We are getting word that UN Human Rights Official Jorge Bustamante will not be visiting our County tomorrow morning.
55 Thoughts to “Bustamante Not Coming”
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- You, Me and the Lamp Post
Something more important came up than to go try to fake sympathy for illegal alien criminals getting dirty looks from people. Go figure. Ah well the struggle for “human rights” will continue I suppose.
Can you explain the part about giving dirty looks to illegal alien criminals. How does one go about this? Thanks.
It is part and parcel of the absolute brutality going on in PWC … illegal aliens are still here, shopping in stores en masse, patronizing various businesses, and sometimes overcrowding the few townhouses they own that haven’t been foreclosed on. They still hold jobs all over the area (no concentrated effort to weed them out of positions has been undertaken yet). You will find them in the emergency room and you will find them in our public schools – in fact go inside any public school around here and you will notice that all written material on the walls is in Spanish as well as English, so as not to disempower anyone, or at least not anyone who speaks Spanish.
But sometimes people give them DIRTY LOOKS. Such as when they are enrolling their kids or receiving care at the emergency room on taxpayer funding, or when they are loud in stores. Furthermore, some of us want them deported when they are arrested – heavens to Murgatroy! The inhumanity of it all.
Between trying to enforce the “rule of law” and giving them dirty looks, it is certainly very much like the rise of Nazi Germany. It’s a slippery slope from not wanting to pay for someone’s social services or not wanting to watch them ignore zoning laws, to genocide, surely.
REALLY? That SUCKS!!!!
Is he just putting it off for now or what? Anyone know?
Apparently he came to the conclusion that the whole thing was bs, just a guess.
Rick – he realized that comparing the human rights issues that have been going on in other countries (think Tibet) are probably a little more severe than ENFORCING THE LAW. And poor KG, now who will she worship from afar? I bet MWB will be holding a candlelight vigil tonight.
you wish,
The vigil will be at 9500 Liberty St. 😉
“Human rights official.” Right. Sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong. Asking people who have been arrested for appropriate identification is not a human rights abuse. Expecting people to obey laws, regardless of their skin color, is not a human rights abuse. Some third-world “official” has no business telling the U.S. how to handle criminals.
Maybe if I ever get stopped for a traffic violation, I will scream bloody murder about my “right” to withhold my driver’s license, because I really don’t think I should have to carry it around if I don’t feel like it. Wonder how far that will get me?
Rick,
Exactly how do you know who is illegal when they are out shopping or in the emergency room?
Have to agree with Emma. I was not in favor of this visit from the beginning, and glad it was called off. How dare someone come to PWC and tell us how what laws we should have, and how we should enforce them. And what kind of human rights violations did he expect to find, anyway? And other posters have valid points, there are people being torture and dying in other parts of the world due to human rights violations. In my opinion if it was my job to seek out human rights violations, I’d have “bigger fish to fry” in other parts of the world than to waste my time coming to PWC!
I hope some sanity prevailed, and all parties involved realized the folly of this entire exercise. I’m thinking maybe it just got postponed, but maybe it really did get called off. i guess we’ll find out as we get more definitive news.
Elena, you beat me to it. How does Rick know who is undocumented and who isn’t?
Elena,
Looks like this blog is turning more against you than for you. That’s got to tell you something!
Second Alamo,
what?
LPOW, perhaps we should send a delegation to Mexico to investigate their human-rights abuses and advise how they should handle illegal immigrants. Think our opinions would matter much there?
SA,
I don’t think the blog is turning against Elena. Now why would you try to hurt her feelings? I think probably there are a lot of out of town visitors (wink wink) coming to stir the pot a little.
The regulars are just sitting back and watching the tourists be…well….tourists.
Moon-Howler XXXOOO
SA isn’t hurting my feelings 🙂 I think he is just feeling lonely tonight and is hoping to strike up a conversation.
Ignorance level here is rising quickly. Nothing worth responding to. But it is funny how a possible visit from a person of Mexican ancestry (with authority) never fails to get the hate blinders up and the heads in the sand again. All that times wasted just to sound dumb AS WELL AS hateful. What do you think it earns you Rick Bentley?
I do live in the County, Lucky Duck. I assume most of us do.
And yes, you’re right, the Police can still protect and serve people who aren’t inclined to talk to them. They just can’t do it very well.
A question for those of us who can cope with complex ideas: Could it be that severely hampering the Police force’s ability to work with ethnic communities will hurt people who are not ethnic as well?
I’m sure there are partisans and/or intolerant people who will say they are happy to hear Hispanics no longer see the Police as protecting or serving them, and that they are more likely to be victimized because criminals know they are afraid to report crimes, and that more crimes will go unsolved because less people will come forward with information.
But if there are crimes in Prince William County, and if there are more unsolved crimes on top of that, it seems to me we all lose, not just Hispanic people. When bad guys commit crimes and don’t get caught, they are likely to do it again. Areas where crimes are less likely to be reported attract more criminals. More criminals means more crime victims, and more crime victims means we are all less safe; not just Hispanic people.
So here we are with another “unforeseen” consequence (except for the fact that it WAS foreseen but warnings went unheeded by our politically motivated Board of Supervisors). Our public safety, like our economy, will suffer because we could foolishly assumed that targeting one segment of the community would not affect the rest of us.
Electioneering before good governing: another shameful legacy of Corey Stewart.
Emma – good one! I ‘m sure there’d be howls of protest if we sent a delegation to investigate human rights violations in Mexico.
I think the average citizen doesn’t see the PWC hispanic community quaking in fear. I was out all weekend on both sides of PWC and saw latinos on both sides of the county enjoying the same things we were enjoying: soccer games in intense heat, the railway festival, the opening of Wegman’s, errands at Walmart/Home Depot, fishing on the Occoquan. The children I saw were laughing, running and playing. No one ran out of fear when the police pulled up to direct traffic at Wegman’s or to the site of an accident on Rt. 1. Everyone acted like normal families going on about a hot June weekend.
In light of what I saw this weekend, it seemed silly for Mr. Bustmante to have the idea he was needed here more than Africa where children arms are cut off by machetes or Burma where the government would leave the people to starve. There are terrible things going on in this world in places where women and children are treated worse than animals. PWC cannot be the place where the UN feels that it needs to concentrate its limited resources looking into human rights.
I agree that Elena and some of the others make good points when discussing the hateful rhetoric that comes from some on the other side of the issue. That type of talk is wrong. But anyone who thinks that human rights in PWC even begin to compare to Burma, Darfur, North Korean, or Iran completely loses credibility with me. Yes, there has been some hateful things said by ignorant people…but that isn’t the majority of PWC, nor even the majority of people who support the resolution. To make that comparison hurts your case far more than it helps your case.
Elena you get at something real there, and I’ll tell you what I think.
It’s not a 100% correlation that people who don’t speak English and can’t read road signs and don’t know how to follow laws or rules are illegal aliens. Some such people might be legal, such as illiterate Americans or legal residents from other countries.
Neither is it a 100% correlation that people who engage in overcrowding and ruin neighborhoods and houses are illegal aliens.
However, the correlation is HIGH. If you want to get those problem behaviors out of your area, fighting illegal immigration is the only sensible way to proceed. The ACLU can fight for people’s right to wreck houses and overcrowd, and people’s right to ignore the language of the land, but they cannot change the fact that illegal DOES mean illegal and illegal immigrants lack any right to be here. While they’re here the ACLU will try to ensure they get treated in an inviting manner, but they lack that singular right to be here, and the ACLU is out-of-luck on that one because the will of the American people is we do not want or accept tens of millions of illegal immigrants among us, or erwarded for lawbreaking with Amnesty.
Accepts these basic precepts and you’ll feel as I do :
1. The only reason the illegal aliens are allowed to do the things they do – drive without proper liscensing, work with other people’s social security numbers, systematically overcrowd and lie (sometimes) to building inspectors, and a host of other problematical behaviors – is because their presence in the country lowers wages and gives the wealthy more ability to run businesses cheaper, at the expense of Americans’ wages. If these people made wages higher and somehow took money from wealthier people, the current situation would never have come to pass. Basically, they are allowed to play by different rules than the ones Americans have been allowed to play by in this country (particularly on the issue of forging identity and eluding long-term tracking by a social security number).
2. Middle class America is bearing the brunt of costs for these people, in Emergency Rooms and schools among other places. Again the whole reason this situation has flourished is because it has enabled cash flow transfer from middle and lower class Americans to wealthy ones. Some people feel it is natural that people with less flow into here, like osmosis. I feel it’s in no way natural that an oil-rich nation like Mexico has 15% of its working-age citizens farmed out here to a nation they don’t speak the language in, abandoning their own land to continued corruption while enabling ours to a different form of corruption (abrogation of law and order by our ruling class, for profit). Is the root problem our laws? Well the “anchor baby” interpretation of the Constitution is an issue, but generally we have laws in place intended to prevent Americans’ rights and wages from the phenomenon of illegal immigration. The problem is, our elites have deliberately failed to enforce those laws meaningfully, and it’s obvious why. It’s not Christian charity.
3. So much of what America has ostensibly been about and stood for in the past 100-150 years – the bill of goods I was sold, along with most Americans – is contradicted by the current sick situation which (at the risk of repeating myself) exists for reasons of profit, not because it makes any sense for one nation to try to absorb other nations’ poor in some kind of dual-citizen status. War on poverty? Um, tens of millions of uneducated poor won’t help. Wage equality? Letting in tens of millions of new unskilled workers to drive wages down at the low end doesn’t help. Improving our schools, especially in urban areas? Letting in tens of millions of kids whose parents are frequently unassimilated won’t help – many of the parents and children may be fine, but some are not so together and poverty is poverty – the schools will be inexorably dragged towards the lowest common denominator, this is the problem inherent to trying to lift schools towards performance equality. Universal health care? Makes me sick when Obama pretends he is real about this – couldn’t be more obvious he won’t really be able to sell Americans on this unless he weeds illegal immigrants out of his mix. (The lobbyists against health care reform will have a FIELD DAY with this one).
4. Mexico will never get better with us taking in so many of their poor, fuinctioning (against most Americans’ will) like a release valve and a charity – it will remain corrupt and will not evolve – note that by ANYONE’S account the previous Presidential election in Mexico would have gone the other way if their citizenry wasn’t farmed out here.
5. After asking our middle and lower class citizens time and again to fight our wars and to make our sacrifices, our leaders have no right to abrogate the oath they took to uphold our laws. Previous generations didn’t make sacrifices because of abstract notions of international brotherhood, or of charity towards South and Central American poor. They did it for this nation, ostensibly a nation of laws.
6. The long bloody fight towards higher wages in America should not be allowed to be undercut by the sick cynical leaders we have who allow the sick status quo they push, using people as pawns for the continued betterment of mexico and the U.S.’s ruling classes.
WHWN, a good point about one community with police concerns impacting everyone else. That’s true, if one part doesn’t report or cooperate, all the rest are at risk.
I for one do not accept your basic precepts so lets just start with that:
“Neither is it a 100% correlation that people who engage in overcrowding and ruin neighborhoods and houses are illegal aliens.
However, the correlation is HIGH. If you want to get those problem behaviors out of your area, fighting illegal immigration is the only sensible way to proceed.”
What do the people who engage in overcrowding have in common 100%? The fact that they all enage in overcrowding. What is the most logical way to proceed with that concern?
Once a reasonable definition of overcrowding has been established, that involves more than a select group of individuals definitions, and is based on safety and health of both the idividuals residing in the home and the general health and safety of the community, then enforce, enforce enforce. I can assure you that it is much easier and less expensive to effectively enforce housing violations at the local level than to enforce immigration violations at the local level. It is also vastly more appropriate.
The second premise you address:
“and the ACLU is out-of-luck on that one because the will of the American people is we do not want or accept tens of millions of illegal immigrants among us, or erwarded for lawbreaking with Amnesty.”
Lets be very cautious about assessing the will of the American people. Don’t forget that McCain and Obama are head to head and both of them favor not amnsety but some kind of earned adjustment of status.
What is the most common way to deal with overcrowding? Well, consider the context that the Federal Government (Bush’s Justice Department) was suing the City of Manassas over attempts to curb overcrowding. They were very deliberately trying to intimidate Manassas, and other localities, by threatening to bankrupt them. They were even assisting various anonymous residents in filing multi-million dollar lawsuits on the basis that they’d been targeted unfairly in terms of zoning violations.
Would that this story got more publicity or was better understood. It was very real though. this ostensibly conservative President’s Justice department was taking very real, tangible actions to ensure that those of us unpleased with local flophouses would be unable to fight it via traditional means.
In that context, it’s to fight back and attack the real heart issue, illegal immigrants who help this corrupt Administration lower wages, by threatening to ACTUALLY ENFORCE RULE OF LAW and deport them.
As to your point about the will of the American people – the issue resonates deeply with those who have seen the phenomenon up close, it’s as simple as that. It’s a hot enough issue already that I think Obama or McCain will have to tread very carefully, and I believe Amnesty which is what I judge both of their wishes to be will dead-end quickly and cause either great pain and loss of political capital.
And valley girl the proof of my arguement is in the pudding – we had a tremendous influx of illegals circa 2005-2007 who overcrowded with impunity.
The rest of your post is extremely convoluted and poorly documented. You are all over the board inserting historial, economic and social mistruths. I have been thrown a Mortan Friedman quote about a dozen times by the anti immigrant/illegal immigrant types that was so badly out of context that it gave me great pleasure to throw it back in its proper context and use it right now, after all Friedman is fairly highly qualified.
“It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state,” said Friedman.
The part that is almost always left out is the rest,
“Look, for example, at the obvious, immediate, practical example of illegal Mexican immigration. Now, that Mexican immigration, over the border, is a good thing. It’s a good thing for the illegal immigrants. It’s a good thing for the United States. It’s a good thing for the citizens of the country. But, it’s only good so long as its illegal…
That’s an interesting paradox to think about. Make it legal and it’s no good. Why? Because as long as it’s illegal the people who come in do not qualify for welfare, they don’t qualify for social security, they don’t qualify for the other myriad of benefits that we pour out from our left pocket to our right pocket. So long as they don’t qualify they migrate to jobs. They take jobs that most residents of this country are unwilling to take. They provide employers with the kind of workers that they cannot get. They’re hard workers, they’re good workers, and they are clearly better off.”
That quote is much more a comment on our welfare state than a comment against immigration, Friedman was actually extremely pro-immigrant. And in that sense, there are certainly workable measures that would prevent recent immigrants from accessing free services that are government funded (whether local, state or federal). As a matter of fact, some of those measures are already in place, those which prevent recent immigrants from accessing Welfare. That is of course if you accept the premise that the availability of some services reduces the immigrants motivition to work hard (a classic liberal – conservative debate). This is not a one dimensional problem and neither is the solution, which involves addressing a myraid of concerns involving our welfare system, our misreable healthcare system, and our education system, to name a few.
Because their babies are considered citizens, they and their families actually do consume a good amount of benefits. I hope you noted the recent study that proved they take more out in taxes than they put in – obviously true of any group of low-wage earners.
Ensure them of a free public education for their kids, and free medical care, and they will come.
You are confused, as are many Americans, by the semantic games pro-illegal spokespeople have propogated through mouthpieces like George W Bush, John McCain, Ted Kennedy, and Harry Reid. Oh and Nancy “Limosine Liberal” Pilosi who actually has illegals working her grape farms. Studies claim to prove illegals use less benefits than the rest of us but the citizen kids they have in our hospitals aren’t taken into account. When they are it’s obvious that illegals actually drain money away from middle class America.
Unfortunately I have to run out but I would love to tackle the concerns you cite regarding teh Jsutice Department and Prince William County, but I need more details than what you have provided, particularly since you have a very subjective opinion. Perhaps those of you who are more familiar with those details could comment. I was involved in a similar issue in Loudoun and feel like I have a great deal of insight into housing violation enforcement, pros and cons, vs. local immigartion enforcement.
A couple of quick last notes, Northern Virginia in general had a rapid influx of immigrants from the mid-nintees on. The phenomenon of overcrowding is not new, it is extremely characteristic of patterns in immigration throughout our US history and across the world. The difference is that it was new to us, as we had never been a traditional receptor of recent immigrants, and it caused real culture clashes and shock in many areas. This is true for other parts of the country. Don’t assume that I was not immediatly involved in the situation because my views are drastically different from your own. Many pockets of communities dealt with and handled the issues differently, which had a big impact in how the scenarios played out and resolved themselves, if they did at all.
Oh for craps sake Rick – I am not confused. I am extremely well educated on the issue. Don’t go and mention studies, you show me yours and I’ll show you mine(which will likely proove just the opposite), and the sources will be duely noted. C’mon man, you didn’t even link to your study.
Rick,
I’m off to take the kids to a rescue zoo in Luray and will make sure to address your points later. I would agrue with your premise that illegal aliens drain from the middle class. I also am not sure you fully responded to how you know someone is illegal when you see them shopping or in the emergency room. Maybe you could clarify that for me. Do you have scientific date to back up your conclusions?
Valley Girl,
I too have read that illegal immigration has it’s benefits, although I haven’t fully formed my response to that hypothesis, I do want to explore that premise further. Thanks for your thoughtful posts!
Valley Girl, I’m busy too so we’ll have to compare scientific studies at a later date.
Elena I may not know any particular person is illegal but I know darned well there was a rather huge influx of illegals. And Valley Girl, it was atypical and massive, hence the reaction in PWC. Clearly we were being targeted by realtors as a good place for illegals to buy property.
Or does it make sense to anyone that as you walk around PWC where I live you can find realtors offices where the advertisements for homes plastered on the outside walls are entirely in Spanish …
Cue Jeff Foxworthy’s act …
If you’re buying a home from soeone who doesn’t even bother to market in English you MAGHT be an illegal immigrant …
If your ability to pay your rent is contingent on cramming 15 people into a 3-bedroom house, you MAGHT be an illegal immigrant …
If your response to any police officer who asks you to change your behavior is to feign not speaking English, and he accepts it and you get to continue the behavior, and you are allowed to break laws and rules like loitering all day near a 7-11 or driving without a liscense, you just MAGHT be an illegal immigrant.
“The part that is almost always left out is the rest,
“Look, for example, at the obvious, immediate, practical example of illegal Mexican immigration. Now, that Mexican immigration, over the border, is a good thing. It’s a good thing for the illegal immigrants. It’s a good thing for the United States. It’s a good thing for the citizens of the country. But, it’s only good so long as its illegal…”
Most black market comodities are good for the economy in one way or another. It’s the free hand working in light of regulation (minimum wage laws, work safety laws, etc.). It’s not good for all citizens of this country though. That’s where the disconnect is. We all enjoy cheap stuff but, of course, there’s always that pesky “not in my back yard” problem to deal with (among other adverse issues that come with black market commodities).
I don’t want flop houses in my backyard. Allow some “accessory dwelling units” in those segragated communities in Haymarket and Bristow and then we can all enjoy the benefits of black market labor. So stop with the aligator tears and build some flophouses in those planned communities of yours. Invite your black market labor to live with you in your neighborhood. Stop with the veiled hypocracy and practice what you preach.
I think that’s a fair compromise.
I don’t think it’s too much for us “nazi racists” to expect everyone to play by the rules but if you feel the societal ills that come from utilizing black market labor don’t outweigh the buck that is to be made off the backs of a heavily exploited class of people, go for it. But, again, not in my backyard.
The only difference between slavery of yesterday and illegal aliens of today is a matter of willingness and the hypocracy is that those shedding the alligator tears for illegal aliens are the new plantation owners.
See the hypocracy? Of course not. We’re the racists…
I do agree with Mando. it seems to me that those willing to enable illegal aliens and Amnesty, out of some sense of charity, fail to realize they’re widening the class chasm in this country and hurtling us even faster towards haves and have-nots.
Illegal immigrants equals lower prevailing wages, at a time that the split between rich and poor is becoming wider and wider. And less opportunity for those who lack the ability to work white-collar jobs.
The irony is, an amnesty or some such bargain now equals lower wages now, plus even lower wages over the coming years as the next group of tens of millions comes across the border illegally.
The thing is, as Friedman put it, “IT’S ONLY GOOD AS LONG AS IT’S ILLEGAL”. And he is 1,000,000% correct.
Illegal aliens ARE NOT doing jobs American citizens don’t want to do. They ARE doing jobs for wages lower then what an American citizen CAN do. Why do you think they HAVE to cram so many people in one house? Why do you think they have to rely on free medical care? We subsidize this exploitation. And in that sense, we also become the exploited.
Don’t believe all this BS cry-me-a-river crap about human rights violations and racism. This is about money. Pure and simple. Smokescreens come cheap.
Again, it really sounds like we are discussing a class issue. If you buy a house in a ritzy enough neighborhood then you don’t have to worry about people living near you who don’t behave as you would like.
If that is penalizing the middle class, and I don’t think it is, then so be it. As neighborhoods mature and people move out, and new people move in, the neighborhoods often change complexion. It has happened throughout the history of our country. Similar behavior was noted in the 60’s and 70’s, according to those who were homeowners then.
The bottom line is, there is no free lunch.
Let me clarify- as an immigrant advocate I don’t support Friedman’s assertion that illegal immigration is good, but to be sure, that is not the point he was trying to make and to interpret him as advocating for illegal immigration is disingenous. His was a largely libertarian view, in a perfect world there would be no limits on immigration, and also an economic and sociological reflection. Keep in mind that was a pre 911 quote too.
Again, his quote was to a much greater extent reflecting his views on welfare and how welfare has changed, to some extent, the immigrant experience. There are certainly lessons to be learned, and great similarities between the immigrant experience from the founding of our nation up through the 1950’s and the more recent immigrant experience, but just as there never used to be such a thing as illegal immigration (with certain notable exceptions, such as the Asian Exclusion Act), there also were no government funded support services, for immigrants or native born alike. These are all factors to consider when grappling with the failed immigration system, as we craft a better system.
As far as immigrants keeping wages low- I would greatly dispute that fact, as an overwelming majority of illegal immigrants work on the books and are not paid in cash as is commonly believed. The fact that immigrants take jobs that most Americans do not want is to a much greater extent a reflection of greater expectations on the part of native born Americans, for better or for worse, and also, in my view (and in Friedman’s) a reflection on the welfare state. Immigrants do not occupy a static role in the job market either. As the amount of time they are here increases, as well as their language skills and integration, they move right up the job ladder, legal or not (though there is certainly a limit to how far an illegal immigrant can go).
Mando – this is about money you say, well in a free market (or semi free market), capatalistic society money plays a pretty big role. Don’t be naive.
Rick Bently, in case you have had your head buried in the sand for the past year or two, a major component of serious immigration reform is better border control, in fact that is step one. The assumption is that the feds won’t drop the ball like they did last time, and we will make better use of technology and manpower to secure our borders, combined with more pathways for faster legal entry, in order to prevent another 10 thousand illegal immigrants in the future. I woudl hope we have learned somthing from the past. I know that you guy’s have given up on the federal goverenment, but I think this is one of the roles that is clearly there’s and that they need to be held accountable for.
“Again, it really sounds like we are discussing a class issue. If you buy a house in a ritzy enough neighborhood then you don’t have to worry about people living near you who don’t behave as you would like.”
hehe… there’s the hypocracy 😉 So, this being the case and we can agree on that, how about this blog stop the BS?
“The bottom line is, there is no free lunch.”
Oh… but there is in this instance. That’s why I propose that those in those segragated communities start making those sandwiches for a change. Then we’ll all be happy. Right?
“Mando – this is about money you say, well in a free market (or semi free market), capatalistic society money plays a pretty big role. Don’t be naive.”
I agree 100%. So again, let’s stop the BS and call a duck a duck.
” As far as immigrants keeping wages low- I would greatly dispute that fact, as an overwelming majority of illegal immigrants work on the books and are not paid in cash as is commonly believed.”
I disagree. As Freidman implies, the supply of black market labor meets the demand for black market labor. By definition, aliens working above board aren’t black market labor. Illegal immigrants working on the books is the anomoly and I think that is more of a case of factories taking advantage of a class of workers here rather then shipping the factories outside the borders.
We are no longer an emerging economy relying on manufacturing. Plain and simple. Those are the businesses of yesteryear relying either on subsidies or very low skilled labor crossing the border. The majority of illegal aliens caught by ICE are found in these factories because they’re pretty obvious.
We are overwhelmingly a service economy. That’s where you will find the majority of illegal aliens working under the table. Kinda hard to see them though as they are, well, under the table.
Any argument that relies upon dehumanizing and/or revoking the citizenship of Americas children born in the United States is a non-starter, a born loser, and impossible for serious politicians to get behind. We hear Anti-Immigrant Lobbyists implementing this “anchor baby” attack for one reason and one reason only: to polarize the nation on racial and ideological lines.
This is one of the tactics that F.A.I.R. brought to Prince William County in order to ambush our local government. It succeeded, and we are now an example to the rest of the nation on how NOT to conduct public policy at the local level. After all that hyperbolic and hateful fighting, we ended up with a law that accomplishes little other than to severely damage our economy, our public safety, our education system, and our reputation as a county.
There is little need for Anti-Immigrant talking points in Prince William County now. No elected body knows better than the Prince William County BOCS that the agenda of the Anti-Immigrant Lobby is a nothing but a political, economic, and social Duecaster Disaster.
But there are still people on this blog, beating the same drum, marching in a parade for which fan fare had evaporated, and band members have left.
The only purpose for attacking Americas children, so far as I can see, is to convince one’s self that they were right about a policy that all signs indicate was absolutely wrong.
This rather reminds me of Bush administration vis a vis the Iraq War. It does little good to argue that there were WMD’s in Iraq now that everyone knows there were not any. But for those who cannot and will not admit they were ever wrong, even once, about an issue… well, Scott McClellan is a liar and a traitor and there were WMD’s in Iraq, and Iraq had ties to al qaeda. Such desperate protestations are made not four our benefit… not to convince us, but to convince themselves.
@whyherewhynow
Is that a robo response to my post or are you refering to another?
Mando, I didn’t read you latest post. Higher up there was an illogical argument saying it costs money to educate American children born in the U.S., and therefore this is a drain on our tax dollars. The underlying argument is that some American children are not equal to other American children based on the documentation status of their parents at the time of their birth. I just wonder if such second class status can, in some people’s minds, be passed on for more than one generation. My ancestors came here without papers as well, about 300 years ago. Am I second class to someone who’s parents came here in the 1960’s with proper documentation?
Anyone with a broad-based view of society and government knows that educating our youth is a good investment, no matter what ethnicity they have, no matter their family history. Children who are deprived of education end up costing us ALL in the long run.
Valleygirl said “As far as immigrants keeping wages low- I would greatly dispute that fact, as an overwelming majority of illegal immigrants work on the books and are not paid in cash as is commonly believed.”
I would agree that a majority of illegal immigrants work on the books and are not paid in cash (but Ill get to that in a minute about how wrong that is…). However, I strongly disagree that illegal immigrant labor keeps wages low. I’ve seen it first hand, if the illegal immigrant asks for a raise (which they rarely do) they are most likely going to be denied. The employer knows there are 10 waiting behind him that would love to work for very little so if they complain the employer just gets rid of them and hires a new one. Thus, the wages never go up. They employers need to fined and fined big.
About “an overwelming majority of illegal immigrants work on the books “… how do you think they do that? They use stolen SSN’s! God forbid someone uses your SSN (then maybe gives your number to a buddy, and another buddy, and another buddy…) and you have to deal with the IRS.
Actually, (and this is not a comment on the morality or lack thereof), they generally work using made up social security numbers, not stolen numbers. This is an important distinction. In order to steal an identity they would need a social security number that matched a name. The fact that they use made up social security number is what triggers the social sceurity no match letters, and what keeps billions of unclaimed social security funds in a seperate account.
Mando said, “We are overwhelmingly a service economy. That’s where you will find the majority of illegal aliens working under the table. Kinda hard to see them though as they are, well, under the table.”
That’s not true and that is exactly one of the industries that I am referring to. Take a restaurant for example. The only people in a restaurant that get paid under the table are the servers, in that most servers don’t report tips. They do get apycheck but its somthing like $3 an hour. (Of course there are undoubtably some rest. that pay a lot of people under the table, but they are the exception to the rule). The pay scale is based on merit. In other words, the chef is at the top and is salaried, then you have the sous chef, the managers, the rest of the line, and then the dishwashers, foodrunners, bussers, etc. I think the chef is the one that ultimately sets the rate, and then everything else follows and is relative. The reason that native born Americans are less likely to be on the bottom, ie, the dishwasher (and no disrespect for the dishwashers out there as they are key in a well run kitchen) is that they could just as soon be on the line or sous chef, or on the floor as a server. In order to make the job of dishwasher or busboy attractive to a native born American they would probably need to make about $11 starting which is three to four bucks above current averages. And if the dishwasher makes $11 then the grill guy has to make $16 and so on and so on until the prices rise a great deal, on top of what they have already risen because of rising global food costs, oil, etc. The people just stop eating out.
Mando said, “We are overwhelmingly a service economy. That’s where you will find the majority of illegal aliens working under the table. Kinda hard to see them though as they are, well, under the table.”
Valley Girl said, “That’s not true and that is exactly one of the industries that I am referring to.”
How is that not true? Our economy is no longer based on manufacturing like it was 50+ years ago. Ours is a service economy. Emerging economies (like Mexico, China, Singapore, Vietnam, etc.) are manufacturing economies. Not the US. Most of the ICE busts are manufacturing/processing businesses which are the minority in our economy and US manufacturing is a dying breed for good reason. It’s a creature that must utilize low skill workers which our country has a shortage of (which is a good thing). What keeps the US manufactuing companies clinging to life are subsidies and a supply of low skill workers illegally crossing our border with Mexico.
The service industry, which includes construction, restaurant, landscapping, etc. is where you will find the lion’s share of black market labor.
If an illegal alien IS using a ssn (fake or not) they are not part of the black market labor pool. Friedman isn’t talking about this kind of labor. He’s talking about labor being paid under the table not using an ssn.
This blog is not doing it’s job if there are contributors who still don’t know that the Federal Government supplies Federal Tax I.D. numbers to undocumented workers so that they can file taxes. Undocumented workers who are educated about the system know that paying taxes using I.D. numbers that properly match their name is part of the process of becoming a citizen. Many Americans have become legalized through this process.
It’s sad that the “immigration” debate continues without accurate information.
WHWN – excellent points, both on EINs and education.
Mando- I agree that the service sector is a huge part of the economy, the dispute that i have is that a significant number of undocumented immigrants work in that sector (which does not include construction BTW) under the table. They are by a lrge majority on the payrolls. As WHWN pointed out, they file taxes with EINs or else they use a false social security number.
Friedman’s point was not about a black labor market but rather about the inability of illegal immigrants to access social services. In fact he mentions NOTHING about the black labor market. It is totally irrelevant to the case he was trying to make, which has been totally lost on you.
As to using false social security numbers that may match up with a real one, or fantasic legal system (which helps to preserve democracy) places a huge value on intent and degrees of crimes. Using a made up social security number is a far cry from all out identity theft.
In the end, I do not support illegal immigartion, but I understand how this situation came about, the details of how plays out, and the importnace of understanding the realities in order to bring about effective change. I also have a great deal of compassion for the overwelming majority of illegal immigrants who are paradoxically moral, good, hardworking people.
As to the orginial subject of the thread, I don’t know why Bustamante was coming and what he could possibly accomplish other than continue to stir up tension. Not to say that the actions of the PWBOS were good ones, but I don’t think an international body, in light of the circumstances, is the group to officially or unofficially call them out. MWB continues to not get it.
Valley Girl, Elena has a new thread about Employee ID numbers, yay!