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?"
Around here, you can see it mostly in construction and related businesses. Most everyone has been pushed out to make room for the lower cost illegals.
What do you mean they 'go back home'? They don't go back home, they send their money back home.
Quisling: a synonym for "traitor", someone who collaborates with the invaders of his country.
I do my own.
Check your history, google "Irish coffin ships." The germ theory may have been unknown, but contagious diseases were VERY well known. Irish "coffin ships" carrying disease were held in quarantine berths until the disease burned out, and only the healthy (as far as could be determined in the 1840s) were allowed ashore.
[["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." ]]
Too damn bad! Who do you think did those jobs before the Mexicans came and undercut Americans? Hard working Americans thats who!
I have a better job. Hire Americans and pay them a decent wage and you will get the same quailty of work out of them.
But that was true of any ship that had some sign of a plague. You didn't have to be an immigrant to get held in port until all the sick people died.
In any case, you still didn't need to speak English or have a visa.
Under 5%, I'd guess. Negligible.
[[They pay cash for everything.]]
Thats because they are paid cash working under the table and NOT paying taxes like the rest of us native born hard working Americans. Another reason for them to get the f$$k back to Mexico. I'm tired of paying thier share of the taxes along with my own.
Although Baltimore was a major drop-off point for immigrants (the Inner Harbor being Holy Ground as far as American history being involved), once your ship came in past the Capes and up the Bay, you could get off just about anywhere.
It's only in the last hundred years that our border has ceased to be "open".
Back in the old days in that area - high school kids worked in the apple & cherry orchards and some got to work in the wheat fields. Times have changed when they can't get hired because of the hispanic foremen??? Something real wrong with this picture.
I think you're making this up from whole cloth. The Irish didn't get "dropped off along the way," that's nonsense. The coffin ships were large "charter" ventures, with ships being bought and brokered for one specific voyage at a time, paid in full in Ireland. Cork to New York, for example. They did not "coast hop" dropping off Irish here and there. That's nonsense.
How little you know about the customs of Chesapeake Bay. This was not New York Harbor, and not all the Irish came on chartered boats.
Sorry to vehemently disagree with you, but when you have a town with a population well below 50,000; and a Class AA High School, there are a LOT of High School kids. Now, most of the retailers need people who can work a regular schedule; not someone who will be around for the summer, then part time through the school year, with days off for Ball games, Home/Away games plus the regular social calendar that High School kids enjoy. Those employers are far and few between.
The HS kids who are looking to earn a few bucks work for the lawn guy. The Salvadorans work a hell of a lot harder. I did a lot of grass cutting and snow shoveling as a kid (thank God I now don't have to do it), but I never worked as hard as these guys work.
Now, think real hard on this question ~ if, in the 20th century, with high levels of detection available, ships can actually enter and land passengers in the United States UNDETECTED, just how difficult do you think it was for them to do so in colonial times, or even up to the time of the Civil War?
BTW, that site estimates the illegal alien population at about 5 million.
An illegal alien caused a wreck in which an 18 month old baby was killed here last week. I know exactly what they do on the highways.
I know a bit about the Irish diaspora. Your scenario of coast hopping Irish cruise ships does not match what I have read, not at all.
Travis,
Do you have any idea what you are doing to my "ulcer"?
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