Vickie Killingsworth: Immigrants aren’t real villains, it’s the greedy

Re “Blue-collar workers find hero in Trump” (Page B1, Aug. 6) is a classic case of “villains and victims.” It frames the issue of immigrants so that Mexicans are the villains and blue-collar workers are victims, claiming Hispanics have “taken over the construction industry.” A contractor states that “these people are literally taking their jobs. All my drywall guys are Hispanic. Plumbers, painters, framers, they’re at least half Hispanic.”

Who hires these villains? Why? Did we not pass legislation in the past making it illegal to hire non-citizens? What happened to enforcement of that law?

Robert Shapiro estimates that “incomes stagnated or declined from 2002 to 2013.” Wages have been stagnant since the1970s. Journalist Mickey Kaus states that “growing (the) GDP doesn’t necessarily help people at the bottom.” When is the last time that happened?

Immigrants all over the world are vilified for causing social ills. Those in the middle and lower classes are cast as their “victims.” What we are actually victims of is a system that plays one against the other in an effort to change the focus from those who continue to create a huge fortunes for themselves while the rest squabble over crumbs.

This story was originally published August 10, 2015 at 1:06 PM with the headline "Vickie Killingsworth: Immigrants aren’t real villains, it’s the greedy."