Frank

The aliens are coming, the aliens are coming!

Take cover, lock your doors, duct tape your windows, hide your women...the illegal aliens are coming to Kansas!

How will you recognize them? Well, they'll be cleverly disguised--many as maids or dairy workers. Some will be carrying deadly weapons, possibly even semi-automatic leaf-blowers; others still will seek to topple the system from within, flooding the already crowded DMV so they can get driver's licenses, and then use those licenses to vote...probably in favor of stem cells that induce gay marriage!

Believe it or not, this is pretty much the reaction we're having as a nation right now (okay, I took some liberties but I'm not too far off). In fact, the imimgration debate has become so distorted that even KKK groups are fighting each otherover where they stand on the issue!

During this heated election cycle, when neither side really wants to focus on the real crises at hand (see Iraq War, possible recession, global warming, Iran, Pakistan, Katrina recovery, et al.), immigration will remain a hot topic, something every candidate can use to talk a big game while producing few--if any--practical results.

So while Hillary and the Democrats tussle over the driver's license issue, on the other side of the fence Romney and Huckabee are going at it over offering in-state tuition to some undocumented students.

Meanwhile, here in Kansas, the recent election-year hysteria on immigration has caused state lawmakers to propose legislation seeking to tigthen immigration enforcement. The proposed legislation is in response to fears that Kansas will be the destination of all the "illegals" who have been pushed out of neighboring states because of similar crackdowns.

In other words, Kansas is trying to pass a measure that will allow it to jump off the same cliff all of its friends jumped off. That is, as many American communities are already discovering, kicking out undocumented workers is not a practical solution.

Nonetheless, the debates continue and the problem remains unsolved. In the end, the only ones who truly suffer from this arrangement are the immigrants and the American workers (whose own wages would be strengthened if undocumented workers had to be paid minimum wage and if they were allowed to join unions without fear of deportation).

Meanwhile, the "winners" are huge corporations, small businesses, politicians, consumers, hate-mongers, and Lou Dobbs....Oh, yeah, and ME, too.

As I've mentioned before, I'm putting the final touches on my immigration-themed documentary (and master's project), The Battle for Kansas: Immigration and Education.

The 40-minute film covers attempts to remove undocumented students in the state from K-12 public schools, and to keep some of them from receiving in-state tuition to our colleges.

I've put together this rough trailer--mostly as a class assignment. I hope you enjoy it...I'll continue to work on sound issues and I might continue tweaking it, but I'm pretty happy with the results so far and I hope you will be, too. I realize the trailer is "slanted" in some ways, but the film makes no bones about being in support of our progressive education policies, so I think it's only fair that the trailer alludes to that "bias." By the way, I also wrote and performed the music in the trailer (and in the film).

So, coming to a theater near you...