I Hear A Knock

Articles

Kimbal Ross Binder

I Hear A Knock
Sept 1, 2003

I hear a knock at the door. I open the door and there stands a young man with a grin and a briefcase. He looks at my badge and gun and the grin fades.

“How can I help you?” I ask.

“I’d like to come in.” He replies.

“May I see your company ID?” I ask him in return.

“I don’t belong to this company” He replies, shuffling his feet.

“Well, let me see your authorized visitor pass, then.” Is my response.

“We don’t need no stinking passes!” He cries and runs away from the door. He runs around to a side window and I watch as he pitches in his briefcase and then crawls in after. I do nothing as he heads into the interior of the building, destination and purpose unknown. My bosses have instructed me to closely guard the door, but to ignore anyone who may have gotten past me some other way.

The man sits down at a desk down the hall, and after awhile I am summoned to his side. He looks at me hopefully and asks for the password to log into the computer at that desk and the password to get into the company network.

“Employees all have their own passwords to get into the network. You are not an employee, so you cannot get in.” I feel a small measure of satisfaction. Just then, the Chief Financial Officer passes by. The CFO just smiles and says; “The password is ‘matricula’.”

I walk away discouraged as I see the interloper successfully enter the network. I have tried to safeguard the company and its network, but others have thwarted me.

Later in the day, a worker I have known for three years comes up carrying a couple of large cardboard boxes. “Joe, can you open the door for me, I don’t have a free hand?”

“Little early in the day to take off, isn’t it, Phil?” I remark.

“Nope, I have been laid off! I am leaving for good.” He sighs, puts his boxes down and reaches his hand out to shake mine. “It was nice knowing you.”

“Laid off? How in the world?”

“Some new guy who works for peanuts is doing my job now. They can pay him a lot less that they were paying me!” He makes a motion towards the office where the intruder is busily tapping away at the keyboard.”

“But he isn’t even an employee!”” I protest.

“They are just gonna pay him under the table. He’s here now, and works cheap, so goodbye Phil!” My acquaintance shrugs, grabs his boxes and passes out to the parking lot. The thought suddenly occurs to me: Could my job be next?

It nears closing time. The Chief financial officer comes by and calls me over to a corner of the room. “Joe, there is going to be a small reduction in your paycheck from now on.”

I am worried. “Why, what did I do?”

“Oh, nothing. We need to provide workman’s insurance for that new guy back there, and since he is not an official employee, we cannot officially dock his wages. So we are going to just take a little from everybody else to cover for him. I didn’t think you would really mind.”

I scratch my head and say nothing. But there is one thing I am darned sure of; from now on I am NOT taking the gun off!

*************************************************

Fact: The Border patrol in California has been told that they cannot arrest illegal immigrants on the streets or in neighborhoods. If they do not catch them at the border, they are to let them go.

Fact: It is official policy in cities like New York and Chicago and Los Angeles that police are not to check individuals to ensure that they are legal immigrants, not to arrest them for being illegal immigrants, in fact to ignore the issue entirely. New York has an executive order (Executive Order 124) to that effect, prohibiting reporting anyone to the INS even if they have been arrested for another crime!

Banks are honoring the “Matricula” (Matricula Consular) cards that identify Mexican citizens. Therefore, an illegal alien can come into the USA, get paid under the table for being some elitist Hollywood snob’s nanny or maid or gardener, then deposit the money in the bank and perhaps obtain a checking account. Some of them are even obtaining drivers licenses! Illegal aliens are pressing your trousers, picking your lettuce, cleaning up the restaurant down the street. California in particular is making it easy on the illegals, seeking to make the state a dual-language entity, pressing for goods and services to be rendered at taxpayer’s expense to illegal aliens.

You say, well, my lettuce is cheaper because the illegals work cheaper. I say, legal labor would be paying taxes on their income. Labor performed by citizens might cost the grower a bit more and he would pass it on to the consumer. But that citizen would have that money to spend in the economy. The jobs that illegals now take would be open to citizens only. Menial labor and entry-level jobs would then need to be offered at a higher rate of pay as employers compete for the best help. Teenagers and high-school dropouts and retirees would find their options improving and their standard of living increase. Unemployment would drop. Former Clinton Cabinet members would have to pay their nannies more, poor things, but they have the money to do it anyway.

Now look at the security angle. Normally, an alien needs a visa to enter the country. Normally, he is checked out to determine just who he is and whether he represents a possible danger to the citizenry. An illegal alien has not been so scrutinized. It is all too common to read of theft and rape and murder committed by someone who turns out to have been in the country illegally.

Why is this being allowed to continue? First, there are plenty of people who make big money on illegal aliens. There are the smugglers who can make hundreds of dollars per head when they sneak illegals into the country. Second are the growers like lettuce farmers who depend on lots of cheap and illegal workers to pick their crops. They would hate to have to raise their wages to pay legitimate citizens to do the work! Third are the politicians who are paid by such growers to push to make illegal aliens welcome. Fourth are the politicians who fear alienating (pun intended) the growing numbers of Hispanic voters by taking measures that might offend them. Fifth are people with a personal agenda, such as the organization MEChA, which advocates the Southwest region of the United States be taken over by Mexico. Interesting that Cruz Bustamante, the Democrat’s California hope should Gray Davis be dumped, was not only a member of MEChA but refused to renounce his ties to them or criticize what they espouse.

This country has been built by the labors of legal aliens. It has thrived in part by assimilating numerous cultures into the famous “melting pot” that has enriched our culture. Nobody forced schools to teach in Gaelic when the droves of Irish came over. They did not establish a Polish Language public school in Chicago. The Germans, the Chinese, the French, the Hindu, no matter, they all had to learn to adjust to an English-speaking nation. Why should it be any different now?

My youngest daughter needed a heart specialist. Her specialist is from Thailand, now an American citizen, and I would not want anyone else to take his place. Her heart surgeon came over from England. My insurance agent was from East Germany. My youngest son’s pediatric doctor was from India. I’m not asking for legal immigration to cease, far from it! Everyone who wants to come here legally and meets the criteria is welcome. However, illegal aliens are illegal. They should be given no benefits other than an immediate expulsion and no rights other than the right to be sent packing. I don’t care if they want to hear Ciao or Sayonara or Hasta La Vista on the way out, either. It’s going to be get out and stay out or we are all going to be very sorry!

------------

About the author: Kimbal Ross Binder is a husband of one wife and parent of six child units of various sizes. He is a tennis bum, karaoke singer, punster and a reformed liberal who now admires Rush Limbaugh and hates to miss Fox News in the evening. You can pass along plaudits and invectives to: radar@eternalisp.com

Comment on this column in the forum.
------------