Molly Ivins September 29LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Travel is so broadening. I have frankly been less than whelmed by President Clinton's courageous stand against teen smoking, on the general principle that it's slightly to the left of apple pie. After all, the pro-teen smoking lobby doesn't exactly dwarf the National Rifle Association. But when you come to Kentucky and ask progressive Democrats, "So, is smoking a big issue here?" they get that Dan Quayle glaze and nod. "Big! BIG." In a city where the Brown & Williams tobacco headquarters has tighter security than the airport, where state law mandates smoking areas in all public buildings and Philip Morris is a major supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union, tobacco is Big! BIG! Fourteen states are suing the tobacco companies to recover the costs of medical care for smoking-related illnesses. But Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton threatens to sue the federal Food and Drug Administration if it does regulate tobacco. Kentucky claims that it is perfectly capable of regulating tobacco to keep it out of the hands and lungs of teen-agers, and it has state laws to do so. But according to a recent article in The Courier-Journal of Louisville by an anti-smoking activist, Dr. Jim Roach, "Kentucky serves as the best example of why FDA regulation is needed. Since the youth-access law went into effect, the state has measured non-compliance in sales of tobacco to underage youth at 70 percent in cities — 80 percent to 100 percent in rural areas. Yet no fines have been levied. As a result, a recent survey showed 40 percent of Kentucky's high school youth smoke, probably the highest ever. Never have our children smoked so much and so early." There is an interesting parallel between smoking and illegal immigration in terms of what works and what doesn't. "Just Don't Do It" is not, actually, a terrifically effective way to discourage teens from smoking. Socking those who sell cigarettes to teens with heavy fines does, actually, make quite a difference.
Now on the immigration front, we have nasty but ineffective measures being proposed — a nice instance of proof that the heavy hand is not always effective. One proposal is to deny citizenship to babies born in the U.S.A. if their parents are illegal immigrants. Another is to deny illegal immigrant children the right to public education. Illegal workers come to this country for jobs — not for welfare, not for health care, not for our very fine public schools or for our fabulously luxurious hostels for the homeless, but for jobs. So those who are serious about slowing down illegals are also serious about punishing employers who hire them. Clinton proposes, among other measures, to test new ways to verify the status of immigrants and favors barring employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens from getting government contracts for one year. Naturally, this raises the unhappy possibility that an employer, hiring in all innocence someone who he or she assumes is a legal immigrant, could then be fined and penalized. My liberal heart bleeds at the prospect. It does, honest; I hate injustice. But what are the odds of a major prosecution of an innocent employer for the accidental hiring of an illegal? You reckon those employers running entire sweatshops of illegal workers in New York and Los Angeles just don't have a clue that their entire work force is illegal? We're not talking about one worker who snuck by them with a well-forged green card — we're talking entire substandard factories paying substandard wages to people who speak no English and never complain. I mean, might that not give you a clue that you could be dealing with illegals? Again, if you want to stop illegal workers (and you would just be amazed at how many American employers have no interest whatever in stopping illegal workers), then we're going to have to seriously punish those who hire them. Because that's what works. *** Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. COPYRIGHT 1996 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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