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?"
Are you calling for a form of right wing affirmative action?
And by the way how do you know that high school and college students are not getting jobs? It's a nice line to spout, but isn't true.
Cheap that she isn't paying for their medical bills and/or insurance but the taxpayer's will when one of her "legal immigrants" needs a doctor. They will head for the emergency room where the taxpayer's will be forced to pay the tab. Cheap when one of her "legal immigrants" needs government benefits, housing, etc. because they aren't making enough to live in this country. The taxpayer will pick up that tab also. Cheap for her. Not so cheap for the American people.
Hiring high schoolers is a fantasy world that doesn't exist anymore. They do NOT want to work. The mexicans in our area work very hard and do an excellent job. If a high schooler came and asked for work, I would hire them. But guess what, they don't. The mexicans don't gripe, bitch, and moan either. They pay cash for everything. Maybe we americans should wake up and learn multiple languages.
Pave it all and let it go.
The world won't end if the house windows are dirty. The rest of us should not have to accomodate the lazy and the niggardly...
You must be one of those Boston people who refused to hire Irish.
Aw crap. When I was 12, I mowed ten yards a week (5$ to mow and 2$ to edge) and never reported it to the IRS! I'm going to lose my home now aren't I?! /sarcasm
Bingo. However, you should have ended it: "...she isn't willing to pay for jobs that don't really need to be done."
Clean pools and mowed lawns are nice, but not at the expense of a balkanized, bilingual nation.
The US is virtually the only country that supposedly speaks one language. I think we're the one's missing out. English may be the universal language but why not learn another?
Where is the moderator, I thought racism wasn't allowed here. No one has yet mentioned the inner city blighters that stay here and bemoan their race history.
Atleast the mexicans go back home 'a 1000 miles away'!
I am an American and I normally view the "hyphens" the same way that Teddy Roosevelt did. I am one of those folks who'd do it myself or it would not get done.
Here in Florida, most of the landscapers don't speak English.
It doesn't matter that the Irish were here legally or not. My point is great discrimination, hatefulness, spite, ignorance and general disdain. If someone wants the work, wants to raise their family, practices their faith, what the hell is wrong with them getting jobs here.
I used to be against illegal immigration until a certain race closed down a major highway here TWICE demanding to be GIVEN jobs and contracts.
The mexicans join hands and shut down highways getting run over trying to run, dragging their family, into this great nation in the first place.
Huh, and they still had to face the signs of "Irish need not apply".
As part of our in-house soft-on-illegals lobby (SOILs), I don't think you're credible on right wing anything because you sure aren't a conservative. Feel free, though, to tell us all about what's going on among the GOP Big Tent RINOs/liberals/moderates. You might know something about that.
And this is different from Americans who are on welfare or unemployment how?
Huh it wasn't my hero( but czar's hero), tom tancredo who said to the press that Tom Delay should step down.
Everyone at FR says that are opposed only to illegal workers.
Now here is a story about legal guest workers and everyone seems to be opposed to them also.
Count me out and read my posts, I am most definitely NOT against mexican workers. The article was about issuing worker visas. Of course the South ate up the quota and since this article is out of Illinois I imagine the real problem for them is South of the (MasonDixon) Border.
Well, y'see, I've got this specially landscaped lawn composed of
light brown Hispanic grass... and NOBODY will agree to cut it !!!
It's now about 3 feet high... waving insolently in the sunlight...
hissing as the wind blows, "We don't need no steeeeeenkin'
Gringo lawn mower" !!! ;-))
Those of us who may want to learn a second language can do so easily enough. The point here is that Americans should not be forced into learning spanish merely to survive in the midst of the flood of illegal aliens now present in this country thanks to the refusal of the federal government to enforce our immigration laws.
"Where is the moderator, I thought racism wasn't allowed here."
Many of us, I think most of us, believe in American sovereignty, protected borders and the preservation of American culture, customs and language. That doesn't make us racists although there is a small minority of illegal immigration enthusiasts around here which are fond of calling us racists. We make no apologies for placing America first and opposing the enablers and apologists for illegal aliens. You may want to rethink your careless use of the word racism lest you find yourself grouped with the nasty little pack of race baiters to which I referred earlier.
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