Quote:
Originally Posted by latimeria
I was talking about how the one poster's experience is just that...one person's experience. It may hold true overall. It may not. It's interesting to hear people's experiences and we can keep them in mind, but it cannot truly indicate what is going on by itself.
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What reason do you have to believe that the experience and habits of many illegals working in the construction industry where I live would be significantly different than illegals working in the construction industry where you live?
Some things that I learned while working and interacting with them that the media won't tell you:
A higher than average number of them are men, most in their 20's and 30's.
Many have no interest in becoming Americans.
Many drive without a license or insurance.
Getting back and forth across the border illegaly isn't that difficult. Once they are here they become immersed in sort of an underground culture that helps one and other with things like taking care of family members and transportation, including border crossings.
They only spend enough money here to support themselves while they're here making money that they send back home or spend when they go back home.
That's why the stereotype of many living in the same house and riding in the same car is actually pretty accurate. And the narrative about how much they contribute to our economy is dubious at best.
It's not unusual for a large group of young men to live in a house with just a few women who cook and take care of the kids.
More of them speak at least rudimentary English than they will sometimes let on and they can be very racist towards blacks and even other Hispanics from different countries or different parts of their own country. The lighter skinned they are, they more likely they are to consider themselves to be "white" and also culturally higher up on their social structure. I don't remember the specifics, but they have their own racial slang for other Hispanics that they don't like or that they consider to be lower than them
Not all of them are the hard workers that the stereotype would have you believe. Many of the ones who come here are, but the ratio of lazy people and criminals etc is pretty much the same as anyone else.
They're not all here "just to make a better life".
A few of the guys I worked with were also involved in some rather nasty stuff, including smuggling and prostitution of underages girls.
There were a few really good people that I met over time that wanted to do things the right way but they just didn't have the means to go through the system.
Unfortunately, they were more the exception than the rule.
The government in Mexico is extremely corrupt.
Getting a student or vacation visa isn't very difficult if you know who to bribe. And once they are here for a certain amount of time, they can apply for what's called a "metricular consular" ....a form of ID issued by the Mexican Consulate that helps them obtain all sorts of benefits including a US issued "taxpayer ID" number...that just happens to be the same number of digits as a Social Security number.
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Why weren't you upset back then that it was to be the taxpayer to soley fund it? Hmmm. 