El Vaquero arrests show ill-placed national priorities

The first time I rode to the new El Vaquero, it was in the backseat of a luxury car - you know, the type that has the back-up camera built into the trunk and the navigation system that talks to you through the state-of-the-art sound system. It was my friend's stepmom's car. And as we pulled up to the restaurant, she noticed a vehicle substantially shabbier than her own. The windows were tinted, and ornate lettering on the back window spelled out a Hispanic name.

"If you ever want to find good Mexican food," my friend's stepmom said, "all you need to do is follow a car that looks like that one."

A little part of me died right then.

According to El Vaquero owner Taly Lopez, a raid of the restaurant last Friday by immigration authorities resulted in the detention of eight employees as well as three lunch patrons from another local Mexican restaurant. Adair County Prosecutor Mark Williams said the federal search warrant cited inappropriate use of social security numbers as grounds for the raid.

With roughly 12 million illegal immigrants in this country and nearly 12 percent of those working in food services illegally, one has to consider the unfortunate odds of the 'man' targeting the best restaurant in Kirksville.

In fact, this is one of a series of stings on the El Vaquero chain. Lopez has told the Index that he now plans on hiring non-Mexicans to work in his Mexican restaurant. That's right - no more Mexicans at the Mexican restaurant.

And here's another part of me dying.

But let us put this in context. The "improper use of social security numbers" should not be any surprise. The Pew Hispanic Center reports that illegal immigrants make up nearly 5 percent of the labor force, and since the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act established consequences for employers who deliberately hire illegal immigrants, fake IDs have been part of the game.

Lopez told the Index that he believed all his employees were legitimate citizens, and although that belief could be questioned, perhaps it is not so odd. Lopez said no employees were paid under the table and that the social security numbers in question were fake and not stolen. This has some interesting implications.

These men were taxpayers.

And it is not too surprising, either. Annually, as much as $7 billion in Social Security comes from the estimated two-thirds of the illegal immigrant population that pays payroll taxes attached to phony Social Security numbers. These tax dollars go toward programs in which these individuals likely will never get to participate.

In this age when xenophobic language about diseases and threats to national security color the immigration debate, it is all too easy to demonize illegal immigrants. Even the name is a kind of a scarlet letter. Illegal immigrants, like they broke out of prison or something. And while we can talk crime statistics 'til we are blue in the face, these individuals at El Vaquero are illegal solely for being in the United States.

The irony really sinks in when you realize how much we accommodate this illegality. How can we have 5 percent of our workforce composed of so-called criminals if we were not getting something out of it?

Make no mistake, the raid on El Vaquero was a symbolic one - made to appease the kick-'em-out crowd who always have been more bark than bite. While meat packing plants in our own state exploit teems of illegal immigrants working in despicable conditions for long hours with no real protection from any on-site injury for the sake of cheap pork, the authorities raid the one place everyone expects to find illegal immigrants: a Mexican restaurant.

The sting was visible to seem as if something was being done about the nearly half a million immigrants who enter our country each year. In reality, America would be lost without this modern population of indentured servants who constantly pay into the system yet can never fully earn the ability to scale the economic ladder. By selectively enforcing our immigration policies, we create a work force that literally is trapped doing jobs that employers are unwilling to pay more for.

So who is the real parasite: the evil immigrants creeping into our country with the sinister intent to steal American jobs or the Americans who refuse to recognize 4 percent of their own population and actively accept tax dollars from phony Social Security numbers?

"Gosh-darn illegals muckin' up our country. ... I'll have the fajitas, please."