Posted on 03/11/2005 2:06:08 PM PST by La Enchiladita
PAGE ONE
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Crucial Ingredient As Border Tightens, Growers See Threat to 'Winter Salad Bowl'
Yuma, Ariz., Relies on Muscle From Illegal Immigrants; Security vs. Economics A Job Americans Won't Do By MIRIAM JORDAN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL March 11, 2005; Page A1
YUMA, Ariz. -- Shortly before Thanksgiving last year, Tom Nassif did something few law-abiding citizens would ever think to do: He called the U.S. Border Patrol here and suggested agents stop manning a highway checkpoint intended to keep illegal immigrants out of the country.
A former U.S. ambassador and currently the president of a powerful farming association, Mr. Nassif told officials that the agency couldn't have picked a worse time to beef up enforcement. Didn't they know it was lettuce season?
The checkpoint -- complete with drug-sniffing dogs -- was meant to stop the flow of illegal immigrants who might have slipped through the regular border controls. But it was also ensnaring busloads of undocumented workers who are critical to the task of picking lettuce and other vegetables during the winter growing season here. Border patrol Public Information Officer Joseph Brigman says he told Mr. Nassif that "we aren't targeting fieldworkers; we're conducting normal operations."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
pinging to your ping
We need more lettuce-picking robots.
With 3 million illegals having crossed the border last year, that should fulfill our need for about the next 1000 years.
Those lettuce pickers have their own little "union" too!
A Job Americans Won't Do
There’s no job Americans won’t do. Just pay them a wage they find palatable for the work.
The 8 to 10 million illegal aliens already in the country are not sufficient to pick the lettuce?
In other breaking news: Hospitals expected to lose less money on emergency rooms this winter.
I wonder if there's a correlation?
The propaganda that we need illegals and depressed wages to process food is total BS.
I know a woman who worked the California fields back in the 1980s and made more than $200 a day packing pears. Her co-worker, who was really fast, made close to $300 a day. Both American-born and Mexican citizens worked at the processing house.
Did we go broke paying $200 to $300 to workers per day? Nope. The pears competed on the market with all other pears. This manure that we need illegals to process our food so our food costs don't sky-rocket is just that - BS.
All told, about 10 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S. Without them, experts say, industries like construction, lodging and agriculture would be forced to radically change how they operate -- sharply boosting costs for consumers or curtailing the services they provide. An illegal work force "defines whole industries and whole sectors of the labor market," says Doris Meissner, the immigration chief under President Clinton.
Now, inflamed by security concerns, the debate over illegal immigrants is heating up as Congress considers proposals that would amount to the most significant change in immigration law since an amnesty in 1986.
In his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Bush touted a guest-worker program that would grant temporary work permits to laborers already here. Western Growers, meanwhile, has backed bills in the House and Senate that would grant permanent residency to about 500,000 farm workers who have a work history in the U.S. and commit to stay in agriculture. Some conservative Republicans have vowed to block such plans, which they see as an amnesty that would draw even more illegal workers and undermine security.
U.S. agriculture "could not exist without a foreign work force," says Mr. Nassif of Western Growers, who acknowledges that a significant number of those workers are illegal immigrants carrying false documents. "If they come to us with documents that appear to be legal we will go ahead and hire them, unless and until we find out that they are false documents."
Now tell me, if you complete an I-9 for every new hire as you should, why is there not a database you can go to and instantly confirm the identity and immigration status of the employee?
BTW, whoever put "Newbie" in the keywords is wrong... or they don't bother to read the profile.
A Job Americans Won't Do
There’s no job Americans won’t do. Just pay them a wage they find palatable for the work.
A head of lettuce would cost $10.00.
That he regularly breaks the law, represents a group which bases its entire business on flouting the law and the goodwill of fellow citizens, and that he will continue to laugh at such law all the while.
The free market is never really free. There are constraints, limits, not to mention inspections, certifications, personal 'dynamics' regardless of product or service, etc. Within the limits imposed by this just society, on behalf of its own citizens, forget foreign citizens willing to work at an indecently low wage. Everyone is harmed in that way. That just society, respect for law itself, is harmed. Pay people for the back-breaking work. Pay them reasonably is all. And the crops will still be competitively priced.
I'm not unaware that this is also a complaint with 'GOP county' voters, not merely farmers and ranchers, but construction bosses as well who employ foreign nationals in this country without permission. So be it. If people who otherwise might agree are wrong on this key issue, then they're wrong. I don't know Nassif's politics. But on this, he's wrong, regardless.
A head of lettuce would cost $10.00.
The price of lettuce will never go higher than the price people are willing to pay for it.
Fine with me! I don't care that much for salads anyway...
And our schools and hospitals would come out ahead - as would our prisons. Mexico on the other hand, would be in a world of hurt without the wages sent by its expatriate citizens.
I do not believe that there are not americans needing work
who would be happy to pick lettuce! I helped pay for my college weeding tomato fields.
I don't mind paying more for produce if it means the borders are secured and the laws are enforced.
"A former U.S. ambassador and currently the president of a powerful farming association, Mr. Nassif told officials that the agency couldn't have picked a worse time to beef up enforcement. Didn't they know it was lettuce season? "
Well, maybe Bush does know what he is doing with his guest worker program afterall.
The guest worker program would allow supporting the needs of the farmers, while being able to legally allow people in specifically to work, and be able to keep track of them.
Would you like to pay $20 for a head of lettuce?
My answer to you is the same as my answer to him, only twice as strong.
The head of lettuce will be priced as the market will bear, and the market will not bear a $10 or $20 price (in today's dollars.)
Though, if it did, the head of lettuce would, by definition, be worth it.
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