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.
YOU'VE BEEN ANNOINTED AS SPOKESMAN FOR CONGRESS???
I'll be damned. Tony Snow'd better watch out!!
Survey of 1,000 Adults
March 30-31, 2006
Possible to Reduce Illegal Immigration
Yes 68%
No 20%
RasmussenReports.com
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Before debating new laws, first control borders/enforce existing laws
Agree 66%
Disagree 21%
RasmussenReports.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forcibly Require All 11 Million Illegal Aliens to Leave US
Yes 40%
No 44%
RasmussenReports.com
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Do you see any answers to these poll questions that support your absurd claims, Ben?
Your answer should be no, Ben. Not even the answer to question #3 supports your absurd claims.
We don't have to forcibly deport the 11 million or more illegal aliens in this country.
If we start enforcing the existing laws and kick the illegal aliens off Welfare, Food Stamps and out of our schools, THEY WILL DEPORT THEMSELVES!
If it does "speak for itself" it apparently doesn't speak too loudly (except to the Latino Coalition, perhaps) since the president of the AFL/CIO is speaking out strongly in OPPOSITION to it?
You are truly a fool sucked in by such political folderol.
Actually, the 10-12 million number is one of the typically absurd MSM/government "statistics" purposely understating the size of the problem. Get a better feel for the real magnitude by reading this Bear Stearns study.
The data it is based on is about 1-1/2 years old so the actual number would probably have risen from 21 million to about 25 million by now.
We won't mention any names, but some FReepers that have been around here for as much as 8 years don't seem to be able to do that.
LOL!
The AFL-CIO leadership is opposed only to the guest worker componant of the bill. They think that ALL of the illegals should be put on the path, not just the ones who have been here the longest.
I hate to tell you this but there is no bill in congress that would arrange deportation.
I think they should all be "put on the path" also - the path back to where they came from ... and as soon as possible.
Your hyping of this proposed bill merely shows how poliically naive you are. Publicity from the MSM (or wishful thinking by FR posters such as you, senor/senorita) isn't the same thing as political backing.
Oh yes. We just got back from lunch at Carino's Italian Restaurant in North Little Rock. The cooks are visible from the seating area, and all FOUR of them were Speaking Spanish to each other...
I'm hoping they don't show up for work Monday..:)
sw
OTOH, the Service Employees Union and Unite Here have endorsed the bill.
OTOH, some rank and file AFL-CIO are opposed.
In one year, 40 million people can fly, sail or drive into NYC and LEAVE again.
And President Bush thinks it's impossible to deport 10 million or so?
Maybe he should hire the NYC tourist commission to show us how it's done there?
sw
I call that de-facto legal status.
I don't want anything bad to happen to anyone, but it would be the fabulous irony if someone were to rob your home and then get away with it and never get caught.
I mean by your logic, if they get away with it, it means they deserve it. If it costs you thousands of dollars to replace -- oh well.
There is no such thing.
Do you know the difference between de facto and de jure?
You probably should not be throwing meaningless and/or contradictory terms on this forum of all places. It probably works at your reagular hangout at DU, but not here.
If there are 12 million of them here, and none of them are being deported, what do you call it.
I never had the position crooked Ben - that was you.
And now you hope to regale us with all the Lation and left-leaning groups that like the bill since it is merely another step along the path of destroying America? Don't bother ... they're not hard to spot. Nor is your endorsement of that same destruction.
Why don't you retuen to Mexico, too? (Or Guatemala ... or wherever).
If guys like El Presidente (little Spanglish lingo there) can't deport 10 million, how in hell do they convince all of us that they can deport all those (including the 57 million waiting at the borders) not following whatever new "law" they come up with???
And how do they convince us it will be honored by the gringo-haters who are here thumbing their noses at our laws right now. Get real.
Occupation.
I call it a goddamned shame, that's what I call it - and a massive wholesale breaking of our laws and a sellout by the Beltway Bastards ... the DC Dumbbells.
I also call it a crime on the 21-25 million who are actually here illegally now. Guess you haven't checked the thoroughly done research I provided - or maybe you'd rather play ostrich.
Or maybe the Latino Coalition pays you for your uninformed help.
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