Mexico – famous Hollywood director,Chris Weitz, decided he wanted in on some of the action.
In an column published at the Daily Beast, the Twilight director exposes the Republican hypocrisy on the immigration issue:
My business is entertainment, not pies, so I may be off base here, but where does Cain get his toppings? I mean, you know, pepperoni, sausage, garlic, bell peppers. The reason I’m asking is that labor in the meat-packing and agricultural industries is largely supplied or—to make a funny joke!—infected by undocumented immigrants.
Have you ever picked garlic? Slaughtered a cow? Cleaned up centrifugally expressed spinal-column meat? I haven’t. Want to know why? I don’t want to! And neither do the vast majority of citizens, whether employed or unemployed. You’ll be shocked—shocked—to know that the immigrant workers who have been forced to leave backbreaking labor in the fields of Georgia and Alabama due to restrictive anti-immigrant laws have not been replaced by armies of the white, documented unemployed.
This is the dirty little secret of big business, the Republican Party, and undocumented labor. Big business—and big businessmen like Cain—loveillegal immigration. Undocumented immigrants are hardworking, uncomplaining (you would be too if you could get turned in to the authorities at any moment!), and cheap. They are easily exploitable, and they lower the wage base of the entire workforce. Worried about hiring them? No problem! There are “subcontractors” willing to take on that risk for a price. Which is how, for instance, Mitt Romney can claim that he “never hired an illegal.” He just hired a company that hired “illegals.”
Chris Weitz is better known for his mega-hit movies, Twilight: New Moon, The Golden Compass, and About A Boy, however, earlier this year, Weitz released a movie, “A Better Life”, about an undocumented father, whose hard work and long hours as a gardener in LA are all to give his son more opportunities.
The story sticks. For those of you who haven’t seen it, here’s more information. It’s a must-see on the lives of the undocumented. According to movie reviewer Greg Quill of the Toronto Star:
[A Better Life] Personalizes the illegal immigrant experience and digs much deeper into what has become a national disgrace.
And — as Chris Weitz noted in his article yesterday — we all know who’s to blame for that.
