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Health & Fitness

Rohrabacher: Why NOT Use Prison Labor for Agricultural Work?

Rather than early release, let's give convicts the opportunity for some honest labor.

Last month, the NewportMesa Tea Party featured a debate between an Orange County Lincoln Club representative and Fountain Valley's 46th District Congressman, Dana Rohrabacher.

The Lincoln Club had recently developed a Policy Statement on Immigration Reform they titled a "Three-Point Common-Sense Approach".  Even translated in Spanish, the strategy called for border security and employer support -- both sensible ideas we should expect from mainstream Republicans, especially if they mean closing the border with a fence (or more) and demanding the use of eVerify.  But what makes NO sense in their common sense approach is their call for a guest worker program. 

The Lincolns naively believe that all our "living in the shadows" illegals are going to apply for a smart card and pass a criminal check (apparently breaking the law by crossing the border to live and work here with fake documentation isn't criminal enough).  The Club also believes the shadowees will be learning English, paying fees from their under-the-table incomes and catching up on their taxes.  The best comment made to their representative was in the form of a question -- that is, why would the Club believe the illegals would be revealing themselves and lining up at the photo booth when Americans can't get a voter reqistration card with a picture ID?

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Rohrabacher, speaking via Skype video from his Washington office, effectively countered all the Club's arguments, believing their plan just wasn't viable.  It was a great exchange between a well-spoken Club representative, an Hispanic herself, and a Washington veteran with a strong reputation for fighting illegal immigration.  Rohrabacher shut the woman down, in my opinion, when he countered the usual RINO argument that no one other than the illegals were willing to pick lettuce (choose your example fruit or vegatable) by suggesting that prison inmates ought to be in the fields doing stoop labor.

What a great idea.  Since it costs double in California to maintain an inmate (compared to Texas, for example), why shouldn't we rent them out to make some money?  There shouldn't be any difficulty in allowing these convicts to keep much of what they make (those big house-vended cell phones are costly).  Let the State skim some off the top for the cost of supervision -- there must be somone in the Legislature who knows how.  And there seems no reason why this wouldn't also work at the County or even City level.

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Prison labor's been used for years.  We all know the old cliches about convict factories stamping out license plates.  I recall reading long ago about furniture manufacturing and government printing in prisons -- all good ideas UNTIL one considers that these low wage government industries unfairly compete with the private sector and should then be unallowed as they'll hurt private sector firms. 

But Rep. Rohrabacher's example of using convicts to pick celery is terrific -- it resolves plenty of issues.  It DOES compete with illegal alien labor, likely around the same wage levels.  Such competition will send them home and give the Ag community an alternative to the illegal hiring the market forces them into now.  Prisoners receive full medical benefits (better than many of ours), so there's no additional costs in providing it.  It also gives the Prison Guards union something to do, and makes them more visible to communities so the success or failure of such a program can be reported on.

Of course, there are plenty of convicts we don't want outside the walls of the Graybar Hotel, but considering the snow job we're getting from Jerry Brown on California's finances and the early release of prisoners we all fear, there must be a portion of them that would want the opportunity to do some productive labor versus lifting weights.  It's worth a try -- why shouldn't a "pilot" program be attempted with convict volunteers?

And think of the story this would make for the Wall Street Journal -- that respected publication that's never come out strongly for border security and has always supported the GOP in their search for cheap labor.

Rep. Rohrabacher could use some support (and some press) on this -- how about dropping him a note or giving him a call?  Here's his contact information.

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