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The U.S. is not the only country dealing with this by a long shot.
Ivory Coast boy smuggled to Spain inside suitcase - BBC News People will do whatever it takes. As you can see there - a father from Ivory Coast paid a man to smuggle his 8 year old boy into Spain in a suitcase. The boy was in the suitcase 4 days and nearly died from dehydration. You have to wonder how bad things are in west Africa that a father would put his son through that. Spain is not exactly an economic powerhouse but it must look damn good to Ivorians.
We will never stop immigration as long as we have an economy better than the larger region. The reason there is "illegal" immigration is because there are quotas and there is no "line" to queue up in. Prior to 1924 there were no quotas. If you do not have a high value skill or close relatives in the U.S. "legal" immigration is a pipe dream.
There is only one way to stop illegal immigration and that is to make our country an unattractive destination. We can do that by either destroying our economy or becoming a police state. During the recession all immigration - both legal and illegal - plummeted. That's not surprising because construction jobs were few and far between from 2009 to 2013. We could implement very harsh restrictions on employers but we would have to include private party work relationships as well to really stop it. Possible but it that desirable? Enforcement would be expensive.
Draconian restrictions against employers will only encourage a black market for labor. There has always been a laboring underclass in the U.S. whether it was slaves, Chinese immigrants, Eastern European immigrants, now people from Mexico and Latin America mostly. Labor needs to be done and people don't want to pay high dollar for it.
I would prefer we look at holistic policies that take into account the realities of the situation. Some kind of guest worker program with reciprocity between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico like what the EU has would be a place to start.
If internet debates about immigration have taught me one thing, it's that most people with strong opinions on the matter don't even know the difference between legal status and citizenship. Sigh...
The moderate approach in my opinion would be to screen those who are here illegally and allow those who have been here for a long time to possibly stay, provided they have led lawful lives and are productive members of society. Everyone else would have to go back to their home countries. The only reason I say some should be allowed to stay is because many have raised their children here and this is the only country those children know. And some of those kids are now grown adults, so how do we justify sending them back? I'm not talking about kids who are still young and have just arrived or been here a short time, they'd have no problem going back and feeling at home.
Employers who have hired illegals should be prosecuted. Give fair warning that a big crackdown is coming and employers should get rid of illegal workers and hire Americans.
These two things would help with allowing some to stay, while most would be deported or would self deport when they couldn't find work.
Lawmakers want us to believe the problem is too big and we should just give amnesty to illegal immigrants. Since when is any problem too big for Americans? Plus, people either don't know or have a very short memory of immigrants being screened when large numbers of people came from Europe, or what's been happening in Miami since the Cuban Mariel (Muriel?) boatlift of the late 70's or early 80's. When I lived in Hialeah, which is part of the Miami metropolitan area back in the early 2000's Cubans who made it to this country under the wet foot/dry foot policy, were sent to detention centers, and often languished there for months, if not longer. Not sure how it is today. I'm not suggesting detention centers for illegals already in this country who crossed the Mexican border, but what I am saying is they should be screened and most sent back. This country can't take the invasion we've seen.
We need much tighter border security, preferably like the Great Wall of China, so people can't make it here so easily. Fences can be cut through.
Sad that so many people are clueless or just don't care what's happening in communities around the country. Lawmakers who don't have to live in the neighborhoods that have been devastated, don't feel the affects of illegal immigration.
Listening to The Wall Street Journal on C-span I listened to some callers who are at their wit's end and can't take what's happening in their neighborhoods. One guy said he thought it was nice when Mexicans moved into his neighborhood because they were being given a chance to work, but then changed his mind. Said they were very disrespectful towards the other residents, refused to learn English, and the crime rate went up. He lived in a major city on the east coast but don't recall where. A black lady living in California said she was fed up because she didn't even recognize her neighborhood any longer. Said the shops had signs in Spanish, no one spoke English, and crime had gone up. Both callers were at the end of their rope with what they were dealing with, you could hear it in the voices.
Pretty much my whole life I've heard Mexicans say they were going to "take back the SW U.S." by "numbers, numbers", by flooding us with illegals. They hate our government and the citizens who live here. That's been my experience whenever I've dealt with them, and they've been in my city since I was a kid, including in schools I went to, especially high school.
It's a very dangerous situation our elected leaders have put us in. Both parties are to blame. When Reagan signed the bill giving amnesty to what was said to be about 1.5 million illegals at the time (it was actually around 3.5 to 4 million), he said future presidents would have to work to improve border security. He didn't want to give amnesty from what I recall, he was trying to get a fence built in California to stop crossings there, and Democrats were insisting on amnesty for those in the country and wouldn't give him the fence without amnesty. Well, future presidents didn't fix the problem, and all four after Reagan were negligent, the last two downright ignorant in handling the problem.
Yes and look at your supporting evidence.. Madd Magazine and National Enquirer of the GOP.. are you serious?
I'm not sure what you were looking at. Just because there is one link to fauxnews, doesn't discredit all the other links to washington times.
Since you're a staunch supporter of illegal immigration, I suggest you contact your congress person, and ask them if you can take them in and give them free room and board. Your inability to accept facts, are a very big issue.
Here is report after report where jobs went to immigrants since 2007...And this is coming from center for immigration studies. Again, don't be scared of the truth/facts.
I'm politically moderate but, think we need to deport as many people as possible. That's that's the only way to fix the country. Illegals are breaking the law, taking jobs from Americans, and using finite resources (water, energy, and food).
The U.S. is not the only country dealing with this by a long shot.
Ivory Coast boy smuggled to Spain inside suitcase - BBC News People will do whatever it takes. As you can see there - a father from Ivory Coast paid a man to smuggle his 8 year old boy into Spain in a suitcase. The boy was in the suitcase 4 days and nearly died from dehydration. You have to wonder how bad things are in west Africa that a father would put his son through that. Spain is not exactly an economic powerhouse but it must look damn good to Ivorians.
We will never stop immigration as long as we have an economy better than the larger region. The reason there is "illegal" immigration is because there are quotas and there is no "line" to queue up in. Prior to 1924 there were no quotas. If you do not have a high value skill or close relatives in the U.S. "legal" immigration is a pipe dream.
There is only one way to stop illegal immigration and that is to make our country an unattractive destination. We can do that by either destroying our economy or becoming a police state. During the recession all immigration - both legal and illegal - plummeted. That's not surprising because construction jobs were few and far between from 2009 to 2013. We could implement very harsh restrictions on employers but we would have to include private party work relationships as well to really stop it. Possible but it that desirable? Enforcement would be expensive.
Draconian restrictions against employers will only encourage a black market for labor. There has always been a laboring underclass in the U.S. whether it was slaves, Chinese immigrants, Eastern European immigrants, now people from Mexico and Latin America mostly. Labor needs to be done and people don't want to pay high dollar for it.
I would prefer we look at holistic policies that take into account the realities of the situation. Some kind of guest worker program with reciprocity between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico like what the EU has would be a place to start.
A guest worker plan wouldn't only be for our bordering countries, it would also include overseas because what a large company wouldn't want is to pay their computer scientists any money. If they don't find someway to flood the market with computer programers from other countries they might have to pay Americans double what they are willing to do. If there isn't competition here, we create it.
Not to mention, our plumbers, electricians can kiss away a profit if they start competing with guest workers from Mexico. Take plumbers for example, a lot of American workers start out as labor, learn the trade and work their way up and out. Why would they do that with guest workers to labor? They won't.
We bring in tech workers now from India, saying we are filling the need when we are actually making sure we don't have to pay more for an American who'll do the job. It's a way to keep price down but it also keeps good paying middle class jobs down at the same time.
Not to mention a lot defect from these programs because they are treated badly and run off to someplace in America and just got a free ride over the border. These guest worker programs don't work well for Americans, bad idea. They didn't work well during World War 2 and we actually needed workers then, they still ran off and became illegal here.
Why on earth would we want a program like this right after a huge recession, and high unemployment? Doesn't make any sense for the middle class to accept this. Only large companies want this.
With farming when you bring in Mexican workers on visa, small farms lose their business to super mega farms with cheap labor. It's not like the small farmer makes any money anyway, they certainly don't need the competition after that last recession.
This time around it's like we want to hand out work visas just because we feel bad they can't stay illegally. We don't need more workers, there is no shortage. What are we thinking? When my mom was young, all the youth picked crops in the summer for money. We aren't short on workers because all our citizens are gone fighting a war like WW2, we have huge unemployment.
All we need is to enforce the laws, and make it hard to hire whoever is left. We need to stop allowing our country to get swallowed up before our eyes. In the old days we needed workers, today we need jobs. We should act accordingly.
Last edited by PoppySead; 05-10-2015 at 11:52 PM..
As for illegals in the US economy---I call BS on what you wrote. Did you even read where I pointed out that when ICE was allowed to do raids, Americans would line up to apply for those jobs? In the case of Howard Industries in MS, some Americans drove as much as 40 miles for a chance at a job.
Last year, a local restaurant chain was found to have 100 illegals working for them. All the illegals were fired and guess what?---The restaurant didn't miss a beat. In other words, they weren't forced to shut down because they easily found Americans and legal immigrants to take those jobs.
We don't need illegals at all in this country. Period.
As for High Skilled immigrants---Here we go again---the same old nonsense! In other words, you are another one who is saying that if we don't let those thousands of H1-Bs into this country, all those jobs will go overseas. Please. Whether or not those jobs go overseas or are given to H1-Bs, it still means that Americans go without work.
And what's so bad about letting those from the third world get an education here and have them return to their own countries? Third world countries need to retain their best and brightest in order for their own countries to prosper.
There are clearly some short term tensions in the short term. But, it is a messy issue. Immigrants and native born workers compete for jobs in some cases. But, immigrants also spend money, so they also support jobs.
But over the long the run, the issue is very clear. Due to an aging population and a lower birth rate the US has a declining labor force. We NEED IMMIGRATION to help out economy succeed.
As the center-right economics write for the Washington Post, Robert Samuelson point out, the US economy faces long term challenges from our aging labor force:
Quote:
From 1950 to 1973, the U.S. economy expanded at an
average annual rate of 4 percent. This would have been Okun’s reference
point. For the coming decade (2015-2025), the Congressional Budget Office
projects growth at only 2.1 percent annually. About half the decline reflects slower labor force growth. We can’t do much about this. Baby boomers are retiring; the influx of new workers only slightly exceeds this large workforce exodus. But the other cause of slower economic growth is lower
productivity gains that come from new technologies, better business practices
and more skilled workers.
....
We will never stop immigration as long as we have an economy better than the larger region. The reason there is "illegal" immigration is because there are quotas and there is no "line" to queue up in. Prior to 1924 there were no quotas. If you do not have a high value skill or close relatives in the U.S. "legal" immigration is a pipe dream.
......
I would prefer we look at holistic policies that take into account the realities of the situation. Some kind of guest worker program with reciprocity between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico like what the EU has would be a place to start.
I agree "illegal immigration" will always be a challenge for the US, as long as we share a vast border with a much poorer nation to the south.
The combination of a carrot "legal guest worker program" and stick "beefed up employment law enforcement" approach is probably the best way go.
But, how far would you go with a "guest worker program" for lower skilled immigrants? I'm really torn on how a guest worker program would work in practice.
How long would people stay for? Would people actually go home when there time is up? What if they have US citizen children while in the US?
Should there be a way for temporary guest workers to get permanent status?
Should it only be open to Mexican and Central Americans? This is unfair from a global perspective, but is the most practical if the idea is to stem illegal immigration.
For all these reasons, I'm deeply skeptical about the ability to work properly. Although, I think we need to at least try it.
I also have some ethical quarrels about the idea of a dual tier immigration policy: permanent residence and easy access for higher skilled workers vs. temporary status for lower skilled workers. Not many people would be getting off the ships at Elis Island full if we only let in the "high skilled" workers.
But, there world is a different place than it was then. We live in a high skilled economy, not an industrial economy that needs factory workers. Plus, unlike 100 years ago, we have massive social welfare system. But, nature and design, it transfers income from high income workers to lower income workers on net. By nature, low income immigrants and their families will be net "beneficiaries" of these social transfer systems. Conceivably, we could make immigrants ineligible for many of these benefits. But, they have US citizen children and there is no legal (and ethical) way to exclude them.
Ultimately, if we want to have a social safety net and have concerns about domestic poverty/mobility, we need to have "skill based" immigration system like Canada.
IMO, there are 3 sustainable immigration systems: 1) European style- very hard to immigrate and very generous social safety net and assistance for lower income families. Or lots of low skilled immigration and a bankrupt social safety net. 2) George W. Bush/Koch Brothers style- very easy to immigrate, but no social safety net. Lots of low skilled immigrants and lots of poverty and poor social indicators. See pre-1924 open door policy. 3) Canadian style- immigration focused on higher skilled immigrants and a social safety net for the general population.
Personally, I think the Canadian style is the best option among the 3.
A guest worker plan wouldn't only be for our bordering countries, it would also include overseas because what a large company wouldn't want is to pay their computer scientists any money. If they don't find someway to flood the market with computer programers from other countries they might have to pay Americans double what they are willing to do. If there isn't competition here, we create it.
Not to mention, our plumbers, electricians can kiss away a profit if they start competing with guest workers from Mexico. Take plumbers for example, a lot of American workers start out as labor, learn the trade and work their way up and out. Why would they do that with guest workers to labor? They won't.
We bring in tech workers now from India, saying we are filling the need when we are actually making sure we don't have to pay more for an American who'll do the job. It's a way to keep price down but it also keeps good paying middle class jobs down at the same time.
Not to mention a lot defect from these programs because they are treated badly and run off to someplace in America and just got a free ride over the border. These guest worker programs don't work well for Americans, bad idea. They didn't work well during World War 2 and we actually needed workers then, they still ran off and became illegal here.
Why on earth would we want a program like this right after a huge recession, and high unemployment? Doesn't make any sense for the middle class to accept this. Only large companies want this.
With farming when you bring in Mexican workers on visa, small farms lose their business to super mega farms with cheap labor. It's not like the small farmer makes any money anyway, they certainly don't need the competition after that last recession.
This time around it's like we want to hand out work visas just because we feel bad they can't stay illegally. We don't need more workers, there is no shortage. What are we thinking? When my mom was young, all the youth picked crops in the summer for money. We aren't short on workers because all our citizens are gone fighting a war like WW2, we have huge unemployment.
All we need is to enforce the laws, and make it hard to hire whoever is left. We need to stop allowing our country to get swallowed up before our eyes. In the old days we needed workers, today we need jobs. We should act accordingly.
I think that's why we would need reciprocity. It's currently not easy as an American to get a job in Mexico or Canada. If we're going to give access to their low-skilled laborers here, then I would want access for our mid and high level workers there, ie: be easy for a mid-level U.S. web designer who knows Spanish to go and work for a company in Guadalajara. Presumably we have an advantage in better schools, etc... and would compete favorably at that level.
The challenge would be convincing them to go along with that. Low-skilled labor is one thing, but all countries are loathe to give up "good" jobs to foreigners, even just the possibility of giving them up.
We have global economic markets but we're still trying to isolate our labor markets like it's 1912.
The old days where you could pick fruit or deliver papers during the summer as a young kid are long gone. I think we should stop pining for that and deal with the situation we've got.
Quote:
The combination of a carrot "legal guest worker program" and stick "beefed up employment law enforcement" approach is probably the best way go.
How do you enforce the under-the-table market? Or shady sub-contract market? Legitimate employers are already not hiring very many illegals and having them fill out a W-2, etc... That's just inviting an investigation if you do that. At least every job I've ever applied for from fast-food on up had me show proof of citizenship or legal employable status. I mean, the IRCA of 1986 mandates that employers have workers fill out an I-9, right? Then there are about 20 states that have e-verify laws which are basically a redundancy of the IRCA's I-9 provision.
So we already have plenty of laws but not a sufficient enforcement mechanism. It would probably take a considerable federal or state workforce to really root out all the under the table or contract-sub-contract hiring that illegals use to find work.
Of course, I'm all for such a thing which would be economic stimulus, but I don't think there's the will to follow through with making the business community very upset about increased labor costs or for increasing taxes to fund the enforcement agents. There's not really a party in our politics today that will upset both of those constituencies. Actually I'd argue the best bet are the Democrats if we want movement on this sort of thing - because they're more likely to anger businesses and raise taxes.
Republicans will never upset the apple cart of the chamber of commerce and a LOT of chamber members save money by hiring these "contractors." Ironically the Obama administration has been much better on this because they're willing to muck with business - ie: Chipotle had quite a thriving illegal employee market during the W. Bush admin. The Obama people cracked down and it took time and money for Chipotle to cover the shortage. http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/02/08/...le.immigrants/
Contrary to popular notions, illegals cannot and do not vote.
If the illegal immigration problem is to be solved - another problem that would have to be addressed is the wage problem. There are plenty of Americans who will work in kitchens or pick berries, but they want $12 an hour to do so, not $7.25 an hour. I hear employers say a lot that they would hire legal Americans if they applied -- but they don't. I remember seeing a Jon Stewart clip with a Georgia farmer and when GA cracked down in illegal immigrants, his crops just didn't get picked - no one filled the gap at his wage rate which was the most he said he could pay. He said something like 2 people applied compared to 30 before. This has always been a problem with immigrant workers. Immigrants move in familial chains meaning that they don't support households on one income - while native-born Americans who are 3rd generation or more - do. Or at least they try to.
Last edited by redguard57; 05-11-2015 at 06:19 PM..
Bring cheap labor over to fill the need we think we have for it and it will be a win, win. The Mexicans will be happy to just work here for nothing for a while and our businesses will be happy for the help until they are done needing it, right? Wrong!
The only problem with this "win-win" scenario is that it will not work. Bush's proposal ignores the fact that virtually no low-wage "temporary worker" program in a high-wage liberal democracy has ever turned out to be genuinely temporary. On the contrary, most initially small (and often "emergency") temporary worker programs have grown much larger, and lasted far longer, than originally promised.
This tendency toward permanence is easily explained -- guest worker programs are virtual recipes for mutual dependence between employers and the migrants who work for them. Employers naturally grow to depend on the supply of low-wage and compliant labor, relaxing their domestic recruitment efforts and adjusting their production methods to take advantage of the cheap labor. History has shown that in agriculture (where many Mexican guest workers would be employed), a pool of cheap workers gives farm owners strong incentives to expand the planting of labor-intensive crops rather than invest in mechanized labor-saving equipment and the crops suitable for it. Thus, although the labor supply is supposed to be available only temporarily, farmers adapt in ways that ensure their continued need for workers willing to accept such low wages. On the other side of the coin, those bargain wages for employers are a boon for the "temporary" workers, who earn much more than they could at home. For instance, laborers in U.S. fruit and vegetable agriculture make between $5 and $7 an hour, as opposed to 50 cents an hour in Mexico. Past guest worker programs have shown that the participants and their families grow accustomed to the increased income; they therefore have no incentive to return home unless rapid economic and job growth there creates commensurate opportunities. As the workers' "temporary" sojourns extend over time, the odds of their ever returning to their homeland diminish, and young people in the home country come to regard employment abroad as normal.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...-guest-workers
This is why it doesn't work, it hasn't worked, and it won't work in the future. Either let them come over and stay, or have our businesses fill these jobs with Americans and machines. If they stay, then they erase job opportunities for those already here. If this is ok, why don't we just open the border and allow free travel back and forth. Then at least our workers can look for new jobs over there as well and take advantage of the cheaper real estate.
Why would we try something that never works, isn't good for our economy, or the middle class? I just don't get it. I would hope they would at least come up with something new, that hasn't been tried and failed.
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