ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- Picking fruit and vegetables is a crummy job that Americans aren't exactly eager to do. Not at any wage.

Yet recently, in a tragedy set against the backdrop of the lush farmland of Central California, a husband and wife were on their way to do a couple of those crummy jobs -- when instead they wound up at the morgue.

The farm workers were 35-year-old Santo Hilario Garcia and 33-year-old Marcelina Garcia Profecto. One fateful day last week, Garcia came out of his house before 7 a.m. and got behind the wheel of an SUV, with Profecto beside him. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents spotted Garcia and concluded that he fit the description of a suspect they were after. So they trailed him and pulled him over. As the agents exited their vehicle, Garcia panicked and sped away. The SUV slid off the road, flipped over and crashed into a power pole. The couple died at the scene.

Two other details:

First, at home, the couple left behind six children who are now orphans. A half dozen kids will grow up without parents, maybe wind up in foster care.

And second, this dreadful story could have been avoided if the ICE agents were better at their jobs. You see, they made a mistake. They weren't after Garcia, only someone who looked like him.

That's understandable. In these dark days of fear and loathing, all Latino immigrants look alike.

You hear anti-immigrant pundits on television talking about how farmers want "open borders" so they can keep wages low and exploit immigrants while denying jobs to Americans. It's one of those colossally ignorant statements that comes from city folks who think that milk comes from the supermarket.

With unemployment in California at a mere 4 percent, most of the folks who want to work are working. Meanwhile, those who don't want to work have the whole day free to call into talk radio shows and complain about how there are no jobs.

A fast-food restaurant near my house needs workers and it is offering $11 per hour, the state's minimum wage.

...continued