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Open Border Trucking Policies: Right of Center View

In a nation that was built on the strength of American workers it seems that there are no longer any considerations made for those workers when our leaders make international trade policies. A good example of this is the decision to open the border with Mexico to foreign trucks and drivers to move cargo inside the United States.

American truckers have spent years sacrificing time with their families, spending weeks at a time on the road and barely making enough money to get by with many living in their trucks to ensure that we have the goods we need to make our daily lives more livable. Now our government rewards their hard work and sacrifice with policies that will allow cheap labor from Mexico to legally take their work from them. No immigration needed. It seems like the politicians are more concerned with their backers making higher profits than with the welfare of the people they were elected to represent. Apparently it’s not a problem for them that this will directly negatively impact thousands of American workers with no real tangible benefit for the people in the United States other than corporate executives and their shareholders.

Beyond the impact on American truckers is the question of safety on American roads with all of these drivers from Mexico being added to the mix. If we don’t know how well their drivers are being trained or how their vehicle safety standards compare to American standards we can’t know how safe our divers will be with them on the road. The reassurances of politicians about the safety of foreign drivers on our roads seem somewhat hollow when you think about how well they have done with telling the truth about the issues facing America over the last few years. Why should we trust that the politicians have made sure these drivers will be as safe as American drivers when they clearly have not taken the interests of American workers into account in their decisions? How can we possibly be expected to believe that they care at all about the people when they repeatedly sell us out for a quick buck?

While some may argue that we need to find ways to keep goods inexpensive to support our economy, this cannot be the best way to do it. Opening our country to foreign drivers and vehicles puts our people at unnecessary risk. With the recent experiences of multiple foreign products being recalled because of poor safety precautions being taken in their manufacture, it becomes clear that we need to be more cautious about the way we deal with foreign trading partners. Our standards for safety are not always met by workers in foreign countries so it stands to reason that the vehicles coming into the U.S. from abroad may pose dangers to other drivers that would not be present if the vehicles were from the U.S. The safety of our people is too important to be left to chance. This is not a time to be playing Russian roulette on our roads. This plan is bad for workers, bad for safety on the roads and bad for America.

Troy Wilson-Ripsom - Staff Writer | E-mail Comments on this column. | Visit Troy's blog at http://reform-america.blogspot.com | Visit Troy's MySpace page at www.myspace.com/reform_america

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Last Week's View from the Right: Unions Defending Illegal Aliens

Previous Weeks Views from the Right:
Political Activism and Illegal Immigration
Integrating Other Cultures Into the American Dream
Employing Undocumented Workers
Bilingual Education
The Minutemen
Driver's Licenses For Undocumented Immigrants
Open Borders
Sanctuary Cities
Let's Get It Right This Time
Once Again Congress Fails
American Jobs
English Also vs. English Only
Amnesty
Defining Immigration