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'm surprised you haven't called WD a lazy traitorous piece of crap for not doing his own lawn, according to your usual bombast rhetoric.
I have to go get Pedro now...my lawn needs cutting and Maria needs to wash the windows.....
FMCDH(BITS)
Or will that landscaping company on the super-white-liberal lakeshore employ excons citizens just let out of prison to do the yard work? Yeah, sure.
We just might discover that we don't live in a zero sum game.
If I wasn't FORCED to pay for their benefits I wouldn't care who they hired as long as they are LEGAL! It is my business when I am FORCED to subsidize their immigrant employees.
At least try to put together a few rational thoughts.
You can thank SCOTUS for that. I'm all for English being the official language of the govt..
They are CITIZENS of this country, that's how it is different. I don't approve of all of that either but, at least, they are CITIZENS. Why should taxpayer's be FORCED to subsidize people who aren't CITIZENS?!
You're forced to subsidize for native born Americans also(i.e welfare, etc.etc).
You wouldn't be so transparent if you didn't rant against immigrants exclusively.
Same two people who have always done it, along with the weeding, sweeping, watering, planting, and those two people would be me and my handsome husband of 45 years. If the time comes when we need help, we'll hire Americans, if there are any of them left.
I know many here including conservatives mostly who make a strong effort not to use anyone who hires illegals...even if it cost more.
I have begun to insist on it with my general contractors but the illegals and their leaders have caught on....fake documents are everywhere.
They flash Drivers Licenses and claim citizenship.
I know some early Mexican immigrants here who started restaurants 25 years ago in Middle Tenn. They will tell you that at least 70% of the hispanics in Middle Tenn are illegal or on expired paper. I would guess that is over 100,000. And Hispanics are not the only groups here. The Nigerians and some Asians are known to harbour illegals too. I know a fair number of Kurds, Russians, Serbs and Croats and they tend to be legal.
One who owns a chain of restaurants here remarked to me that he left Mexico to escape this. I then asked him if there were any illegals in his kitchens? You could hear a pin drop.
BINGO!
I would estimate that here anyhow, any construction that has to do with cement is very very likely to have illegals employed.
That used to be black dominated. When the first hispanic phalanxes moved north when Houston slowed down 15 years ago slowly put the blacks out of business.
BTTT
Are you disappointed with their work?
Is the food bad where you frequent that mexican restaurant?
Quisling A word Norwegians are not very proud of having given to the world: it derives from Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), a Norwegian politician who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. He established his name as a synonym for "traitor", someone who collaborates with the invaders of his country, especially by serving in a puppet government. Quisling was found guilty of high treason in 1945, and was executed by firing squad on the 24th October 1945.
Notice that I said "most" arrived in the first half of th 19th Century. As it turns out, however, most persons of Irish descent will discover their earliest Irish ancestors to have arrived in the 18th Century. An even bigger surprise will be that if they were churched at all they were Protestants ~ and I'm not talking about Scots-Irish, but Irish folk themselves.
The fellows coming off the prison barges (and yes, you can find out which ones on the net if you wish) had no papers, no money, little command of English, and probably knew more about fist fighting then any immigrants to America before or since.
There were even Irish people coming to America in the 17th Century, and if truth be told, probably in the 16th Century on Spanish and French ships.
The "Irish need not apply" signs are more apocryphal than real. Somebody might have put one up, but the earliest Irish came directly off prison barges into indenture. They had no need whatsoever to apply for jobs anyway.
Brave of you, but I would be careful about checking your food carefully the next time you are there...
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