According to News America Media,
Businesses rely on immigrant workers for their existence as viable enterprises, argues Jacoby. It is nearly impossible to hire U.S. workers for many jobs (as farmhands, meatpackers, dishwashers, etc.). Unlike in 1960, when about half of all American men dropped out of high school, today nine in 10 graduate. Without a critical mass of unskilled U.S.-born workers, there’s a labor shortage in many sectors of the economy.
In the introduction to her 2004 book, “Reinventing the Melting Pot: the New Immigrants and What It Means to Be American,” Jacoby refers to this problem with the same unsentimental pragmatism that characterizes her general approach to the debate.
“Of course, however hard they work, many poor, ill-educated immigrants who start at the bottom of the ladder remain there throughout their lives,” she writes. “This is not particularly surprising, and it may seem to vindicate those who claim that the United States today is importing a new lower class.
“But that’s part of the point of our immigration policy: America no longer has this kind of working class, and it turns out that we need one.” That’s why Jacoby says employers are passionate about this. “Who’s going to be telling their representative how to vote on this? The people who have a real stake in it, and that’s small and mid-sized business.”
Yet, as the current system works, American employers seem to be facing a choice between growing their business and obeying the law. According to Jacoby, the government issues about one million work visas a year, when the market’s real need is probably closer to 1.5 million.
Her organization calls for tougher enforcement at the workplace and along the border. Jacoby is against the border wall, calling it “ridiculous” but adds, “I think we need a virtual wall, we need to know who’s crossing the border.”
while I agree it’s tough to hire workers to do these menial jobs I ask the following question: how did it get that way? could it be from illegal immigrants pricing the legitimate folks out of the market? I’m sure in many institutions some of these folks are working under the minimum wage and not being taxed, you only have to look at the news to find out when these places get raided (even mickey d’s occasionally)
once the employers start enforcing the laws (i.e. arizona) you’ll eventually have people fill the gap, it’s going to take time but it will happen.
I remember working as a prep-cook at a local restaurant as a kid, when I return to my home town (same restaurant) I see the positions in the kitchen filled with hispanics. does it mean anything? probably not, it’s been quite a awhile but I didnt see any wasp folks working there.
the whole immigration problem is this countries own making, if the laws were enforced in the first place this issue would be a non-one. now that the laws are being enforced, people bitch about rights, etc. when what people should be doing is clapping for every raid and deportation. any amount of money spent now to deport illegals is money well invested in the future.
it’s been said before but here I go again:
1. illegals dont support our economy, but that of their home country
2. the majority do not want to assimilate, sure you hear stories of doctors, lawyers, etc but those are really few and far between
3. criminal illegals are a major problem, like it or not..they are here and YOU are their target.
4. illegals aliens for the most part really hate america, they see us as just a breadbasket to pull from. If the jobs were not handed out, they wouldnt give us the slightest thought. that’s a pretty strong statement but I speak from experience, I’ve viewed personally many parades and demonstrations in los angeles that have changed my thought pattern on the subject.
take what I saw however you want, I have been on the front lines as a law enforcement officer in los angeles (my first exposure to illegal aliens). I have seen and still see the affects of illegal immigration. All you people see is families deported, people not able to get food stamps or use local services. I see criminals, people abusing our health care system and abuse of just about everything else.
I would much rather send them all back (including the peaceful, working folk) than to have violent criminals in my midst. It really saddens me how you folks really dont address that fact, you talk about rights. in my mind illegal aliens left their “rights” at the border. we could debate about the constitution all day long but I highly doubt the drafters foresaw the illegal alien issue back then (there were more concerned with slaves then, illegals are not slaves no matter how they are portrayed as such)
illegals may be stupid, but they are not dumb, they know we dont enforce the laws as we should and they take the chances and roll the dice and count on people crying for them and defending them when they get in a bind.
Elvis out…
Elvis – AMEN! Agree 100%!
I’m not convinced that American teenagers or adults with low-level skills are clamoring for these jobs. I’m familiar with an industry in the south that supplies the majority of a product used in most housing. In the 50s and 60s most of the mill jobs were performed by white residents who didn’t have a high school education. Few of my classmates – I graduated in the 60s – went into the mills. Instead they opened small businesses which supplied the mills. The mill owners were considering taking the business overseas because of a lack of labor. They had recruited in nearby states and the new recruits almost always returned home. The influx of Hispanics to the area (following the construction boom centered on the Atlanta Olympics) saved everyone’s butt. The mills stayed put and the locals stayed employed. It isn’t as easy as saying pay a higher wage because this industry has to compete globally.
I also fault the 1980s where everyone was a “professional” for people not wanting to take these low paying jobs. Part of it is an image problem and part of it is the fact that in this area minimum wage won’t go far even for a teenager. Some parents are more concerned with their kids using their spare time to study and get into better schools than they are with them earning a little extra money. (When I was a kid, a chump change job could even get you an apartment – with a roommate- so there was more incentive to take those jobs.)
Elvis, 6. August 2008, 14:39
“once the employers start enforcing the laws (i.e. arizona) you’ll eventually have people fill the gap, it’s going to take time but it will happen.”
As demonstrated from this article in the Washington Post, Arizona had to re-assess the outcome of its harsh tactics. Subsequent legislation was passed to allow work visas for immigrant workers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/20/AR2008042001755.html
“PHOENIX — Traumatized by a tidal wave of illegal immigrants, Arizona last year enacted the nation’s most pitiless law to punish employers who hire undocumented workers. Now state lawmakers, having proved that they mean business — even if it means killing off businesses — are reconnecting with reality: They want to import Mexican workers.
No state has been as unhinged by illegal immigration as Arizona, where by some estimates undocumented employees comprise up to 12 percent of the state’s workforce of 3 million, more than twice the national average. They have also fueled Arizona’s supercharged economy, which has grown faster — and with less unemployment — than almost anywhere else in the country.
Recently I visited the north Phoenix neighborhood of Palomino, which was virtually all white and Anglo 25 years ago. Today it is overwhelmingly Latino, teeming with taco joints and home to the city’s only day-labor center.
“You drive around, you can’t even read the store signs or the billboards,” said James Cooney, a recently laid-off heavy equipment operator whom I found picketing outside the day-labor center with a group of like-minded protesters, some of them overtly racist. “It’s an invasion.”
The law had the desired effect. Immigrant neighborhoods in Phoenix started emptying out. Some employers called in suspect workers and fired those who admitted lacking proper documents. In Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has cultivated an image as a Bull Connor for the nativist crowd, took the law as a green light to round up and harass Hispanics.
But despite a jobless rate that is creeping higher, it has dawned on lawmakers that an enforcement-only strategy may inflict a lethal blow to state employers in agriculture, hospitality, construction and other industries, all of which have depended on a steady supply of low-skilled immigrant workers. And while the economic slowdown has somewhat eased the demand for workers, especially in construction, chances are slim that Arizona’s economy will come roaring back without an adequate labor supply.
So now, with far less fanfare, the legislature is pushing through a measure calling for an Arizona-specific temporary guest-worker pilot program. The bill, which has bipartisan backing, would relieve labor shortages in certain industries by allowing qualifying companies to recruit workers in Mexico for a two-year term of employment. That would need congressional or federal approval, which, given recent history, may be problematic, to say the least.
In other words, having done its utmost to have undocumented Hispanics fired and driven from the state, Arizona has now decided it badly needs low-skilled labor after all. In both instances — by getting tough with employers and by providing for a future supply of legal guest workers — the state is trying to achieve what Congress could not.”
Elvis,
You wrote that “illegal immigrants don’t support our economy but that of their home country.” However, they do both. For example, they annually contribute $7 billion to the Social Security system here, they are consumers etc. like everyone else, and in some small towns in the Midwest and elsewhere in the country, their presence has actually revitalized failed local economies. They are sources of labor, that, like it or not, are needed by some businesses in some sectors to keep afloat. Beyond that, remittances are sent to home countries by legal immigrants too and even by citizens (for example Cuban Americans).
You say criminal aliens are a major problem and “YOU are their target.” Well I would agree any criminals are a problem, but actually, with the exception of car-related offenses, the kinds of illegal alien criminality most people around here talk about have members of their own community as the target. That is certainly true of MS-13’s vicious crimes (altho much of its membership is legal). They should be policed, but not because YOU (whatever that means) are their target. They are their target.
You said the majority do not want to assimilate and hate America, and somehow you equate assimilation with being doctors and lawyers, etc., which seems an amazingly elitist and classist thing to say. The non-assimilation charge has been leveled at every mass wave of immigrants. It certainly was common in the Ellis Island era. You claim to know the views of some 12-20 million people. But you offer no real evidence of either claim. About 45 percent of illegal aliens entered this country legally (on visitor, student, or work visas) and then fell out of status but stayed. There are illegal aliens from all over, not just Mexico or Central American countries, or South America. They are a varied bunch and many are so assimilated you would not have a clue they were illegal, others may not meet your definition of assimilation, but then neither would earlier generations of first generation immigrants or many *legal* immigrants now who live in their own enclaves, favor their own languages, etc.
About labor, what Elena posted tells the story. Arizona is moving swiftly to a guest labor program to make up the short fall. Different parts of the country and different sectors of the economy are very dependent on this work force. You are not going to find, for example, vast numbers of migrant farmworkers from among the native-born American population. It won’t happen. It is either going to be illegal labor or a vast expansion of the guest worker program. So why not support the latter.
I can’t just Elvis’ “facts” go unchallenged!
Elvis Said:
1. illegals dont support our economy, but that of their home country.
This is a huge load of BS. We know there are Billions (with a B) of $$ getting transferred to Latin American countries in remittances. These billions are a fraction of the $$ they are earning that are flowing through our economy. For a “real life” example, here we go. I have a brother in law that has 3 kids and a wife in his home country. He sends more money home than any other immigrant that I know (we are talking probably at least 100) and he sends home about 25% of his after tax earnings, which is roughly $500/month. The vast majority of immigrants I know that are illegal or once were illegal, but are now not, send home anywhere from $50/month to $300 depending on the situation they have left behind down there. If it’s a single guy with some parents, he can send them $100 and that is plenty for them to pay for food for a month and still have quite a bit left over. This leaves a lot of money left over to buy big screen tv’s, purchase cerveza, make car payments, buy gas, clothes at Macy’s, pay rent, pay the cell phone bill. Elvis believes all illegals are paid in cash, but witness the line of immigrant’s at the Chevy Chase bank branch at the Westgate Giant and it’s pretty obvious these guys are depositing and cashing their paychecks on Friday and Saturday. And all those “check cashing” scam businesses that skim a couple of percentages off the paychecks of guys with no ID to open a bank account. They are making a killing! So, if I’m being generous, I’d say 15% at the very most of all immigrant earnings are going outside our economy. But, like I said, most immigrant’s I know aren’t even sending 5-10% back, but one has to take into account that there are others sending as much as 25%.
2. the majority do not want to assimilate, sure you hear stories of doctors, lawyers, etc but those are really few and far between.
Well, then, how about the guys that work hard at concrete companies, landscape companies etc. So now one has to become a doctor or a lawyer to be considered “assimilated”?! That is so funny. Good one.
3. criminal illegals are a major problem, like it or not..they are here and YOU are their target.
Yes, there are examples of citizens that have been hurt or killed by illegal immigrants. It is far more likely, however, that an “illegal” will be committing a crime against another “illegal” than they will against some white lady on her way to Walmart. There are criminals in all walks of life…how about the Anthrax killer…you cannot take the instances of criminal illegals and link them to illegals that have never done anything illegal in their life but cross our holy border.
4. illegals aliens for the most part really hate america, they see us as just a breadbasket to pull from. If the jobs were not handed out, they wouldnt give us the slightest thought. that’s a pretty strong statement but I speak from experience, I’ve viewed personally many parades and demonstrations in los angeles that have changed my thought pattern on the subject.
Well, I can speak from experience, too, and it is firsthand, such as actually living with “illegals”, not “viewing parades and demonstrations”. I have been with my husband for over 8 years now. Over that time, some of his relatives that were “illegal”, now have legal status and some even have citizenship. They are proud to live here and they have worked hard to achieve the ole American Dream. One guy has a business in Rockville and lives in a 700K house and is now a citizen. Another one runs her own cleaning company successfully. They have citizen kids that are bilingual, but only speak English amongst themselves because they are Americans. These are only some of them. Others haven’t achieved an American dream by any stretch, but they work hard at their jobs delivering furniture, constructing decks etc. None of them are criminals and this kind of statement cannot go by without a comment.
Elvis
You said “illegals dont support our economy, but that of their home country” That is a false statement. Illegals do support our economy by paying taxes in various forms by making purchases, real estate through rent and many pay Fed and State Tax as well as FICA and Medicare tax. The IRS estimated that from 1996 to 2003 it received “almost $50 billion” in federal income taxes from people using Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs). They said that “many illegal aliens” as well as others ineligible to receive Social Security numbers contributed to this figure. I have no clue what the latest figures are.
You said “criminal illegals are a major problem, like it or not..they are here and YOU are their target.” Well all criminals are a major problem no matter what race or ethnicity and the innocent have always been the target.
You said “illegals aliens for the most part really hate america, they see us as just a breadbasket to pull from. If the jobs were not handed out, they wouldnt give us the slightest thought. that’s a pretty strong statement but I speak from experience, I’ve viewed personally many parades and demonstrations in los angeles that have changed my thought pattern on the subject.” Why don’t you consider for a moment which way that the cycle works. Do rich countries attract immigrants or do immigrants build rich countries? Do the best and boldest leave their homes and improve ours?
I admire the courage of immigrants who leave all that is familiar to them, risking life and limb on stormy seas and deadly deserts, in order to move to a strange land where everything is unfamiliar and potentially hostile. Most of our ancestors moved for freedom and opportunity, and we are the beneficiaries. Thank God they weren’t arrested and sent packing, as were violators of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Indeed, we might wonder whether we could have mustered the same measure of courage if we had been in their shoes. I am a third generation immigrant. My grandfather came here from Greece. He had no papers when he came so I suppose he was illegal but he made a great life for himself and his family and given the chance all immigrants will do the same. You really must quit putting everyone in the same category. There are good and bad in all races, cultures and ethnicities. Please do not lump everyone into one category.
Elvis,
Let me take this point by point.
1. illegals dont support our economy, but that of their home country
Many have invested in homes here.
They probably do not have a highly disposable income and are forced to live off their paychecks, funneling it back into our local economy for lodging, food, etc…
In general, the money they send back goes to support their families which is not an uncommon practice among immigrants.
Hello TWINAD,
I was typing when you posted and did not see your comments until now. You said much more eloquently than I did but we are definitely on the same page.
Elvis is just misinformed about the real facts. I am sorry that he allowed a handful of people in LA to taint his views.
I think most of you on this blog just love the drama of dragging people through the mud, fact or fiction does not seem to matter much. It gets more attention than the real issues you really need to be concerned about, crime, corruption and the impact of “illegal” immigration on both. That you love to oppose, unless you can turn it into a scandal.
I’m so tired of this soap opera mentality of the majority of people here, who bring little fact and no real debate (only malice an hype) to critical issues.
Marie and Leila,
We all seemed to be typing at the same time! (With the same essential points!).
Anyway, I apologize for my “Michael” length post and I’m sorry if anyone had to hit the scroll!
Moon-howler,
elvis said:
I really hate to repost this, but I REALLY, REALLY would like some honest debate about the most critical issues cause by “illegal” immigration.
Poverty, crime, corruption and community decay. Since this issue is immigration reform, I am against all amnesty for the below reasons and against any reform other than following the current law, the current path to “legal entry” and legal immigration, and the current immigration quotas.
1. What causes poverty? I think I have discovered a few fundamental reasons, and from this can offer a few fundamental suggestions to reduce it.
This woman’s plight, has been caused by poverty. The question is how should her poverty (and the rest of the world’s poverty) be eliminated? No one has ever solved that, or come close to it further than the US. Why is that?
I’ve been studying some basic causes, to see if I can find some answers that will help prevent it. History provides a lab to study it.
Barring her particular poverty, caused by a natural disaster and family health failure, what has really caused her to be unable to prevent poverty in her own country? Or to resort to such desperate and dangerous measures such as crossing a border illegally, that no person should subject themselves or their family to.
Here is my list of the top 5 most critical reasons why people end up in poverty, a description of each and a suggestion to prevent it.
Top 5 reasons (in priority) for poverty:
1. Criminalization of the political infrastructure of a society
2. Warfare between ethnic, racial, gender and religious groups aligned along ethnic, racial, gender and religious group lines of power.
3. Corporations and businessmen (aristocracy) retain maximum profit, and refuse to pour profit back into innovation, and refuse to pay above poverty wages.
4. Lack of education, ability, IQ, and skill of people who are in poverty to create their own wealth.
5. Failure of law enforcement to maintain law, order, stability and protection from extortion and coercion in a society.
I might add a 6th cause, that no-one can do anything about: weather, environment, climate, geology, lack of natural resources and natural disaster.
In the next 5 posts, I would like to “debate” why these top 5 are most important to understand historically. There are other reasons for poverty, but my research shows these as the most destructive causes.
If any of you have open minds, you will see value in this discussion. Feeling sorry for people (and doing films about it) is not enough to help them get out of poverty, unless you are prepared to bring them personally into your own home and raise them just like you raise your own children. Very few people can afford or are willing to do that. What little resource they do provide (contribution, food, medicine, church housing and support FOR A FEW MONTHS), is no where near enough to stop poverty, or the root causes of poverty.
2. Michael, 5. August 2008, 15:47
Top cause of poverty:
1. Criminalization of the political infrastructure of a society
Every nation in history has a history of the poverty created by gang warfare, criminal mafias, and basic political maneuvering for the sole purpose of creating wealth for a few on the backs of the impoverished who are extorted and robbed.
How you execute politcal rise to power determines whether wealth or poverty is created in the process.
Look at the rise to power of political leaders, and the financial engine that propels them. How they distribute that wealth, determines prosperity or poverty.
The basic engine of political power, is building a network (relationship) with people you like (or don’t like), but who will see your “political gift” to help them with a problem, as a politcal mark for a later returned favor. The people who are the best at building networks of favors, are usually the most likely in a position to grant favors to others who provide them with loyalty, and access to accomplish anything they need done to increase their wealth, political capital, or envy by others. These are the people who will keep all others not part of this political network in POVERTY.
These people “leaders” have two choices, they can be “saints” by image management and partially ethical about the trading of favors, or they can be criminals about the trading of favors. THE VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE TRADING POLITICAL FAVORS, WEALTH and POWER, WERE and are CRIMINALS in their POLITICAL SYSTEMS. Some were and are more ruthless, cruel, sadistic, phychotic and dangerous to society than others.
Aristocracy is created by expecting the help you gave someone else to be returned later at the needed time, and as soon as you are in a position to pass wealth (a bribe) to another, you do it, by either appointing them to a position of wealth and power, where you control the appointment, or giving them a contract where you or someone in your network of friends has the power to decide who receives the contract. This is illegal in a modern society, but is the most common “lawlessness” practiced and hidden from those outside of the “political power circle of friends and associates”. This is what the FBI looks for, as it is the first form of criminalized politcal infrastructure that leads to far worse and far more oppressive forms of POVERTY and CRUELTY to the masses later.
An example of this is a Baker’s Guild, where the “friends” and the most agressive and threatening leader of these friends, agree to set the price of bread. They trade favors and contracts with each other, and extort a larger profit from others not in their political network (the poverty of the masses), and if a new Baker sets a lower competitive price, to get more Volume of sales (a free market), the guild will threaten first verbally, then physically the owner of the bakery, then attempt to put him out of business with fire, police bribes, political bribes, laws that are targeting him, gang violence, death threats, and in extreme cases, open political or religious execution in public, all made possible by the friends they had who would return the needed favor.
In a mafia, this is a HUGE network, in a Gang, a smaller network, in a politcal appointed position, a secret network, that can be both as large as a leader can control (through intimidation, bribery, politcal threat, or physical threat), or as small as necessary to remain under the legal radar, while profiting from it, and transferring wealth to their friends in return for future politcal favors.
Poverty is created when these people, extort the masses, and share their wealth only within a small circle of friends or “FAMILYS”.
A very few of these powerful “families” created saint images, and religious images around them, by patrinozing the “arts”. This image of wealth and glamor was itself politcal capital created by being free with their money and proving personal “favors” to working class artists and crafstmen, scientists and engineers, who would build even more image capital for them, that could be traded for even more wealth (glamor) and power to longer distances and greater spheres of influence. The rise of the “medici” family who supported the great italian renaissance, and wealth that rose from it, did so on the backs of the extorted, the poor, and the defenseless, who were often killed, murdered, or bribed to remain silent about the truth of the families criminal banking deals. They eventually put two Popes into power, and ruled over one of the most corrupt political regimes in history, next to Stalin and Hitler. The difference, was their realization that by supporting and patronizing “arts” you could fool the masses into accepting their poverty with national patriotism. This is true of “oil companies” today, in countries like, IRAQ, IRAN, SAUDI ARABIA, KUWAIT, QUATAR, VENEZUELA, RUSSIA, and the US.
This lady in the GMU film’s “real” poverty is a result of the criminalization of the political infrastructure in Honduras, El Salvadore, Columbia, Equador, and Mexico, which is far worse than here in the US, but the US is starting to adopt the same political corruption model as these countries, as a result of the actions of people like the “medici” families, and other mafia families, operating in the US political infrastructure. This has given rise to visible evidence of gangs (Bloods, Crips, SUR-13, M-13, etc,) supported by these criminalized political elements.
The solution to this type of poverty? Strengthen your law enforcement to suppress gangs, mafia organizations, and local political corruption (bribery, coercion, extortion, theft, fraud, contract fraud, nepitism and cronyism,) in your local, state, and federal party (democrat, and republican), shut down political favor trading networks (by strong law and law enforcement, with increased surveillance, and law-enforcement resources, and political crime task forces.
Teach people how to recognize it and report it to police and the FBI, and other watch-dog organizations.
3. Michael, 5. August 2008, 16:14
2. Warfare between ethnic, racial, gender and religious groups aligned along ethnic, racial, gender and religious group lines of power.
Ethnic, gender, racial and religious hatred can be used as politcal capital, to create a network of friends and political associates, who will extort, bribe, oppress and politically execute all political opposition, until they can obtain control over an army of militant followers.
Ethnic, gender, racial and religious love for only your own gender, race, religion or ethnic group, CAN ALSO be used as politcal capital, to create a network of friends and political associates, who will extort, bribe, oppress and politically execute all political opposition, until they can obtain control over an army of militant followers and VOTERS that belong just to that race, gender, religious or ethnic group.
They can use this influence to gain political position in governments or the military, surround themselves (an appoint to political power underneath them, or vote into political power those above them, loyal lovers of their own political group and haters of all other political groups, until they have the ability and political clout to transfer wealth from the masses (individuals) to only members of their own gender, race, religion or ethnic group. This is how White Power, became White Power in the past, and how Black, Brown, Yellow, and Gender power is dominating the wealth and legal landscape today. This transfer of political wealth, hurts “INDIVIDUALS”, destroys democracies and causes POVERTY among any “group” of indiviuduals (the underclass and the MAJORITY), not belonging to these political groups. This is the situation in Saudia Arabia, Afganistan, Iraq, Iran, India, Pakistan, Isreal, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Darfur, Somolia, Chad, Niger, Bosnia, Serbia, and emerging in the US today.
These politcal groups create a new class of rich and poor, based on the race, gender, religion or ethnic group you belong to, and extend that poverty to business relationships, trade deals and making of LAW that is not equitable FOR ALL INDIVIDUALS.
The Solution? Stop race, gender, religious and ethnic group class liberalism and political seperation into “Caste” politcal groups. Stop diversity and multiculturalism concepts, and promote social “integration” into a single common class called a “nation”, where no group has any more politcal power or wealth over another, by creating DEMOCRACY and Equality under the law for EVERYONE, which has power and wealth only in the hands of the “individual”, and not the aristocratic (gender, race, relgion, or ethnic) elite. This is NOT Socialism, as solicism creates its own poverty, by destroying free markets and competition, and creating a different type of political cronyism (such as STALIN created and rose to power with).
4. Michael, 5. August 2008, 16:55
3. Corporations and businessmen (aristocracy) retain maximum profit, and refuse to pour profit back into innovation, and refuse to pay above poverty wages.
This is the free market concept that leads to national wealth in every case in history, but the distribution of that wealth if not put back into the “people” will create communities that live side-by-side, as pockets of extreme wealth and pockets of extreme poverty.
Maximizing profit is a good thing if done with free competition. If done with corruption and bribery, and a refusal to return profit into future growth (so that CEOs, CFOs, Board of Directors, and Senior VPs can maximize personal wealth), at the expense of the wages and salaries of the workers and lower managers, this form of corporate greed and corruption will lead to forms of poverty that exist in coal mining towns, oil towns, factory towns and single-market economies, where financial markets are not diverse enough and small businesses not profitable enough to keep the majority of people rich, well off, living in decent and clean neighborhoods and minimizing the number of poor in a community.
This kind of WEALTH can only survive and maximize in a DEMOCRACY, and FREE MARKET of FAIR COMPETITION and FAIR WAGES. IT can ALSO only survive by producing cheap “oil”, converting “essentially free energy” of 160 and 90 million year epochs of Global Warming, to MAXIMUM profit and greed, at the expense of our future survival, by creating an un-sustainable population growth to 6 Billion people, and a realistic inability to support only 1.2 billion people in current wealth, while keeping 5 billion people (who do not burn oil, or put carbon into the atmosphere), in total and complete poverty. We will run out of this oil (and the price or remaing oil will get too high to afford) in 2025, when Saudia Arabia as the only oil nation who has not peaked in total oil reserves available for production (2-6 million barrels per day), peaks at a maximum of 12 million barrels per day, when 50 million barrels per day will be needed by 7 million people to remain out of poverty. Look at the abject poverty and decline in “per capita” wealth of the “oil boom” nations who ran out of “peak oil” and are now on the declining side of oil production (Venezuela (maripoo), Russia (baku), and Britain (North Sea)
Corporate corruption (such as the schemes exposed on wall street, regarding bribery, extortion, lawlessness, market control, stock price control, stock trading fraud, inside trading, political favoritism for econimic power, contract fraud, government program fraud) will increase the poverty of the nation as it has for the last 30 years in the collapse of ethics and growth of cronyism in the US Government and companies (like ENRON, and polical capital relationships, such as Carlyle Group, Haliburton, and Political Action Committees supported by corporate donations), has destroyed DEMOCRACY in America, since PACS and political bribes in the form of government contract fraud and favors became legal.
The solution? Company CEOs must be appointed that are ethical entreprenuers, that will pour profits back into technical innovation, pay all their employees, non-poverty wages (minmum wage is a poverty wage), AND most importantly, remove the power of companies to buy favors from politicians in the making of LAWS and budget deals, by removing their access to PAC and similar politcal group funds. Remove corrupt business leaders that break laws, and hire only “illegal” immigrants, while undermining the wealth of legal residents. Get off of oil and onto “solar” (steam and electrical) energy.
Corporate caused poverty, is the only type of poverty that exists today in the US, but other more powerful forms once existed in the US prior to WWII and post-depression era, where other forms of “criminal corruption of the political infrastructure” were far more common prior to FDR. FDR, was the first of many “ethical” national leaders, that brought us to the wealth of post WWII we have today. We are now returning in the modern US society to pre-WWII “criminal corruption of the political infrastructure”, and our current degree of poverty will continue to decline to the levels it was at the beginning of the 1800s, where political crime was rampant. (Study the history of the US presidents and the cronies they put into politcal power that corrupted the government, and over 100 years of slavery and politcal corruption, fueled later aristocratic wealth of Mellon, Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc. Review the Teapot Dome Scandals, and Crime Leaders of the New York Customs and Port Authority, to see parallels in our current politcal bribery system and corruption of our politicians, congressmen and senators today, compared to the corrupted of the past. They are very similar in politcal methods. Not guite as corrupt as the “medici” family, but getting there.
5. Michael, 5. August 2008, 17:06
4. Lack of education, ability, IQ, and skill of people who are in poverty to create their own wealth.
5. Failure of law enforcement to maintain law, order, stability and protection from extortion and coercion in a society.
I think I’ll stop here as the last two are self explanitory to any level of “iltelligent thinking”.
The Solution? Get an education, stop asking for special privilege not based on skill, IQ, ability and performance, suppress multi-culturalism, discrimnatory diversity, and promote “integration”, support lawfulness and Democracy, over Anarchy and lawlessness. If you continue to support “illegal” immigration, in the hopes that “illegal” people will somehow contribute to the reduction of “poverty” you are an intellectual fool.
“Illegal” immigrants contribute to poverty by increasing the likelihood of the first 3 issues that cause poverty I discussed previously and will get far worse, far faster, and at the same rate the number of “illegal” immigrants take over and criminalize the political infrastructure of your society, just like they have in the countries they came from.
Your wish for “Poverty sympathy as the solution” will increase accordingly, but with no solution in sight as you don’t understand how “illegal” immigration or “illegal” behavior of any kind eventually destroys you and your peaceful community through political and corporate corruption. You have only to look at the criminal politics of the rest of the world’s political animals, to know this is true.
Sorry Alanna, didn’t mean to cut in your iterative post, I saw your no 1. after I posted. please continue, while you are add it I invite you to address my 5 issues, as well if you would please.
Sorry Twinad for making long posts, I have a lot of things to say, because their is a lot wrong with “illegal” immigration and I generally only have a small window of time to debate these issues, before I have to leave and return later. This is not a “chat” window, so I treat it more like “whitepapers”, unless someone is responsive and thoughtful about it enough to calmly debate the issues.
OK,I don’t agree with everything elvis said, but are the rest of you saying that illegal immigrants are actually GOOD for America? That paying sales taxes isenough, while some legal residents can barely scrape by and still manage to pay their fair share? You’re ok with them showing up at the hospital with no identification and claims of no money? (and please don’t tell me that doesn’t happen; I worked in the hospital for years and I am well aware that it does) while there are US citizens who live in areas that are so underserved they simply do without some basic healthcare?
You’re OK with absorbing the nearly $8 million worth of free heatlhcare that Prince William Hospital provides for the care of illegal immigrants? Believe me, you are paying for it; they are not just “writing it off.” While a veteran who has fought for this country often has to struggle to get decent healthcare while cutting through miles of red tape and bureaucracy–and sometimes getting very substandard care– the illegal immigrant can simply walk into a hospital without any identification and have many healthcare services provided to them for free. That is beyond shameful.
Are you aware that Mexico receives nearly $20 billion annually from immigrant workers? According to former Mexican President Vicente Fox, these remittances “are our biggest source of foreign income, bigger than oil, tourism or foreign investment.” So as long as we provide the jobs, the Mexican workers will come, and their own government will have no incentive whatever to improve conditions in their own country to make them want to stay. Don’t you think OUR economy could use that infusion of cash?
Is there no limit to the excuses some of you will make for illegal immigrants? I am forever seeing here how so many of you profess to be “against” illegal immigration, but you get your back up at any suggestion that illegal immigrants bring any negative consequences with them whatsoever.
Michael, Twinad, Marie, Alanna, and I were all responding directly to numbered points Elvis made in his post. Our responses were the farthest thing from hype or soap opera or dragging anyone anywhere. He made several claims that each of us responded to independently. He posted, we posted, the points all corresponded to his claims. It’s true, typing in response to actual points made is very different from your approach.
Well said Emma. I too agree they always overlook the negatives (even be-little people who point out the negatives) and only point out the “miniscule” positives. In my research, the negatives far outweigh the positives.
Actually, Leila, my first comment was posted in error, because I though I was on the “Cop Slander” page. I fully respect the dialog you had started, and even apologized for interrupting. And I do “dialog with people” typically after I post a “whitepaper I have put a lot of though in to start off a meaningful debate. I would much rather address the community at large with an issue, than start off my post as most do with a personal attack of someone.
You will see almost all of my posts have been politely and respectfully addressing “issues”, unless someone picks an un-provoked fight with me by using character assassination, or mis-characterization of my words, to undermine what they can’t rationally debate, or simply make malicious comments about my style, spelling or other attributes of my post that have noting to do with the issues other than to flail at trying to win an argument.
Emma said:
Are you aware that Mexico receives nearly $20 billion annually from immigrant workers? According to former Mexican President Vicente Fox, these remittances “are our biggest source of foreign income, bigger than oil, tourism or foreign investment.” So as long as we provide the jobs, the Mexican workers will come, and their own government will have no incentive whatever to improve conditions in their own country to make them want to stay. Don’t you think OUR economy could use that infusion of cash?
I believe I acknowledged this in my post and pointed out that this $20 B to Mexico alone is only a small fraction of the billions getting circulated in our economy. Ship’em all home and then where are we?
Emma said:
You’re OK with absorbing the nearly $8 million worth of free heatlhcare that Prince William Hospital provides for the care of illegal immigrants? Believe me, you are paying for it; they are not just “writing it off.”
And, keep in mind that if this $8M figure is correct, that is the amount charged to people without insurance. If insurance were covering it, it would be about 25% as much. Why do healthcare costs have to be so jacked up for people without insurance? Perhaps if uninsured people were charged what the insurance companies are charged, more uninsured people (not just illegals) would be able to pay. And how does the hospital “document” that the people getting the free care are “illegal”? Do they have those super spy goggles that spot illegals like the HSM specks do?
Please continue, Alanna, and Leila.
Emma, nobody said illegal immigration had only a good impact or denied negative effects. We were responding to specific numbered claims, something you appear to have ignored entirely.
We were responding first to Elvis’s claim that illegal immigrants contribute nothing to this economy and only to that of their home country. That is obviously untrue. I am not sure why you spotlight sales tax as the tax illegal aliens pay. The $7 billion annually to the Social Security Admin are payroll taxes. But in any case, people gave many examples of ways they contribute.This doesn’t negate how they cost the community, but it obviously contradicts what Elvis said.
Most illegal immigrants in this area are not from Mexico. Even in the US at large, Mexicans are a majority of illegal immigrants but that leaves millions of people who aren’t Mexican and millions who aren’t Latino. In this area you know where the bulk of illegal immigrants comes from. It’s been stated enough.
But in any case, remittances to El Salvador or whereever do improve those countries in a very direct way, to communities. For El Salvador in particular, if you look at the history of the US vis a vis that country a couple of decades ago, the balance sheet would be clearly not in our favor.
Plus remittances are sent by legal and illegal immigrants. Do you object to all the money people in legal residency send out of the country? If you were “in charge” would you block any immigrant or citizen from sending money to his/her family in another country? If so, you should say so, because you would be denying millions and millions of perfectly legal people in the US the right to help their families. You should have a justification for that. Or if it is just illegals who should be condemned for sending money home, why is that?
Ouch, I used “illegals” without quotes as a noun. Nobody else cares but I do, so I will thrash myself 😉
TWINAD, every time you post more about the experiences of your immediate and extended family it just brings home the human reality of this situation and completely blasts the stereotypes. I want to thank you for that. I also hope to heaven that you can regularize your situation someday.
Good point Leila, the real issue in my analysis is, do illegal immigrants hurt us more than help us. We cannot and should not make any issue with “legal” immigration, even though many of the same problems we have to deal with today are a result of “illegal” immigrants who became “legal” in the past 20 years. The only segment of the “problems” they cause that we can legally and morally address is the “additional” burdon and “additional” problems on top of the “current problems ALL people of our community cause us, that they have always caused us, and increase in crime, corruption, and overwhelming “negative” impact on our community. Even the “illegal” Irish and “legal” Irish who created the “Gangs of New York” significantly affected the community in a negative way more than they benefitted those communities. It was not until “law enforcement” cleaned up the political corruption they caused and the effects of those “ethnic group” created crimes they brought with them (see any ethnic group brings problems if they are “illegal” and even recent immigrants (although our law, can only addresss problems with those who break it, as it should be). Only after New York cleaned up its bribed police, fire departments and criminal political infrastructure, did New York, get some semblance of community improvement. The same happened in Chigaco, and DC. My issue is that these same “illegal” and “legal” political corruption elements are now attacking our city and county, in SO MANY widely documented ways, that we must as a community stop it. The only tool we have is law enforcement on everyone the same, and a right to DEPORT only the “illegal” portion of the population that is causing these problems.
When you “mix” the two, “illegal” and “legal” you cloud the real issue, and the only effective means of combating it.
Is there anyone who feels that illegal immigrants like being illegal immigrants?
How many feel that if given the choice of legal or illegal status, they would choose illegal? I don’t think so.
Michael, exactly how were the Irish newcomers to the US in the 19th century illegal? With some exceptions, like the Chinese exclusion acts, this country had virtually open immigration until 1924. Yet despite the fact America encouraged immigration in and before the Ellis Island era, nativists made the same claims against newcomers, eg. not assimilating, stealing jobs, refusing to learn English, abhorent customs, and in those days, bringing too much of the wrong religions to these shores (read Judaism and Catholicism).
I too sympathize with Twinad, my wife was “illegal”, and I think when people fall in love that changes the dynamic of the equation, and we have a law that we can use to remedy that “within the law”. That does not mean however, we should immediately bring ALL of my wifes, immediate family, counsin, uncles, children, grandchildren, second and third cousins and “friends” here ILLEGALLY, crowd them into my house and then claim they should all be given immedite sympathy, amnesty and Green Cards. Worse, a significant number of these “illegals” are causing the corruption of our political infrastructure, by the very mechanism I have seen used by my wife’s friends and associates and feel that is a significant threat to our community enough to not allow it. My only tool to combat this behavior I see is “Deportation” of all “illegals” no matter how long it takes, and to require them to get into the “legal” line. They arrogently don’t want to do it because they think that as an “ethnic group” they have political power, and are “entitled” to special privilege. I am SO AGAINST THAT, because of its very undermining of DEMOCRACY.
Hey there MH. Well they might choose a legalized guest-worker status, which would allow them to move back and forth in correspondence to seasonal labor. In fact one of the ironies of the crackdown on illegal immigration has been people, particularly from Mexico, who were likely to do agricultural or other seasonal labor here for some months then return home for the winter actually stay because it isn’t worth the risk. Before they were more likely to come and go.
Of course all the millions of illegal immigrants not from countries to our south were not mobile like that.
I agree with you Leila, the problem there in Ellis Island was not ethnic behavior or “illegal” status, but the problems they brought with them and the impact on the communities in the areas of corruption, crime, and political criminalization of the community they created largely because they disrespected the law. The same problems we have now. Like I said the only tool we have to fight this is law-enforcement and deportation of only those who are illegal to get rid of it. If they are legal, we have no right to complain, other than the law be enforced to keep our community safe from additional corruption we should not have to deal with.
MH, yes they do have a choice, they can stay home or properly apply for a work permit. That permit has always been available, but not to people who won’t honor our quotas. We cannot let them just come anyway, and ignore all the problems it causes us in SO MANY WIDELY DOCUMENTED WAYS.
WE DO have a population problem that is far larger than our “work problem”. The economy will correctly adjust to the work problem, by increasing wages, something we all agree stops poverty. Lowering wages as a result of “ignoring illegal immigration” increases our poverty and creates a class of residents who will drag our communities down as they use crime and corruption to compensate for low wages.
I don’t think most of you get that relationship between low wages and poverty, and crime and corruption increase.
Leila,
Great posts with excellent points!
Michael,
It’s bedtime for my son so I have to get on that, but I do understand where you are coming from on the poverty topic. I honestly did not read every word of what you wrote, but I can demonstrate from my “personal experience” that things in the third world countries are changing because of the remittances and I can show how my husband’s family has benefited from 3 of the children coming to the US to work, which has now improved their lives in many ways and so much, that the three youngest children have not had to come here to survive. His siblings range in age from 45 to 18.
My husband was one of 10 kids, 9 of which survived childhood. The oldest three siblings still live in Central America and do okay for themselves as far as running subsistence businesses selling fruits/vegetables to markets and a furniture reupholstery shop (which, I might add, was started with a small tax refund my husband and I received 7 years ago). The oldest sister has a spouse with a business.
The middle three sons all live here, and yes, are illegal. The oldest of the three has the wife and three kids, so he sends all his remittance money to them and my husband and his younger brother funded the 3 youngest children’s educations and made/make sure their parents have food and constructed a house with electricity for them. Previously, they all lived in a grass hut. The one with the wife and 3 kids never intended to come here. He thought he was having his second kid, but out popped two! No prenatal care or sonograms in Guatemala for the poor, so this was a surprise. My husband had come the year earlier and this brother knew what he had been able to do for the parents, so he figured he had no choice but to come too, to get $10/hour instead of $9/day. So my husband and the younger brother each sent home about $500/month for several years until their youngest siblings finished school (again this money is only about 10-15% of their take home pay after taxes), by no means is all or half their income going to their home country. None of these brothers were able to go to school past the 6th grade, but now their younger brothers have had the opportunity to finish high school and one is attending college while working in an office of a retailer and the other one has a really good job doing accounting for a farmer in the village. So none of the younger siblings need to come here because they have been given the education necessary to get a decent, subsistence level job. Had we not funded the start up money for one of the older brother’s business, he would have likely ended up here, too, but he has not because he got an opportunity to start his own business there that he would never have gotten if my husband hadn’t come here.
Now, none of these siblings has more than 3 kids…most have two and are not having any more. So the large families of the last generations have given way to a more “normal” family size. This also allows people to get ahead, although one could argue that if my husband’s parents had stopped at 3, they wouldn’t be where they are now without the second set of 3 kids!
Anyway, my rambling point is…that I doubt this story is unique. I bet lot’s of “illegals” have done the same thing for their families and this economic boost will provide a way for these countries to “fend for themselves” with a better educated work force and improved living conditions. This is not all I have to say, but as I’m sure I’ve sent some people to bed, and I’m way late getting my son to bed, I better get out of here.
Michael,
Real quick, ‘we have a law that we can use to remedy that? Don’t know when your wife adjusted her status but I guarantee the remedy today is to leave the Country for 10 years before being allowed re-entry. That’s completely unreasonable. We have spouses of service members serving in Iraq under the theat of deportation. Again completely unacceptable.
Michael, no you do not agree with me. I would never say that the bulk of 19th and early 20th century immigrants criminalized their new communities. My god.
You can advocate mass deportation of illegal immigrants all you want. It isn’t going to happen. And there is no one ethnic group in illegal immigrants, but there are dozens and dozens of countries they would all have to be deported to if your wish were ever made reality. The millions of illegal immigrants not from Latin America, but from Africa, East Asia, the Middle East, Europe, etc. etc. are even less likely to “self-deport” as some are so fond of saying.
Tha is why I would welcome debate on the research topic I presented eralier, it is the fundamental reason why “illegal” immigration is so dangerous.
Leila, I don’t think I said the bulk of them did I? You did.
Yes, I believe that all “illegal” immigrants regardless of race, gender, religion or ethnic group should be deported, no matter how long it takes. If not we will never be able to prevent millions more from following the same “illegal” path, and never get rid of the “additional” problems “illegal” immigrants cause us, even the ones who do not break any other law.
We have a legal path, we should use it and enforce it. It is designed to protect all of us equally.
Alanna, That is not the remedy (return for 10 years) for people (like a spouse) who have legal rights to a green card and permanent residency status. It only applies to people who are “illegal” and broke the law. It is the punishment for breaking the law and causing all the problems we now have to deal with because they disrespect our law.
I have already been through all of this with INS (BCIS).
Michael, you said “the problem there in Ellis Island was not ethnic behavior or “illegal” status, but the problems they brought with them and the impact on the communities in the areas of corruption, crime, and political criminalization of the community they created largely because they disrespected the law.”
I am sorry if I interpreted that as being a general statement of the immigrants of the era. In any case, the Gangs of New York you mentioned aren’t from the Ellis Island era. That was decades before.
I have found alot of useful information at the Council on Foreign Relatons website. They have a diverse group of members and are extremely credible and non partisan. There are other reports from CFR that reflect there is a bigger burden on specific localities to absorb many of the undocumnted immigrants, but as a whole, the net gain is a positive for the country. I have always advocated that the federal government should simply determine which localities are bearing the burden and give the appropriate funds to help manage the additional health and school costs. However, I would add, that local taxes pay for schools, and if you live and eat in PWC, you are still paying for the school system. Now, multiple families in one home does create a shift in contributions towards schools, and that is why I would advocate help from the federal government. It seems to me though, that “American” citizens struggling on welfacare, would do well to follow the example of immigrants. Pool their resources and live a better life collectively. But, we want those yucky poor people to stay in the ghettos and not come to the suburbs (sarcasm button on).
Michael,
Your post is simply too long for me to read. You also lost me at gangs being first on your list for the primary reason for poverty.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/12969/economic_logic_of_illegal_immigration.html
“In this Council Special Report, Professor Gordon H. Hanson of the University of California, San Diego approaches immigration through the lens of economics. The results are surprising. By focusing on the economic costs and benefits of legal and illegal immigration, Professor Hanson concludes that stemming illegal immigration would likely lead to a net drain on the U.S. economy—a finding that calls into question many of the proposals to increase funding for border protection. Moreover, Hanson argues that guest worker programs now being considered by Congress fail to account for the economic incentives that drive illegal immigration, which benefits both the undocumented workers who desire to work and live in the United States and employers who want flexible, low-cost labor. Hanson makes the case that unless policymakers design a system of legal immigration that reflects the economic advantages of illegal labor, such programs will not significantly reduce illegal immigration. He concludes with guidelines crucial to any such redesign of U.S. laws and policy. In short, Professor Hanson has written a report that will challenge much of the wisdom (conventional and otherwise) on the economics behind a critical and controversial issue.”
Twinad, I have no animosity or issue, with any of your husbands relatives coming here legally, only objection to them coming here illegally and causing all the problems that “illegal” immigration is causing. I’m not saying however that your family is causing problem, only that so many are.
I sympathize with poverty, I also realize we have to take care of the US and our communities too, even more than we need to take care of others in other nations, until we have the means anbd resources to do so. What I OBJECT to is that “illegals” take it from us anyway, with no remorse.
Michael,
Okay, so I’m still not gone! 🙂
I just have to weigh in on “That is not the remedy (return for 10 years) for people (like a spouse) who have legal rights to a green card and permanent residency status. It only applies to people who are “illegal” and broke the law.
Yes, it is the only option for people with an American spouse if the process was not started before April 30th 2001. You are wrong. I sponsored my husband for a permanent residency, but he can’t get it because no paperwork was in motion prior to this date. Had he come here legally and overstayed a visa, then yes, he could get a green card, but because he came over the border unchecked, he is not eligible.
And as my last post illustrated, the “illegals” sending home remittances will help STOP the flow, not increase it.
Leila these gang problems have always been with us, they are intensified by the crime and corruption and criminalization of our political infrastructure caused by the “additional” people who are “illegal”. We can remove the “illegal” portion, so we only have to deal with the “criminal” elements that are “legal” and the problems caused by those that are “legal” caused by “legal” people, citizens and permant residents alike.
Twinad,
Thank you for sharing your life experiences. Poverty is caused by a lack of education, lack of resources, and lack of opportunity. It is a vicious cycle, one that this country still struggles with to this day. There was an amazing PBS special on Sargaent Shriver (married Euncice Kennedy, Maria Shriver is their daughter), and he truly believed, with the right programs in place, poverty could be eradicated. It wasn’t about hand outs, it was about creating opportunities for people to help themselves move out of poverty. And it was working until LBJ decided that Vietnam was more important than the fight against poverty.
Twinad, I understand, the law must address your husband’s issue then on a case by case basis, that’s what law is for, its put onto individuals.
I disagree sending home money will stop “illegals” from becoming illegal. I think the very fact they can send home money, greatly increases the incentive to “choose” and “illegal” path. We must control our growth, and do it under the law that protects ALL of us, not just a few you want to be better off by supporting “illegal” behavior. You hurt everyone else when you do this, with no sympathy for the rest of the majority you hurt. That is why we have law, to protect everyone the same from those who could care less if they hurt us.
This is why I disagree with “illegal” immigration.
Elena I also believe poverty is caused by far more insidious realities as I posted above, like criminalization of the political infrastructure, ethnic class warfare (gang warfare, etc) and corporate greed. “illegal” immigration only increases the impact of these other insideous effects on the people who are already here and increases the poverty of the “majority poor”, regardless of race, religion, gender or ethnic group.
Vietnam was a fight against an even bigger problem than “poverty”, the regime created by STALIN (that created MASSIVE POVERTY and CRIME) and all of its atrocities, even those continued by Bresnev. LBJ knew this.
Immigration is painful. It’s painful for those who immigrate and it’s painful for those who receive the immigrants. It usually takes about a generation for the pain to wear off.
We can research the past, draw lessons, and look for ways to reduce the pain. We can try to create opportunities for goodwill to grow. But I don’t think it’s possible to eliminate the pain. I don’t even think it’s possible to eliminate the majority of it.
Protecting the vulnerable immigrants from the sharks like FAIR is more useful.
If companies are in favor of immigration for the sake of labor, that’s a source of funding to be sought out and used to fight the likes of FAIR.
Elena, I understand, read it when you have time.