Posted on 04/21/2005 3:04:26 PM PDT by Prince Charles
Door slams on foreign landscape workers
April 21, 2005
BY ART GOLAB Staff Reporter
Hundreds of Mexican workers who used to come legally to the Chicago area every spring to do landscaping work have been denied seasonal work visas, leaving landscapers scrambling to find employees to mow and maintain lawns.
One Lake Bluff company applied for more than 150 visas and got none. Those slots make up half the company's seasonal work force, many of them regulars who have come up in the spring for several years.
"They are family members and friends of our current workers who count on this work each year," said Stacy Betz, human resources manager for Mariani Landscaping. "We've trained them and invested in them and they're fantastic individuals."
At least 600 and possibly up to 1,000 visas for landscaping positions in Illinois were denied this year, according to Patricia Cassady, executive director of the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association. One reason is that only 66,000 H-2B visas for temporary, seasonal non-agricultural workers are issued nationwide each year.
And in recent years, more employers such as hotels, restaurants, ski areas, construction companies, amusement parks, carnivals and even minor league baseball teams have become aware of the program and use it.
Early cutoff
This season, the government started taking applications in October and announced the cutoff had been reached by Jan. 3. Illinois got shortchanged because seasonal work starts earlier down south, said Cassady.
Federal legislation that would grandfather in workers who had obtained visas in previous years was approved in a preliminary Senate vote Monday, with both Illinois senators voting yes. But even if it passes Congress it may come too late for this season.
"We've already replaced most of the workers we had hoped to bring up," said Tracey Lester, who with her husband, Ron, owns Architerra in northwest suburban Indian Creek. Architerra had asked for 12 positions, 90 percent of its work force, and got none.
One of Lester's employees, Gerardo Acosta, had hoped to sponsor his cousin Miguel Lomas this year for the first time. "He was looking for a job to support himself and his family," said Acosta, a U.S. citizen. He said other Architerra employees on the visa program liked knowing that they had a job every year. "With the money, they could give their families a better life."
Lester liked the visa program because it provided her with legal workers who had undergone extensive background checks and were willing to work for the wages she can pay, which she says are higher than many landscapers employing undocumented workers.
"With this program you know what you're getting. You're bringing in good people, you're not rolling the dice."
And to politicians who oppose increasing the H-2B cap, Lester has one question: "Who's doing your lawn?"
I've done extensive research into Irish ancestors, and more often than not I've found them working on farms in Maryland and not listed at all in the passenger manifest lists kept at Baltimore.
BTW, long before Ellis Island, Baltimore was the main port of entry for immigrants.
Another item of interest, 1/3 of the Irish who took passage on what are known as "coffin ships" landed in British North America, not the United States. If you take a good look at your references on the "coffin ships" you'll probably find that the greatest death rates occurred on those headed up the St. Lawrence ~ however, that's not the issue that precipitated this discussion.
It was proposed that Irish immigrants were required to speak English, arrive "legally" (whatever that meant), and be checked for disease.
I merely noted that there were no such requirements, and most Americans with an Irish ancestor would find that said ancestor arrived before the 1800s anyway ~ being a prolific group, colonial Irish left behind more than their fair share of descendants, doncha'know!
You proposed that the "coffin ships" served to filter out the sick, ergo, that they constituted a health check.
My response was that not everybody came on a coffin boat, and besides, even those they did, all they needed to do was enter in the Southern states, or the Chesapeake, and they could get off those boats easily.
Not sure you've made your point that there was a medical check at points of entry for the Irish.
Something else for you to think about ~ Ollie North's grandfather was a shipjumper. He got off down at the Capes slick as a whistle. No papers. No English. No visa.
Most Irish in the South were Scots-Irish or Prod Irish and came quite early like you said.
They were not enamoured with their kin who came later and were mostly Catholic.
That stock is arguably the majority of my DNA btw.
These days many descendants of such Irish prefer to be known as Scots-Irish ~ but they're not!
There are a number of reasons why the Catholic church wasn't very well organized in the United States in that period (1800 to 1854), but most of it gets down to the fact that there simply weren't very many Catholics to "organize"! Newcomers were on their own. The Baptists were in strength and welcomed then with open arms (as did 9 synods of Lutherans, etc).
In addition to the Scots-Irish, there were Catholics whose property had been confiscated and who lived by renting and farming small pieces of land. The Irish immigrants were poor, so many of them could not afford to pay for their passage to the United States, so they came to the US as indentured servants. This meant that, in return for their passage, they would agree to work for someone for a certain number of years, usually seven year. Many former indentured servants settled in the Appalachian Mountains, where they farmed small pieces land with a few animals, growing perhaps a little tobacco and cotton, some of which they sold for cash. While they were not wealthy, it was a very good life for them, compared to what they would have had in Ireland.
By 1776, a quarter of a million Irish people, mainly Protestants, had immigrated to America. In general, they were happy in America, because they could practice their own religion, farm their own land, express their opinions freely, and participant in politics.
When the American Revolution came, the Irish were natural revolutionaries, because they already had a great hatred of the British. They played an important role in the revolution, disproportionate to their numbers in the population as a whole, as soldiers, nurses, and officers. It has been estimated that the US military during the Revolutionary War was up to one-third Irish and Irish American. The "Famine Irish" Up to the 1820s, the typical Irish immigrant was an Ulster protestant, though a few Catholics had been immigrating from the beginning. However, beginning in the late 1820s and early 1830s, more and more Catholics from Ireland immigrated. By the 1830s, the typical Irish immigrant was a Catholic, and was usually very poor, even in comparison to earlier Irish immigrants.
My parental gene pool as a 7th generation Mississippian has seen no new immigrants since the 1750s from Ulster.
Privatize profits, socialize costs.
Have you checked to verify that he has a local business license?
This is an absurdly low number which covers not only seasonal agricultural workers but also summer jobs in every resort in the US - jobs that college students used to do. This is probably the only time Bard and I agree on a govt policy. I hate the idea that our govt is happy to have millions of people in an underground capacity in our country, but severely restricts 'legalizing' workers who are part of our economy.
Barb Mikulski has sponsored an amendment to some bill to increase this number because many crab pickers in Somerset County come from Mexico. I find that revealing! There should not be one person left on welfare on the Maryland rolls before we need imported crab pickers.
#
I have never heard or read of immigrant ships dropping people off while coming up the bay. Captains had to sign ship manifests when they left port in the UK or Ireland, and had to account for the passengers when they arrived in America. AFAIK
When we lived in Virginia there were many Mexican workers (farm) but they always went back to Mexico for 3 months a year, had something to do with taxes and not having to pay them.
Several of my co-workers have started up lawn mowing businesses. I know its wrong, and for them I apologize to the cheap labor GOPers.
Could you prove it?
We are, the same ones that have mowed our lawn for the last 40 years. Finally bought a riding mower this spring, mowing 2 1/2 acres with a self propelled mower gets a little rough when you are over 65.
Not only that, but I bet he spends his paycheck here in the states and doesn't send it to a foreign country.
No. Nor have I checked to see if the grass cutting guy, the plumber, the electrician, the dentist or anyone else who provides services to me or my family has a local business license.
>>>"Who's doing your lawn?"
>>Americans mow my lawn.
Same here. Me, as a matter of fact.
One of the big reasons I've never hired a lawn service to do it, is that all the ones around here seem to hire what I assume are illegals.
I've got a hardscape contractor in right now doing a paver walk, some underground drainage improvements, and a small retaining wall. One of the reasons I like the guy, is that he hires American laborers, and not non-English-speaking illegals.
The discussion of Irish immigration is too apples and oranges on this thread. You and I were referencing the post-famine Irish. muawiyah seems to be more interested in colonial ancestors. Of course ships, barques, schooners, etc stopped all up and down the bay in colonial times.
BTW, we have a colonial ancestor who was a ship master and was prosecuted in England for murder on the high seas. He was in the business of transporting prisoners, ca 1740. He was acquitted.
And according to some doom and gloomers on FR that is the epitomie of evil.
And now that you are 20, what is your price?
Seriously, you've heard of this real old fellow walking down the street who was approached by a prostitute who said,
"Honey, for fifty bucks I'll do anything you want...
To which he replied,
"Anything I want for fifty dollars?"
"Yep, sugar, anything you want for fifty dollars."
"Great. Paint my house.
Do you know if they have general liability insurance?
A guy comes out to your home to do some work, something goes against the way he was planning and burns your home to the ground. He walks off saying,"Prove I was working on your home AND that I was at fault."
What do you do?
This could all start from him drilling into a concealed wire in a wall while he is installing a fireplace, large shelf, or whatever.
What do you do?
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