Posted on 04/24/2006 4:24:45 PM PDT by HEMICRASHBOX
Illegal immigrants in this country are threatening a massive boycott on May 1, purportedly to demonstrate they are so essential that the U.S. economy would shut down without their labor. On the contrary, such a boycott will expose the lie expressed by President George W. Bush in Cancun, Mexico, that they are "doing work that Americans will not do."
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, illegal immigrants make up less than 5 percent of the U.S. labor force. If every one of the 20 million illegal aliens in our country plays hooky from his job on May 1, the overwhelming majority of those same types of jobs will be worked by millions of U.S. citizens.
All over America, U.S. citizens will flip hamburgers in fast-food shops, wash dishes in restaurants, change sheets in hotels, mow lawns, trim shrubs, pick produce, drive taxis, replace roofs on houses, and do all kinds of construction work. Americans are quite willing to work unpleasant, menial, tiresome and risky jobs, but not for Third World wages.
An employment service in Mobile, Ala., recently received an "urgent request" to fill 270 job openings from contractors who were hired to rebuild and clear areas of Alabama devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The agency immediately sent 70 laborers and construction workers to three job sites.
After two weeks on the job, the men were fired by employers who told them "the Mexicans had arrived" and were willing to work for lower wages. The U.S. citizens had been promised $10 an hour, but the employers preferred Mexicans who would work for less. Employment agency manager Linda Swope told The Washington Times: "When they told the guys they would not be needed, they actually cried ... and we cried with them. This is a shame."
Swope said that employment agencies throughout Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi all face similar problems because an estimated 30,000 men from Mexico and Central and South America, many in crowded buses and trucks, came into those three states after Hurricane Katrina, willing to work for less than whatever was paid to U.S. citizens.
Meanwhile, President Bush signed the Katrina Emergency Assistance Act extending for 13 weeks the unemployment benefits to U.S. citizens displaced by Katrina. Thus employers get the benefit of cheap foreign labor while you and I provide taxpayer handouts to workers whom the government allowed to be displaced from the jobs they were eager to take.
There is no penalty on employers who replace U.S. citizens with illegal immigrants at lower pay. Homeland Security even announced it has suspended the sanctioning of employers who hire illegal immigrants, and President Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires local contractors to pay "prevailing" wages.
A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research reported that the surge of immigration in the 1980s and 1990s lowered the wages of our own high school dropouts by 8.2 percent. The surge has accelerated since that report was issued. The Congressional Budget Office reported that 60 percent of Mexican and Central American workers in the United States in 2004 lacked a high school diploma.
The Kennedy-McCain-Bush guest worker plan would import more uneducated, unskilled workers, and thereby deny our own high school dropouts (of whom we have too many) the opportunity to get started in building their lives in the labor force. U.S. citizens are threatened that the cost of lettuce will rise precipitously if we don't continue to import Mexican agricultural workers. But a farm worker gets only 6 or 7 cents out of a $1 head of lettuce, so even if the pay doubles, consumers would hardly notice the difference.
On the other hand, the costs taxpayers are forced to pay for social benefits for low-paid workers are astronomical. The National Research Council reports that an immigrant to the United States without a high-school diploma consumes $89,000 more in government services than he pays in taxes during his lifetime.
Low-paid illegal immigrants obviously pay very little taxes, but they cash in on all sorts of benefits paid by other taxpayers, such as schooling for their children, emergency health care, housing subsidies, Earned Income Tax Credit and law enforcement. If the 20 million illegal immigrants are legalized, they will also become eligible for Medicaid, and that's a real break-the-bank prospect.
These figures don't even count the rapidly growing underground economy, in which millions of illegal immigrants are paid off the books in cash. That enables both employer and employee to avoid paying taxes, and enables employers to avoid paying workers' compensation, unemployment compensation, and assorted other taxes.
If the Internal Revenue Service collected all the taxes that should be paid by the underground economy, our current budget deficit would disappear overnight, according to a Bear Stearns study released in 2005. The Americans who pay taxes are giving a free ride to those who are not paying taxes, and a 7-cent increase in the price of lettuce should not be on our worry list.
Yep.
Who did the poll?
What were the questions like?
How were they phrased?
Do you believe most of these illegal aliens would go home all by themselves, if we enforced our existing laws against illegal immigration, fined and jailed their employers, threw them all off Welfare and Food Stamps and kicked their illegal alien rear ends out of our schools?
If Republican pollsters asked that question, the answer would be a resounding 'YES!!!' from a majority of Democrats and Republicans alike that are legal, tax paying, U.S. citizens.
Even Newt believes this now. I heard him say it on Fox a couple days ago.
As for Newt, yes he has shifted his position again. It has been only months ago that he was advocating his "blue cards", which were nothing more than "path to citizenship".
You realize that as more and more time seperates Newt from his elected career, be becomes more and more irrelevant. To counter this, he has chosen to become a presidential candidate. He, like many, many politicians, has turned to immigration rhetoric as a method of building support.
The problem for you and others at FR, is that you can't discern the difference between political/immigration rhetoric and reality.
At present, my problem is you don't appear to be willing or able to give me a straight answer to my questions.
"I understand that you are not willing to accept the polling data that contradicts you, but it exists and it is the basis for the route that Congress is taking."
"I understand that you are not willing to..." provide us with the source of "the polling data that..." you claim contradicts us.
LOL!
Just yesterday there was an Opinion Researh poll describe in an article published at CNN and posted here. I don't plan to chase the link down for you because I know you will reject it as "CNN is lying".
But I do have a couple/three that have been posted here in the last few weeks.
1607263
1607867
1607786
Once again let me point that this polling data is not what is most significant, what is most important is that Congress is using this polling data to create legislation.
The US also has a legal immigration program which the illegals choose not to enter.
And, should you take that step with respect to Mexico, your "rights" are just about non-existent. Even if you're there legally you'll play hell becoming a citizen and you'd find your rights (property rightes, voting rights, etc.) greatly restricted compared to the US legal immigrants.
You've obviously not read the link I gave that point this up and prefer your daydream.
Well, Ben ... let's see your "polling data".
You seem more concerned that you think the US has "inadequate" immigration quotas (God only knows if that's according to you or to some pol running for office).
"The problem for you and others at FR, is that you can't discern the difference between political/immigration rhetoric and reality. "
That sounds like a very apt description of the problem you suffer from.
Another apt description might be that you're an illegal alien yourself - else why do you sympathize with them so greatly?
You also seem unable to post the (supposed) "poll" you quote.
see #105
The first ID you gave quotes a poll from Slime (Time) Magazine. it primarily emphasizes the so-called "guest worker" programs being kicked around inside the Beltway rather than the complete issue.
In addition, one can't tell from the material what the questions were and how they were phrased.
The article does point up numbers that contradict your assertions that "society" wants these illegals when it says:
56% favor building a security fence along the U.S.-Mexican border. 71% support major penalties for employers who hire illegals. Contradictions and Limits to Illegals' Access to Services. The debate has Americans voicing sometimes contradictory opinions. A small majority (51%) still think the U.S. would be "better off" by deporting all illegal immigrants compared to a little less than two-in-five (38%) who think the U.S. would be "worse off." Americans would also limit illegals' access to government services, such as driver's licenses (69% not allow), health care/food stamps (75% not allow), and attending public schools (51% not allow). Support Beyond Guest Workers Most Americans would allow illegal immigrants to gain citizenship under certain circumstances. About 7-in-10 (72%) favor granting temporary visas to immigrants not currently in the United States to do seasonal or temporary work here and then return to their own countries; About 3-in-4 (78%) favor allowing illegal immigrants in the U.S. citizenship if they learn English, have a job and pay taxes; A majority (55%) think illegal immigrants are taking jobs that U.S. citizens do not want or cannot do. ""82% say that the United States is not doing enough to keep illegals from entering this country. 62% favor taking whatever steps are necessary at the borders, including the use of the military, to cut the flow of illegals into this country.
Even from the questionable Time aricle, your assertion about "society" loving the illegals doesn't ring true Ben.
It is a fact that Congress is writing legislation around this data. It is a fact the President Bush has abandoned the Bush Plan to fall in behind the polling data.
And the second and third "polls" you gave are the same MSNBC poll. If you think that fairly represents what American society as a whole believes, you're badly mistaken since they seem to concentrate heavily on younger people and by the methodology used would typically favor Democrats IAE (who are more likely to wish to see the country trashed).
BS, Ben - that's more of your wishful thinking.
"Truth???" Fat lot of "truth" you'll get from you "polls" which are merely MSM nonsense.
The American people have never granted legal status, "defacto" or otherwise to illegal immigration as our democratically enacted immigration laws for the past few decades attest. It is our elected representatives who, despite putting the laws on the books, have refused to demand that our Presidents enforce the laws.
George Bush has, however, reached a new height in his absolute refusal to perform his constitutional duty in enforcing our laws and in his willingness to display his total contempt for the American work ethic and for our rights to self-government.
Unless you are willing to give up on our system of republican self-government we must hold our Presidents accountable to enforcing the policies that our duly elected representatives have enacted in response to our will. No amount of dereliction of their constitutional duty on the part of our elected officials justifies the acceptance of (or abdication to) arbitrary government -- or what our founders called a "tryanny." What such dereliction of duty calls for is a renewed effort by the people to reassert their legislative authority and their rights to have this authority respected by our President. This is exactly what is happening in this debate. The American people are pressuring their representatives to uphold their obligations to our republican system of government won for us over 200 years ago and demanding that our laws be enforced.
Benjamin Franklin warned us when the constitution was being debated that it would be up to the people to preserve a "republican" form of government. The founders understood that the right of the people to govern themselves would always be under attack from those who wanted to promote their own private and commercial interests over the common good. This issue of illegal immigration is a perfect example of the substitution of the financial interests of the political and commercial elites for the will of the people. The ultimate question is whether "we the people" value our liberty and right to self-government enough to demand that our President act in ways consistent with our democratically enacted laws and "republican" principles.
I didn't write the polls. I didn't respond to the polls. I am merely pointing them out to you. I could care less whether you believe them.
You are frustrated because those who are in a position to create policy and legislation are reading these polls.
Shafly is wrong about no rules in "replacing Americans with illegals".
Her terminology is like Bill Clinton- parsing her words.
There IS a law against hiring illegal workers. I may not state 'replacing existing workers".
It has been on the books for years, and the I-9 paperwork was supposed to bolster that law. The increase in very good forgeries of documents has assisted employers in hiring people they shouldn't, but here is where the wink-wink- nod-nod comes in.
IF I am an employer trying to interview someone who doesn't speak English, cannot read nor write in English, then I should be very suspicious, no matter the documents presented to me. I wouldn't want the hassle of the legal aspects of trying to save a few dollars...and usually the savings are not near the legal costs and fines that can be applied, if the USA Government would just enforce the existing laws.
BUILD THE WALL.
You're really hooked on the idea of someone "blaming" you. I've old you that is not the case and pointed out where I believe the blame lies,
You're just a hod carrier for the illegal immigrant movement and don't know any better - nor do you understand the majority of voters beliefs on the issue. Quoting these sorts of biased polls does you no credit. Why not post links to polls that show the opposite opinions?
It is no doubt because you favor the opinions in these polls. As I've said ... I don't and I don't believe a majority of American voters do either.
So stop whining and posturing and trying to help your friends.
Very good points.
Certainly this issue will be one of the biggies in the upcoming elections as will tax reform.
That is way too nuanced.
Sorry but under the law, illegal is illegal. period.
There is no immigrant vs "alien".
It sounds more like you are trying out a new talking point for Univision.
If you can't accept this reality, you are destined to sink deeper and deeper into self-deception.
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