Workers Face Difficult Choices

[Wretched Wrench]

There's a good reason why the US continues to allow immigrant labor in - to support the growing amounts of social responsibilities to older Americans that the US has. You cannot stop the country from growing and expect seniors to continue to get social security and pensions.

[post="184211"][/post]​

Unfortunately, a great number of immigrants work "off the books" and pay no taxes. Many more have fraudulent SS numbers. And many send money to their mother country, rather than spending it here and helping our economy.

So, it is not all good.

 

[Garfield1966]

Unfortunately, a great number of immigrants work "off the books" and pay no taxes. Many more have fraudulent SS numbers. And many send money to their mother country, rather than spending it here and helping our economy.

So, it is not all good.

[post="184242"][/post]​

I don't think anyone said it was good. All we are saying is that is the reallity and that closing off the border wil cause more problems than most people are aware.

 

[local 12 proud]

Unfortunately, a great number of immigrants work "off the books" and pay no taxes. Many more have fraudulent SS numbers. And many send money to their mother country, rather than spending it here and helping our economy.

So, it is not all good.

[post="184242"][/post]​

Illegal Immigration is Killing America
Tim Bueler

We should immediately close our borders to all illegal aliens and deport those who are already inside the United States, including the millions who are illegally in this country on expired visas. Liberals welcome every Muhammed, Jamal, and Jose who wishes to leave his third world state and come to America -- mostly illegally -- to rip off our healthcare system, balkanize our language, and destroy our political system. According to the latest news polls, 77% of Americans do not think our government is doing enough to control our borders or screen foreign visitors. We must increase our Border Patrol, by means of military assistance. This is the government's duty.

The U.S. Constitution states in Article IV, section 4: "The United States shall protect each of [the states] against invasion." The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the population of illegal aliens inside the United States is at 12-13 million. I do not want to hear the same old excuse from the left, which is that illegal immigrants do the jobs that Americans will not do. Who do you think did these jobs before these illegal aliens? American's did!

Corporations are addicted to cheap labor, and are the ones who are benefiting most. But their benefit comes at the American taxpayer's expense when you consider that the American taxpayer is subsidizing the labor costs of greedy corporations by supplying their illegal foreign workers and their families with welfare, free education, free medical, and housing assistance.

Most illegal aliens do not receive a typical paycheck with tax deductions. They are paid in cash, and do not pay taxes. Even when they do pay taxes, their income is not enough to pay for medical expenses and all the expenses for all the children they give birth to. You don't have to look very far. Just visit any county hospital. There, illegal immigrant women are having thousands of children per year free of charge. They can't afford them once they give birth, but that doesn't stop them from having even more children!

Most learn how to work the system so that they receive cash assistance and food stamps. Illegal aliens give political power to special interest groups. Many illegal immigrants vote fraudulently! Illegal voters have upset some elections. Liberal politicians that represent areas of large illegal population vote in the interests of illegal aliens since they are the ones they represent.

In California, it is clear that democrat politicians like Gray Davis want laws changed in the interests of illegal aliens. Giving illegal aliens driver's licenses will make enforcement of our immigration laws more difficult, while giving immigrants even more rights then they already have, and making it harder to detect them. The message to Mr. and Mrs. illegal alien is that they can change the law by breaking the law.

Society must assume that anyone who would break the law and drives without a license would continue to break driving and other laws even if they were licensed, and most would not be any safer drivers.

It is laughable to think that these illegal aliens are going to pay for car insurance. The illegal aliens that cross our northern and southern border are unsophisticated, poor, and uneducated, who do not in any way hold to strong family values or the Catholic faith of our valuable legal immigrants. This is evident by U.S. statistics showing that while unwed teenage pregnancy in the U.S. is decreasing as a whole, Latino unwed teenage pregnancy is on the rise.

The illegal immigrants of today are not all honest, hard working, American dream seekers. The record numbers of dead-beat dads who walk away from their responsibilities to their children by leaving their homeland and simply crossing the border demonstrates this.

Each year, the Border Patrol makes millions of apprehensions of people who flagrantly violate our nation's laws by unlawfully crossing U.S. borders to work and to receive publicly funded services, often with the aid of fraudulent documents. Such entry is a misdemeanor and, if repeated, becomes punishable as a felony. In addition to sneaking into the country in violation of the immigration law that requires that aliens be documented for legal entry, others enter with legal documentation and then violate the terms on which they have been admitted by taking jobs that are not authorized, or overstaying the authorized period of stay in the country. Both types of illegal immigrants are deportable under Immigration and Nationality Act Section 237 (a)(1)(B) which says: "Any alien who is present in the United States in violation of this Act or any other law of the United States is deportable."

We cannot provide high quality education, health care, and retirement security for our own people if we continue to bring in endless numbers of poor, unskilled immigrants. Job competition by the souring number of illegal immigrants willing to work below minimum wages and working conditions, results in lower wages for all hard working American workers - a category which includes many, many legal immigrants of all races, from all countries.

 

[local 12 proud]

I don't think anyone said it was good. All we are saying is that is the reallity and that closing off the border wil cause more problems than most people are aware.

[post="184303"][/post]​

Who killed California?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: July 30, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.


With Gov. Gray Davis facing recall, a budget $38 billion in deficit, and a bond rating dropped three notches by Standard & Poor's to near junk-bond status, the lowest of all 50 states, the Golden State is no more.

Who killed the goose that laid the golden eggs?

Certainly, Davis, who misled voters about the gravity of his budget crisis in 2002, and won re-election by demonizing his GOP rivals, deserves his 20 percent approval rating. But Gray Davis did not kill California.

The United States government did. For what killed California as the golden land was massive and unrestricted immigration from the Third World, an unrepelled invasion from Mexico, and a failure to protect the U.S. manufacturing base and the wages of America's workers.

During and after World War II, California became a bastion of our defense, aerospace, auto and TV industries. Hundreds of thousands were hired to become the highest-paid manufacturing workers on earth, giving California the world's highest standard of living. The average California wage once stood at 130 percent of the average U.S. wage.

In the 1970s and 1980s, however, Japan, a free rider on America's defense, began to engage in predatory trade, attacking and killing, one by one, U.S. industries and capturing U.S. markets with subsidized exports.

California suffered first. Our TV industry was wiped out. Our auto industry was reeling when Ronald Reagan stepped in to impose quotas on Japanese cars. Reagan also intervened to save the semiconductor industry, Big Steel and Harley-Davidson. Unlike today's free-trade fanatics, Ronald Reagan put America first.

But it was under Bush-Clinton-Bush that California was irrevocably sacrificed to the gods of the Global Economy.

During Bush I's term, millions of Mexicans began to flee north to seek jobs and take advantage of the health care, welfare and free education American citizens provided for their people. For one-third of the illegals, California became the destination of choice.

What the U.S. government should have done was obvious, and was demanded by Americans: Enforce our immigration laws, halt the invasion, restrict immigration from the Third World. But America's politicians – out of fear of being branded xenophobic and to curry favor with Big Business, which benefits from an endless supply of low-wage labor – did almost nothing to protect America.

Californians tried to defend their state. As illegals poured in by the hundreds of thousands yearly, they passed Proposition 187, denying social welfare benefits to illegal aliens who had broken the law and broken into the United States.

The open-borders coalition, repudiated and routed, ran to a federal judge, who annulled the voters' victory. Davis then refused to appeal the overturning of 187 to the Supreme Court. Hispanic voters rewarded him in 2002, and California state and local budgets continued to hemorrhage.

By the 1990s, an exodus of taxpayers had begun. Fed up with being fleeced to subsidize illegal aliens, Californians began leaving for Nevada, Idaho, Arizona and Colorado. Two million native-born Californians left the state in the 1990s, as immigrants, legal and illegal, sent poverty rates soaring in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties.

This, then, is what killed California:

First, open borders. By failing to enforce our immigration laws, America now hosts 31 million legal immigrants and their children and 10 million illegals, most of them net tax consumers. California got the lion's share.

Second, global free trade and the trade deficits it produced, now running at an annual rate of $562 billion in May. This has killed millions of manufacturing jobs, as thousands of companies closed factories here and shifted plants to Mexico, Asia and China.

The Third Worldization of California is now far advanced. Yet those responsible, Bush Republicans as well as Clinton Democrats, still cannot see what they have done to our country.

But what is happening in California is not confined to California. It is happening across America. Unless we elect a president who will enforce our immigration laws and defend our borders, unless we find a Congress that will jettison the free-trade madness that is denuding America of her manufacturing, what has happened to California will happen here.

President Bush appears oblivious to it all – but then, so did his father before him.

 

[limit]

There's a good reason why the US continues to allow immigrant labor in - to support the growing amounts of social responsibilities to older Americans that the US has. You cannot stop the country from growing and expect seniors to continue to get social security and pensions. The EU realized this and have been welcoming (annexing) eastern European countries into the EU. The US has no choice to allow immigrant workers in or the pension cuts will be even deeper than what has been proposed.

[post="184211"][/post]​

You must be on some pretty strong medication.

 

[Wretched Wrench]

I wish some of you folks would knock off the personal insults and attacks.

Disagree, by all means, but stick to the issues.

 

[Garfield1966]

Illegal Immigration is Killing America
Tim Bueler

We should immediately close our borders to all illegal aliens and deport those who are already inside the United States, including the millions who are illegally in this country on expired visas. Liberals welcome every Muhammed, Jamal, and Jose who wishes to leave his third world state and come to America -- mostly illegally -- to rip off our healthcare system, balkanize our language, and destroy our political system. According to the latest news polls, 77% of Americans do not think our government is doing enough to control our borders or screen foreign visitors. We must increase our Border Patrol, by means of military assistance. This is the government's duty.

The U.S. Constitution states in Article IV, section 4: "The United States shall protect each of [the states] against invasion." The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the population of illegal aliens inside the United States is at 12-13 million. I do not want to hear the same old excuse from the left, which is that illegal immigrants do the jobs that Americans will not do. Who do you think did these jobs before these illegal aliens? American's did!

Corporations are addicted to cheap labor, and are the ones who are benefiting most. But their benefit comes at the American taxpayer's expense when you consider that the American taxpayer is subsidizing the labor costs of greedy corporations by supplying their illegal foreign workers and their families with welfare, free education, free medical, and housing assistance.

Most illegal aliens do not receive a typical paycheck with tax deductions. They are paid in cash, and do not pay taxes. Even when they do pay taxes, their income is not enough to pay for medical expenses and all the expenses for all the children they give birth to. You don't have to look very far. Just visit any county hospital. There, illegal immigrant women are having thousands of children per year free of charge. They can't afford them once they give birth, but that doesn't stop them from having even more children!

Most learn how to work the system so that they receive cash assistance and food stamps. Illegal aliens give political power to special interest groups. Many illegal immigrants vote fraudulently! Illegal voters have upset some elections. Liberal politicians that represent areas of large illegal population vote in the interests of illegal aliens since they are the ones they represent.

In California, it is clear that democrat politicians like Gray Davis want laws changed in the interests of illegal aliens. Giving illegal aliens driver's licenses will make enforcement of our immigration laws more difficult, while giving immigrants even more rights then they already have, and making it harder to detect them. The message to Mr. and Mrs. illegal alien is that they can change the law by breaking the law.

Society must assume that anyone who would break the law and drives without a license would continue to break driving and other laws even if they were licensed, and most would not be any safer drivers.

It is laughable to think that these illegal aliens are going to pay for car insurance. The illegal aliens that cross our northern and southern border are unsophisticated, poor, and uneducated, who do not in any way hold to strong family values or the Catholic faith of our valuable legal immigrants. This is evident by U.S. statistics showing that while unwed teenage pregnancy in the U.S. is decreasing as a whole, Latino unwed teenage pregnancy is on the rise.

The illegal immigrants of today are not all honest, hard working, American dream seekers. The record numbers of dead-beat dads who walk away from their responsibilities to their children by leaving their homeland and simply crossing the border demonstrates this.

Each year, the Border Patrol makes millions of apprehensions of people who flagrantly violate our nation's laws by unlawfully crossing U.S. borders to work and to receive publicly funded services, often with the aid of fraudulent documents. Such entry is a misdemeanor and, if repeated, becomes punishable as a felony. In addition to sneaking into the country in violation of the immigration law that requires that aliens be documented for legal entry, others enter with legal documentation and then violate the terms on which they have been admitted by taking jobs that are not authorized, or overstaying the authorized period of stay in the country. Both types of illegal immigrants are deportable under Immigration and Nationality Act Section 237 (a)(1)(B) which says: "Any alien who is present in the United States in violation of this Act or any other law of the United States is deportable."

We cannot provide high quality education, health care, and retirement security for our own people if we continue to bring in endless numbers of poor, unskilled immigrants. Job competition by the souring number of illegal immigrants willing to work below minimum wages and working conditions, results in lower wages for all hard working American workers - a category which includes many, many legal immigrants of all races, from all countries.

[post="184328"][/post]​

Local,

The immigration thing has been addressed already. We may want to close our borders, it may sound like a good idea, and it is surely a great vote getter for politicians but it won’t work. It is not practical not feasible as far as I am concerned. The cost to implement what would be need to close off the boarders would probably run into the 100’s of millions of dollars. Don’t forget that you need to have personnel to monitor and patrol the boarder on a 24/7/365 basis.

So, you have over come all the financial problems and you have your wall built. Who is going to perform all the “menial†jobs that you have just opened up? And assuming you find someone, will they accept the pay that the migrant worker earned or will he want more? If he wants more, how much are you willing to pay for your orange, tomato, beef … etc. Are you willing to pay 2X, 3X or 4X what you pay today?

There was an article in Time recently (I’ll see if I can find it at work) about the INS. There was some law where if a company used illegal labor, they would be fined $10,000 per violation. The INS was all set to move in but it was quashed. Seems the powers that be were going go loose too much money.

Too many on this board find it very easy to place blame and come up with an “easy fix†but there is no easy fix. Every action has a reaction. Closing boarders may fix on problem but it opens up 5 more. Same thing with AMR. Lots of back seat drivers here telling management how stupid they are.

Low cost labor is here to stay. Either find a way to do with less or find a career that can command a better salary. Just saying that you want you old wages back ain’t going to happen. People in Hell want ice water but I don’t see that happening either.

 

[High Iron]

So, you have over come all the financial problems and you have your wall built. Who is going to perform all the “menialâ€￾ jobs that you have just opened up? And assuming you find someone, will they accept the pay that the migrant worker earned or will he want more? If he wants more, how much are you willing to pay for your orange, tomato, beef … etc. Are you willing to pay 2X, 3X or 4X what you pay today?

Sooner or later this same argument is trotted out, but it obscures the fact that illegal aliens are adding downward pressure on wages. Of course "nobody here wants those jobs"- since the income has been skewed downward by an artificial supply of labor. Absent this pressure ( absent the illegals ) the resulting shorter supply of labor will put upward pressure on wages. At this point these jobs would be more attractive to those citizens here. Isn't that the "free market"?...or is the business lobby saying they can only benefit with US immigration laws being broken? The ends justify the means...right?

As for it's effects on prices? Well that's the "free market" as well. The resulting increase in the workforce's income ( and having more of them ) would add fuel to the economy...or do the economic elite believe that they themselves only drive the economy? When the wage rates were lowered due to artificial means ( increase in supply from illegal immigration ), how much of that savings was to fatten bottom lines than lower prices?....and in any case those lower prices would surely be needed by those indiginous employees here who' have had their purchasing power decreased through the lower prevailing wage rates. "Consumers" need to be workers first, you see.

 

[LiveInAHotel]

I don't think anyone said it was good. All we are saying is that is the reallity and that closing off the border wil cause more problems than most people are aware.

[post="184303"][/post]​

It comments like that and people like you who need to be sent south of the border. :angry:

 

[Garfield1966]

High Iron,

I agree with you that the migrant work force is depressing wages. I disagree that absent a migrant work force the wages for the labor performed by them will increase. I think that the middle and lower classes would be unfairly hurt economically. The cost would be such that and apple or orange would be considered a luxury. The American people expect certain things. When those expectations are not met, they get mad, and when they get mad, politicians get nervous. Look at fuel prices, fuel hit $2.50, all of a sudden the government steps in and brings prices down. If apples go up to $2 a lb, along with oranges, lemons … and what ever else you care to add in, the people are going to freak out. They do not have that kind of buying power. The agricultural lobby would never let this happen. There is far too much money at stake. I will grant you it is an interesting idea that wages as well as buying power would increase. I do not think we will ever find out though.

But all this is moot since you have not provided a way to build that wall of yours. Yes I left that one open in my argument but that is something that cannot be overlooked.

Look, I agree with you that it a problem. I agree with you that wages are being affected. I agree with you that it should be changed. I guess I disagree with you that it can be changed. Perhaps I have grown cynical in my old age but just as I believe that the corruption in government and in management (in almost all corporations) is too engrained to change, I feel the same applies to the immigration problems we face as well. The cost is to high and there is far too much at stake for it to succeed.

 

[local 12 proud]

garfield, look if those 19 hijackers on 9/11 had been of mexican decent or had merely crossedover the rio grande in order to carry out that horrible attack you can bet we would find a way to close that border. we dont need to build a wall we need to enforce the law and possibly enhance our border patrol with national guard troops. you also eluded this would be too costly, well how costly is it to secure iraq? stop and consider for a moment how easy it is for poor illegal mexicans to find thier way across every day by the hundreds, now if they can do it how much easier would it be for a well funded suicidal terrorist to slip across?our very national security is at stake and our government is turning a blind eye. 3000 lost on sept. 11 2001 and it did'nt change a damn thing on our borders, next time it could be 3,000,000 will we act then?

 

[Garfield1966]

garfield, look if those 19 hijackers on 9/11 had been of mexican decent or had merely crossedover the rio grande in order to carry out that horrible attack you can bet we would find a way to close that border. we dont need to build a wall we need to enforce the law and possibly enhance our border patrol with national guard troops. you also eluded this would be too costly, well how costly is it to secure iraq? stop and consider for a moment how easy it is for poor illegal mexicans to find thier way across every day by the hundreds, now if they can do it how much easier would it be for a well funded suicidal terrorist to slip across?our very national security is at stake and our government is turning a blind eye. 3000 lost on sept. 11 2001 and it did'nt change a damn thing on our borders, next time it could be 3,000,000 will we act then?

[post="184552"][/post]​

Local,

No argument there. I agree with you 100%. Do you ever read Tom Clancy? His latest novel, “Teeth of the Tigerâ€￾ is about that very thing. Terrorist come across the border and kill Americans in mid-town USA.

Enforce what law. The immigrants are here illegally, we do not know who or where they are.

I think I am missing your point on the cost comparison with the “wallâ€￾ and Iraq.

I believe that the US government places a dollar value on our lives. 3,000 do not cost enough to close our borders because the cost to manufacturing is worth more than that. I do not agree with that assessment but I believe that is how government looks at things. That is why Ford never fixed the Pinto till they were busted. It was more cost effective to let a few die rather than fix the problem and effect their bottom line.

I do not know how many people must die for our government to act. I fear it is far more then you or I are willing to accept though.

 

[Garfield1966]

Some interesting, if not scary points from the Times article. Sep 20 issue for those of you playing the home game.

Number of illegals coming to the US in 2004 --- Over 3 million.

Number living in US --- Est 15 million

Of the people apprehended by the US boarder Patrol over 56,000 were from locations other than Mexico. Based on est, over 190,000 escape capture.

To patrol the 1,951 mile boarder, there are only 9,900 officers

Amount of money sent back to Mexico by illegal workers here in the US $13 Billion

From Oct 1 2003 to July 20 2004, 9,051 people were stopped crossing into the US with criminal records, of those 378 had active warrants, 2 for homicide.

Of the 400,000 aliens ordered to be deported, 80,000 have criminal records. The Home Land Security Dept does not have clue where ANY of them are, criminal or non criminal.

At least 4 million people here in the US on tourist or education visas, have decided to ignore immigration laws and stay permanently.



Now for the money part of it.

In 2002, the INS issued fines to only 13 companies who used knowingly illegal workers

IN 1986 the Immigration reform and control act was passed. As part of the program was to set up a telephone verification system. 18 years later it has still not been set up.\

In 1998, the INS launched Operation Vanguard. 24,000 hiring records were subpoenaed and 4,700 discrepancies were discovered. Plans were in the works to do the same in other states but the meat packers of Nebraska, Hispanic groups, farmers, community organizations, LOCAL POLITICIANS AND STATE CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATIONS forced the INS to back off.

From 1992 to 2002, INS investigations dropped from 7,053 to 2,061. Arrests at job sites fell from 8,027 in 1992 to 451 in 2002.

Orders levying fines went from 1,063 in 1992 to (drum roll please) 13 in 2002.

Pres Bush, to justify the immigration amnesty worker program said “I put forth what I think is a very reasonable proposal, and humane proposal, one that is in fact not amnesty, but, in fact, recognizes that there are good, honorable, hardworking, people here DOING JOBS AMERICANS WON’T DO.â€￾

The article does suggest that the reason Americans will not do those jobs is due to the low wages.

 

[Wretched Wrench]

Some interesting, if not scary points from the Times article.

[post="184833"][/post]​

Uh, which Times? Sounds like it is worth reading the whole article.

 

[Garfield1966]

Uh, which Times? Sounds like it is worth reading the whole article.

[post="184878"][/post]​

Time magazine Sep 20 issue.