Posted on 12/14/2004 6:02:37 AM PST by OESY
...Think about the Kerik example: The man and his wife have two small kids.... A nanny offers that help, and she seems both nice enough and gets along with kids. Whether or not she's "legal" seems less important to most American parents than whether she's trustworthy and hard-working.
As for the nanny, she's traveled hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from home to make some money and get ahead. Her primary concern isn't running some Immigration Service gantlet but is to find a good family that pays decently and treats her well. Are we really supposed to believe that this kind of transaction between consenting adults jeopardizes our national security?
...Congress made some progress on the so-called nanny tax issue back in 1994, raising the threshold for complying and simplifying the process by which employers file taxes for their domestic help.
...Most Americans calculate the costs -- in time, legal advice and hassle -- of filling out all the forms, and they simply pay cash instead. The wage threshold should long ago have been raised far higher.
As for immigration law, the Bush Administration is headed down the right path with its guest-worker program. That proposal acknowledges that immigrants fill vital jobs, that movement across borders is inevitable as long as there is the lure of opportunity, and that merely adding more border guards won't stop migrants in any case.
The Bush plan would provide a legal means -- a three-year work visa -- for new immigrants to enter the country and take jobs Americans don't want. Some of them could even be nannies. That system would make it easier to track all foreigners, freeing up our homeland security forces to concentrate on terror threats, rather than rounding up the usual nanny suspects....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
This is how we arrived at this situation.
Since the illegals are here, why not give them licenses, why not give them health care, why not allow employers to hire them without consequence, etc. etc.?
As long as there are laws left to be upheld, I will support the upholding of them. Especially from people who are supposed to be in positions of authority.
I think that anyone who earns their living with their hands is pretty much in for the shock of a lifetime over the next five or ten years. And what was once a middleclass living for a lot of these guys will turn into something resembling what we now call the "working poor," i.e. see fast food employees.
For those doing the hiring, they'll have a similar feeling that people get when they buy one of those $55.00 DVD players or similarly good deal.
But you bolster your point with the specifics, making your point seem less valid. Even if the guy paid a dolar a foot, which is ridiculously low, any competent installer could do a 300 sq ft room in a day with just one helper. Yes, I have done it myself. Being a tradesman, I know that the illegals' effect on wages and the ability of Americans willing to work to make a decent living is grossly exagerrated. It is the Chinese and Mexican willing to make our crap for a few dollars a day hurt employment here far more. Kicking out illegals will just mean more work for them as American industry leaves in even greater numbers.
It's that "jobs Americans don't want" that really gets me.
Only stupid, lower-class, clueless, skill-less, idiot Mexicans will take "jobs Americans don't want"? Only the n*ggers will work those jobs?
Tell me one job that "Americans don't want."
Flame Away!
Pleased to oblige...
The writer makes arguments that make agreement pleasant, however, the writer is dead wrong. Think of the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. Eventually, the dike gave way and the ocean poured in to destroy his village. Quaint? Perhaps. Accurate? Absolutely.
LOL.
There is a Muslim woman in a head scarf at Logan who searches trunks at the parking lot. She may be Atta's sister-in-law, but she's probably legal.
Okay, look -- I have no idea as to the sq footage. It was a hallway and livingroom area in a NYC condo, figure several hundred square feet. If he paid them 5 bucks an hour each, that's $15.00 an hour total multiplied by 16 (two days work) -- so you do the math. Figure he also spent at least some of that time driving them out to Home Depot in brooklyn to pick up the flooring and additional time waiting in line to get the rental van. I mean, if you want to get real specific, you can factor in the time it took to move the flooring up in the elevator, assuming the service elevator was out of service, as it frequently is.
Can anyone sensibly argue that our government will suddenly take the position of denying illegals healthcare and education?
The answer is absolutely not. That will never happen no matter how much ultraconservatives want it.
The better argument is that we should legalize those that are here and get them on the tax rolls. I mean they participate in virtually every aspect of society already. Then, we can undertake a serious effort to shut the borders down.
In an ideal world, the current laws might make sense. But, right now they are stupid.
Thanks for deleting my duplicate at #45...
Have you seen the size of some of those lawns and how spoiled and difficult those yuppie kids out on Long Island are nowadays? You can't expect the poor souls to do such hard work! (said with very heavy sarcasm).
"There is a Muslim woman in a head scarf at Logan who searches trunks at the parking lot. She may be Atta's sister-in-law, but she's probably legal."
Yeah, after 9/11, I think they did fire all the illegals. They were going to fire the legal (non-naturalized) immigrants, but the Boston Globe put a stop to that, with a string of sob stories.
These airport workers have very wide access to planes, baggage, fuel trucks, etc.
Kerik had some very good excuses: Mistress #1, Mistress #2,and overseeing such details as sending detectives out - in the middle of the night - to search for and retrieve a stolen cell phone belonging to one of his girlfriends.He probably had to call his wife from his secret apartment every once in a while just to check in.
"Can anyone sensibly argue that our government will suddenly take the position of denying illegals healthcare and education?
The answer is absolutely not. That will never happen no matter how much ultraconservatives want it.
The better argument is that we should legalize those that are here and get them on the tax rolls."
If we grant amnesty to all illegal immigrants, how many more is that going to attract? If 10 million sneak across the border for second-class residency, how many will come to be first-class citizens?
And, with the "progressive" nature of our tax system, how much will all these minimum wage earners be paying into the system?
And are you proposing amnesty and an "open border" with Syria, Jordan, and Algeria? There are millions of poor people there, as well, who would come here if they had the opportunity.
Scofflaws like him don't care about the social/economic ramifications on middle America. They are insulated from them.
For example, their kids aren't sitting in classes of 35+ kids, with 15 illiterate in English illegals dragging the curriculum back 2-3 years.
I'm sorry, your position is absolutely backwards. The mere rumor of granting legal status was enough to increase border crossings by 15-20% over the last year. Our first priority is to gain control of the border. Then we can take the time/make the effort to control those who have crossed.
Once again, I refer you to the story of the little Dutch boy. You can bail canals until you're blue in the face and it isn't going to do a bit of good if the entire North Sea is rushing in through a ruptured dike.
And please, don't assume that my analogy is hyperbole. I live along the dike and suffer the ravages of the flood. We had a man and his family nearly killed this weekend when a gaggle of illegals crossed the highway in front of him in the dark. Instead, one unfortunate illegal died...he was too slow running across the road.
This type of occurence is routine here.
It's disgusting to see rich teenagers sitting around the pool while teenage illegals trim the hedges and cut the grass.
"Have you seen the size of some of those lawns and how spoiled and difficult those yuppie kids out on Long Island are nowadays?"
And that's out on the Island. Life is even harder in Westchester and Connecticut.
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