As for U.S employers hiring illegal immigrants. How exactly should they be dealt with? And how should the employers deal with the immigrants they are currently hiring? I hear some people saying that U.S employers are exploiting these workers by not paying them what they would pay American workers along with the same benefits. Well if U.S employers were to pay and provide them the same benefits as they would U.S citizens then these employers wouldn't bother hiring illegal immigrants in the first place. Because their reason for hiring them is because they can save money with this cheap labor. If they paid these immigrants the same as they paid U.S citizens and with the same benefits included, then fewer immigrants would get hired because they would be no different than any other American worker seeking employment. So ironiclly, it seems to be to the immigrants benefit to get "exploited" or else they wouldn't get hired.
No one is saying that the immigrants are getting exploited. That's not the arguement. The problem is how this affects the U.S. workforce. example: if Bob's autoshop can pay Jose $4 an hour for the same job that would pay me $17 an hour, who is gonna suffer. Me, when i get that pink slip...
I think employers are screwing the illegal aliens and American workers. The fact that the illegals don't mind getting screwed is beside the point. If this keeps up, America will become more like Mexico, where almost all workers get screwed. Mexicans should fix their own country instead of dragging ours down.
The idea of a fence between Mexico and the US has never worked. Tear down the fence! (i.e. unlimited, unregulated immigration)
What should occur is the closing of our borders. This has nothing to do with the employers and everything to do with the federal government. The idea that these immigrants are being exploited is ludicrous. Do you think they would be getting paid any more in their own country? No. That's why they're coming here to work. They come here to work, where they also have full-access to our health care services at the taxpayers expense. The problem with illegal immigration is that it is bringing the wages down FOR EVERYONE, including American workers. I think Shane summed it up best.
How much will it cost to control our borders? (I assume that you are talking about closing the border to illegal immigration and not to all people.) That is a lot of desert. And after the desert we have the Canadian border to think about. And then, there are the ships and cargo containers. The US is the wealthiest country in the world. People will come here to work and get a share of that wealth. There is no way to stop it.
Much less than it is costing for the 20 million illegals currently in the US. If the US can afford the illegal war in Iraq, and can afford the trillions missing from the Pentagon, they most certainly can afford to control the borders. But the fact is, they want the borders open. Keep in mind that according to recent polls, 80-90% of Americans are against the current border situation and are demanding action. Despite this, the administration is continuing with their treasonous ways. The US government has the money to spy on its own people at will, so why wouldn't they have the money to install lookouts around the border? Canada does not present a fraction of the problem Mexico does. Sure, some people manage to sneak across the border illegally, but nothing like with the southern border. Just because the US is the wealthiest country, doesn't mean it always will be. And it's things such as this that are pushing us in that direction.
Apparently illegal immigration is affecting the wages of American born Hispanics also: Unemployment, wages falling for Latinos By DIANNE SOLIS the Dallas Morning News DALLAS - Unemployment among Hispanics is falling -- but so are wages. The wage decline results from tougher competition for work, largely fueled by immigrants who have arrived in the United States in the last five years, according to a study released Monday by the Pew Hispanic Center. Hispanics are the only major group of workers with a two-year decline in wages, the labor study shows. The research group, based in Washington, D.C., said Hispanics now earn 5 percent less than two years ago. That means a Latino who earned $420 a week in 2002 made $400 last year. "The new immigrants who are enjoying significant growth in employment are doing so at the expense of lower wages," the report said. Hispanics account for less than 15 percent of the labor force "but for several years they've been responsible for 40 to 60 percent of labor force growth," said Rakesh Kochhar, senior research associate at the Pew Hispanic Center and the study's author. "They are the new workers." In March, Latino unemployment hit 5.7 percent, compared to 5.2 percent nationally. Latino joblessness hasn't been that low since 2000, when the economy was still robust. Latino unemployment is more than two percentage points below its 2003 high. The Pew study also found that 81 percent of new jobs held by foreign-born Latinos and 76 percent of new jobs for native-born Latinos were in occupations requiring minimal formal education. However, 64 percent of new jobs for native-born white workers were in occupations requiring a college degree or more. Mexico City pollster Daniel Lund said Mexican workers on both sides of the border face little better than minimum wages, employed in either country. Looking at the United States, "we see Hispanics on the fringes," said Lund, who had read the Pew study. Wage depression in the United States is affected by immigration increases from Mexico since 2000, said Lund, whose firm, Mund Americas, regularly polls in Mexican states with high immigration. The Pew study culled through data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau to conclude that Latinos maintained their role as a primary force of change in the labor market in 2004. Construction is the most important industry for immigrant Latinos, the Pew study said. In 2004, about 17 percent of foreign-born Hispanics worked in construction, compared to only 7.2 percent of native-born workers. The wages of white and black workers also fell in 2004. But that dip was less than the fall suffered by Latinos, the Pew study says. Plus, the wages of white and black workers increased in 2003. The wages of Asians increased both years. At a downtown Dallas construction site, 27-year-old Jorge Pinedo prepared to direct a huge dump truck into mid-day traffic. Two months ago, it took the Mexican immigrant from Leon, Guanajuato, a mere two weeks to find this job. "I came here to get a little ahead, to progress," said Pinedo, peering out from his sunglasses. "If you don't go up, you go down," he said, before sprinting off with his fluorescent orange flag. For his efforts, Mr. Pinedo makes $6 an hour.
** The idea of an iron curtain seems extremely expensive both in the short and long term, it seems a lot like the US ‘war on drugs’ in that it is more about trying to deal with the problem as if it was an external one rather than as a domestic issue. I think a far greater deterrent would be to fine the companies involved. Enforcing regulations forbidding the use of illegal immigrants and hire enough inspectors to keep checking, then fine companies the annual wages of a US worker (with full benefits) would have received for that job. It wouldn’t be long before immigrant use went down. However that like the iron curtain idea is only tackling the symptoms not the cause. What is needed would be a closer parity of wages (and work-related benefits) between Latin American states and the US. The free market approach would be to allow US companies to reduce wages, work related benefits and safety levels of the US workers, through deregulation, and so bring down the US worker conditions to a level closer to those of Latin America. While the left wing idea is to bring about international regulations that would improve the quality of life of working people everywhere including the US. **
Yes Rat - the libertarian solution is a fortress America. Sounds great. Hey maybe we could try that in the war on drugs too! If we just hire enough inspectors and punish the offenders... oh wait. Totally false. This is based on the idea that wages are ultimately arbitrarily assigned in an economy, and a super technocrat socialist government can just come in and reassign these wages in the "correct" manner. Very few Americans work for the minimum wage, and fewer still depend on it. Even in these cases we need to ignore things like the earned income tax credit, which of course is not available illegal immigrants. To pretend that the minimum wage is all that is protecting us from plummeting into third world poverty is simply fantasy, although a very popular fantasy. As I have said before, if free markets bring the US down to Mexican income levels, why isn't it happening? Are illegal immigrants a new phenomenon? Are imports from poor countries a new phenomenon? No? Then why do we need to hear this socialist propaganda over and over? Through a god-like ability to simply dictate wages and prices. This is the problem with capitalism - it doesn't promise shortcuts or utopia, so will never have quite the appeal of socialism. Why doesn't Mexico have a minimum wage of $10 an hour? Wouldn't that cure poverty there?
Oh Point my old ragamuffin Before I bite is your famously short attention span going to allow you to discuss these things or will you just disappear when your get bored (which is usually when you ideas begin to crumble) like you have so frequently done in the past? While waiting for your reassurance I’ll make a few comments. ** Arbitrarily assigned? My poor Point have you quite lost your senses do you think that wages could be determined by chance, whim, or impulse, rather than logical and rational economic factors, you really should do a bit of economics dear chap. I think anyone who’s done a bit of reading on the subject would know the idea was preposterous, to think that you of all people believe it a possibility is frankly shocking. Look old mate if you need a reading list I’m sure I could put one together for you? ** Very few Americans work for the minimum wage, and fewer still depend on it. I would hope so, but think about it Point, minimum wage, it doesn’t mean that is the amount people should be paid it is the minimum amount a person should be paid. I’ll try and explain …think about it like the minimum height on an adventure ride children below the height are not allowed on but it doesn’t mean people above that can’t ride also. ** To pretend that the minimum wage is all that is protecting us from plummeting into third world poverty is simply fantasy. I agree to think that the minimum wage is all that is protecting us from plummeting into third world poverty is simply fantasy and I’m incredibly disappointed in you to think that you seem to have thought it even possible. It would need many other measures of the free marketers to lower the real term purchasing power of wages across the board and even then to think that it could plummet the US into third world poverty in the short term is madness. ** We are at the moment talking about possible trends and ideas we can only talk about what might happen but there are to many variables to be able to foretell it with any certainty. Or Point, are you telling us that you are a real life Hari Seldon?
God like ability?? Oh Point didn’t you read the quote, you posted? My poor chap you seem to be loosing it a bit, it is not god-like power but international regulations. It is there just about where your first sentences ends find the full stop (if you’re American that would be the period) then let your eyes move up, got it? Between the bring about and the that would. Have you got it now? As to capitalism offering a utopia, what about the myth of the ‘American Dream’ what about that supposed consumerist future when people would work less and have more leisure time? There were people from around the world that saw US TVprogrammes like Dallas and thought that was how all Americans lived and there are people on these forums that say if we just followed the American way and embraced free market thinking we would. Don’t be a dope Point the whole point of consumerist capitalism is about selling a dream. ** Why doesn't Mexico have a minimum wage of $10 an hour? Wouldn't that cure poverty there? WOW man are you mad or something, what got into you today has there been a lavish leaving party at work and you partook a little bit more of the punch than you should? Get a grip man and pull yourself together. **
I will disappear when I get bored, which usually happens right around the time you become pedantic and condescending. It appears I am already too late. Having said that, it would appear you are mostly here to hear yourself speak anyway. So without further ado, please carry on.
I think that as long as there are third-world and first-world nations there will always be people willing to forgoe deprevation, starvation, and possible death to get out of the third world and come to the first. This is what my ancestors thought when they left Ireland. Come to America, there are jobs, there is freedom, the wholesale execution of your people will probably not be a direct result of government policy, it's the goddamned american dream*. So until Latin America gets it's shit together we're gonna have to get used to illegals, and legals too. *dream not valid for blacks or indians.
This is nothing new. "So Morena soldiers on at $7.50 an hour, living with a reality that the late Cesar Chavez, champion of the farm worker, understood back in the 1960s. Chavez, says David M. Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian from Stanford University, advocated limited immigration to protect the wage levels of the Chicano workers he struggled to unionize. Without such restrictions, demand for labor would fall, and with it the pressure to pay higher wages." http://www.oregonir.org/undermining_american_workers.htm The same impact is felt in the black community: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0505150445may15,0,155118.column
Bush: " This new system will be more compassionate. Decent, hardworking people will now be protected by labor laws, with the right to change jobs, earn fair wages and enjoy the same working conditions that the law requires for American workers," he said. http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/07/bush.immigration/ National Council Of La Raza: " By legalizing immigrants who live, work, and contribute to life in the U.S., the U.S. could deal fairly with hardworking people who have responded to an economic reality that has been ignored by the law. At the same time, a temporary worker program that responds to the U.S. labor needs in a regulated, orderly fashion – while breaking precedent by providing for full labor rights – is better equipped to deal with future flows of migrant workers. Finally, family visa backlogs must be eliminated so that families can be reunited in the U.S." http://www.nclr.org/content/policy/detail/1058/ -------------------------------------------------------- I'am just curious about something. Bush and the National Council of La Raza seem to have some similarities with their immigration reform proposals as far as removing the illegality of the presence of Illegal immigrants in the U.S. I'd think this would actually be a good thing. Because if you look at what both Bush and the NCLR are proposing,it would make it so that American employers can't pay them below minimum wage and would give them other labor rights as other Americans. This would give these immigrants the work status of any American worker,and wouldn't this keep U.S employers from hiring them cheaply and would off-set immigrant labor from depressing U.S wages? And wouldn't this keep low wages from hurting any employment opportunities for U.S workers?
To add,I think that legalizing these workers could actually reduce illegal immigration in the long run. It could do this because if the immirgants are made leagal, U.S businesses wouldn't be able to pay them below mininum wage and will have to offer them the same benefits as U.S workers. This would create a situation where U.S employers won't have a particular reason to hire these immigrants over American workers. This would eventually reduce immigration once people in Mexico see that they are no longer in demand for cheap labor as they once were because they can no longer be paid below minimum wage.
Bill may legalize millions of immigrants Bipartisan pitch: Illegal workers could apply for a 3-year guest visa allowing free travel over the border By Darryl Fears The Washington Post WASHINGTON - A bipartisan bill introduced Thursday in Congress seeks to revise the current immigration system by allowing millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States to apply to be temporary guest workers and permit residents of other countries to seek the same status if they can prove that a job is waiting for them. http://www.sltrib.com/nationworld/ci_2731950
