Boston Globe reporter Yvonne Abraham [email her] wrote a puff piece Mayans’ Invisible Struggle [March 14, 2005] about the roughly 2,000 Guatemalan Mayans living in New Bedford, MA.

You’ve read it all before. The Mayans, escaping the horrors of the Guatemalan Civil War in search of “a better life” are exploited at the seafood processing plants where they are illegally employed.

Even though they only make minimum wage, they always manage to send a few hundred dollars home every month thus putting their own finances at risk, etc ad nauseum.

But when I visited Guatemala last summer, I saw no signs of the Civil War that ended  10 years ago.

And even though the Mayans earn only $2.00 a day in Guatemala, given the cost of living in Massachusetts, they are actually economically better off at home than in the U.S.

The Mayans case reflects a big problem with illegal immigration and those, like the Boston Globe, who condone it.

Some special circumstance like a long-ago war is always a good enough reason to forgive lawbreaking.