A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM
There came to be a Decree of the Protection of the People and the State. This suspended Article 48 of the German constitution, the equivalent of the American Bill of Rights. The inviolability of personal freedom, the right of habeas corpus, the sanctity of one's home , the right to secrecy of postal and telephone communications, the right of free speech, the prohibition of censorship, the right of assembly and free association and the powers of the states were all temporarily abrogated. The suspension of the article in an emergency was intended to protect the government against violent overthrow and such a suspension had accomplished its task in 1923. what the drafters of Article 48 had not foreseen was that the insurrectionists might already be in the government; and that thye would be so clever as to stage their coup at a time when the Reichstag, which might have voted the Chancellor and cabinet out of office, had been dissolved.
Thus the police were authorized to search and arrest without warrants, and empowered to take people into protective custody for an indefinite period without filing charges or bring them before a judge. It was the initiation of the Gestapo concentration cam state, yet such was the panicky fear of the communists that the befuddled Hindenburg, who only a few weeks before had been apprehensive that Hitler would transform the government into a dictatorship, signed the decree without a murmur.
Justice at Nuremberg pp. 120-121
How do you like that? I was taught that the NAZI'S WERE so bad and here they had their own Patriot Act.
THE PROBLEM
One of the most powerful voices of our time, Jack Cafferty has said: (4/10/06):
Once again, the streets of our country were taken over today by people who don't belong here.... Taxpayers who have surrendered highways, parks, sidewalks and a lot of television news time on all these cable news networks to mobs of illegal aliens are not happy about it.... America's illegal aliens are becoming ever bolder. March through our streets and demand your rights. Excuse me? You have no rights here, and that includes the right to tie up our towns and cities and block our streets. At some point this could all turn very violent as Americans become fed up with the failure of their government to address the most pressing domestic issue of our time. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2867
Lou Dobbs, the man who is looking to save this country has said:
The essential truth is clear: We cannot reform immigration law until we control immigration, and we cannot control immigration until we control our borders and our ports. This president and the congressional Democratic leadership refuse to recognize that reality and will not honor that truth. http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/22/Dobbs.May23/index.html
And Glenn Beck presents these important guests to help us understand this difficult problem:
OLTMAN: Congressman Gutierrez from Chicago is on a 17 city tour around the country with a message that we need to "End the raids." They call them raids. We call them legitimate immigration enforcement in the workplace. And what I think it is is designed to manufacture victims so that they can go to President Obama and say, "We need to end the work site enforcement." He had been -- this happened on March 7th. He had been in Ontario, California that morning. He came to San Francisco that night. And this is really an assault on the American worker that's been going on for a couple of years. There's processes in place to make sure that jobs should go only to American workers which we call either American citizens, or legal immigrants with a work visa. But a couple of years ago when Department of Homeland Security wanted to send out 148,000 letters to employers talking about how 8 million Social Security numbers didn't match up, good indication that they! are probably illegal aliens, got stalled in the courts. There's a computer-verifying system called e-verify which should be permanent and mandatory which should allow every employer in the country to know that they are hiring only American workers, only gets extended for very short periods of time. It's only been extended for another six months and it certainly isn't mandatory. And now this, where they are saying outright we're going to end the workplace enforcement, at a time when we've got 12 million unemployed Americans, probably somewhere between 25 and 30 million illegal aliens in the country, at least eight million of them working here illegally and yet congress congressional members are going around the country saying we're going to end this kind of enforcement. To me it's just unbelievable that at this time of economic chaos and unemployment we have elected officials including the Speaker of the House saying we're going to end any protection for American workers in the workplace.
GLENN: Okay. So Rick, it will only meet with a bunch of anger here. What do people do?
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/23008/ (Typos are not mine folks)
Those church babies will get to you every time. I discussed this affinity issue elsewhere. http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/amike/2009/09/friendship-and-harboring.php#comments
And we have experts who write in expert journals all about this stuff:
And why isn't the US government arresting illegal aliens while they are protesting in our city's streets all across the country? The protest organizers, are said to be sponsored by left-wing groups including Open Borders and MEChA, are protesting the border security bill that passed the US House of Representatives in December and is still awaiting passage by the US Senate.
The University of Texas at El Paso recently conducted a study that found the following: Treating illegal immigrants in hospitals accounts for nearly one quarter of the uncompensated costs at border county hospitals in Cochise County. That county in Arizona spends tens of thousands of dollars just picking up trash left at campsites by these illegals. Prosecuting and jailing illegals costs this county an additional $5 million a year. And 25 percent of Cochise County's budget is paid for health care for the uninsured, the majority of whom are illegally in the country.
In another study of a sample group of 55,000 criminal aliens, it was discovered they accounted for over 400,000 arrests and more than 700,000 criminal acts including felonies. In Los Angeles, the city that's hosting the protest -- which was whole-heartedly endorsed by its mayor -- 95% of the outstanding arrest warrants for homicides are for illegal aliens and 65% of all felony warrants are for so-called undocumented immigrants. Are they committing the crimes Americans won't commit?
Sources: National Criminal Justice Research Service, Department of Justice, The Center for Immigration Studies, National Institute of Justice http://www.examiner.com/x-2684-Law-Enforcement-Examiner~y2009m2d24-The-big-lie-Illegal-immigration-benefits-Americans
There are a number of things which must be done.
Not just considered, not just studied, not just lobbied for, not just impaneled for discussion.
Things must be done.
A PROPOSAL
IDENTIFICATION
Who are these 'illegals' anyway. THEY tell us as many as twelve million reside here, in the United States of America. Well we must identify them before we can do anything about them. What model's do we have to deal with this kind of mass identification?
Well, first of all, we need all Americans to come forward with their papers. Their birth certificates, their Social Security Cards, their driver's licenses. We do have Departments of Motor Vehicles in all fifty states as well as our territories.
We must therefore make it law that all citizens, over the next six months apply at their Local DMV for a CITIZENSHIP CARD. And we make it mandatory that all citizens have those cards on their persons at all times. Eventually we will have to take advantage of our new technological innovations. That is, when you are born, the hospital will report your birth to a local DMV via computer along with full identification of your parentage and a bar code will be issued and you will be branded right there in the hospital.
I suggest your right shoulder should be stamped with a bar code.
Until then, if you are not carrying the proper papers on your person at all times, YOU SHALL BE SUBJECT TO THE ROUND UP.
First of course, we must be able to identify exactly who the illegal is. At all times. Now I propose that all Illegals be branded with a sign. On their foreheads. We must have some sensitivity to their own cstoms and beliefs. So I propose an insignia. The Blessed Virgin Mary.
And we must also implant a homing device so that we might follow their comings and goings at all times.
It will demonstrate our real love for humanity and yet, we will be able to NOTE the illegal in our midst at first sight and at all times.
THE RAID
Green jobs. Yes, this is a good idea. I mean you get this new tech going and you create all these jobs and the money we save from lessening the importation of foreign oil....well that is where we get the money for all this.
But IMMIGRATION CRACK DOWN. I mean we could hire an additional one million immigration police officers. Maybe two million. And on every street, in every city, in every county, and in every state we begin coordinating the shake down. If someone is caught on the street without the proper papers, that person is subject to detainment.
We solve two problems on one fell swoop. We get rid of the immigrant who has stolen our jobs, given us leprosy, accosted our women, filled up our hospitals and corrupted our language.
We open up the job market to two million people, immediately.
Now we will have to open up training facilities in order to properly initiate the two million into the new reich. But that in turn will create new jobs.
And we will need additional training facilities. We will need to train good solid Americans into the intricacies of:
Child care
Lawn tending
Toilet cleaning
Roofing
Dry Cleaning*
General household cleaning
Sewer workers
Seasonal farm workers
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124726259338825191.html
And speaking of trains, what the hell do we do with these illegal scum when we find them?
Well that is the subject of MP2.
*The Asian Americans are all getting into Physics, Applied Mathematics, Engineering. They just do not wish to wash our clothes anymore.
I cite Fred here because he snuck in here and stole my original intro. Ha. Except of course he did a better job discussing Matthew 25 than little ole me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JAXKIKehbc
I think the bar code should be eight inches above your buttocks, so after the police either tackle or tase you they can just check hike up your shirt and scan you. That might conflict with the tramp stamp, but I have absolute faith in technology to distinguish between overlapping tattoos (I saw it on CSI: NY).
September 20, 2009 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
hahahahahah. THE TRAMP STAMP.
There is a book in there somewheres Donal. hahaha
September 20, 2009 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jack Cafferty is an idiot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE4e6I6AOYk&feature=fvw
September 20, 2009 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the truth be known, I began to like him last year. He backed Obama, right out in the open. but sometimes He gets too much like Dobbs.
September 20, 2009 8:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
We will need to train good solid Americans into the intricacies of:
Child care
Lawn tending
Toilet cleaning
Roofing
Dry Cleaning*
General household cleaning
Sewer workers
Seasonal farm workers
I've done all of those jobs except dry cleaning and sewer worker. Are you implying they are beneath the average American? My brother in law had his own lawn business until a few years ago. Now he's a janitor which includes cleaning toilets. In fact I have more than a dozen friends who have worked in all those professions. Should we all be ashamed?
This post is incendiary. As incendiary as Dobbs and Beck. Personally I think you should be ashamed of your self for writing this post.
There are 12 million illegal immigrants in this country. 500,000 more sneak across the border every year. Is this not a problem that needs some solution? Unemployment is at least 10%, when you add in the chronically unemployed who are not counted using the current method its estimated at 17%. Illegal immigration is not the sole cause of the unemployment rate but its a significant part of it. Isn't that a problem that needs some solution?
I don't want a police state. I recognize how difficult it is to find a solution to the problem. But I'm 52 years old and for the first time in my life about 8 months ago I started getting food stamps. I'm selling plasma twice a week (the maximum allowed) at 20 dollars a pop to pay my bills. I have cavities and no cash to pay for dental care.
I don't know what the solution is. But I don't think our country can continue to absorb half a million illegal immigrants every year on top of the 12 million already here. I think this issue deserves more thought than you coming on here and implying I'm a fascist.
September 20, 2009 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are people out there arguing for a police state.
I have been employed doing many of these tasks myself.
But no, I am not ashamed.
I think that demagogues out there should be ashamed.
Why sir, I am a patriot who just does not like the patriot act.
September 20, 2009 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a "good solid American" how much "training" did you require to learn the "intricacies" of those jobs? You're demagoguing the issue from the other side. You want to write about illegal immigration get serious. You're better than trying to emulate the incendiary tactics of Dobbs and Beck. Next thing you'll be going into a beckian crying jag.
September 20, 2009 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whoa. Dick tends to write with his tongue firmly in his cheek sometimes, Oceancat. I think that this hit a nerve with you, and I understand why. Most of us over 40 started out doing menial jobs and (hopefully) learned to respect and honor labor.
Obviously, not all of us did.
I don't think Dick was thinking of people like us or your bro-in-law when he wrote it. He was thinking of those that managed to skip right over the menial labor into cushy jobs after college. You know, the ones that don't honor labor?
At least, that is my take on this. I think you might want to read this blog again.
Just sayin'
September 20, 2009 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well yeah, the whole blog struck a nerve. Not just the snide remark about menial labor. Its the same sort of blindness to the problem that McCain exhibited when he said you couldn't get Americans to pick cabbage if you paid them 50 dollars an hour.
September 21, 2009 12:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k34COolbdmY
PICK A SIDE
September 21, 2009 12:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't be an ass. I am a worker and have been all my life. I have no college degree. Now I'm a plasma cow that gets milked twice a week. Spare me the bullshit and tell me what your solution is.
There are 12 million illegal immigrants in this country. 500,000 more sneak across the border every year. Is this not a problem that needs some solution? Unemployment is at least 10%, when you add in the chronically unemployed who are not counted using the current method its estimated at 17%. Illegal immigration is not the sole cause of the unemployment rate but its a significant part of it. Isn't that a problem that needs some solution?
What's yours?
September 21, 2009 12:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you think this is the time to tone it down, YOU ARE WRONG.
There are nazi's out there who are already responsible for taking away half of our constitutional rights
Right now in this country there are detention areas.
Aint that a wonderful term. Detention areas.
And the ;motherfuckers out there wish to detain twelve million people and ship them to detention centers.
Do no fool yourself.
And for your information:
I have washed dishes
I have washed clothes
I have bussed dishes
I have bagged groceries
I have caddied
I have driven delivery trucks
I have mowed laws
I have cashiered
I have worked in a library as a peon studen for six years
ALL FOR A BUCK AN HOUR so do not dare caLL ME EFFETE. EVER
September 20, 2009 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is also the prison-industrial complex where prisoners are rented out to employers at wages well below minimum. The competition causes the wages of general labor to be lower.
September 20, 2009 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
And that Richard is the definition of
a Labor Camp. What the nazi's needed was labor, free labor. The killed the older and infirm and the children. The ones WHO COULD NO LONGER PRODUCE.
These outsourced prisons are a scourge upon our society.
Geeez this makes me mad. 13th amendment. Who exactly enforces that anymore?
September 20, 2009 11:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who is calling you effete? I just asked the same question you brought up. "We will need to train good solid Americans into the intricacies of:"
Again, dickday, the issue of illegal immigration needs a lot more thought than demogoguing, from the left, the demogogues on the right.
September 20, 2009 11:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
YOU DO NOT GET IT. There are throngs of very bad people out there demagoguing, attempting to turn this country into a military state.
Till the day I die, I will not sit silent. I will not act reasonable with nazis, I will not, I will not. I cannot. One does not reason with rush, one does not reason with dobbs, one does not reason with sean, one does not reason with hume, one does not reason with the unreasonable. EVER.
I will call them out any way I can.
September 20, 2009 11:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do get it. I hate beck and dobbs as much as you do. But you're not calling them out. You're calling out anyone who sees the problem of illegal immigration and believes it can't continue. You're lumping me with beck and dobbs. You're calling me a fascist too. You're demagoguing from the left.
I think we need some system to verify citizenship status or legal immigration status to get a job in America. Do you think I favor a police state? I think we need to as gently and slowly as possible begin to send illegal immigrants home. Am I a fascist?
Do you have any understanding of or solution to the problem of illegal immigration besides this demagoguery that implies I'm a fascist?
September 20, 2009 11:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
You do not get it. You think that somehow twelve million people can just be transported somewhere.
Displacement would not be a term you would use. But that is what they are calling for. Displacement. Permanent.
And when they keep coming back what do we do?
Do we put them in prison camps instead of displacement areas.
Oh and while they are here. No medical care. Never.
Let them die in their own puke. They are not deserving because they are not TRUE AMERICANS. Just like the Jews were not TRUE GERMANS.
There is a link here. Maybe you should be examining that link instead of calling upon me for shame.
I AM ASHAMED OF NOTHING.
now go read other people and leave me alone.
Just keep pretending that there are reasonable means with which to deal with dobbs, to deal with hume, to deal with wallace, to deal with rush, to deal with beck, to deal with savage.
Pretend you are politico or scarborough.
just stay in your little fantasy world. And leave me alone.
September 21, 2009 12:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Again, what's your solution? And you're ignoring the part where I said there needs to be some system to ensure that employers only hire citizens or legal immigrants. If illegal immigrants can't find jobs here they will stop crossing the border. Sure I worry about a police state. But do you have any understanding of the extent of the problem for the US workers? What's your solution beyond this incendiary rant?
There are 12 million illegal immigrants in this country. 500,000 more sneak across the border every year. Is this not a problem that needs some solution? Unemployment is at least 10%, when you add in the chronically unemployed who are not counted using the current method its estimated at 17%. Illegal immigration is not the sole cause of the unemployment rate but its a significant part of it. Isn't that a problem that needs some solution? What's yours?
September 21, 2009 12:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
YOU ARE NOT ANSWERING THE QUESTION. The burden of proof is on you not on me.
You want them rounded up. And they must be identified first. And they must be taken to detention areas. And they must be bussed or trained back to the border.
And they come back. They come back for their job, for their children, for their relatives.
And while they are here, we make sure they receive no medical care. That is your position is it not?
When they come back, what? We put them in prison?
What is your proposal?
The burden of persuasion and the burden of proof are on you. The burden is on those who wish TO ACT. Not me
September 21, 2009 12:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Illegal immigrants aren't coming to America because they like the balmy weather. They come for jobs and they get them mostly because they are willing to work for wages far below the norm for American citizens. If there are controls on employers and sufficiently high fines there will be significantly less jobs available for illegals and they will stop coming.
Do you have any other solution? Do you care at all for the poor American workers? Or is it just the poor Mexican workers you care about?
September 21, 2009 12:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
OceanKat,
If employers must by law treat their employees fairly in wages, conditions and benefits regardless of immigration status, then they cannot hire illegals and use that illegal status to threaten them with deportation to force them to accept substandard work conditions.
As it is, employers use the INS and the threat of all contacts with the police to prevent them from going to the police. That way the employers can refuse to pay for work performed and can get away with paying submarket wages. That also holds down wages for American workers who must accept lower wages and worse working conditions simply to get a job that the employer has illegals lined up to take.
The problem is not to stop people from coming to the U.S. to get work by using administrative police action. The problem to be solved is to take away the economic benefit the employers get by hiring illegals to lower wages and benefits and to avoid providing decent working conditions.
Turning America into a police state to benefit employers and to oppress the workers is a really bad "solution" to the "problem" of illegal immigration. The better solution is to remove the benefits the employers get from that police state.
September 21, 2009 8:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oceancat,
I will resist a national ID card or papers the police can demand to see to my dying breath. I learned early that those papers - mandatory ID papers the government and employer can expect you to carry at all times - is a key element of an authoritarian government.
You better figure out some other way to enforce your method of government control over the people.
September 21, 2009 8:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure what you're talking about. I never suggested a national Id card etc., dickday did. And down below it was established with donal's absolutely brilliant insight that this piece by dickday was satire in the style of Swift, so I don't think even dickday suggested it.
September 21, 2009 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
The reason the illegal immigrants come here is that they can get those jobs at pay that is higher than at home. The business owners hire them because they can force the wage rates for American workers (in all skills) down.
There is no real penalty for employers who hire illegals. There is also no real incentive to them to design ways of producing high volumes of quality goods in efficient ways as long as they can hire illegals. But without any real innovations in production, the export markets have dried up. The export markets are where the greatest profits have been.
The system pulls America down to the level of the rest of the world instead of innovating and training workers to raise the American economy up. But like the wall street bankers, the guys who buy the American government want easy quick profits now and to hell with the long run.
September 20, 2009 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Employers breaking the law should be prosecuted and FINED. Ten times the wage they were paying plus the cost of 'relocation'.
Hell, get a hundred thousand inspectors out there to discover WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON.
September 21, 2009 2:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whew, a contentious topic, for sure. The solution is a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned. Put a leash of Wall Street, G7, IMF, Nafta, Cafta etc. We need to make sure that Mexico, as well as other countries which are producing streams of undocumented workers, has a real economy that can sustain its people. As long as some yayhoo in New Jersey, Dubai or Singapore is making a killing exploiting mass poverty throughout the planet, we're going to have immigrants. These people don't have a lot of options. The economies of half of Latin America are dependent on remittances.
September 21, 2009 2:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am with ya. I think my nemesis is mad because he is losing everything.
I lost everything at 52 also. After seven years I am just used to it.
There aint gonna be anyone out there to help me, my fate is sealed, but immigrants have nothing to do with it.
September 21, 2009 2:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh bullshit. I have nothing to lose since I willing chose a life of poverty 25 years ago. I'll get through this difficult time as I have difficult times in the past but a lot of the lower class and lower middle class workers won't.
You don't have a clue who I am so your little personal insults don't bother me. I don't have a clue who you are so I'm not going to try to analyze your life situation and insult you over it. But dick, if you post a asinine post like this you can expect someone to call you on it. Posting a bunch of good posts doesn't mean you get a free pass on the stupid posts.
September 21, 2009 3:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
you started this whole goddamn thing. who are you kidding. you come into MY blog, into MY home and tell me I should be ashamed.
fuck you
September 21, 2009 3:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah I started it because a *dickday* blog is too special to be wrong. If you can't handle being called on the shit you write turn off comments. Not every blog you put out is gonna get tons of praise. Grow up and get used to it. I made some valid points you were unable to respond to and some good questions you ignored. Learn to defend your posts, not just write them. If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen.
September 21, 2009 4:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
O'kat - the key is in the title - look up Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal, and you will realize where DD is coming from.
September 21, 2009 7:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
I read Swift's Modest Proposal in high school and don't need to be reminded. There's probably dozens of "modest proposals" out there based on it. I get that he doesn't really want people to be stamped with bar codes. I know where he was coming from and I disagree with his premise and the message he was trying to send.
September 21, 2009 7:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did you ever read Miss Manners?
September 21, 2009 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
No. I don't think dick has either. Why don't you suggest it to him as well.
September 21, 2009 8:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've never had to.
September 21, 2009 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Out of the 12 million unauthorized immigrants, around 8.3 million are in the work force. About 2/3 of these are concentrated in the three industries, service, construction and production and installation.
Since we know that we can't and won't deport these 12 million, many of whom are the parents of US citizens, we need to look at other solutions. To me, it makes sense to go ahead and offer blanket amnesty, with attainable routes for obtaining citizenship in the near future. This would force employers to pay higher wages, which should benefit everyone that works in those occupations.
As noted, people don't come to the US illegally just for the balmy weather. So the most important step after the amnesty would be major fines on employers that break the employment laws. With enough people working for ICE to enforce the laws and with high fines and other sanctions for those that break them, the number of jobs available for illegals should decrease dramatically, and the numbers coming in illegally should follow suit.
Or did I just restate what everyone else was saying?
September 21, 2009 7:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Employers will never pay higher wages if they can lure more illegals over here and maintain business as usual. Then eventually we'd have to offer the new illegals blanket amnesty, too. Blanket amnesty doesn't make sense to me.
Offer amnesty to *illegal employers* that step forward and agree to pay their workers above the table. Offer those workers an attainable route towards citizenship. If they fail, send them back.
Put illegal employers that don't step forward on trial, in jail and out of business.
September 21, 2009 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Donal - "Employers will never pay higher wages if they can lure more illegals over here and maintain business as usual."
I don't think that's exactly true, Donal. I suppose it breaks down to what particular model of capitalism the Employer operates under. A friend of mine farms in Yolo County, CA and employs an all-Mexican crew. (He told me once that in his thirty odd years of farming he has never once been asked for a job by a Gringo.) And his crew is terrific - all related from a small town in Mexico, and they have been working on my friend's ranch for several years. The deal was that these men didn't want to work for wages - they preferred piece-work. The product was cattle feed and straw (my friend had developed the market for straw, in fact, which was formerly burned in the field (wheat straw, oats etc.) So during harvest the crew would go balls-to-the-wall, fast and long hours, and they would earn big bucks - enough to spend the winters with their families in Mexico. It was a win-win for the crew and my friend (if you can get your ag product to the market early every season, you make more money.)
My friend also has helped his regular crew members buy homes and cars, and even invested in small businesses the men had going in Mexico. And each season when the men returned, they would bring along a cousin or nephew, sin papales, to work.
It's a simple business philosophy - when your employees are well paid and happy, everything tends to go smoothly, and maximum efficiency is attained.
I know, that's just one anecdote, and it really doesn't invalidate what you are saying, to which I agree.
September 21, 2009 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great anecdote, especially about preferring piece work. Our culture is so Puritan that we can't understand people that don't want to work til they drop.
I was thinking of the lower sort of employer, that lures and exploits desperate immigrants.
September 21, 2009 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, like Tom Delay's friends in the Marianas textile industry.
September 21, 2009 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, yes. Who could forget the guy that called an island with sweat shop conditions and exploited immigrant labor "a perfect petri dish of capitalism"?
September 21, 2009 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you forget that they are uber-Christians, boho. How dare you! And the sex-trade in the Mariannas is booming!
September 21, 2009 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Donal, it's my understanding that many of the unauthorized workers are paid above the table through the use of fake IDs and SS numbers. The upshot of that route is that the workers are paying taxes with no chance of recouping their investment at the end with Medicare and SS.
So why not hire US citizens rather than illegals if these employers are already paying regular wages, rather than risk ICE raids?
Again, it's my understanding that except in times of financial crisis and high unemployment, the unauthorized workers fill the jobs that very few native born workers have traditionally gone into.
September 21, 2009 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, the reports I hear are of the other extreme, so if someone could quantify "many" it would be helpful.
September 21, 2009 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you have to consider the role of labor contractors. They may charge a client a rate commensurate with minimum wage laws, but who knows how much of that goes to the workers themselves. And labor contractors are notorious for selling workers forged IDs and SSNs, and many have their hand in the pockets of the Coyote industry as well.
September 21, 2009 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Labor Contractors" sounds so entrepreneurial.
September 21, 2009 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is, Donal. I worked at a small college as physical plant director, and we qualified for a
"community service" arrangement with the Bureau of Prisons. So I got an labor contractor who had been convicted on a forged documents charge for about 6 months to work for me. He immediately started wheelin and dealin with me - "I can bring my boys out here to knock out the grounds work in two days" yadda yadda. He hated working, and that is what he was bargaining for. He could loaf in exchange for labor at deep discounts. But he was friendly, and once he got behind a lawn mower or weed whacker, he was productive.
September 21, 2009 5:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just because an employer is paying above the table doesn't mean they are paying the typical rate for that job. For example when I moved from PA to Fl about 8 years ago my hourly wage was cut in half. Now not all of that is directly attributable to illegal immigrants depressing wages. There are other factors. But the large population of illegal immigrants in Florida who see America's minimum wage as a pay raise compared to the average wage in the country they came from depresses wages across the board in certain professions.
September 21, 2009 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well if you restated everything you would have to shame me. hahah
What I get so steamed about, even in this virtual never never land Seashell, is that there are people out there calling for 'displacement' of twelve million people. dobbs has, rush has, hell cafferty has and I usually like him.
And when I hear some of these people right on the air make proposals, I can open up a book recounting the days of infamy. And yes, the NAZI high command was mad about IMMIGRATION.
Oh well. Thank you for your straight out opinions on this Seashell. I would think Neo's take and Richard's take and your take would be the main perspective at this site.
September 21, 2009 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see how a blanket amnesty would force higher wages unless the wage paid was less than minimum wage or unemployment went down and workers were needed and could then collectively bargain to bring the wages back up to previous norms.
To me illegal immigrants are like the scabs brought from out of the county or state that the unions faced. People knew that the scabs brought in by management to break the union or stop agitation for fair pay or better working conditions were just poor desperate workers, maybe even poorer and more desperate than the union members. People generally aren't unsympathetic to poor desperate workers, least of all other poor desperate workers, but no one is helped in the long run when management brings in scabs.
Union representatives would be happy to go with the scabs when they returned home to form unions there and help them to organize and improve their conditions. But they certainly didn't make a deal that said if management is fined or sanctioned for bringing in any more scabs the ones here get to keep the jobs they stole.
September 21, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the "scab" model is fatally outdated, oceankat. We're in the age of Globalization now, and the "scabs" are as likely to be working in China, Jamaica or the Marianas as they are on a U.S. job site. Even protectionism may be unworkable in the venue of globalization. It's so bad that I think that even our paltry minimum wage is too expensive in the global competition.
I read something that really shocked me around the time that Dole moved a big part of it's operation out of Hawaii to Africa. An exec said in an interview that only ten percent of the population of an African nation needed to be economically developed into a middle class in order to make local markets very profitable. left unsaid, of course, was that the remaining 90% be kept dirt poor as a source of cheap labor.
September 21, 2009 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree the problem is multifaceted. Not everyone complaining about illegal immigrants has lost their job because of it. Some of it is scapegoating. When a company moves overseas its not because of illegal immigrants. I wouldn't consider those workers scabs. Though it is probably a bigger cause of unemployment than illegal immigration.
Its different when the job is still there, down the street where it always was, but management has hired illegal immigrants because they are much cheaper, they can't complain about unsafe work conditions and are more easily controlled. I do see illegals as scabs.
Scabs aren't evil people out to screw others and serve management goals. They're just poor desperate people looking to better their life. That's what makes it so difficult. While they don't serve management in their hearts or minds they do serve management in reality. They allow management to push back wage gains and force workers to accept poor or unsafe work conditions.
September 21, 2009 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good summary.
I see no difference between trying to remove the long-term illegal immigrants with homes and families here and the similar removal of the five civilized tribes from the United States across the Mississippi river in the 1830's.
Nor do I see much difference in either of those cases from what Stalin did to deport the Chechen and Ingush populations to Kazakhstan and to Siberia. You might notice that it didn't work too well, since the survivors returned to Chechnya and continue to plague the Russians to this very day, largely as a result of the deportations. Even the Soviet police state couldn't make the deportations actually get rid of the problem which was caused because the Soviets did not want to absorb and acculturate the foreign element.
Oddly, acculturating the foreigners has been a major strength of America - other than the African experience, of course. I've read a lot of stuff that called the Poles, Italians and Irish different races who would never become Americans. No one sensible has written anything like that in half a century. Hitler thought the German immigrants in America would rise up and support the Third Reich. Guess what? They fought him and here in Texas they mostly stopped speaking and writing in German. (My bet is that the widespread draft and TV homogenized to population and the languages.)
What does it mean to be an illegal immigrant when passports and visas weren't used much prior to WW I? Mitt Romney's father was born in Northern Mexico and his mother brought him to the U.S. by train with no passport because of the Mexican Civil War. This whole legal/illegal immigrant distinction is a legalistic fantasy to begin with. The need for passports and visas was another part of the general failure of the post WW I treaty agreements. Creating new nations for separate nationalities required creating a passport system to keep the different nationalities separated. Look how well that worked with the nonexistent Kurdistan.
If you are going to stop labor from crossing national borders without authorization, why don't the same rules apply to capital flows? The distinction between free flow of capital and free flow of labor is primarily a way to strengthen capital and weaken labor.
The solution does not lie in greater police enforcement of immigration. It lies in greater police enforcement on employers of labor laws together with stronger labor laws. That's a price employers should pay in exchange for the free flow of international capital.
September 21, 2009 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
One grandfather came through Ellis Island.
Two great grandparents came through Canada, illegally. ha
September 21, 2009 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't the flood of immigrants from Mexico start after NAFTA so favored the ag corporations in and so many rural people were thrown off their lands? I know all immigrants aren't from Mexico, but many from the south have faced similar conditions. "I'm a Chiquita banana, and i'm here to say..."
Sadly, Mexico's economy is now dependent on drugs, it is untenable. It was one area I really thought George Bush might make some difference.
Also: there will be amendments to the Baucus health bill that no one can use ER services without a birth certificate. That scares the living shite out of me. "Hey Grandma; sorry, no papers, no treatment for your heart attack."
I really had forgotten the Modest Proposal connection, and before I clicked on this was thinking, "Shit, dick is brave. I don't think I could touch this issue with a ten-foot pole."
Now i get that your aim was to run out the worst of the ideas to "fix" the problem. Fancy in this political climate what the debate on this issue would be like! (WILL be like.)
Another dimension to low-wage jobs is that many undocumented workers are paid in cash, so businesses can save on that.
I also wonder: where do the numbers on undocumented workers even come from? Are they close to accurate?
Jay Leno, who has always loved jokes about Illegal Aliens, (haha) quipped that with economic downturn/meltdown many were going home.
Our county employment agency no longer handles day labor, you know when people show up, and are sent out on day jobs? Apparently the local businesses didn't like the Laborers hangin out on their sidewalks, pressured the Agency, and Presto! No more day labor jobs! One reporter told me about it, but the paper doen't want to offend the businesses who advertise with them.
September 21, 2009 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I think NAFTA did have that impact, Wendy, but the trend is much older, and there have been several other floods of immigration - WWII, many Mexicans moved north to fill in job slots created by the war, the Bracero program days, where many campesinos stayed in the US, the economic collapse of Mexico in the 70s, and now the NAFTA immigration.
But I think the "Green Revolution" program, cooked up by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1945, was the significant factor that transformed Mexican agriculture from a sustainable local economy to an international commodity economy - resulting in a large segment of the Mexican population literally unable to afford the beans that were grown in Mexico.
When Hubert Humphrey first landed in the Senate in 1948, on the Democrat-Farm-Labor ticket, he was put in charge of senate oversight of the government's role in the Green Revolution. After studying the program, Humphrey commented (paraphrase from memory) "This is a strange program. Ultimately, it will put control of the economies of these countries in the hands of the United States. I guess that's a good thing, as these countries have a history of mismanaging their economies."
There actually were a group of economists in Mexico who could see the writing on the wall, and set about to thwart Mexico's participation in the program. They were branded nut-cases: "Who could be against growing better crops that will feed more people?" Well, the kicker was the high energy requirements of agribusiness, and, importantly, the financial investment required. Part of the Green Revolution package was credit awards to individual Mexican growers. Credit. For contrast, consider the land reform program of the Lazaro Cardenas administration in the 1930s, the Ejido. The problem was that even though poor Mexicans were given land to farm, they were given no credit awards, and productive farming is dependent on credit. The beneficiaries of the Ejido became, as they say, land poor.
Since financing agribusiness in Mexico depended on loans from Chase Manhattan and other banks, the value of the product far exceeded the capacity of rank and file Mexicans to purchase it as basic foods. The Mexican government responded with massive programs of purchasing staple products and reselling them to Mexicans at a loss. Meanwhile, the bulk of the products were sold as international commodities in the Chicago grain exchange etc. Just as the pariah economists had predicted, the Mexican economy split into two economies, a domestic economy that could not sustain itself without social welfare, and a transnational economy which funneled profits into a relative small group of oligarchs.
September 21, 2009 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, too, boho, for that depressing history. You are a fount of information. Land-poor. No credit. Can't afford the beans.
And we murder the people who fight back, call them Bad Names. We install governments friendly to our agri-corps; we're some real pips, aren't we?
Now it's also about modified seeds; they are required to use Monsanto-et.al.'s seeds which require heavy and expensive chemicals, then prosecute them if they try to save the seeds...
And the wheels of the bus go round and round, round and round....
Thank goodness people like Rigoberto Menchu are given awards by the Nobel Committee once in a while, or we mught lose heart!
September 21, 2009 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Census Bureau does randomized surveys, with statistical rechecks and collect data from other sources like school records to evaluate accuracy. I am aware of local surveys of both immigrants and homeless people.
Regarding accuracy, these are both mobile populations who often avoid government officials so the surveys tend to be a lot less accurate than the regular census. Usually on the low side. But the statisticians can give a pretty good estimate of the degree of inaccuracy. The larger the group surveyed, the more accurate the results. The more dispersed it is, the less accurate the results are.
September 21, 2009 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Richard. I was thinking that since so many folks hide, thinking any govt. official is likely el migre, that the numbers would be hard to come by.
September 21, 2009 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is a problem. What it does is widen the statistical estimate of error. Statisticians generally know that and look for it. It's journalists who are innumerate.
Currently there is another PR campaign here in Fort Worth to try to convince people that the Census surveyors are NOT immigration. That's part of the preparation for next year's census.
September 21, 2009 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you are right on the numbers issue. But I always feel better if the analysis is done by that 538 guy. ha
September 21, 2009 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nate strikes me as a good statistician. You will note that in my discussion I threw all the responsibility for the numbers on them. [Grin]
September 21, 2009 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
But the papers did not wish to offend. Great take Wendy.
I remember the lines for temporary labor on the outskirts of Minneapolis. Lines of these people.
And politicians like Senator Chambliss proffer that those who are in dire straits are too lazy to work.
This is not an easy issue, immigration that is.
And some of the hyperbole on the right is crazy and can be seen in documents issued during the Third Reich.
September 21, 2009 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do understand how many workers in this country are upset by the influx of non-citizens. And the problem is arguably worse now than two decades ago, but even then it was a loaded issue. I remember when Jesse Jackson, speaking about agriculture workers, said, "These are the folks who are GOOD enough to bend over and pick the food we eat off the ground." That picture has stayed with me; and all the work Cesar Chavez did; now we seem to be in whole new ballgame. It is so very sad.
There are no fair solutions; but there will be some that are more fair and humane than others, she sqaid hopefully.
September 21, 2009 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even Chavez had difficulties with illegal immigration. Its not an easy problem to solve.
September 21, 2009 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, ocean. That's a lot of history that I didn't know. It shows even more that all this debate and issue very, very difficult.
I am so sad that NAFTA contributed to it, plus I feel some guilt. I was in favor of NAFTA at the time, hoping that Free Trade would increase inter-nation understanding, etc. I forgot totally about greed, and US policy history undermining, so often, the rights of indigenous people.
I look to the fact that Hugo Chavez has become the alleged champion of the indigenous; and Evo Morales, about whom I was very hopeful, is now somewhat allied with Chavez, whom I fear is a thug. On and on, the chickens of our South and Central American policies are coming home to roost. Crikey.
September 21, 2009 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was doubtful of NAFTA, but one night the news showed every living US President lined up in support of it, so I figured it must be a good thing. Sad to think of that.
September 21, 2009 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
NAFTA was high-jacked by business and capital interests to be used as an anti-labor and anti-environmental weapon. That doesn't mean NAFTA wasn't going the right direction. It just means it didn't go far enough and have enough people at the table putting it together.
But that's how organizations make decisions. They take a problem, break off a small, comprehensible part, and try to solve that. Then when the solution creates problems, those have to be solved. It's because of the very limited capability of the human mind to handle large amorphous problems. The problem is called Bounded Rationality for which Herbert A. Simon got the Noble Prize in Economics.
September 21, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
If rigid enforcement of the modern anti-immigration laws is expected to be so effective along the Mexican American border, why do we not have similar enforcement limiting population and labor movements between the American states? Where is the long-term immigration problem? Where has it been for the last three centuries?
America is the third most populous nation in the world, (behind China and India and ahead of Indonesia) and America is the most economically free patch of geography in the world. What stops labor movements between states from being as disruptive as the importation of labor from Mexico is alleged to be? [The CIA lists the European Union with a population of 491,582,852 as third largest nation. I don't see it as a nation yet. But it has the same immigration problems internally.]
The big problem is short term disruption of economic situations. That's what Chavez was fighting. But that was more of a labor situation than an immigration situation. The employers were able to get strike breakers from Mexico cheaper than from another populous U.S. state.
Here are the most recent population numbers I have located.
USA. 307,212,123 (July 2009 est.)
Mexico. 109,955,400 (July 2008 est.)
Canada. 33,212,696 (July 2008 est.) (a third larger than Texas)
We could open the border to Canadians today with little damage. What more could they do to us after sending us William Shatner?
That leaves Mexico. How many Mexicans do you think would choose to leave Mexico in the absence of economic problems and the drug war? How many people are driven out of Appalachia by the economy there? Most stay because it's home. Mexico is the same. The illegal immigrants into the US from Mexico are primarily young and rural. That's the same problem that England had during the Enclosure period. The rural people who could no longer live on the land in agricultural jobs had to go where the jobs were. They also faced language and culture problems, too. Ask the Welsh, Cornish, Irish and Scots.
Now I live in East Fort Worth where the signs on most of the automotive businesses are in Spanish with English in small print underneath. A bit of a surprise to a 66-year-old like myself, but I have learned that a "taller" is an automotive shop and they are all more reliable and trustworthy than Pep Boys. The kids here are growing up as Americans who are bilingual. We elders can always ask the kids to translate for us. I'm learning to understand the news in Spanish because it gives a lot more international news than the English news does. But that's Fort Worth. I'm adapting.
The mildly bigger problem is next door in Dallas. The African-Americans have fought for decades to get a seat at the power table alongside the wealthy Whites, and suddenly just as they got there the Hispanics are rivaling the Blacks for power. The Hispanics have the population advantage or soon will, and the Blacks are less than excited. But overall neither Dallas nor Fort Worth is a real problem as far as immigration is concerned. We are just beginning to look more like San Antonio, El Paso and Houston. Houston is about a decade ahead of us. So what?
In the meantime the wealthy Whites from Dallas are moving to suburbs up north while the working class Whites are scrapping it out as the third largest minority in Dallas (and no doubt contributing a lot of bodies to the teabaggers.) Dallas is a bigger problem than fort Worth because Fort Worth is a culturally Southwestern City and Dallas is an East Texas (and thus culturally Southern) city. But Dallas is a big city first and almost all big cities are culturally liberal.
That's the direction we are all going. I give it 40 years until there will be about the same level of control of population movement along the Mexican and Canadian borders as there is across the borders of the American states.
My argument is that there is no long term immigration problem. There are just some short term (a generation or so) hiccups that will disappear as the current generation dies off. Now labor and capital problems are not so easy to handle. They will remain with us. And Immigration will be used as a weapon in those problems.
September 21, 2009 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a terrific blog after the blog had faded into oblivion. Taken together with your other comments Richard, you are supplying so much information on a satire that went bad.
I sure would like to see you put up your own blog.
It will be a week before I get into this again. I am too drained.The number of forces, cultural, economic, national, international...are astounding as well as the issues involving our budget.
Anyway, thank you. I sure learned a lot.
September 22, 2009 12:23 AM | Reply | Permalink