How many of you aspire to pick crops in California. Or work in a factory for 8 dollars an hour?
JK
Is Deporting Illegal Immigrants The Answer To American's Economic Woe? What Do You Think?
by Scott77 31 Replies latest social current
-
-
garyneal
Americans complain about illegal immigration but conveniently overlook the fact that thanks to illegal immigrants, our food prices, housing costs, building/landscaping costs etc. are lower than they would be otherwise. How many Americans are going to spend 12 hours a day picking produce for minimum wage (or less)?
Yet, I cannot afford to buy a house right now. I recall a friend of mine who owned a house he wanted to fix up and sell tell me about how me managed to hire mexicans to put up drywall and this guy did not know a lick of English. My friend's thoughts on this were, "I don't need to check to see if he is legal and as far as my speaking his language, as long as someone else does, I can tell that someone else what to do and he would tell the worker. It is far cheaper to pay him to do the work than an American and I get to pocket the savings!"
So much for passing the savings onto the customer.
-
garyneal
How many of you aspire to pick crops in California. Or work in a factory for 8 dollars an hour?
All this is irrelevant and is a strawman argument. Are you trying to tell me that people should be impoverished? If you cannot find people to pick crops or work in factories to minimum wage then you have a couple of choices, set up factories and farms outside the country where wages are lower or pay people more money to better compete with other jobs that the local people are going to.
Another side of the coin that could help would be to put all the welfare recipients work. Nothing wrong with an honest job.
-
JRK
The USA imports labor from Mexico for the same reason we by manufactured goods from China. It saves money. Greed at its best.
JK
-
garyneal
Sad but true.
-
Tuesday
Nothing really new from me that probably hasn't been said before. I don't think we should immediately shift to deporting all illegal immigrants. I think the first thing should be done is levy big fines on those who employ illegal aliens. Once that's been established as a fairly heavy fine that people don't want to pay, then move to making it a bit easier to get a work visa. Then in combination with making it easier to get work permits and get a VISA then you can start deporting illegals. I think you need to make it so that there's only a few real steps to take in order to become legal and not make it impossible to be so, then the only real reason people would be illegal would be nefarious in nature.
-
moshe
We have in the US something called E-Verify, which employers can sign up to use. They can run a prospective job applicant's name, birthdate and SS# through E-Verify and if all #'s match up they are considered legal to hire. Obviously illegals use a stolen or bogus SS#, so they can't get hired. A small percentage of legal applicants get the boot due to a problem- like a mismatch on the birthdate with what is on file at the SS office, so they will need to bring in their birth certificate to SS and get the numbers straightened out. Clerical errors do creep into any database, but it can be fixed, unless you aren't that person.
I was surprised that the US Census didn't use E-Verify for all the workers they hired on the 2010 census. By the time questionable workers were notified their was a problem with their SS number and given a date ( middle of June) to bring in the papers to prove they could legally work, the Census count was basically done and they had worked almost 2 full months. It was planned that way.
Giving illegals the right to work will create another problem. Those dirty jobs that Americans don't want to do will be vacated as soon as the bearer of that new green card can find a better job. That means your hot dog and bacon factory will need a fresh batch of illegals to replace the ones who got green cards and quit.
That dollar value menu at McDonalds comes with the hidden costs of education, medical care and lost taxes for those illegals who are working in agri business. The middle class pays for these costs in higher income and property taxes.
-
JRK
But if it weren't for immigrants, who would do the sh*t work?
JK
-
moshe
Business is crafty in that they have figured out how to hire workers on the cheap- paying them wages that are too low to support a family- and then the workers obtain government benefits to bridge the gap between their serf-like wages and the true market cost of that labor. Take that oxymoron, the "earned income tax credit", which nothing more than a a $3000 gift from the Government to minimum age workers to bring them closer to the $10/hr they really need to survive. Where did that $3000 come from?--Why, from increased taxes on the upper wage earners. The middle class should revolt and demand that employers pay the full cost of their labor, instead of having the middle class subsidize their extra profit.
One of these days we will see a workers revolt in America that will dwarf Egypt's protests. I wonder if our leaders in Washington DC will call this "democracy in action", when that happens to them. Obama never mentioned the words unemployed or unemployment one time in his state of the union address- the jobless have been thrown to the wolves. The dream act did garner a mention though.
-
journey-on
Question for anyone that might know:
Scenario: You are a businessman/woman investing and building in commercial ventures. For some of your projects, you hire a legitimate contractor who, in turn, sub-contracts part of the construction to "Jose Gutierez Builders" (fictional name). Jose is also legit, either by being a citizen or having his green card. But, Jose has lots of contacts in Mexico and around town among the illegals. He hires them to supplement his legitimate on-the-books employees, but pays the illegals under the table. Who should be responsible....you, the investor and commercial builder, or your legitimate contractor, or the sub-contractor?