Why don't we just call the illegal immigration debate the "Keep The Mexicans Out" debate?

[Gman]

Let's quit beating around the bush and denying the existence of a giant brown elephant in the room. This is all about keeping the Mexicans out of the US, period stop. People don't like it that Mexican-Hispanics speak Spanish in front of them because they think they're talking about them. Nor do people like it that Mexican-Hispanics do not assimilate well into American society. Nor do people like it that they're just not white. We fear that which we do not understand.

You might say, "Well, they broke the law.", or "They should wait their turn in line." If you feel this way or have other points to make that mirror the RW talking points you're buying into their racism and allowing the wedge to be driven right into this Democratic Party by Karl Rove et al.

Wedge issue? Of course this is a wedge issue. Sealing the border and national security/immigration are not about those things. THIS IS ABOUT HISPANICS (AMERICANS OF MEXICAN DESCENT) VOTING FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND HOW TO KEEP THEM FROM VOTING. That's it! The GOP knows it's days are numbered unless they do something real soon. Look at the census figures being thrown around the last few days.

Connect the dots. Look at what's going on in Texas with the picture ID and proof of citizenship required for voting. Who is least likely to have this (besides me)? Poor Mexican-Hispanics, of course. Look at what Gonzales' DOJ is doing with voting rights and malicious prosecution of innocent people for voter fraud. Look at the suppression of voter registration drives. Look what went on in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006 as far as suppressing as much minority vote (including AA's) as possible. The immigration debate is NOT about secure borders. It's all about keeping "those Mexicans" out and keeping any more Mexican-Hispanics from voting for Democrats. There is an old truism that Democrats pray for sunshine on election day and Republics pray for rain. High turnout favor Democrats. Everyone, including Republics knows this.

If this was truly and sincerely about stopping illegal immigration, then the debate would not include $700 million for a fence, it would include $700 million put into creating jobs in Mexico that are comparable in pay to jobs in America. Pay a decent wage to people in Mexico that they can survive on and they will STOP COMING! Gee, what a concept. Set up a system of tax incentives for US corporations to create good paying jobs in Mexico and invest the $700 million in grants to small, medium and large businesses to increase production, increase their payrolls and pay better wages. It's not hard to imagine that Mexico just might start seeing an influx of illegal aliens from the U.S.

In fact, the maquilladora projects were originally intended to do just this, provide good jobs to Mexicans and thereby curtail illegal immigration. However, this ended up being bastardized. What happened is the corporations closed their good factories with well paying jobs in the US and sent those factories to Mexico as maquilladoras and paid people $1 a day. It sure made the shareholders happy. And they destroyed places like Flint, MI. But now even the maquilladoras are going. They're leaving for China which pay even less.

So since there is no talk about investing in the infrastructure of Mexico, I can only assume no one in DC is sincere about stopping or at least curtailing immigration as much as they are making sure as few Mexican-Hispanics register to vote and vote for Democrats.

This is a wedge issue, people. Wise up and don't play the other guy's game.

[Quantess]

1. No, that's not "what it's all about".

Besides, Mexicans are already here, legally. That's not the issue.
Hasn't it already been shown that's NOT what the illegal immigration issue is "all about"?

[Gman]

2. This fact is being obscured in the rhetoric

and nothing else has been shown except exploitation of Xenophobic people. If they're serious about stopping or curtailing illegal immigration, invest in Mexico so they can provide good jobs.

[EFerrari]

3. Yes! We're already here LEGALLY! Heads Up!

Great post, Gman. You are right and factor in, BushCo messing with Mexican elections so the elites seat their unelected reps -- sort of like we do.

/oops

[Gman]

5. My post #2 was supposed to be back to you...

[Warren Stupidity]

75. Hasn't it already been shown that's NOT what the illegal immigration issue is "all about"?

No.

[unlawflcombatnt]

154. Yes, it has

That's all the open borders/amnesty advocates have left in their arsenal of stupid arguments. They have no facts and no logic supporting them. All they have left is the phony "race card", so they dishonestly play it as often as they can.

It's all about cheap labor, and undercutting legal American wages. And every open borders/amnesty proponent knows it. It has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with illegality and wage suppression of American workers.

[Madspirit]

4. As a Texan

...and someone with many illegal friends, I totally agree. This is about racism and xenophobia. My Mexican friends are the most hard working people I have EVER known. They come here for a better life for themselves and their families.
Lee

[Gman]

8. I talked last week with an "exotic dancer" while in the Rio Grande Valley

this girl was quite intelligent, owned her own business and danced at night to raise capital for her business. She is also illegal and said she can't borrow money to grow her business because she has no social security number. She employs 5 or 6 people who are contractors for her. I advised her (as is my business as a consultant) to form an LLC, get a tax ID number, build the business' credit rating then have the business borrow to grow her business.

Just like you say. They just want to live a good life.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

128. I could sure use your services right now!...

I'm trying to advise my boss (an Independant Contractor) on how to get his paperwork and records straight. I know what he needs to do, and I tell him, but it never gets done. AGGGGHHH!

Do you have clients that drive you crazy like that?

[Robson]

11. Their gain (the US rich, illegal immigrants & the Mexican elite) is our pain.

The illegal immigrants' gain is the average Americans' pain.....that is unless you happen to be big business or own a restaurant, landscaping business, construction, etc..... then our pain is inversely proportional to your gain in profits.

This agenda is about exploitation of cheap labor to the benefit of the haves of America, and to the detriment of the have nots.

Everything you say positive about your illegal friends might be true.....but they're still illegal and their presence here is costing average citizens plenty. They cost us lowered wages, more taxes for schools and other social costs, increased healthcare insurance costs, and a reduction in the ability for average Americans to have anything left to send their children to college or save for retirement.

No, this is Mexico's problem because their elite take everything for themselves. We should help the Mexican government mend it's ways, but the burden of their system should not be put on average US citizens that are already be screwed. Have the likes of Carlos Slim and his many fellow Mexican billionaires pay for this.

You may wish to read this book. http://www.amazon.com/Daniela-Rossell-Famosas-Mexico-1994-2001/dp/8475065198

[EFerrari]

12. You can't get a living wage put into law and you blame

undocumented workers? :wow:

[Robson]

22. Without illegal immigrants there would be no need for minimum wage...the market would have it at $15

That is a fact. If there were no illegal immigrants distorting the labor market with oversupply, there would be no need for a minimum wage law.

The law of supply and demand would have the lowest paid workers in America earning $15-20 hr. These are jobs that can't be outsourced.

The illegal immigrant scam is a very successful manipulation of the system to the benefit of the globalist elite and many have bought it lock stock and barrel. The smartest people can be manipulated by shrewd if one appeals to a certain sensitivities. Some even try to appeal to our make it a racist issue ....that it isn't.

[EFerrari]

27. So, you are now blaming undocumented workers

for our failure to compensate workers? :wow:

[Robson]

33. Yes - they represent oversupply and a willingness to work for less

There is no other way to answer it. They are used by big business to screw Americans.

[EFerrari]

37. Let me ask the question a different way.

Why aren't you making common cause with other workers? That strategy has worked very well in Los Angeles, for example, where unions are recruiting undocumented workers to add to their clout?

:shrug:

[MonkeyFunk]

68. Other countries

don't all have problems with illegal immigrants.

In which of those countries are dishwashers making $20/hour?

[TahitiNut]

124. Other countries use national identity cards of some kind.

In nations with National Health Care, it's clear - people identify themselves as entitled by the 'documentation' they provide. We have a well-grounded phobia regarding such things because we fail to maintain the kind of democratic participation in our own governance that we see in other countries. It's no accident that people in France are generally so well-informed about politics, turn out to vote in far higher percentages, and are obsessive about discussing politics - they know what it's like to lose that control over their own governance - and what a war is like in their own neighborhood.

Americans rely on the fantasy of "destiny" and "Let George do it" - which is why we're where we're at. Hell, even Canadians know more about American government than Americans, on average. It's appalling.

[MonkeyFunk]

147. Huh?

That has absolutely nothing to do with the question I asked.

[unlawflcombatnt]

155. Exactly

That's exactly right. The increased number of workers causes an increase in supply of labor, depressing American wages. This suppression is on the order of 3-4% annually, according to economist George Borjas.

[dave_p]

179. Wage suppression questioned: average income doesn't suffer

Borjas's findings have been challenged by critics who estimate no overall loss or a net gain (papers here and here)

There's never been any evidence that immigration causes any significant loss of overall real income for the existing local population: Borjas himself admitted that consumers and bosses gained from lower costs. The immigrants certainly do better than in their country of birth, that's why they come. So the net impact to to the total population concerned is beneficial.

Some sections of the native labor force do lose out under existing laissez-faire policies, while some unscrupulous employers gain at their expense. That's the problem that needs fixing. We should be concerned to safeguard against impoverishment of workers through appropriate protections and rights without scapegoating those at the bottom of the heap and missing out on a chance to raise overall wellbeing.

[MUSTANG_2004]

70. Yes, that's basic economics

Wikipedia has a very nice article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

[Warren Stupidity]

84. Oh thanks for clearing that up.

Wow, supply and demand, what a brilliant concept. Now can you document that the supply of undocumented workers is responsible for depressing wages from this alleged %15/hr floor?

[MUSTANG_2004]

99. I wasn't commenting on the $15/hr

I was simply pointing out the unmistakably obvious point that 12 million illegal immigrants will suppress wages. How much higher the wage would be without the illegal immigrants, I wouldn't venture to guess.

[Robson]

112. Common sense helps and so does compassion for Americans-NT

[Warren Stupidity]

165. In other words you cannot document any depressive effect

from immigration legal or otherwise nor any basis for the alleged $15/hr floor.

How about we just normalize the situation in the southwest and enforce minimum wage and osha regulations?

[MUSTANG_2004]

250. $1700 per year - from NPR

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5312900

For those without a high school diploma, it's the worst:
"Among those born in the United States who did not graduate from high school ... the estimated impact was even larger, reducing wages by 7.4 percent"

[MonkeyFunk]

85. so please name all the countries

that are paying their lowest-paid workers more than $15/hour.

[lumberjack_jeff]

237. You cannot increase wages when the labor pool is infinitely deep. n/t

[MonkeyFunk]

48. Can you name any country on Earth

where the lowest-paid workers make that kind of scratch?

Lots of countries have far more stringent immigration laws - surely some of them must pay their lowest-paid workers $20/hour.

[Warren Stupidity]

83. " $15 ... That is a fact"

Really? Please provide the links that document this fact that the minimum wage would rise to $15/hr if only we evicted all of the illegals. By the way the current average non-exemp wage is around 17/hr.

[MonkeyFunk]

97. good luck

I've asked three times for examples of countries paying their lowest-paid workers >$15/hr, which must surely be the case, since most other countries don't have a big illegal immigrant problem.

If it's such basic economics, surely they have examples!

[Robson]

115. What % does 20 million represent of Americans on the bottom rung?

I think it is safe to say that American / illegal workers on the bottom rung represent about 20 million workers. So if we removed 12-20 million illegal immigrant workers we are significantly cutting te available workers for the same jobs. It's reasonable to say that competition for these jobs would cause significant escalation in wages....wouldn't you agree? Yes there is some elasticity as people won't pay exhorbitant prices for having their grass cut and landscaping done.

It is not unreasonable to claim that wages would rise by 100% for those on the bottom in the absence of illegal workers.

[MonkeyFunk]

117. Let me ask a 5th time...

which countries pay their lowest paid workers >$15/hour?

In fact, your "theory" would dictate that states in the US with a low illegal immigrant population would have a higher minimum wage. So which state in the US has the highest minimum wage? Which has the lowest?

[Robson]

122. Who cares...this is the USA?

There are no other countries that have the same eco/geographic relationship that exists between the USA and Mexico.

USA is currently the biggest economic player in the world. There are no comparable situations.

Jobs that illegal immigrants do in the USA are non-exportable or outsourceable, for the most part. They need done here in the USA. And there is enormous spillover as Wal-Mart and other low paying big business retailers suck up much of the other available low skilled employees.

Bottom line is that Mexican policies of sending their poor to America, and US business policies of encouraging it, screws Americans enormously. In the 1950s Americans that were relativewly unskilled made good wages, with benefits and supported a sytay at home spouse and sent 2 kids to college. Thanks to our new trade and immigration policies these same families with high school education (or less) must work multiple jobs and are still destitutre.

I'm actually getting quite weary of those so called "Americans" saying that others should have the right to squeeze our citizens out of jobs in our own country.

[MonkeyFunk]

148. You said that without illegal immigrants...

the least-paying jobs would still pay $15/20 per hour.

I'm asking you to prove that assertion, which I think is ridiculous.

Other countries do not have a big illegal immigrant problem, or in fact, even an overpopulation problem. Which of those countries pay their dishwashers >$15/hour?

[trudyco]

217. $15/hr was on overstatement but there are a good section

of jobs in domestic help and construction that would be at least that high if not for illegals.

Restaurant and food picking jobs would not but maybe they should be, since our social services are so poor.

Why are you saying most countries don't have an illegal immigrant problem? Most industrialized countries have similar problems - either former colony countries' citizens immigrating in or poor former USSR countries flooding other countries with cheap labor.

The Chinese and Indians just exploit their own people.

This definately suppresses wages.

[dave_p]

228. Extending rights is the answer

"The Chinese and Indians just exploit their own people"

It's just as well that would never happen in the USA, eh? ;-)

"Most industrialized countries have similar problems "

Most have some such problem, but few (none that I know of) on anything like this scale. In Europe it's estimated at 0.8% of the population, against 4% in the US. Russia certainly has a problem, compounded by ethnic issues in neghboring states, but Russia also faces severe population decline. Western Europe still has low pay for vulnerable workers, but it's moderated by social guarantees that are largely missing in the US.

"Restaurant and food picking jobs would not but maybe they should be, since our social services are so poor"

Haven't you identified the real point here? Many will still be on poverty wages regardless of immigration, and some may actually lose out without 12 million consumers. Workers need protection and rights so they can secure decent pay & conditions, that's the point.

[unlawflcombatnt]

159. Good Points

High school graduates in the 60's and 70's could very definitely provide for their families and enjoy a typical middle class lifestyle. There was enough of a limit on the labor supply that employers had to pay better wages. With the flood of illegal immigrants allowed by Reagan and the current idiot in the White House, the number has become so large that real wages in many fields, like construction and meat-packing to name 2, have actually fallen.

Legal American workers are competing for jobs with an additional 12-20 million illegal immigrant workers. Simple supply & demand laws state this will drive wages down. How anyone can claim otherwise is a complete mystery.

[dave_p]

229. It's not that simple

Simple supply & demand also says that an America of 289.5 million consumes less than an America of 301.5m. So other American workers lose out as producers without the demand represented by the 12 million (it's not 20m).

And I wasn't aware that we were about leaving workers at the mercy of simple supply & demand when corporations too often aren't. Employment policy and appropriate enforcement can do a far better job of protecting wages at the bottom than deporting 12m or leaving them without rights.

[dave_p]

183. It's very unreasonable

"It is not unreasonable to claim that wages would rise by 100% for those on the bottom in the absence of illegal workers"

There's no evidence for any such impact on such a scale. A few may gain hugely from such elimination of local competition. But not 20 million, 12 million or even 8 million.

And removing 8 million unauthorized workers means removing 12 million consumers. That has a negative impact on demand for the work of those who remain at the bottom.

[Greyhound]

202. Something to consider. I don't know, nor necessarily believe, that the

wages would increase by 100%, but let's consider your premise.

First, where do the majority of these people work? I'd say the largest portion are in the agricultural industries. 100% of the people eat, so the loss of 20 million consumers would amount to a loss of 6% - 7% of the market, but there would also be a corresponding decrease in domestic demand, so either a lowering of production or an increase in exports would result, most likely a mix. Not really significant, is it?

Another popular employer of these people is the hospitality industry, how many of these workers consume the product of this segment? Not many, when you make $8 an hour, you don't go on vacation often and when you do you don't spend $100 or more a night in a hotel, nor do you eat out often, nor do you take many cruises, so we see a net increase in this industry.

Construction, how many illegal immigrants are buying houses? Again very few, why buy a house, even if you can afford it, when you plan to someday go home and retire on the proceeds of your labor. Are the American workers in Saudi Arabia buying houses in Riyadh? Again, increased wages in skilled trades and no significant loss of demand. Probably would get a reduction in demand for rental units but commercial would, more or less, negate that.

That we would see a rise in wages is undeniable, and there would be some accompanying inflation, but the fed policy of replacing inflation with devaluation would control that and as a side-benefit our national debt would decrease in terms of valuation. Seems like a win-win to me.

[dave_p]

203. No

Pew Hispanic Center estimates 31% in services, 19% in construction, 15% in manufacturing and 4% in agriculture.

You don't just replace domestic production with exports by fiat. The loss of 12 million consumers (where do you get 20m from?) doesn't mean someone else leaps in to replace their demand. They may only buy it at a lower price. That includes the 12m who've been sent to a lower-income country. A 4% drop in the domestic market isn't significant? Try telling producers that.

Whether a worker can afford the particular product they're engaged in producing is irrelevant: the demand effect is exerted on the economy as a whole. Of course there's loss in demand, to local shops, manufacturers and accommodation & service providers: workers in direct competition may not be hit, but others will.

That you would see a rise in wages across the board is very deniable. Some would earn more, others less; some would lose their jobs in addition. Inflation's not a big issue because you've taken out domestic demand as well as lower-paid labor.

[trudyco]

252. Thanks for the data

Well I still think punishing the employers is the easiest solution. Yes there will be a drop in consumerism, but not that much as they have such low wages and a LOT of it goes back home. If you give them amnesty I guarantee they will rise to higher paying jobs in a generation or less (it's the American dream, right?), and then new illegals will come in to take their place. There will always be employers who like to exploit the workers. If you want to stem the flood you have to punish the employers.

Meanwhile our way of life is getting squeezed into oblivion. We have companies shipping jobs overseas and illegals taking jobs here and driving down wages. We also have companies like Microsoft claiming they can't find enough qualified workers and pushing for a bigger influx of legal immigrants - rather than figuring out how to retrain the current workforce. We have companies who have no compunction in not funding their pensions and suddenly people are getting pennies to the dollar on their retirement. We have union busting and suppressing, with the threat of taking the jobs to another country to cow the unions. We have all these serious issues which could bring down our country into a depression, and you think we should also take on the plight of legalizing and then pushing for the rights of illegals? Heck, if you want a cheap labor force and/or you feel it is the compassionate Dem thing to do then I'm for bringing in refugees from Darfur. Or Iraqis. Their future is much bleaker than the Mexicans. I don't think they should get squatters' rights.

If you really want to make a difference abolish the world bank as it is. Stop letting the USA multinational corporations exploit the people of all the countries south of the border. No more propping up lame regimes because they give away all their countries' riches to the MNCs for pennies in order to get kickbacks. No more ridiculous loans and payments. Viva Venezuela.

I think the Democrats are playing right into the small time Mafia employers' hands (probably most of them Republican donors, too). The Dems are doing it for the potential Democratic votes. Not because it is best for our country. The Repubs are laughing all the way to the bank. Hey, hispanic names are easy to identify, aren't they? Easy to "cage" them when the elections come around. They don't assimilate real well either, tend to congregate together, so it will be easy to identify their polling precincts. Yep. The Republicans are laughing all the way to the bank.

[Greyhound]

261. Now there's an unbiased source. This is why I no longer bother to post

statistics and studies, there are far too many, probably a majority, that are produced to further an agenda.

You skew the numbers and make false assumptions.

Just keep the waters muddied so that there can never be any action, and meanwhile things continue.

[Gman]

174. I'm going to be nice here

You don't really understand much about the minimum wage, much less the impact of illegal aliens on the minimum wage. The minimum wage has been around since long before illegal aliens were around in the numbers they are now. And besides, you're completely disregarding the fact that people still have to fill out an I-9 form and provide proof of citizenship before they can be hired into a job.

[amandabeech]

196. The fake ID market is enormous.

Employers can only refuse to recognize the absolutely crudest fakes, and even that is frought with problems.

[Critters2]

216. Proof of citizenship! LOL!!

I see you've never lived near a slaughterhouse!! I can show you a bunch of places that will provide you with "proof of citizenship" for a handy fee. You don't even have to speak English to buy this "proof of citizenship".

Proof citizenship before they can be hired into a job! That is precious! :rofl:

[Gman]

233. I live in South Texas

and often work in the Rio Grande Valley. I was in Rio Grande City last week. I probably have a whole lot more first hand knowledge than you do unless you're here too.

[Critters2]

254. If you think there are only immigrants in South Texas,

you need to get out more. Again, anyone living in a meatpacking town knows where to get "proof of citizenship". In fact, you can shop around and compare prices.

[Gman]

255. Where do you think they came across

before they got to the packing plant? This issue is a bit more complicated than the hiring practices of a packing plant.

[Critters2]

257. They wouldn't be where you were if they weren't on their way here

to kill cattle so you can have cheap meat. And they need fake ID's and forged or stolen SSN's to do that with.

[Gman]

258. There's nothing cheap about meat here

$8 bucks a pound for a decent ribeye.

As for fake ID's or stolen SSN"s, read my post about the topless dancer I talked to in the Rio Grande Valley that owns her own business. She has no SSN, doesn't want one or need one. As a dancer she's a contractor. She dances at night to raise capital to expand her business. SHe has 5 contractor employees. You don't need a SSN or a fake ID to work.

[LeftishBrit]

195. Then why do most other countries need a minimum wage?

Over half of the world's countries have a national minimum wage, and in many of the others, minimum wage is set by states or regions.

In Britain the national minimum wage is £5.35 per hour. According to the currency converter, that is $10-56 per hour in American money. I believe this is better than in many places (one of the few issues that Tony's been quite good on); but it's still well under $15-00.

[JVS]

207. As an EU country the UK can get plenty of cheap labor from Eastern Europe

so the conditions around labor supply are not that different

[LeftishBrit]

220. The EU was only enlarged to include Eastern Europaean countries in 2004

The National Minimum Wage was introduced in 1999, and in fact we had legal minimum wages in some industries since early in the last century. So the need for a minimum wage is not due to Eastern Europaean membership of the EU. Thatcher's crushing of the unions here in the 1980s has much more to do with it, though I think we'd need minimum wage laws regardless.

[JVS]

221. I was in the EU before 2004 and there were plenty of Eastern Europeans working there.

Maybe even illegally :shocked: Or in earlier decades Italians and Spanish people were known to come North to work in the industrial areas. Europe has always had sources of cheap labor. Your premise that other countries needing minimum wages proves that illegal immigrants (or just importation of cheap labor legally) have no influence influence on wages is bogus because you act as though Western Europe has not been importing cheap labor all along

[LeftishBrit]

223. I did not say they had NO influence on wages....

just that there are many other influences on wages, and that most countries nowadays have and need a minimum wage.

In fact, I think that the proportion of countries that rely on trade union power and collective bargaining, rather than a minimum wage, to ensure a living wage is actually higher in Western Europe than in most other parts of the world. I'd have to check this, but certainly there are such countries in Western Europe.

I'm not saying that illegal immigration *isn't* a problem (and certainly I'm not presuming to prescribe immigration laws for another country). I'm just saying that that it isn't the *only* problem, and that immigrants shouldn't be made the scapegoats for what are generally the failings of employers and of governments that favour employers over unions, and set laws that severely restrict union power. Both Maggie and Ronnie were big offenders here! Also one does have to lay some blame on the leaders of large unions, who tend to try to get a good deal for their own members, while ignoring the plight of members of smaller, less powerful unions, or those in non-unionized (usually small, service-related) industries. Inevitable perhaps, but has unfortunate results.

If all illegal immigration were abolished everywhere tomorrow, there would still be a need for a minimum wage;more pro-labour government policies; more solidarity between unions; a sufficiently good welfare state to remove the need for some people to accept slave wages as an alternative to starvation; or most likely all of these.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Deja Q]

52. OMG! Common sense! How dare you?

I agree with your comments, 100%.

As Americans fight for their country; maybe Americans should slip into Canada or other countries illegally. That might spell out the problem more clearly. :crazy:

Carlos Slim owns CompUSA, BTW...

[nadine_mn]

78. my family came here from Mexico

fleeing the revolution in the early 20th century. Since then we have worked hard, paid taxes, fought for this country in WWII, Korea & Vietnam. My family may have entered illegally seeking refuge from a corrupt government, but to say we cost the average american plenty???
Mexicans have been coming to this country for DECADES, it is only now that the White average american is objecting, blaming us for low wages & higher taxes. Really? You show me one white person willing to do the work of the undocumented. Yet our Congress people have not increased the minimum wage in years - who is at fault for that? Let me guess ... those pesky Mexicans. They are a convenient scapegoat to deflect the real issue - our economy is going to shit because the rich and in power (who happen to white and male) want to stay rich, so when people complain about lack of healthcare and low wages, rather than address issues like universal healthcare and higher wages, lets blame those "illegals". If Canadians were a different color, they would be blamed too.

Our country has a rich history of blaming immigrants for its problems, re-read your history before blaming Mexicans

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

81. Well said, nadine_nm.

I agree with you entirely and welcome to DU.. :hi: :applause: :applause:

[Warren Stupidity]

89. Good post but one quibble re " only now "

We periodically get all upset about our southern neighbors. In the 50's and the 30's we had similar drummed up anti-immigrant campaigns, both of which resulted in mass deportations. Prior to the early 1900's, as there was essentially no immigration policy and thus no such thing as an 'illegal' it was all a non-issue and we all came here to make our living without benefit of green cards or other nonsense. Of course there was still plenty of racist anti immigrant bullshit, it just couldn't hang itself out on the 'but they are illegal' banner and had to be just plain old vile and racist instead.

[nadine_mn]

95. point taken

I say "only now" because it seems to have reached a fevered pitch, all this crap from right wing nuts about terrorists (gratuitous 9/11 mention) coming here with the Mexicans

[MUSTANG_2004]

100. Actually, you're forgetting the Chinese

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act_%28United_States%29

"The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law passed on May 6, 1882, following 1880 revisions to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Those revisions allowed the U.S. to suspend immigration, and Congress subsequently acted quickly to implement the suspension of Chinese immigration"

[Warren Stupidity]

126. No I was just over-simplifying.

The exclusion act abomination was a precursor to where we are today.

[MUSTANG_2004]

96. I disagree on several items you say

Item 1:
"You show me one white person willing to do the work of the undocumented" -
What does race have to do with work? Are you seriously saying that someone white won't do a job for reasonable pay? What job are you thinking of?

Item 2:
"only now that the White average american is objecting" Illegal immigrants from Mexico have been an ongoing issue. As far back as 1954, when Eisenhower deported tens of thousands of illegals (Operation Wetback - definitely wouldn't be called that today), people have been concerned about the economic effects of bringing in large numbers of low-skilled laborers.

[nadine_mn]

105. race has everything to do with it

are you kidding me? Our country is full of people who think certain jobs are "beneath" them - pay is a factor but so is the type of work, which is viewed to be only for non-whites.

And if you really want to talk about low-skilled laborers....look at healthcare. One of the largest growing jobs for immigrants is health care - personal care attendants in nursing homes. Low-skilled?? Taking care of elderly and chronically ill on a daily basis - wiping butts, changing linens, bathing, changing dressings unfortunately is considered to be an entry-level job. PCA's get paid on average less than parking lot attendants. Go to a nursing home in an urban area - count the # of white people in administration, and the # of people of color doing direct "low-skilled" care. The pesron caring for my loved one should be paid much more than the administrator, yet it is seen as entry level.

[MUSTANG_2004]

110. Pay is the factor

If the pay is high enough, it wouldn't just be third world immigrants who would be willing to do the work. Or are you suggesting if there were no Mexican illegal aliens, all of America's crops would go unharvested?

As far as your question about low-skilled personal care attendants, yes "wiping butts, changing linens, bathing, changing dressings" is generally a low-skill job. I know someone who worked as a PCA, and it was definitely entry-level. Do you think "wiping butts" and "changing linens" can only be done after many years of higher education and work experience?

[nadine_mn]

114. you are missing the point

which I was afraid you would. I have been in hundreds (yes hundreds) of nursing home and assisted living facilties as part of my job as an advocate. It is about power - those in power are white, and the dirty work (no pun intended) is done by women, immigrants, and minorities. They work they do is more valuable than anything administration does (re-read my post) but it is not low-skill by any means (IMHO) but it is viewed that way by many. Note the use of quotes around low-skilled - that was meant to denote :sarcasm:

I don't think you will ever understand my point about race & pay being connected so I will quit trying to make it. And if there were no migrant workers (legal or otherwise, alien?? )you are damn right many crops that rely on human labor would go unharvested.

[amandabeech]

171. Where I come from,

Anglos still do all that stuff.

Any native-born African-Americans working in those nursing homes? They are, unfortunately, ususally found disproportionately working in low-wage jobs.

[Marrah_G]

224. The cleaning lady for my office building is a 35ish year old white woman

Also I know quite a few non-immigrant CNAs working for either home health care or nursing homes. When I was younger my ex was a landscaper until he just couldn't make enough money at it anymore so he moved to trucking. Hopefully those wages won't drop like a cement brick either.

Perhaps it is simply where I live that makes the difference. I'm not sure where the jobs "white americans" won't do are around here.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

130. Well said... you'll fit in fine around here.

:)

to DU!

[dave_p]

189. Not so

1. Immigration doesn't reduce average income of the existing population: employers abuse it to skew that income. That's what should be targeted, not migrants.

2. Most immigrants arrive as working-age adults who save the US the cost of their schooling. That cost is borne by another country.

3. Many unauthorized workers are insured. They also consume far less in the way of healthcare than other sections of the population. There's no major negative impact.

4. It's America's problem too because the elite there also wants to take everything for itself - see (1). And Mexico's problems are far deeper than a second-rate kleptocracy.

Immigration is beneficial overall to the pre-existing and immigrant population. It's government for the super-rich and the absence of worker protection that are the problem.

[Madspirit]

6. ...and k&r...n/t

[Madspirit]

7. A Lot of Democrats

A lot of Democrats sure seem like they would be happier...much like the Republithugs...if all those pesky Meskins, pro-murdering-fetuses-unwomanly-women, homos, ghetto folk, uppity women, the mentally ill and homeless folk...just fucking died or disappeared.

...but we're not gonna. nanana
Lee

[Le Taz Hot]

9. No one's falling for this.

Typical RW trick: If you can't win the debate, mutate the topic. You and I both know this is not about immigration, it's about ILLEGAL immigration.

The rest of your post is so hysterically unsupportable it would be like arguing with some anti-choice fundie.

I especially liked the part where the United States should put $700 million into creating jobs in Mexico. That was particularly entertaining.

[Gman]

10. Why do you have a problem with investing $700 million in Mexico?

Is it OK to invest the trillions we already have into Iraq? (Of course not) What good is coming from the money going to Iraq? If you really want to stop illegal immigration, why not invest in the Mexican economy?

Or, how about this: provide $700 million in tax incentives to US corporations to open plants and provide good paying jobs in Mexico? Is that a problem too? what's the problem, the tax incentives (which worked real well during the Clinton administration) or the fact that it's Mexico?

Note that I just changed the subject line to include the word "illegal". There's no misdirection about this.

[Atman]

39. Nice trick, trying to tie the Iraq debacle into the immigration debate!

One has abso-freaking-lutely nothing to do with the other. Of course, as you stated, the money we're spending is Iraq is a travesty. What does that have to do with Mexico? We're not going to stop paying for the war or the embassy or the bases in Iraq and invest it in Mexico because they're two different, unrelated things.

And investing the $700 million dollars in Mexico, via tax breaks or grants or whatever, will do nothing either. Think about what you're saying! Your goal may be laudable, but not thought through...if we bring up the wages in Mexico, the corporations will simply shut down their opertions exactly the way they do here in the United States and they'll ship the jobs to the next developing country with a population happy to be working for $1 a day. It is our entire system that is the problem, not a fence or a grant or an immigration policy. As long as everything is geared toward keeping the shareholders happy above all else, there is little that can be done.

Capitalism was a great way to grow the country. But when capitalism actually works according to plan, it kills itself. Perfect Capitalism destroys itself in just the way we're seeing now. More and more consolidation, cheaper and cheaper labor, because it is simply impossible to GROW every single quarter. But that's what shareholders demand. More dividends! Better returns! So when any company, be it a car maker or a cola maker, achieves success and everyone buys their product, there is nothing left to do but cut the costs associated with making the product because there is no market share left to gain. So they find a cheaper way of doing business.

It was even pointed out in an earlier post, perhaps even yours, that your approach was even tried already. Factories moved to Mexico. But they wound up exploiting the market and screwing the workers just like they do everywhere else, in an effort to keep dividends flowing to the shareholders.

I sure wish it was as simple as you make it out to be. I think everybody does. But it's not, which is why we keep having this discussion over and over and over again. Immigration isn't the problem. Even illegal immigration isn't the problem. Capitalism is the problem.

.

[Gman]

49. Granted capitalism IS the problem

but I'm arguing for tax incentives not tax breaks. Something that will entice American businesses to invest in Mexico and meet certain verifiable requirements before they are allowed to claim the tax break. If this has to be a capitalistic society, then lead the businesses to do the right thing via their profit motive and greed.

[Deja Q]

54. Capitalism in of itself is not the problem. DEREGULATED capitalism is.

It also shows the people for this bogus reform have no respect FOR the 'rule of law'.

LEGAL immigrants who worked their butts off are being insulted by this.

So are those of born here.

Just in case - how far back do we want to take history? In the early 1500s, Cortez went to Mexico and slaughtered the natives and converted the survivors to Christianity. I think it's time to forget the past and work on the future, as a nation.


And if it's all about globalization, then cost of living factors need to match the wages being doled out. That's why India is seeing a gold mine and we're seeing dusty iron pyrite.

[knight_of_the_star]

260. Little problem with the investment thing

Namely between the power of the drug cartels and the corruption that is endemic in the entire system how much of that money would actually go into job growth and actually help their economy? I would bet little or none would be the accurate answer.

That and there's something else you are ignoring: having large numbers of very poor people in your country is a recipe for revolution. That's part of why the government there is completely ok with their poor coming into our country because they know they would be facing large, angry mobs howling for their blood in two seconds flat if there was no way out of the system for them but through it.

[EFerrari]

14. It might be a bit less than they put into subverting the last Mexican election.

And we can't have that.

[sanskritwarrior]

13. How about we go with

"keep the people out that aren't following the rules to be here" or the "Keep out the people that are here against our laws".......

but hey make it about race........even though it's not.

[EFerrari]

15. What crap.

[sanskritwarrior]

21. Well in the end

my opinion is truth to me, your opinion is truth to you.....but keep making it about race, I enjoy your poor logic.

[EFerrari]

25. What crap.

[sanskritwarrior]

213. Your opinion........

my opinion is that you are the one posting crap.........

[TankLV]

209. Yes - what crap trying to insert the racist crap like you are...

It's about "ILLEGAL" versus "LEGAL".

Very simple.

I'm all for LEGAL immigration.

[Madspirit]

18. Not Just Crap double crap crapola crap-o-mighty...

The Amazing Crap-o-Matic...as seen on tv.

This board is rife with racism.
Lee

[EFerrari]

46. I have a feelling that most people think racism is a thing of the past

when in reality, the Thuggery has been working overtime during the last six years to gin it up.

[Madspirit]

53. Call Me Wacky

...but I find it really depressing to see such racism, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia...on a site called "Democratic UNDERGROUND".

Maybe these folks thought this was Dixiecrats...the nickname for Southern Democrats before the parties flip flopped.

THAT must be it.. They are Dixiecrats.
Lee

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. Why? Because it's embarrassing for "progressives" to be on the side of the racists.

Instead of embracing other workers and pushing for the citizenship, they'd rather blame them for the supposed threat they pose to white people's jobs. And, use the same fear tactics that faced Black immigrants from the south in the '20s and '30s. Not to mention the same whines about the earlier waves of immigrants that populated this country.







"Scientific Racism" from an American magazine, Harper’s Weekly , shows that the Irish are similar to Negroes, and should be extinct!

[EFerrari]

17. Racism is a nonparitisan issue.

And what's so funny is that these racists are too late. By hundreds of years.

We're here. We're not going away.

[Gman]

23. Excellent post

[Cerridwen]

19. In my never very humbly stated opinion, the smartest thing

"We, the People" of the U.S. could do would be to make common cause with the most exploited immigrants who come to this country. Were we to do so in support of workers' rights, workers' health, workers' safety issues and workers' pay, for starters, the businesses who benefit from luring undocumented people to illegally cross the Mexican/U.S. border, would lose the benefit of cheap and malleable labor and have to address many workers' rights issues they can now dodge while pointing fingers at "the illegals" while spreading bigotry, fear and hatred to obscure their motives.

[EFerrari]

24. We can't make common cause with brown people.

I swear, the solution is so obvious. What else besides racism is blocking it?

It's saddening and frustrating and I guess I better put me on a time out. :(

[Cerridwen]

36. Especially if those "brown people" are "breaking our laws"

Because, they are, after all, "criminals". And the businesses who hire them are just trying to "make a buck" which is as it should be. *sigh*

What do you call it when someone "entices" another person to commit an illegal act? What if the illegal act is an act of desperation to survive?

Yeah, I'm coming close to a time-out over here, too. I'm starting to feel like I'm stuck in a hamster-wheel of misinformation, bigotry, prejudice, ignorance and hatred.

:hug: From me to you - I know I sure need one.

[EFerrari]

38. Back atcha, Cerridwen.

:hug:

[TahitiNut]

20. More bullshit hyperbole and broad-brush smears.

Let's look at the rhetoric.

According to the "open-borders"/amnesty folk, living in Mexico or other Latin American countries is paramount to cruel and unusual punishment and any attempt to have 'illegal aliens" return to the nation in which they have citizenship is nearly the equivalent of the death penalty. So, where's the jingoism and xenophobia?

According to the "open-borders"/amnesty folk, it's those opposed to illegal migration who're xenophobic but the focus on "Mexicans" and Latinos is at least ten times as frequent from the amnesty side. It's not the Sons of Norway marching and talking on the tube .. it's the National Council of La Raza.

Despite constant correction, the "open-borders"/amnesty folk persist in deceitfully framing the issue as an 'immigration' issue instead of the violation of civil laws and borders by 'illegal aliens' who, in many cases, have absolutely no proclaimed or demonstrated intention to 'immigrate.'


IMHO, the issue boils down to one of human rights vs. greed. First and foremost we have 'corporate interests' perpetuating a race to the bottom in labor equity - exploiting human beings on both sides of the border for their labor to enrich the already wealthy. This involves not only the predatory practices of 'cheap labor' employers in the U.S. but the embedded Corporate Colonialism that has a stranglehold on the government of Mexico - with the support of U.S. corporate interests.

Working people must have political enfranshisement in their own nations and equitable economic participation is an absolutely essential part of political enfranchisement. The creation of a working class without political enfranchisement (e.g. vote, file suits, equal protection) is the effect of current de facto migration policies (e.g. guest workers, work visas, non-voting felons, illegal aliens) ... and that serves the wealthy and oppresses the working class.

Unless and until these issues are addressed, there is absolutely no set of immigration laws and policies that can be assured to gain compliance on either side of the border. The fantasy that a border can be legitimately opened - ONE-WAY? - is total nonsense.

[EFerrari]

26. False premise.

"According to the "open-borders"/amnesty folk, living in Mexico or other Latin American countries is paramount to cruel and unusual punishment and any attempt to have 'illegal aliens" return to the nation in which they have citizenship is nearly the equivalent of the death penalty."

[TahitiNut]

31. That very presumption saturates the posts you've made.

The prospect of required repatriation is NOT treated as a vacation in Hawaii or some benign act - it's implied to be a punishment so onerous as to be inhumane. Horror of horrors!! How can any evil person deprive anyone of the Garden of Eden that's the US and consign them to the Hell that's their home country?? God forbid!

:eyes:

[EFerrari]

35. LOL!

:rofl:

[Warren Stupidity]

166. You should research the mass deportations in the 20th century.

1932: around 2,000,000 mexicans and mexican americans were deported to mexico.
1953: operation wetback (I kid you not) 1.2 million deported.

In between the two mexican deportations we had the mass internment of our Japanese population. Oddly our Germans and Italians were above suspicion. Not dark enough I suppose.

Generally these days it is considered a crime against humanity when nations do something like this, but we are exceptional so our vile behavior is all good. I recently watched The Last King Of Scotland, and one scene that was used to illustrate how vile Amin had become was his mass deportation of the asian population of Uganda. But those Ugandans aren't above reproach the way we are, after all they are browner and not as civilzed as us.

[TankLV]

210. If they're ILLEGAL - we should do it again.

Sorry...

[TahitiNut]

214. Are highway speed limits 'racist'?

There's no question that the internment of Japanese-American citizens was a despicably racist act of a nation in war fever. To equate that to the deportation/repatriation of illegal aliens is just drain-bamaged. There's not much question that the enforcement of the laws necessary to maintain civil order is quite often done with a racial bias on the part of law enforcement personnel, but to argue that the law itself is racist is fallacious - a malfunction of rational thinking.

What's fascinating is that most here seem to admit that at least insofar as our immigration laws, law enforcement has been anything BUT racist since such a disporportionally large number of Latinos (about 80% of all illegal aliens by most estimates) have successfully skirted those laws. Golly ... why are the Latinos not stopped in violation of immigration laws like "DWB" or DWO" is enforced against speeding?? OTOH, maybe it's just a matter of the ease and geographic proximity and has little or nothing to do with racism?

[lumberjack_jeff]

238. Returning illegal immigrants is a crime against humanity?

They aren't refugees, they're opportunists.

[Warren Stupidity]

253. Yes in general deporting millions of people is a crime

against humanity. It was in Uganda and it will be again if we once more go this route. I'm rather confident that you and your fellow enthusiasts for tossing out the mexicans have not bothered to look up the two relatively recent mass deportations I cited, while there you might want to research the somewhat earlier post WWI deportations of eastern europeans as well. Along the way you might want to consider the experience of our own internal economic refugees in the Great Depression, who were frequently treated with the same sort of hatred displayed here against the dreaded 'illegals', only back then they were called 'oakies'. And while pondering that, why not restrict internal immigration as well? After all why should workers in Michigan be able to just wander down to some new auto factory in Alabama just because they can't find work where they happen to be living? What if everyone decided to move to Alabama?

And finally, if the problem is simply that they are illegal, then a reform that legalized guest workers, provided a simple and realisitic path from guest worker to permanent resident to full citizenship, and thus decriminalized the decades long de-facto economic system of the southwest would end the 'illegal' problem. What problem would then be left?

[Gman]

30. Hence my point

this is not about illegal immigration at all. It's about it's about suppressing the vote using wedge issues to split this party and the country in two.

[EFerrari]

42. Yep. The Mexicans are coming -- look over there. n/t

[EFerrari]

50. This is something I realized not too long ago.

Most Latino qualified voters vote with us.

But, if you make the whole civic environment unwelcoming, they will not register and they will not vote.

If you insult them enough, they will avoid the whole civic realm.

**That is what the Republics are trying to do.**

[Warren Stupidity]

167. The fastest growing demographic and a potential

permanent disaster for Republican voting demographics, so yes of course their strategy is to divide the Democratic Party over 'illegals' and alienate hispanic voters by doing so.

[EFerrari]

205. I've appreciated your posts on this topic this weekend.

Sometimes my eyes just cross and I need not to type.

[lumberjack_jeff]

241. Congressional vote for amnesty depends on a simple assumption:

Illegal workers deserve equal or better representation than citizen workers.

Without that assumption, there's no rational basis for voting to give a foreigner a citizen's job.

Actually, I suppose there's another possible assumption; citizens are only valued to the extent that they contribute to GDP. Government serves the economy, not the citizens.

[pampango]

242. Or...All people have the same rights as Americans...

even though we are more "special" than people from other countries. Foreigners may have some rights as human beings (according to the UN Declaration of Human Rights anyway), but our rights trump theirs.

You will probably end up being in the winning side in this case, since our government, like all others will, in the end, represent the perceived interests of its citizens against the hordes of foreigners who seek to invade the country and destroy the domestic way of life. That is why all government are very sensitive to controlling immigration. Our politicians will respond to pressure from the left and from the right. (Rush seems to rail against this bill constantly. When Rush, Freeperland and most at DU are all against this bill, I doubt that even Bush and the corporations can save it.)

[lumberjack_jeff]

244. In this country, US citizens ARE a special category of person.

There are some for whom this feels unfair somehow, and since their world view sees Americans as uniformly white and everyone else as brown, this reality must have a racial basis.

[BlueJazz]

29. Personally....I don't care who is here illegally. They are breaking our laws......

...and need to be deported.

I have many friends who came to this country the correct way. (waited their turn in line).

To allow Amnesty to law breakers is a slap in the face.

Get your ass out.

...or better yet, try that shit in any other developed country.
You'll be on a ship/plane/boat so fast you won't know what hit you.

If I break the law, I'm Punished and I'm no worse or better that an illegal individual.

[EFerrari]

32. Yes, they are breaking the law -- just like women who voted

or like slaves who ran.

The appeal to "the rule of law" is what the Republicans pushed after Johnson signed the Civil Rights bill. That's their code for segregation.

[BlueJazz]

43. You're talking about 2 (or three) entirely different subjects

Women were citizens in this country (and shit upon) and slaves were forced to become citizens. (and also shit upon.)

[EFerrari]

45. No, Blue. I'm talking about laws that were just wrong. n/t

[BlueJazz]

59. ...Oh...I agree....The people from other countries should be able to file...

...for citizenship and not have to wait (nearly) forever.
I know it sucks and I truly feel for the illegals but I guess (via my other post) when even their own countrymen are pissed about them...

Well..I don't know...it's a heart tearing subjuct....if I let my heart speak, I spit on my friends who came here legally...and if I let my logic speak I'm a racist bastard... Aggghhh! :)

[EFerrari]

61. How can you call other human beings "illegals"?

Something to think about while you're spitting.

[BlueJazz]

63. I suppose because if I sneaked into Denmark, I would be....

...called an illegal....not that there's anything wrong with that...

[EFerrari]

64. Right. Dehumanizing people is a progressive value. n/t

[BlueJazz]

65. I don't feel that it does. I don't associate Illegal with "Bad Person"

[EFerrari]

66. Then you need to try harder. n/t

[Telly Savalas]

132. If somebody breaks the law, they're an illegal.

Like the 47% of Americans who at one time or another have smoked pot. They're all illegals.

[EFerrari]

134. Holy crap!

:rofl:

[Warren Stupidity]

168. Can I get deported to amsterdam? nt.

[murloc]

201. The correct term is criminal

Illegal immigrant is proably a bit nicer than the more accurate term "criminal".

[EFerrari]

206. Exactly. Like Rosa Parks was a criminal for breaking Jim Crow. n/t

[lumberjack_jeff]

240. Hyperbole much?

The difference between Rosa Parks and an illegal worker is that Rosa was working to improve her country. The illegal worker is working to degrade someone else's.

[EFerrari]

249. Had I committed that error, it wouldn't be hyperbole but false comparison.

Except both were dealing with inhumane systems that wanted to exploit them in a population that devalued their worth as human beings.

I love you "progressives" that blame working people for public policy.

[lumberjack_jeff]

251. Foreign and domestic workers are both victims of globalization.

The foreign workers are victims of the pro-corporate policies of their government. So are US workers. I don't have any control over the illegal foreign workers policies, only ours.

Both the illegal worker and the US worker suffer, the former because they can't find gainful employment at home, the latter because they can't find gainful employment period.

[Name removed]

34. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Cleita]

41. Yeah, they said that about runaway slaves in the South.

They were breaking the law. Time to cut their toes off so they can't run away again.

[EFerrari]

44. Oh, Cleita. I'm reading this stuff on DU.

:(

[TahitiNut]

87. So, these people are fugitive slaves, now? 56% are fleeing slaves from Mexico?

Fascinating. Mexico must really be a hell-hole. Just what can be done about that? After all, about 1/6th of the citizens of Mexico live in the U.S. ... does that warrant some intervention? It seems to me that slavery is against International Law ... so that would mean that the government of Mexico were guilty of crimes against humanity for enslaving their own people.

Funny how I'm assured that it's not about the "cruel and unusual punishment" of requiring people to return to their own countries. Yet again I'm hearing mixed messages. :eyes:

[Cleita]

103. It is a hell hole for the poor indigenous people.

Remember most Mexicans, Central Americans really are brown because they are Native Americans who were enslaved by the Spaniards, forced to take Spanish names and become Christians. The Spanish overlords (and I lived in this system at one time so I know how it works) considered them the lowest class even once they were freed from being slaves. Many still live a life of serfdom for the rich rancher patrones.

When I worked in the restaurant business in California and worked with these people, I came to the realization that Spanish was a second language to them (I speak Spanish) and that their primary language was the Indian one they spoke in the villages they came from. Speaking to the women I worked with, they told me that they would rather be home but that there was no work that they could feed their families with.

[KurtNYC]

116. but this is really about illegal HIRING

because when we say "immigrant" we are talking about someone with an EMPLOYER here. There are 2 parties in the "law breaking" you describe.

Anyone with a green card or a valid SS# is not even elligible for the jobs that most of the people that you want deported are doing now. That's because the EMPLOYER has a business model that is based on not paying legal wages for certain labor and not paying taxes on those wages.

Framing this issue as being about race ignores the employer, and lets them off the hook.

[Marrah_G]

227. It is also about no benfits and avoiding labor laws

[Cleita]

40. That would be too honest.

Racists don't like to admit it so they have to make up a big crisis to get the backing they need to achieve their agenda. Hitler was an expert at it. In his case though, "the Jews were getting rich on the backs of honest, hard working Germans."

[Madspirit]

47. Exactly!

"I'm not a racist....but."
"I'm not a homophobe....but."
"I'm not sexist....but."
"I'm not a xenophobe....but."

We sure have a bunch of butts around here...<g>
Lee

[Deja Q]

55. Okay, so Lieberman and the others for this so-called reform are opportunistic racists.

:shrug:

[Cleita]

57. Yes, and if you read the OP's opinion, this is a wedge issue

no different than the abortion issue. Just because Lieberman is a Jew doesn't make him remember what happened back than. As a matter of fact I am really amazed at how many Jewish people don't see what's happening here. Just because this time it's not happening to them, they seem to have bought into the propaganda. I had a big discussion with my Jewish neighbor about this. I did open his eyes in the end.

As for the immigration reform plan, beware of anything Republicans think is liberal. They are just insuring that they get cheap labor so that they can lay off more expensive American workers. Hitler did the same in Poland and Germany, by employing imported slave labor in Germany. This way the Germans would work for less. They paid the Poles substandard wages to get the goods Hitler wanted so that they would be too hungry to rebel. It was actually written in the journal of one of his subordinates about it.

[Cerridwen]

51. "...lowering wages for 'American' workers and accepting filthy living conditions..."

<snip>

Early 19th century anti-immigrant racism found its fullest expression in the platform of the American or Know-Nothing Party, which rose and fell almost entirely within a two-year span, from 1854 to 1856. The Know-Nothings formed in response to the continued immigration of Germans and the sudden rise of Irish immigration after the potato famine in the late 1840s. About 2.3 million immigrants arrived in the United States between 1830 and 1850, the largest group coming from Ireland. The Know-Nothings promised to stop what they called as a cultural and racial invasion by the Catholic Irish, who, because of their religion, supposedly owed first allegiance to the Pope. In addition to seeing them as disloyal citizens, Know-Nothings saw the Irish as promiscuous drunks, a potent charge at a time when the Prohibition movement emerged as a political force.

Know-Nothings accused the Irish of lowering wages for "American" workers and accepting filthy living conditions. The Know-Nothing and the broader anti-immigrant movements in the 1840s and 1850s sought to end legal immigration, ban Catholics from holding elective office, diminish the voting strength of new Americans by extending the period of naturalization from five to 21 years, and supported the use of the Protestant King James Bible in the public schools.

<snip>

Such numbers lead Theodore Roosevelt in warn in an 1906 address to Congress that the fast reproduction of these new immigrants, and the low birth rate among Anglo women, raised the specter of "race suicide." Roosevelt charged that white women who did not have children represented criminals "against the race." To many Anglos, immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe seemed culturally backwards, ignorant, and bizarre in appearance.

"These people are not Americans," the journal Public Opinion declared. "They are the very scum and offal of Europe." As a Midwestern coal miner complained, "Italians and Hungarians is spolin’ this ‘yere country for white men."

<snip>

Hoping to preserve the nation’s "racial stock," nativists passed a series of immigration restrictions between the 1880s and the 1920s. The Congress banned Chinese immigration n the 1880s and excluded laborers from most Asian countries in a 1917 immigration law. The Immigration Restriction League successfully lobbied for the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act, which set immigration quotas at 2 percent of nationals from a particular country present in the United States in 1890, a move drastically reducing the immigration quotas permitted Southern and Eastern Europeans. The Italian quota, for instance, fell from 42,000 to about 4,000 and the Polish quota from 31,000 to 6.000. This act barred the door to America for Jews who attempted to flee the Holocaust. America’s 1924 immigration restriction law doomed many Jews to Hitler’s gas chambers, though the total number who might otherwise have found safety in the United States remains a mystery.



<snip>

(emphasis added)

More at link about Meet the New Racism: Same As the Old Racism

edit to add more eerily similar talking points

[gaspee]

74. The more things change

This is so clearly about racism that it's not even funny. not ironic funny or haha funny. It's just plain said.

But then again, the US has always been full of racist fucks...

[Cerridwen]

91. And we never learn and we continually and literally pay

for our bigotry, prejudice, hatred and fear.

And we never learn...

[pampango]

160. How can being against Irish immigration be considered racist?

That is throwing the "R" word around a little too loosely. You could consider it to be anti-Catholic or or anti-European, but it is really just anti-immigrant, but not racist.

It just goes to show that has always been opposition to immigration, usually centered on the working class that perceives that they are the first to suffer from the labor market competition the new immigrants represent.

Some of the opposition now to immigration MAY be racism directed towards Hispanics, but you can't prove that by citing historical resistance to immigration from Ireland, Italy and Eastern Europe. If anything, those historical examples show that it MAY not be racism, at least not exclusively, at work now.

[Cerridwen]

170. Because at the time it happened, the Irish were portrayed as

an inferior "race".

As were each of the other groups you mentioned. Anti-immigration groups have routinely and historically equated the target immigrant groups with a form of "inferior race" and in each case it's used to incite racial fear and hatred *of* the targeted immigrant group *by* the "native" born group.

There's an image floating around on one of these threads which illustrates the point vis a vis the Irish. If I can find it I'll post it.

edit to add link to post with images.

[pampango]

222. I realize that many refered the Irish as another "race",

but to call them racist would be like calling me a "Martianist" if I dislike my neighbor because I believe he is from Mars, In point of fact he is from Indiana, almost as weird, so my disdain for him (which I am making up in case he is reading this), does not mean I am a "Martianist", just that I am factually wrong and xenophobic.

The anti-immigration groups that considered the Irish, or other Caucasian groups, to be an "inferior race" were actually xenophobic "know-nothings" who were either too stupid to know what "race" meant or very calculating in using the "R" word to whip up hysteria when race really had nothing to do with it. The opposition to the Irish was based on fear of foreigners and the perceived threat they were thought to represent. (It would be an interesting exercise in alternative history to speculate on whether there had been would have been resistance to immigration of poor peasants from England, if there had been a massive influx of them rather than the Irish.)

[kineneb]

113. yup. "Irish and Germans need not apply"

Great-great grandpa arrived from Germany in 1851. I suppose he got the same treatment.

[jody]

56. Because it's not just about illegal aliens from Mexico, many other nationalities are involved. n/t

[Cleita]

58. Yeah, I knew a lot of European illegals who benefitted from the

last immigration reform. But they aren't the ones we talk about, are we? Shouldn't we be minding the Canadian border where most of these illegals enter?

[amandabeech]

197. Yes and yes.

They work with fake IDs, too.

However, since rules in the EU on internal immigration are loosening, I would expect to see less and less since the majority seem to come from Eastern Europe. Also, the Irish economy is going great guns.

Why come here when you can go there legally? And be closer to home. Lots of eastern Europeans moved to western Europe instead of coming here in the Great Wave for the same reasons.

[Gman]

60. Of course this is about Mexican nationals

There may be quite a few individual nationalities represented by illegal aliens, But by far, the highest number of people here from another country illegally come from Mexico. There is no contest to that. People of Mexican descent vote Democratic in significant numbers. This is a threat to the Republics so they have to suppress the number of Mexican-Hispanics voting.

[EFerrari]

62. In any way they can. And threatening their family

is an efficient way to keep them away from the polls.

[jody]

119. See my post #127. n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

76. Not really.

Hardly any other non-latin americans are involved.

[jody]

118. Mexicans 57%, Other Latin America 24%, Asia 9%, Europe/Canada 4%

Illegal immigrant population of the United States

According to a Pew Hispanic Center report, Mexicans make up 57 percent of the undocumented immigrants. Another 24 percent are from other Latin American countries. Approximately 9 percent are from Asia, 6 percent from Europe and Canada, with the remaining 4 percent from the rest of the world.

[MUSTANG_2004]

67. Because that ignores the main issue of illegal immigration

Which is businesses bringing in 3rd world labor to depress wages and then justifying it with the lie that Americans won't do the work.

[Cleita]

69. So then shouldn't we be bashing business instead of immigrants?

Let's face it, if there are no jobs for them, they won't come. It's time to put the screws to business to stop hiring immigrants until they have filled all their positions with legal residents and citizens. Then we need to make them follow the law. If they import workers then they need to pay them the same rate as the other workers with the same benefits. This way there will be no cheap labor to undercut our workers.

[Gman]

72. My God, you're making too much sense!

The only solution is an economic one and your's is a commonly talked about but one. However, the last time that solution was tried is when the feds decided to institute the I-9 form where you had to verify you where either here legally to work or were a U.S. citizen. Companies still have to have this form on every employee. In the first few years there were raids on companies that didn't have their I-9's in order and were employing people illegally. But over the years, the I-9 is just another piece of paper you sign when you're hired. No one checks them any more.

[amandabeech]

198. I keep getting asked to produce my documents.

Maybe because I have brown hair and brown eyes. Believe me, eye and hair color count when your're passing through customs.

However, the fake ID market is very healthy, and employers do not need to verify anything. Indeed they can't, and they can get into trouble for refusing documents offered as genuine.

[MUSTANG_2004]

73. Don't "bash" anyone

But enforce the law. Absolutely go after the businesses that hire them. That would be far cheaper and more effective than trying to deport illegal aliens. If the jobs dry up, they'll return home on their own.

The amnesty bill, on the other hand:
1) Rewards people for coming here illegally.
2) Removes any penalty for businesses who hired them.
3) Sends a message to the businesses that followed the law that they were fools to accept a competitive disadvantage when the government was tacitly saying it was ok to break the law.

[Lost-in-FL]

149. No!! Hate is cheaper and more appealing!!!

That's why this thread has so may posts. Imagine how boring it would be to bash the businesses who employ undocumented immigrants. :sarcasm:

[EFerrari]

71. You're right. That's crap. But we overlook the fact that our

government actively messes with elections in Mexico -- to make sure the progressives won't be seated.

No one wants to leave their home to go to an alien place to work for slave wages and miss their kids growing up.

:shrug:

[L. Coyote]

86. I thought they did it to create a new, non-voting underclass of Dems.

In effect, the wink-and-nod crowd of white-collar criminality has ben filling their pocket with the workers comp, income taxes, and social security tax money that belongs to all of us AND creating a new, non-voting underclass of people we know vote 80% Dem. The stole more than money from the public coffers.

[Louie the XIV]

77. Sadly the immigrants are just pawns

The ruling class in Mexico wants to export its crime and poverty problem to the U.S. while corporate America seeks to exploit this source of cheap labor.

It's the individuals caught in the middle that suffer

[Gman]

80. This is the bottom line

welcome, Louie!

[Cleita]

82. I really resent the notion that they are exporting crime through

these immigrants. If they were criminals they wouldn't be looking for work. Yes, they are poor that's why they risk their lives coming here to be not so poor. But the real criminals don't sneak across the border looking for work. They come in on jets and yachts and live in pretty fancy places. Of course, they are friends of our President and we know them as Saudi royals. Let's go after the real immigrant criminals.

[Louie the XIV]

98. I'm not implying that all these people are criminals

most of them are hardworking people just looking to make a living for their family.

However there are around 300,000 illegal immigrants in U.S. prisons not to mention the thousands of gang members in California alone. China and El Salvador do the same thing by exporting Triad and MS-13 members.

[Cleita]

102. I don't know about exporting Triad and MS-13 members from other

countries. I would really need some hard facts on this. But let me tell you what a social worker told me who worked in gang infested neighborhoods. He told me it was the second generation that was born here that turned to gangs. It was because the hard-working parents werent home enough and the kids resented their poverty compared to the kids they were going to school with. It seems we are creating the gang problem in our own backyard, not importing it. As far as the Chinese gangs go, how does dealing with the Mexican immigrant problem solve the Chinese one? I mean are they crossing the Sonora Desert too?

[Lost-in-FL]

146. And you can read all about it here...

The myth of immigrant criminality and the paradox of assimilation


http://www.ailf.org/ipc/special_report/sr_022107.pdf

Because many immigrants to the United States, especially
Mexicans and Central Americans, are young men who
arrive with very low levels of formal education, popular stereotypes
tend to associate them with higher rates of crime
and incarceration. The fact that many of these immigrants
enter the country through unauthorized channels or overstay
their visas often is framed as an assault against the “rule of
law,” thereby reinforcing the impression that immigration
and criminality are linked. This association has fl ourished
in a post-9/11 climate of fear and ignorance where terrorism
and undocumented immigration often are mentioned in the
same breath.
But anecdotal impression cannot substitute for scientifi
c evidence. In fact, data from the census and other
sources show that for every ethnic group without exception,
incarceration rates among young men are lowest for
immigrants, even those who are the least educated. This
holds true especially for the Mexicans, Salvadorans, and
Guatemalans who make up the bulk of the undocumented
population. What is more, these patterns have been observed
consistently over the last three decennial censuses, a
period that spans the current era of mass immigration, and
recall similar national-level fi ndings reported by three major
government commissions during the fi rst three decades
of the 20th century. The problem of crime in the United States
is not “caused” or even aggravated by immigrants, regardless
of their legal status. But the misperception that the opposite is
true persists among policymakers, the media, and the general
public, thereby undermining the development of reasoned
public responses to both crime and immigration.

[TankLV]

211. I can't disagree with that...

By ALL sides...

[sheerjoy]

79. Hello? "ILLEGAL" is the term

Illegal is not a sick bird! It means against the law! The ones who crawl the fences and sneak into this country need to go home.

My town is filled with em...

The "bill" is a joke.

[L. Coyote]

88. AND, if they get any kind of Visa, they should first be made to inform on

illegal employers, so those illegally hiring them and causing the current quagmire can pay all the back taxes, back worker's comp, back social security, and do the time commensurate with the crime.

[Warren Stupidity]

93. Clue stick offense: in many cases taxes are in fact paid.

Go google the SS "earnings suspense file". Oh lordy it seems that 10% or so of the SS surplus is from our beloved illegals who are paying in with no chance of getting one slim dime out. WTF? Damn facts just keep messing everything up. Can't we just hate them?

[L. Coyote]

104. Also, in fact, many use a legitimate SS # belonging to someone else

and the USG will be getting defrauded each time they pay the SS for the illegal beneficiary.

I discovered this when assisting a legal resident alien to obtain some information from the SS admin. It turned out someone else was using her SS number and working full-time at a McD's. She had amassed a lot of benefits withoout ever having a job in the country.

[Warren Stupidity]

90. "My town is filled with em"

And you can tell just by looking.

[sheerjoy]

107. I am speaking of the ILLEGALS

period. Illegal means against the law... IF they came in illegally, regardless, send their butts packing or to prison.... choice.

[Warren Stupidity]

127. And it seems you can discern illegality by ethnicity.

Or have you processed all the documents of your neighbors to determine their status?

It is very convincing to put "illegals" in all caps, but I suggest that you could do better:

ILLEGALS

There, that is even more persuasive, don't you think?

[sheerjoy]

162. Yesl that was better; thank you

and our local newspapers pretty well keep up with the ILLEGALS.

Neither here nor there because what will be will be... if illegal means okay to break laws, then no one should whine when other illegal acts happen - and the "guilty" point to the immigration "law" to get off.

[nadine_mn]

94. My town is filled with em?

What kind of crap is that? Do you know for a fact every single one of "em" is here by crawling and sneaking? How do you know - do you ask? Do you look for their documents? What about...gasp...white people who are here illegally (they do exist)? How do you spot them? Do "illegals" have a sign saying "Look at me I am illegal". How else would you know your town is full of em? Oh wait they do have a sign - their skin color is different.
Did you know that some latinos come here...legally??? Shocking I know. So how do you differentiate? Oh nvm you don't.

[gaspee]

101. I couldn't help notice your icon

and how very christian your post and viewpoint is.

[sheerjoy]

161. Didn't say they weren't loved

even Christians know what ILLEGAL means. Okee dokee. They HAVE a home.

[L. Coyote]

92. How about the "Don't Let Them People Vote Act."

Remember the Constitution. We had one when I was in grade school, and it said:

"with liberty and Justice for all."

It did not suggest we should start new, non-voting underclasses for ethnic minorities.

[LostInAnomie]

108. So are you in favor of letting non-citizens vote?

eom

[L. Coyote]

123. That's an idea to consider if a very large percentage of the People are, but

I'm in favor of having legal immigration and no illegal employment, extreme penalties and fines for hiring violators to deter this from happening an\d to STOP it from going on, current illegal migrant only given some privilige if they inform on those who hired them illegally, losing that privilige if they were not entirely honest in doing so, and a future in which we do not legitimize a sub-class of low wage workers with the right to work AND without the right to vote. You don't need a third grade education to figure out which end of the political spectrum has been disenfranchised in the last decade as a result of this form of illegal employment. Done right all along, how many more voters would there be today (and in Florida in 2000 and in 2004), and who would they be voting for?? And who might be President today?

[Lost-in-FL]

150. Good idea!!!

If non-citizens vote imagine how pissed citizens would be that the non-citizens are making the decisions for them!!!

Brilliant!!! Then, the American citizens would take politics seriously and take their asses to the polls to vote like they should to vote for real politicians with real solutions. Then we wouldn't have to worry about "illegal" immigration since they would not dare place foot in the US.

[LostInAnomie]

106. Oh, racism. I thought it was about a sovereign country being able make laws...

... controlling who can legally enter its own borders. Silly me though, it has to be racism because it would be impossible for any working class person to truly be concerned about a flood of cheap labor pouring across the border lowering wages and straining public services. They have to be a racist. :sarcasm:

I never thought so many DUers could be fooled into spewing the Pro-Exploitation Globalist line that only racists oppose illegal immigration.

Who does an amnesty bill actually help? Does it help working class American citizens? Nope, they have to compete even more fiercely for work. Does it help the people of Mexico? Nope, their country remains a firmly entrenched oligarchy/plutocracy. Does it help the illegal immigrant? Well they get to stay, but only to be exploited until they are too broken physically to work. Does it help big business? You're damn right it does. They secure their supply of cheap labor and make the working class compete in a race to the bottom.

Tell me again why I should be in favor of this?

[Cleita]

109. We know what our ducks look like.

This sovereign country has already made laws about not hiring undocumented workers and those laws are not enforced because...well then where would those corporate businesses get cheap labor?

You know in the agricultural business, who hires most of these immigrants, it's agents who hire the workers that they send to the farms to work the harvests. These agricultural business are not family farms but huge conglomerates and they have the money to bribe, pay off or intimidate any law enforcement that get's in their way if the agents can't find enough workers.

[LostInAnomie]

111. So why exactly should I be in favor of making it easier for big business to have access...

... to illegal labor?

I thought the Democratic Party was supposed to be the party of working class Americans. We shouldn't be the party of entrenched wealth and further exploitation of the poor and middle classes. No matter how good the intentions of the pro-amnesty crowd may be that is the only result. They only help grease the gears of the machine that started the mess in the first place.

[Cleita]

125. And what makes you think I'm pro-amnesty?

I think this present amnesty solution is no better than the one we had in the 1980s. What I want is a real solution while we recognize the human rights of the immigrants not to be used and abused.

It's going to take some real diplomatic solutions between this country and Latin America to bring this about. We have to stop beating up on Hugo Chavez, who incidentally is trying to keep his citizens employed and at home, and end the hegemony in Latin America that our country has fostered ever since I can remember by not supporting every corrupt dictatorship that comes along that we like because they allow us to exploit those countries and their citizens.

If there was ever a country that we should have invaded if we were going to bring democracy and freedom to a country, it should have been Mexico to end the corrupt rich uberclass that runs it not that I would have approved because I don't believe we have a right to invade any sovereign nation that hasn't attacked us. It just would have made more sense than invading Iraq.

[EFerrari]

135. How is punishing workers pro Labor?

For pete's sake.

[LostInAnomie]

156. Exactly, how can the Democratic Party claim to be the party of the working class...

... and then punish them by forcing them to compete with a flood of cheap illegal labor.

Forcing the working class to fight it out in a race to the bottom isn't helping anyone except big business. I, for one, am not about to embrace the entrenching of unearned wealth just so I can give myself a self congratulatory pat on the back, or dodge a meritless charge of racism by someone who is afraid to actually debate the merits of the issue.

[EFerrari]

180. So, the answer is to exclude workers, not to better working conditions?

Not.

[LostInAnomie]

188. "Not.", another example of your rapier wit.

Working conditions will never improve if unscrupulous employers have extremely easy access to illegal labor. They are already here illegally so they are not going to take a complaint to any agency. The more illegal immigrants that pour across the border the more competition for work will increase and workers will have to accept worse conditions for less pay.

Why would I be in favor of supporting virtual slavery? The pro-amnesty crowd's solution not only supports poor working conditions for illegal immigrants and the worsening of conditions for the American working class.

[EFerrari]

191. What crap #3.

My point is, instead of punishing working people, put a living wage into law.

No one in their right mind supports illegal immigration. It keeps working people in the shadows with no recourse to the law.

But the solution is not to exclude workers. It's to confront dismal working conditions.

And, thanks, I will ignore the insult.

[EFerrari]

133. And more crap.

[LostInAnomie]

157. Why don't you try actually developing an argument...

... instead of sticking your fingers in your ears and whining "crap" at everyone that doesn't agree with you?

[tammywammy]

235. Because it's easier for her

to just call you a racist and spout open border crap than actually have a discussion about illegal immigration. :eyes:

[otherlander]

120. Well, the thing is

that if you're in a country illegally, you're going to fear deportation, arrest, and the police in general. You're not going to do anything to draw attention to yourself. You're not going to protest being exploited by corporations, demand safer working conditions, or report labor law violations to the police. People who immigrate to America legally, on the other hand, have been joining unions at higher rates than people who were born in America.

[flaminbats]

121. why should we call it that?

in a perfect world my immigration policy would be simple. I would let in only enough immigrants every year to make up for a drop in our population. every year that our nation's population increased, there would be no immigration.

but how can we put together a logical policy for immigration if we still allow companies to hire undocumented workers? how can we stop illegals from crossing the border if the companies that hire them only rake in larger profits as a result? how can we make these people into voting, taxpaying citizens if they are willing to break the law just to make more money?

It doesn't matter to me whether these people come from Greece, Mexico, or Canada! What matters is they come here legally, or suffer for breaking our laws. Employers should lose money everytime they hire an undocumented worker, and they must never profit from undermining our system of government.

I believe strongly in providing economic aid to developing nations in Latin America and Africa. but I also believe that illegal immigration should never be considered just another form of economic assistance for third world nations.

[BlooInBloo]

129. Because the defeats the point: for white folks to *hide* their racism.

[treestar]

131. We should just call it the "avoid reality" debate

Apparently there is a belief that each country's economy can stay completely separated.

We can't keep the capitalists in, no matter what we do.

They're going to get the cheaper labor if it exists, no matter how much we whine. The first thing to do is get reality. While living in the fantasy we can insulate the economy within our borders only, we just do a lot of stupid things.

And we became the richest and strongest country by being the free and open area that adventurous people could come to.

Nativism is always there. Today's is just like the 19th century's. They say the same stupid things, showing a lock of understanding of history, economics and just plain reality.

[Zookeeper]

136. Because it would be simplistic and stupid.

There seems to be a bias FOR Hispanics who are here illegally, over legal immigrants from Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia who are competing for the same jobs. The Southwest has an historical and cultural connection to Mexico and Latin America. Most of the country doesn't. So, why is it that so many on DU think that Latinos who are here illegally are deserving of some special privilege, even over, still under-employed and under-educated African-Americans and legal immigrants ("of color" BTW.)

I'm from Detroit, I'd like to see more opportunities for African-Americans and I've been waiting a long time to see it happen. So, I'm a racist because I don't think citizens of Mexico should be undercutting low-income Americans of color? And what about Latinos who ARE here legally? They are losing jobs to illegal labor, as well. The advocates for illegal workers have tunnel vision.

The "racism" talking point is getting really tired. I've seen plenty of racism directed at blacks and "gringos" from pro-illegal immigration advocates. It does not help the cause.

Everyone "justs wants a better life."

[EFerrari]

137. And everyone should have the right to seek that better life.

I would be wary of any policy that pits worker against worker. We've seen that before. It's not bettering our lives, it's about scapegoating.

And, btw, I doubt there are any "pro illegal immigration" advocates here. The system as it stands is dangerous.

[Zookeeper]

144. There are such advocates on DU, but I don't think they....

are thinking deeply about the dangerous ramifications of of allowing the situation to continue without being addressed in a manner that is fair to all parties.

The most outrageous pro-illegal immigration statements I've read have been posted elsewhere on mainstream news forums like the N.Y. Times. I get the sense that they are oblivious to the plight of other low-income, unskilled workers in this country (of all races).

I'm not in favor of pitting worker again worker, either. But, the reality (in much of the country, with a larger African-American population than the Southwest) is that workers who are here illegally are taking jobs that have been filled by other minority groups in the past.

Here is an article from a newspaper that serves the African-American community in Minneapolis:

http://www.spokesman-recorder.com/News/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=7786&sID=3

Are Illegal Immigrants Taking Jobs from Blacks?

PHILADELPHIA (NNPA) – For Blacks and Latinos, destinies in securing a place in America have been, in many ways, intertwined. But that view may unravel, as current trends show a wave of illegal immigration has helped push Blacks down the hole, instead of out of it.

In spite of published reports indicating increases in jobs and decreases in unemployment levels, Blacks are still struggling. With the nationwide unemployment rate dropping from February’s rating of 4.8 percent, the number for Black unemployment, skilled or unskilled, remained at a cumulative 9.3 percent.

Seventy-eight percent of illegal immigrants come from Latin America, and 56 percent of them are Mexicans living full-time in America.
Out of a total workforce of 148 million Americans, it is estimated that almost 5 percent of all workers in the United States are earning salaries illegally.

Professor George Borjas, an economist from Harvard, did research that showed whether legally or illegally, working immigrants reduced wages of American-born citizens over the last 25 years.

“The Center for Immigration Studies, through a Census Bureau derived report concluded any negative effect from immigration will fall on the 26 million native-born workers in the U.S. who already have the lowest wages and highest unemployment,” said Crawley.

“Additional data states 40 percent of native-born Blacks work in high-immigrant occupations – cleaning, food preparation, manufacturing and transportation – this, in comparison to 22.9 percent of whites in the same fields.

“So, without question, Blacks are much more likely to be affected by any decline in wages or benefits resulting from immigrant-induced increase in the labor force.”

“Arguably the most racist policy in this country for the past quarter century has been that of immigration,” Anderson said. “An onslaught of poorly educated, mostly Hispanic immigrants has severely hindered attempts of African-Americans to climb up the economic ladder.

A new study from the Pew Hispanic Center reports salaries among Latinos have fallen for the last two years – in large part due to more than 850,000 new illegal immigrants entering the country each year.

------

I would also add that in areas of MN, where the residents are primarily white or American Indian, those are the people doing the jobs that "white people won't do", motel housekeeping staff, fast food workers, restaurant cooks, construction, landscaping, etc. I see them working hard and, given the job situation in those areas, are probably pretty happy to have the jobs they have. And whites used to work in the food processing plants (like Swift and Hormel) until the Union was busted and low-income (illegal) labor was hired to replace them. Hispanics who are working here illegally didn't invent working hard at dirty jobs. (Not that you made that argument, but it's a standard talking point on one side of the debate.)

I accept immigrants of all backgrounds, who are here legally. I would like to see people consider the issue fairly and objectively, without overlooking the fact that there are people who are already here who need a shot at a better life.

We should be repairing the damage that NAFTA has done to Mexico and we should be holding the Mexican government and the Mexican elite accountable for not providing opportunities for a good life for their own people.

On edit: And we should be treating businesses that profit from illegal labor like the criminals that they are. (The real villains in this.)

:hi:

[EFerrari]

153. Not only NAFTA but remember, Mexico elected a progressive

who didn't get seated in their last election.

BushCo sent a team down there -- right down to speech writers. It was horrendous.
Thousands of people protested and there was little coverage of this story here.

ZooKeeper, you and I know that people don't leave their homes and risk death for no reason. Imho, we need to stop demonizing people who are trying to live and look to the real root of the problem - like BushCo messing with foreign elections. Mexico voted for a better way. BushCo subverted that choice.

:(

[Zookeeper]

169. I won't argue with you, Pat....

about BushCo interfering with elections to protect corporate profits. I did follow the Mexican election. But, heck! We can't even have our own votes count in U.S. Presidential elections, so what did we expect with Bush and cronies around? (It's a crime.)

I'm not demonizing the people who come here to work. But, their being here is not without consequence for low-income, under-educated Americans and their children. AND, legal immigrants, some of whom have also suffered to get here.

:hi:

[EFerrari]

175. I say we revoke BushCo's citizenship, drop them off in the desert

and see how they manage. :mad:

I once saw a great documentary about a "park" put together by a group in Mexico that is trying to encourage people to stay home. It's a mock "run across the border" and it's a very, very scary experience. I thought that was a cool idea, a creative one.

[Zookeeper]

218. Hmmmm.

I saw a news report about something like that, but it was presented as a "tourist experience." I think a guide took paying customers through a section of desert and had actors playing border guards.

'Wonder if that's the same thing?

I'm all in favor of dropping Bush and his evil minions off in the middle of the biggest, driest, most remote desert. How about Noon tomorrow? :toast:

On edit: And all we'll send them with is a big bag of salty pretzels. :)

[Babel_17]

163. Great post, you hit a lot of points

that were getting little attention.

I try to keep an open mind but I get quite upset when I see leaders that I count on seeming to completely ignore the fact that many of us are already feeling the pinch from having to compete with the surge of undocumented workers in jobs like construction.

My ex-girlfriend used to clean houses and do some light home improvement work ..... for good wages. I have no idea how she is competing now.

These are just some of jobs that can't be exported and represent an opportunity for workers here who are willing to work hard. It's heartbreaking to see this class of legal workers getting consistently snubbed and overlooked in this debate. I realize there's a bigger picture but let's not ignore this very significant detail.

I consider any plan that ignores this situation a dishonest one.

The number of workers does matter.

[Zookeeper]

172. Thanks, Babel!

I have to wonder if allowing illegal immigration to continue unchecked isn't part of a hidden agenda on the Right. Not only does it produce more profit for Big Business, but it puts those pesky blacks back in their place (:sarcasm:) and it creates resentment in working-class whites.

Meanwhile, their profits just keep rollin' in.

[Zookeeper]

173. Thanks, Babel!

I have to wonder if allowing illegal immigration to continue unchecked isn't part of a hidden agenda on the Right. Not only does it produce more profit for Big Business, but it puts those pesky blacks back in their place (:sarcasm:) and it creates resentment in working-class whites.

Meanwhile, their profits just keep rollin' in.

[EFerrari]

176. So, level the field. Pitting workers against each other isn't the answer.

Put a living wage into law. Then who has the advantage? English speaking, culturally literate people.

I'm reminded of a line from "The Milagro Bean Field War" --"Why is it that when we need to fight them, we always wind up hurting each other?"

[Elwood P Dowd]

138. Everyone is a racist

who doesn't agree with them. There are 4-5 posters who ALWAYS show up on these immigration threads and then start throwing out the racist charge to ANYONE with an opposing view.

[EFerrari]

139. Tell ya what. When HLS starts rounding up Swedes, call me.

[Elwood P Dowd]

140. How many illegal Swedes are there in this country?

How many enter illegally across the Mexican border?

You are one of those throwing out the racist claim to anyone and everyone on DU who doesn't agree with you. It's getting old.

[EFerrari]

141. It's geting old? Apparently, not old enough.

Make it about me and not about your racist culture. See how much good that does.

[Elwood P Dowd]

142. So now you're calling me a racist. You call everyone a racist on DU who doesn't agree with you.

Give me the percentage of Swedes and other illegals from Nordic countries. Just what is the percentage....001%?

[EFerrari]

143. No, I didn't say that. I said it's easier for you to pin this on me than to

confront the racism in this culture.

[Cleita]

151. I knew quite a few of them. They came in on visitor's visas,

found jobs and stayed. Many are still here. They managed to get green cards eventually through marriage and other routes. No one in La Migra came looking for them in the restaurants where most of them worked as waitresses, as the Mexicans were being rounded up. I was an eye witness.

[Elwood P Dowd]

152. You need to start writing fiction novels.

In my 60 years in this country, I have never met an illegal Swede. Why in hell would someone from Sweden want to come to this hell hole and work as a waitress? You people can make up some real doozies.

[EFerrari]

177. "You people". Boy, what a cop out. I know a bunch of

people who have overstayed their visas from Scandinavian countries. One of our acquaintances collects these girls, which in itself is disgusting.

But, there is no racism in the United States, which was founded on a genocide and powered by slavery. Liberty and justice for some!

[Cleita]

178. Because they liked the warm climate in Southern California.

Scandanavian, British and Irish young women were brought here as nannies back in the seventies on limited visas expressly for that purpose. It was the trend then to stop using Hispanic nannies because the little white American kids were speaking Spanish and the Scandanavians like the British spoke excellent English. This way the kids would speak English went the reasoning. The girls were given room and board in exchange for babysitting as well as passage to and from the USA.

I was a bartender then and on Wednesdays and Thursdays these girls would use my bar as a meeting place to spend their days off. That's how I got to know them and befriend them. With the Britsh girls it was an economic situation that they considered an opportunity to jump to a better job. The Irish, mostly from N. Ireland, were escaping the troubles, daily bombings, British soldiers shooting them with rubber bullets, etc.. The Scandanavians, who are avid worldwide backpackers did it for the travel and adventure.

The girls were contracted for six months and then were supposed to return to their countries. Many did but many didn't making them undocumented workers. Many met boyfriends and stayed. The Scandanavians were thrilled to be able to go to the beach all year round and if they wanted to go skiing in the winter, the mountains were a few hours ride away.

So they got the one job that didn't ask too many questions about their immigration status, waitressing. Now if you live in So. California and know the restaurant business, food server jobs (waiting) are very high paying in the trendy restaurants because the tips are outstanding. So the restaurants can hire the prettiest and youngest of the girls and even the plainest of the Scandanavian girls was a striking beauty, tall, blonde and blue-eyed. The jobs were very competitive because of the money.

While many women slogged away at low paying office jobs, the waitresses were making good money, many could even afford to buy their own houses. That's how good the money was and at that time no one had to claim tips on the income tax. I'm a trained secretary but I worked as a bartender for the much better money.

So about that novel, I may write it because Southern California is unique in it's multi-cultural character. You don't need to travel the world to meet people from all over the world. There is a reason California is the sixth largest economy in the world.

[unlawflcombatnt]

158. Amen

The race-card players act like they only have 2 neurons connected by a spirochete. They claim any attempt to stem the flood of illegal immigrants into this country, who are suppressing American wages, is "racist-motivated."

I think they have a pre-recorded message that they just insert in these posts.

When I see the race card being played, it tells me one thing: they've run out of any other arguments.

[Cleita]

181. If this isn't racial, I have a question to ask you.

How much would you object to Canadians coming down here to work in our fields, as domestics and in our restaurants.

[LostInAnomie]

184. Why don't you ask an honest question?

Either answer a person gives would "confirm" your dreamed up charge of racism to you and all the others that bleat "racism" everytime illegal immigration comes up.

If they would say "No." they're a racist.

If they say "Yes." you'll say they're lying.

[Cleita]

185. It is an honest question and you can't answer it anymore than

our President can seem to answer honest questions these days because he would have to lie. The truth would force him admit that he's wrong.

[LostInAnomie]

190. My point is proven.

You didn't care what the answer would be. Your mind was irrationally made up and nothing could change it.

I would be against anyone entering the country with the purpose of undercutting wages of American workers. We Americans have a real problem with disconnection to the cost of labor that supports our way of life. We think we are entitled to cheap goods and services no matter what the cost to those who produce them. Allowing illegal laborers in only endorses this entitlement and works to ensure a permanent underclass of virtual slaves.

Why would anyone support that?

[Cleita]

192. See you finally answered it and I agree with you.

We need to slow immigration and keep out those immigrants we don't need, but we also need to bring in the immigrants that would take the available jobs once Americans are employed and they should make the same money for the same job. This in itself would slow illegal immigration if the available jobs shrink because Americans are gainfully employed.

However, our idiot legislators, mostly Republicans, want to give the immigration worker permits first to those with degrees and professional accomplishments. Well, it seems with our professional jobs being outsourced why would we want to give work permists to immigrants to compete for fewer available jobs? Why would these people want to leave their countries if they are doing well there? So will we have these MAs and Phds pick vegetables and fruit during harvests, when they are needed? I don't understand this country at all sometimes.

[EFerrari]

219. What is an illegal laborer?

And why do workers get vilified for policy?

[TahitiNut]

215. Indeed.

It's appalling.

[Lost-in-FL]

145. Lets keep fighting over here...

while corporations look for ways to get cheap labor. They already have it all figured out while we fight each other like idiots. Immigration reform will solve everything... right... Once corporations are not able to get "illegals" to do the job they will find a way to get cheap labor somehow, just the same way it has happened for centuries.

KEEP THE HATE!!! We all lose.

http://www.ipoaa.com/caribean_immigration_why.htm

By the late 1800s the United States had vested economic and political interests in the Caribbean. United States policy makers considered the region to be strategically important both for commercial routes to South America and for the defense of the southern U.S. mainland against wartime attack. For these reasons the U.S. government pursued an aggressive strategy to establish and maintain control over the political and economic affairs of the region.
....
Simultaneously, the period from 1900 to 1920 marked the initiation of mass labor migration from the Caribbean to the United States and the formation of the first large Caribbean communities in the United States (see Afro-Latino Cultures in the United States). This shift was part of a global transformation of migration processes: Rather than a colonizing migration from the expanding commercial centers to the subordinated regions, populations were now moving from the periphery to the new industrial centers. The shift was first evident in the case of Puerto Rico, due to its status as a U.S. territory. In about 1900 Puerto Ricans began to be hired as contract laborers, who were often treated more like indentured servants than free laborers, for plantations in other U.S. territories, mainly Hawaii, and in the southern and western United States. During World War I the recruitment of labor from the Caribbean (and Latin America) became more pronounced, as laborers from the region compensated for the reduced number of European immigrants to the United States. More than 100,000 Caribbean laborers were recruited for agricultural and menial jobs in the United States as part of war efforts.
....
Since the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, the immigration policies of the United States have been shaped more often by domestic economic concerns and by the emergence of racist discourses against immigrants than by a foreign policy directed at undermining a competing superpower. This was clearly reflected in 1995, when in the wake of large-scale Haitian and Cuban refugee flows, the United States announced it would begin repatriating Cubans picked up at sea, reversing a decades-old policy of automatically granting them entrance and circumventing established asylum procedures. However, attempts by the U.S. government to contain such "refugee crises," and more broadly to restrict immigration, face a likely setback in continued mass migration from the Caribbean. This migration is fostered by economic and political crises in the region, by demand for cheap labor in the United States, and by established links between Caribbean communities in the United States and their countries of origin.

[sheerjoy]

164. Yahoo group joins in - English only hehehe

Any messages or files sent through this group does need to be in the English language. If you do not understand or speak English, then please do not try to join.

There is to be no adult content sent through this group. There are plenty of other places for that kind of thing. If you send through adult content, you will be removed from the group, no exceptions!

All members do need to be on individual emails.

You may share movies, TV series, audiobooks, music through pando links only. Please include a short description or pic or link with your pando so we know what you are trying to share.

Please do not share any psp, tubes or scrapbooking through this group.

All members do need to be active and share at least once a month. Members who have not sent in at least one share will be removed at the end of the month. New members must send in a share within 7 days of joining the group or you will be removed.

If you have friends that would like to join us, please let me know and I will send them an invite.

Share lots of pando links and make new friends.

Thanks

[earth mom]

182. No-Racism is the wedge issue. This is & should be solely about MONEY.

The middle class, working class & poor of the U.S.-be they black, brown, white or purple-are getting screwed over BIG TIME by the exploitation of workers and destruction of Unions. That is a FACT.

THE WEDGE IS RACISM.

Make this an issue about wages & money and you will see how fast people join together if they give a damn about themselves, their family, their friends and neighbors-whatever color they are.

[Cleita]

186. Well said.

:thumbsup:

[TahitiNut]

187. It's union-busting and 'scabs' on a national scale.

Absolutely EVERY straw-man being trotted out in this (so-called) 'debate' is the regurgitation of the union-busting of the 30s. It's appalling.

:puke:

[High Plains]

194. Please tell me how regularizing the status of 12 million workers,,,

...is union-busting? Allowing those workers to normalize their existence would mean they could organize just like other workers without fear of being deported for being uppity. It seems to me this would strengthen the union movement. In fact, it seems like Hispanic workers are driving the union movement, if you look at groups like janitors and garment workers.

Bring them out from the shadows, let them join their Anglo working class brothers in the fight for social justice.

[TahitiNut]

199. Then what?

Do we wait another 20 years and do it again? Maybe it'd only take 10 years. :eyes:

Gee ... just go ahead and hire the scabs. After all, why shouldn't they get to work for something less than the people who've been working together for years to get fair pay for those jobs, huh? Let's just ignore the fact that those people wouldn't even get that pay if it wasn't for the fight for fair labor standards and equitable compensation going on for years and even decades.

That's the myopia of 'right to work' imbeciles in the 30s, 40s, 50s ... and apparently even today.

The rush to the bottom. :puke:

[dave_p]

232. Dividing workers fuels the rush to the bottom

"Then what?" is a fair point. Calling people seeking a decent living for their family "scabs" isn't. Many extralegal workers would like to be union members fighting alongside others for decent pay. If you've such class fight as to call people scabs, you should also be ready to reach out to others who can fight alongside you. Some of them have experience of organizing in the face of far worse danger than US workers have encountered since the 1930s.

Then what? Get legal immigration in order (more when the economy's booming, less when it isn't - though there'll be less anyway). Strip bosses of the power to fire just to reduce pay to subsitence: if society can't uphold basic entitlment to justice, we're all wasting our time. And unionize workers who until now haven't been able to exercise their power to fight for all.

[EFerrari]

193. They have it both ways. They incite racism when they need it

and they screw workers when they can.

We have to find a way to talk about racism that benefits workers, that helps us stay together. That would pretty much blow up the whole scheme.

[murloc]

200. Investing in the infrastructure of Mexico?

I think we've done enough "fixing" of other counties.

Perhaps we should ask the Iraqi's how they are enjoying our investment there.

[EFerrari]

204. The ones that are still alive, anyway.

Beware of Americans bearing gifts.

[TankLV]

208. "ILLEGAL" - it's about keeping and kicking out the "ILLEGALS"

Even most Hispanics here LEGALLY support that.

It's not hard to understand, really.

Stop with the race baiting bullshit.

[Gman]

212. Didn't read the entire post, did you?

[Ganja Ninja]

225. There are 2 reasons why we have so many illegal immigrants.

1. We don't have enough legal immigrants.
2. People will hire them.

Address those two issues and the problem will solve itself.

[dave_p]

230. Yes

12m unauthorized migrants suggests to me too that there's something wrong with legal immigration. For 12 million to leave their homes for a precarious extralegal subsistence where their very lack of rights makes them a tool for employers to undercut pay means the sytem's failing them.

Immigration should be more flexible, relying more on prospective migrants to stay put when the opportunities dry up (as they've always tended to do), while targeting employers who abuse workers' legitimate right to decent pay & conditions.

[EFerrari]

234. About half of them are from the countries in Central America

were we suppressed progressive governments in the 80s -- El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua.

[Odin2005]

226. I'm fucking sick of the race card.

As I posted in another thread, if these illegal immigrants were, say, Poles, no one would have any problems deporting them, but since they are mostly Latin Americans some people are making knee jerk assumptions that this is all about race. :eyes:

[dave_p]

231. Aren't you making that assumption too?

I'd have the same problem if it were Poles or Canadians. You're also "making knee jerk assumptions that this is all about race" by thinking I wouldn't. Poles were in fact the subject of a similar hullaballoo last year in the UK, and I raised pretty much the same objections over that as I have over this.

I agree that it isn't simply a race issue, though it's very much one of national identification. I think many confuse the two.

So less of the race card on both sides, I think. That includes you.

[LeftishBrit]

239. Yes, in the UK it does include East Europaeans as well as non-white immigrants

That's one reason why I tend to speak of 'anti-immigrant prejudice' rather than 'racism', except when racism is clearly present (e.g. when 3rd-generation British Asians are STILL referred to disparagingly as 'immigrants', not to mention more insulting terms).

Few countries can or do allow absolutely unregulated immigration, and clearly one cannot equate all calls for laws regulating immigration with some form of prejudice! When it becomes prejudice is when a country's ills get attributed to immigrants without any consideration of other factors; when immigrants as individuals are automatically treated with hostility; when no distinction is made between illegal immigrants, legal immigrants and native-born descendants of immigrants; and when right-wing politicians are able to get elected by whipping up hostility to immigrants, and often 'dividing and ruling' by setting different groups of poorer people against each other.

It's difficult always to draw the line between advocacy of appropriate and reasonable controls on immigration, and anti-immigrant prejudice. It's certainly difficult and probably inappropriate for me to do so with regard to the American situation; much easier here in the UK. I would respectfully suggest, however, that any support for Pat Buchanan is a bridge too far.

(BTW I'm white, and the daughter of legal immigrants to the UK.)

[dave_p]

248. Feel free

"It's certainly difficult and probably inappropriate for me to do so with regard to the American situation"

Hey, opine away! It's a transnational issue, after all, and part of a global one. And it's one where international experience is useful.

I think there's certainly a case for seeing nativism in some of the postings in the various threads, but that's usually a different phenomenon nowadays to racism. I guess immigration control is intrinsically nativist in its effect, but there can be legitimate reasons for regulating flow in as humane a manner as possible: it's unfortunate that they don't seem the primary issue in this controversy.

[Madspirit]

243. Of course I would

I'm fucking sick of presumption myself. I am a Texan and do have lots of illegal friends but I WOULD NOT DEPORT ANYONE. I also have friends from all over the world. Don't YOU make assumptions about ME.

I am an open border kind of person. ...and I'm 53 and fully know my mind, my politics and what I think about this issue.
Lee

[Bridget Burke]

245. People keep getting dealt The Race Card...

So don't get all offended when they play it.

[EFerrari]

263. Similarly, people who have suffered racism may talk about it.

Don't take it personally.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

236. Why? Because people don't like to think of themselves as racist.

"I'm not racist, I just want those damn smelly mexicans invading my country and spreading disease."

[nadinbrzezinski]

246. DING, DING, DING

after all many of these illegals are white and european nobody speaks of those

Also if we serious, our policy would make it very expensive for employers (who love cheap labor) to hire these illegals, regardless of skin color or language spoken

[LostinVA]

247. self delete

Misunderstood OP.

[Truthiness Inspector]

256. Over the top

The argument that anyone who has an issue with illegal immigration is "racist" is an inflammatory one, at best.

Lots of people, of all skin colors, immigrate here (and to many other nations) every year. Some do it legally and some don't. That is the issue.

Sheesh.

[ecstatic]

259. What part of "illegal" do you not get? nt

[EFerrari]

262. That part where "law" and "justice" aren't the same thing.