We will be rebuilding the Gulf Coast states for years to come. We will do so with both public and private monies, with cost estimates now running into the hundreds of billions.

Estimates are that at least half a million Americans from the affected areas have permanently lost their jobs, as their workplaces are totally destroyed.

It makes perfect sense that we ought to employ as many of those folks as possible in the rebuilding efforts, for their personal good and the good of the country.

Last week, the President approved a temporary waiver of Davis-Bacon labor rules for exactly that purpose to allow many of these individuals to participate in federally-funded reconstruction projects as general labor helpers.

We need to follow that up with providing whatever vocational training is necessary to allow displaced workers to gain the skills necessary to fully participate in those reconstruction efforts.

We need a revival of the Civilian Conservation Corps from the 1930’s for this emergency, in which we offer every able-bodied displaced person an immediate training wage on top of whatever other federal benefits they may be receiving, and full-time participation should be mandatory.

We shouldn’t spend any time worrying about those who can work, yet refuse these opportunities. But there’s already someone else with an eye on those construction jobs Mexican President Vicente Fox.

“‘The reconstruction of that city and of that region is going to require a lot of labor,’ Mr. Fox said of New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama. ‘And if there is anything Mexicans are good at, it is construction.’” The New York Times, September 5, 2005

While we appreciate the disaster aid assistance Mexico is providing by sending a military convoy across our southern border, we cannot afford to pay them back with the jobs of our hurricane victims.

Rebuilding our Gulf Coast with labor from Mexico would divert a large part of the estimated $200 billion cost to rebuild paid for by American taxpayers out of our economy, and into “foreign remittances”, the monies sent back to Mexico from the U.S. by illegal immigrants.

These “remittances” have now surpassed oil revenues as the number one source of income for Mexico drawn directly out of our economy.

We should not allow our national tragedy to become Mexico’s gain. The time for talk is over. The time for pleas for the Administration to simply enforce the law is over.

Every police and sheriff’s department in this nation should begin vigorously enforcing immigration law while in the course of their routine duties, and get those people out of our country during this national emergency. For every illegal worker removed, there’s a ready job for the hundreds of thousands of legal American residents who just lost theirs in this tragedy.

The CLEAR Act that we just reintroduced has an excellent chance of passing this session, and if it does, the federal government will be responsible for paying 100% of these local law enforcement costs for immigration law enforcement efforts.

Hardship has a way of bringing families together. If there is anything positive that can come from such an incomprehensible disaster as Hurricane Katrina, it could likely be in forcing us to come back together to help defend each other, instead of letting potential taxpayer-funded jobs for storm victims to be looted by illegal immigrant labor cheered on by Mexican Presidente Vicente Fox.