Bunch of hypocrites.
Wait till your lettuce doubles in price (again) and all meatpacking moves abroad.
I call you hypocrites because you want to have your cake and eat it too.
You want slave labor because it lowers food prices and construction costs, and maximizes business profit.
At the same time, you want higher salaries for Americans.
So what does your government give you? What you deserve:
- Token enforcement, which makes for great press but doesn't severely impact business that hire illegals. Think about it: What percent of the illegal labor force are they deporting?
- Punishment for illegals, but not for those who hire them.
I'm not asking for amnesty. I'm asking for an immigration law that allows lawful entry of foreign workers and will make business pay fair wages. Remember, slaves can't demand fair wages. Then we will see if Americans are willing to take on those jobs, when wages are no longer depressed.
If they do, then we reduce the number of worker visas. If they don't, then stop complaining about foreigners "taking away our jobs".
Every time you complain about "law breaking immigrants", some of your immigrant ancestors roll in their graves.
Immigration Workplace Raids Will Lead to More Lost American Jobs
Immigration was a hot button issue during the early primary season when all the Republican candidates moved to Tancredo-like immigration policy positions. Before they ran for president, some had supported sanctuary cities (Giuliani); college tuition for children of undocumented immigrants (Huckabee); immigration reform (McCain); and even illegal immigrant lawn services (Romney). Immigration briefly flared up during the Democratic debates when Hillary Clinton reversed her position at least three times on state driver's licenses for illegals.
Currently, when the media's attention has been on Hillary Clinton courting her "hard working white" voters; Barack Obama racking up delegates and endorsements; and Bush/McCain trying to paint the Democrats as latter day Neville Chamberlains, the issue of immigration has fallen off the radar as a campaign issue.
Earlier this month, May Day rallies failed to attract the huge numbers of immigrant advocates, who turned out back when it was thought that comprehensive immigration reform would be passed by Congress. In the wake of the Congressional failure, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has been very active on two fronts: raiding workplaces, especially in the food industry, and building walls along our border with Mexico, in order to satisfy Lou Dobbs, Tom Tancredo, and our other 21st century nativists. Clearly, there are aliens who have committed violent crimes in this country and they should be deported. The faithful Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") agents who risk their lives to arrest these people are to be commended. But then there are aliens who are only criminalized because they have used false documents to secure employment and not because they have committed other crimes, like murder, robbery, rape, etc. In the past twelve months, Chertoff has raided meat packing and poultry processing plants (and immigrant homes) around the country, arresting hundreds of workers and charging them with felonious criminal offenses, such as identity theft and Social Security fraud, in addition to the civil violation of unlawful presence in the U.S. The reason for the felony charges is to make these people ineligible for a future legal return to our country.
Unfortunately, many Americans do not understand why these people cannot wait in line and come here legally in the first place. They do not realize that the legal "line" for low skilled workers is barely existent. Our legal immigration system favors highly skilled immigrants and family reunification for relatives of U.S. citizens. In the meantime, there will be unintended consequences of all of these raids - when so much of the campaign discussion is about the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas, commentators have not focused on one industry that has kept most of the jobs here - food processing and meat packing. Sure, food imports have risen dramatically but most food imports are cheaper ingredients for processed foods, fruits and vegetables, and seafood. The vast bulk of meatpacking and food manufacturing is still done here. But let's get real - meatpacking is a dangerous, physically demanding, and spiritually and emotionally difficult job - killing and butchering animals and poultry all day long is not something that most Americans raise their children to do. Make it impossible for meat packers and poultry processors to find workers here and they will be forced to move operations (and livestock and poultry raising) to Mexico.
Our meatpacking plants, from the early days of the stockyards in Chicago and Kansas City, were filled with immigrants - that is why Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle in 1906 - to gain sympathy for the plight of the immigrant workers. It was a side effect that his book created such a stir about the filthy conditions in the packing industry - which lead President Theodore Roosevelt to sign the federal Food and Drug Act the same year.
We know that many crops rot in our fields and orchards because farmers cannot find enough workers. Many will say the lack of workers is because the wages are so low - if they were raised - more Americans would pick crops and work in meat and poultry plants. This is true to some extent - one of the downsides of illegal immigration is that it has lowered wages for American born workers. But two wrongs don't make a right - the fact that we don't legally require living wages to be paid in this country and the fact that our immigration laws are totally out of synch with several realities (labor shortages, disparities between a rich country and a poor country sharing a 2,000 mile border, etc.) - does not make the current strategy of workplace and home raids and border walls either effective or humane.
In the meantime, kudos to the environmentalists and the Texas landowners who are suing Chertoff to try and block the construction of the border walls which are running roughshod over their property rights and our environmental laws, and which threaten to destroy many species of wildlife by cutting them off from rivers and streams in a desert area.
I remember, growing up in the 1960s, reading stories of the brave souls who tried to tunnel under or otherwise escape around the Berlin Wall into freedom in West Germany. Now we are like the East German Stasi - building a wall with our neighbor to the south, Mexico - instead of building bridges of cooperation like we have with Canada. My father, the son of Yugoslav immigrants, served in the U.S. Navy submarine service in WWII. He was captured and tortured by the Japanese. Yet he survived 18 months in a Japanese prison camp before the camp was liberated by U.S. Marines. My dad passed away in 1998 and so, thankfully, he does not have to read about Abu Grab, Guantanamo Bay, and the renditions, ghost prisoners, water boarding, and other cruel and unconstitutional acts conducted by the Bush Administration. Nor does he have to hear about the prisoners who have died and been mistreated while being held in immigration related detention. I know firsthand of what I speak, having represented asylum seekers who were held in our immigration prisons.
And yet, while all of this has been going on, the American public has been strangely passive. Organized labor has sat by while hundreds of factories close and millions of American jobs are shipped overseas. There have been no massive demonstrations against the Bush Administration's unconstitutional policies applied against immigrants subjected to warrantless, commando style raids of their homes and against "unlawful combatants" in the "war on terror."
In the 19th century, brave Union soldiers died on Civil War battlefields to free the slaves. Social reformers and labor leaders were beaten and murdered as they fought for the eight hour day and the end of child labor in our industrial factories. In the 20th century, fearless American soldiers shed their blood to protect us from imperialists, fascists and communists. We saw civil rights workers who were set upon by attack dogs and murdered as they defeated Jim Crow. In the 21st century, we have again seen selfless American soldiers fight to protect our country from Al Qaeda and other enemies. But what we have not seen are enough American citizens willing to fight to uphold the Constitution here at home.
Hopefully, the young people attracted to the candidacy of Barack Obama can bring our country back to its founding principles on both the home front and in our foreign policy. Also, if Barack Obama is our next President, I hope his first act will be to rename (and break up into smaller agencies), the "Department of Homeland Security" - which is far more reminiscent of the rise of the Nazis to power, that President Bush spoke of last week in Jerusalem, than anything Barack Obama or any Democrat has ever proposed for our foreign policy.
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You obviously don't know much about economics. When the illegals started packing meat did the price of meat go down? NO it went up. When they started to do construction work did the price of homes go down? NO they went up so don't give me this crap that illegals offer lower prices because they do not. There already ARE laws for illegals to get work permits to work in this country. However, they should only be granted for industries that Americans don't want to work such as agriculture. Businesses should NOT be allowed to turn away away willing American workers in favor of cheaper imported labor.
So, when illegals "invade" an industry and depress wages, the price of the manufactured product goes up? If true, whose fault is that? Consumers letting businesses charge more when production costs are lower...
And I am the one who doesn't know much about economics.
Who gives you the authority to say "Americans don't want to work in agriculture?" Americans want fair wages.
Illegals don't offer lower prices. Unfair worker conditions (at home and abroad) do. Where do you think cheap lettuce, dollar burgers and 20 cent tube socks come from?
I agree on one thing, though: Businesses should NOT be allowed to turn away willing American workers in favor of cheaper imported labor.
Tell that to your representative in Congress. Chances are he/she is a Republican. Good luck.
More immigration workplace raids will lead to more lost jobs for ILLEGAL immigrants. Boo Hoo!
Just to show you that most Republicans are nice people, I want to share my little letter to the editor with you"se:
Reader does not support amnesty for illegal immigrants
I watched Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., hard at work recently on C-Span, showing on his charts how seven million U.S. citizens are presently unemployed. He also showed how presently there are only four million jobs available in the United States.
How can Democrats push for the amnesty of 20 million illegal immigrants, while providing us with the best evidence against it?
Illegal immigrants are the biggest contributors to unemployment in the United States, and they are forcing many U.S. citizens into early retirement. Two illegal immigrants are working for the price of one American and with no employee benefits. They help the employer in the present and future.
My school taxes have doubled because of the illegal immigrants" many, many children in our public schools.
While our troops are bravely fighting for freedom in the Middle East, at home it appears freedom is free for illegal immigrants as they invade our nation.
The Democrats advocating for amnesty are saying that citizenship for illegal immigrants will cost them each a $5,000 fee. In reality, what these politicians are saying is that the lives of the brave heroes we lost in this war on terror are each only worth $5,000.
Employers will guarantee a living wage when the government guarantees them a profit.
What happened to JUST ENFORCING the immigration laws as they are NOW. FINE these employers for hiring illegals.
For all of you who don't know , you can keep track of what is going on with illegal immigration reforms (HAH) in Congress at
numbersusa.com.
From their page...................
(May 21) Today, the full Senate will continue debate on the Iraq war supplemental spending bill (H.R. 2642). A vote on the immigration-related portion of the bill, which include an amnesty for illegal alien agricultural workers and other measures that increase immigration levels, could occur as early as this morning. Please call your Senators now to urge them to oppose any immigration increases in the bill including so-called emergency agricultural workers, H-2B unskilled workers, and employment-based permanent workers.
Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121
Once again the Senate is breaking a bill into pieces so that some may vote yes on parts and no on others in order to pass all of it without regards to what the people think.
Don't know about the rest of you but I think this stinks of greed and votes.
And susie, in case you don't know ,Mexico is at war with the drug cartels as I write.The police force is quitting and giving control to the army because they can't win. We DON'T need that here in the states.
there are farm bills in the senate.Why isnt the illegal immigrants bill on those bills?
TODAY - Wednesday - Congress is voting on The Iraq Spending Bill but Sen. Feinstein (sp?) sneaked an attachment to the bill allowing amnesty for 1.5 MILLION illegals PLUS THEIR FAMLIES.
Call your senators and ask them to STRIP THE AMNESTY LANGUAGE from the Iraq Spending Bill BEFORE VOTING ON IT. It's an OUTRAGE that our congress would even CONSIDER helping illegals on the SAME BILL AS OUR MILITARY WHO ARE FIGHTING FOR US - NOT illegal aliens!
CALL TODAY and complain - or it we will have 'new' citizens - more cheap labor to compete with, but THIS TIME - they will be LEGAL!
Toll free switchboard to Congress 1-800-828-0498 - ask for your senator and ask the staffer who answers to tell your senator to strip the amnesty for illegals language from the Iraq Spending Bill.
PLEASE Call NOW and COMPLAIN NOW!
www.capsweb.org - Enter your zip code, SEND FREE FAXES via your computer to senators (FREE)
www.numbersusa.com - JOIN FREE and send FREE faxes
www.senate.gov - enter your zip code to get senators' email addresses
Sorry, but anyone who comes to our country illegally and commits a serious crime like identity theft is not a noble immigrant but a common criminal who should be either imprisoned or deported. No amount of spinning or framing the issue will change that. It is not and will never be inhumane to deport a felon.
Anyway, since you invoked Nazis you automatically lose the argument due to Godwin's Law.
I'm proud to see the response here to Susie's blog. Obviously, this has been my favorite rant for years now and I'm encouraged to see other posters espousing the same fixes I've advocated to solve this huge problem.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and it's lobby is fighting fiercely to protect corporate and agricultural "rights" to access of illegals. Reps like Feinstein and McCain recieve the largesse from intensive lobbying, pocketing outsize donations to delay, deny common sense solutions and instead, pen measures that fly in the face of the common good.
Although I look forward to Obama's administration, it's with misgivings, given his "compassion " towards illegals. I think the battle will get no easier once he takes the reins.
The country is damaged beyond repair, commercially speaking. Allowing business free reign, (and I mean reign!) since 1980 has been ruinous, whether we speak of immigration, outsourcing, union busting or corporate-written legislation. Only controversial and draconian measures have any chance of restoring this country at this point, I believe.
But to address the titular issue, here's what needs doing. Federal felony with mandatory sentencing for anyone hiring or providing housing to illegals. Retroactive abandonment of anchor baby provisions to 1986. Stop all benefits and entitlements for illegals save dire medical need, then deport. End all visa work programs. And I mean all.
We have to regain control of our country. Now.
Please, please urge everyone to write to your senators/congressmen and overturn HR 5660, the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000. That bill is directly responsible for the high
energy prices and housing troubles and banking problems. The high oil prices are due to this,
the future's market. Let us go back and trade oil the way it used to be traded in reality, not on
paper. Notice how quiet congress is on that subject, they are making loads of money off it.
prof. Michael Greenberger, a former board member of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, testified in front of the House Committe on Enrgy and Commerce Dept on Dec 14, last year and congress knows exactly what is ailing this country but won't act. Make them!
Sorry, no sympathy here. The very idea that you would write that the illegals can't afford to wait in line is an outrage. Out here in California the illegals have taken jobs from "hard working Americans" in the construction, electrical fields, man you can't even get a job hauling trash because it has been contracted out to illegals who only hire their own. And guess what? Alot of these jobs could go to OUR
native convicts once they have done their time, like it used to be. When i started in the work force during the summer doing road work, it was not uncommon at all for you to work with x-cons
who had decided to "go straight" and it was a living wage, if hard work. Now these guys won't get a look, because the illegals have taken the jobs that used to be done by them as a "new"start in life and consequently back to the joint they go. During the school year, a lot of us used to work at fast food places, motels, and as waiters/diswashers, it DOES build character and a RESPECT for work. Americans did these jobs before and STILL do where there is not a large pool of "illegal aliens" who under cut the value of our labor. Forget the lapel pin stuff, hire American, that shows me your patriotism.
OH and another thing, besides COSTING the U.S taxpayer far more than they put in, there is also this little tidbit.
According to banking sources and tracking of money leaving the U.S....FORTY FIVE BILLION DOLLARS is sent to Mexico EVERY YEAR.
That is 45 BILLION that is NOT being spent in the U.S.' economy.
Mexico has become nothing more than the world's largest welfare queen. AND yet it has some of the richest people in the world including the current champ of money.
See anything wrong here Susie?
AND do you get the responses? We are far and away a liberal blogging/news site and I don't see too many people sympathetic to your side of the argument. This country is hurting economically right now and the idea that someone is advocating giving MORE money and rights to people who have NO respect for our rights and laws is just pure foolishness.
You ever see the environmental damage the illegals do when crossing illegally? TONS and TONS of trash are hauled out every month because they could care less about our environment.
As well what is this nonsense about not being able to wait?
Let me ask you Susie and I dare you to answer honestly.
HOW MANY ILLEGALS should we let in?
Should we just open the borders and tell Mexico and all points south as well as the rest of the world's poor to just COME ON DOWN!?
So tell me would another twenty million illegals in the next few years be okay with you?
How about another 40 million illegals?
How about another ONE HUNDRED MILLION within ten years.
ALL of the poor, unskilled, non English speaking, no respect for our laws, refuse to learn the language, overcrowd our hospitals, schools and poor neighborhoods.
So tell us Susie what is the number before even you and the rest of the open borders and amnesty-for-all crowd realize that illegals and unlimited H1-B workers will further help to turn this country into another third world economy?
HOW MANY?
Am I on the right blog? Is this truly Huffington Post that I am reading? I was certain that there would be many on this thread who would agree with the writer and argue that we are too mean to illegal aliens and that they had a right to be here. I must admit that I am so glad to find that I finally agree with you people on an issue. Of course the government is NOT doing enough and employers should be held legally accountable for hiring these workers. Also I think that fair wages should be paid by employers but the flood of illegal immigrants artificially lowers the pay scale for all workers. People say that illegals do jobs Americans won't do. That's ridiculous. Case in point is the meat workers that the writer mentions. Meat packers use to make somewhere up around $20/hr when adjusted for inflation. They use to be one of the highest paid workers in the manufacturing industry. Now meat packers make minimum wage. Why? Because the meat industry has replaced American workers with cheaper illegal workers from south of the border. In California we have illegals doing plumbing, electrical, roofing, flooring, construction, truck driving etc. These were all once highly paid trades. You can still make money but you basically have to work for yourself and compete with the undercutting wages paid to illegal workers. I'm glad that my fellow countrymen on the other side of the aisle are recognizing this.
I agree with you, torrep, I thought the majority of liberal posters on here would want to support these illegal aliens and their future familes via our welfare dollars from cradle to grave. Our country's once decent-paying jobs are being undercut by these illegal aliens snapping them up at half the 'used to be' wage rates.
Yes, you are on the right blog. It is preposterous to assume just because someone is a liberal or progressive we invite illegal immigration. We realize we have paid a high price in jobs, income, and taxes. The only benefiters are corporate America.
I notice my comment about all those Texas 'environmentalists' got nixed.
Oh well. I'll try again.
Property rights? Environmental damage? Endangered species?
Are you really buying into this nonsense?
They are being PAID by the cartels to fight the fence.
Task for you Susie: WHO IS PAYING THE LAWYERS FOR ALL THESE TEXANS SO CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR PROPERTY RIGHTS???
CLUE FOR YOU: THE CARTELS , THAT'S WHO. FOLLOW THE MONEY!
If you're a "humanist" then you should demand the border be sealed!
No "but" about it. The open border KILLS people.
I think from reading the comments here...Susie baby got skunked. Do your homework next Susie.
Like so many, she just doesn't get it.
It's not about meat-packing plants or the poor immigrant trying to better themselves.
It's about the strongest nation on earth being slowly compromised by ruthless criminal gangs willing to kill anyone at anytime to keep themselves in business.
It is beyond belief that America will soon be owned by incredibly wealty and incredibly evil
criminal gangs.
And we will let it happen. All in the name of a misguided compassion.
When Mexican police officers are asking for asylum in America, something is terribly, terribly wrong.
I am a humanist, but undocumented illegal immigrants are destroying the fiber and the living environment of the area in which we reside.
We had the trial of an unodocumented worker end today in Houston, and the man had been convicted of drunk driving several times, and then sexual assault of a child and was finally deported back to Mexico.The owner of the landscaping company which had employed him through all these horrible crimes paid for a coyote to smuggle him back into the country. He knew he was a criminal and paid for him to come back because he worked cheap. Then the guy shot a policeman in the head seven times and confessed as though he was confessing to stealing candy.
Then another drunken, illegal immigrant drove his eighteen wheeler with a blood alcohol over .25 and it overturned on a family in their vehicle and trapped the father and two toddlers who burned to death in front of the mother. The undocumented workers family repeatedly made statements that he shouldn't be tried for it, because it was an "accident" and he had a family to support. Okay by them that he murdered three innocent people.
Then, we had two undocumented workers from Mexico go on a binge and carjack several women at knifepoint, rob convenience stores, and finally murder a mother who fought their hijacking because her four month old was in the vehicle.
We have more than enough crime without importing more of it.
I am astounded that this writer thinks that ID theft, fraud, perjury, countrefeiting, illegal entry, immigration fraud, and a host of other CRIMES should be forgiven. Plenty of Americans commit those crimes and are sentenced to PRISON terms. Why should illegals get a break on such crimes? This is OUTRAGEOUS! If they are of draft age, they also need to be charged with violating Selective Service law too! Think your daddy would LOVE these DRAFT DODGERS TOO?
The FACT is that a number of years ago, the average wage for packing house workers was $19/hr, now with all the illegals, the average wage is $9/hr. She also forgets that the MAJORITY of the workers there are AMERICANS as are those who work in agriculture. THEY are the ones who are getting SCREWED by the illegals and the employers who are using them as SCABS! I am a long time liberal, and I HATE SCABS! This writer is speaking for strikebreakers and in favor of the employers against the workers of this country. THAT is NOT A LIBERAL!
Well said. I always wondered about the draft. If you are in this country then you are illegible for the draft. You want the benefits? You pay the price.
Amnesty for illegal immigrants has once again reared it's ugly head with Senator Feinstein (D-CA) slipping in her amnesty for agricultural workers into the Iraq Supplemental Spending bill being voted on this week in the Senate. This would amount to amnesty for over 3 million illegal aliens. Her amendment is not only not germane to the bill's intent, polls indicate 80% of Americans are opposed to amnesty on principle.
Unless Americans immediately, once again, pepper the Senate with complaints, amnesty could come to pass. Want to fight against sellout politicians, illegal immigration and amnesty? Here's how:
http://www.alipac.us/article-3191--0-0.html
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-115596.html
http://www.alipac.us/article3201.html
I""mmigration was a hot button issue during the early primary season when all the Republican candidates moved to Tancredo-like immigration policy positions. Before they ran for president, some had supported...immigration reform (McCain)"
This is one of the funniest things I've read today. Do you know what "reforms" McCain wants? You think those are Tancredo-like? Talk about a 180-degree misunderstanding!!
I think the best way to determine where people really stand on this issue is to import a few thousand Indian journalists and pundits.
I understand they speak very good english and they work cheap.
Excellent idea! I love when academic economists advocate freely moving labor across borders and want a free market in labor. My reply to these conservatives is that they should do what doctors do when they develop a new vaccine. They test it on themselves FIRST!
My solution for such economists is that they should advocate that ALL economics profs all over the world should be allowed into the US to seek jobs if they speak English, which nearly ALL do. Tenure should be waived if they will accept wages about half of what the current profs get now. THEN we will see if it works as well as they say. Since they are highly educated, they will be a real plus for our economy and will use little social services.
If they refuse to sign such a document petitioning the government for such a thing, then they should be FIRED since they will be advoacting something that THEY do NOT believe to be true.
Teaching falsehoods is grounds for dismissal and should be prosecuted by the faculty.
A good idea. Will show them that this is all about making rich people richer. In fact, Indians will improve reporting being without American cultural biases and hang-ups. However, don't believe anything they write about Pakistan.
The poster has fallen prey to the mis-information of those who benefit from cheap illegal labor... Sure, the crops will rot and the meat won't be packed because the employer can't find laborerers that will WORK FOR SUBSTANDARD WAGES... That's the root of this issue. Those who hire illegals don't hire them because they work for wages that American workers will work for NO, they work for wages and benefits that are far inferior to what American can/will accept... When ICE finally sweeps these illegals from the payrolls, those unemployed Americans will again find good paying job with good bennys in the ag and meat processing industries... It's all a matter of supply and demand... Abundant supplies of cheap labor necessarily drive down wages and benefits... Eliminate the source of cheap labor (illegal immigrants) and you see wages and bennys return to their appropriate levels.
Posted May 20, 2008 | 10:39 AM (EST)