Bush gives pep talk on immigration bill (to a group of pro-immigration reform advocates)

Orange County Register ^ | June 1, 2007 | DENA BUNIS

[Cyropaedia]

Also a good point that illegal immigrant labor has slowed down automation

Yes it has. And the individual most responsible for that is Cesar Chavez. That is his true legacy. Agricultural engineering could be light years ahead of where it is now .

Mechanization is the future for virtually all agriculture. There are countries right now that can sell their produce just as cheaply as own growers do and that is with a 15% tariff being slapped on their imported food. They can get away with paying their own workers much less than we pay the migrants in this country. The only way we can compete against these foreign countries is through full fledged mechanization.

[grey_whiskers]

Cheers!

[Owen]

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“Because of the reality in the US that equals that of Japan and most of Europe — there there are not enough working age people in the country to provide a workforce.”

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Nonsense. We create around 1 million jobs a year. We have *OVER* 1 million in legal immigration plus expansion in workforce of .5 million a year. DO THE MATH. We do NOT NEED amnesty and we do NOT NEED illegal immigration. The latter is low wage low skill low value add to our economy. Not needed, we have plenty of legal workers to do the job.
>>>

You either understand the numbers or you do not. The relevant websites are very, very clear about the population demographics in the US. Spend some time on www.census.gov. Here is the relevant projection from the US Census’ Excel spreadsheet which you can find at:

http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/usinterimproj/

Age 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040
20-44 36.9 33.8 32.3 31.6 31.0

That is percentage of the total population. You can certainly work past 45, but workplace injuries in physical labor kick in then and there is no net plus.

No one wants illegal immigration or amnesty. Punishment must be levied on those who broke the law. But if you take the position that deportation is the only acceptable punishment for illegals, then you will have to sign onto, explicitly, negative growth of the GDP while you figure out what to do next about a shrinking workforce.

No, you will not replace them in the workforce with prisoners. The total prison population of the US is about 2 million — and their age breakdown subtracts from that number, too. No, you will not enact slave labor authorization to force welfare types to replace the illegals. Most of the welfare recipients are single mothers who have to watch their kids.

The quoted 1 million legal immigrants per year includes over half as change of status events, not new people entering the country. The “do the math” quote pointing to this and the expansion of the workforce failed utterly to include retirees leaving the workforce with their jobs left empty. That’s not job creation. That is job vacating. That job doesn’t disappear. THIS is the real problem. And FAR WORSE, the age breakdown of those legal immigrants does not 100% ensure them to be working age. Of that 1 million you may only get 2/3 of working age.

The position seems to be that deportation is the only acceptable punishment for 12 million illegals and this is just foolish. Why would you deny yourself the opportunity to make it work? Why not give the illegal a choice? Make them pay a $150,000 fine up front, or agree to deportation, OR, agree to pay 18% social security tax until age 65 at which point the guest worker returns to Mexico and explicitly waives any US SS benefits. And include in the legislation a requirement for 2/3 supermajority in both houses of Congress to undo it.

Don’t believe the Democrats will sign on? Then blame them.

If you take the position now that . . . oh, right, sure, like I believe anything will be enforced. Well, if you believe nothing will be enforced, then why care what is in a law? You don’t believe any laws will be enforced so why interest yourself in a new proposed law?