Surprise! Ag Interests and Restaurants Like Illegals

As usual, you have to go all the way to the bottom of the story to find the really good stuff:

Among business groups, the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation and the Wisconsin Restaurant Association have lobbied for a guest worker program and against the House bill's stiff penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants.

The restaurant group also supports a "path to citizenship" for illegal immigrants, said group CEO Ed Lump.

"We're a growth industry," Lump said. "We need labor. You can't run a restaurant without workers. It gets more and more difficult to hire them."

...The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation also has expressed its opposition to parts of the House bill, chiefly the employer sanctions. Wisconsin is 12th in the nation in the number of hired farm laborers, said Tom Thieding, the federation's public relations director.

"We weren't real successful in him understanding the issues farmers were facing," he said of Sensenbrenner.

That's a hoot. "...the issues farmers are facing..." include what? The "farmer" has no telephone? Can't call the Feds to verify a SSAN?

And just for fun, maybe Thieding would like to show us how many of his members run real family farms--not the "corporate farms" run by tax-scamming investor-class types.

In a meeting with him last year on immigration reform, Sensenbrenner was "just going on about how this was going to be his legacy," Thieding said.

And YOUR legacy, Mr. Thieding? Garbage-strewn border ranches, dead bodies, and drug-runners? I suppose you can claim that, if you like.