Posted on 09/03/2007 4:39:31 PM PDT by kellynla
Immigration-limits groups are in the midst of a Labor Day campaign to pressure Congress and presidential candidates to pledge to cut the flow of foreign labor in order to protect American workers.
The groups' plea — being made in a new television-ad campaign and an online petition — occurs as think tanks on both sides of the immigration debate ponder the role of immigrants in the labor force, and arrive at different conclusions about how necessary foreign workers will be over the next half-century.
The new ad campaign is stark and blunt: It features a young couple sitting at a kitchen table, with a baby crying in the background. The man tells the woman he didn't get a job because "they hired all foreign workers, but none of us," and the woman wonders aloud how they are going to make their house payment.
The group behind the ad, the Coalition for the Future American Worker, says there are 54 million Americans of working age without a job, and nearly 28 million foreign-born workers — both legal immigrants and illegal aliens — who hold jobs here. The group plans to deliver a petition to all of the 2008 presidential candidates tied to Labor Day asking them to crack down on employers who hire illegal aliens, but also to require businesses to look at American workers first, rather than legal foreign workers.
As of yesterday morning, about 76,600 people had attached their names online to the petition.
Feeling emboldened after helping to kill the Senate's immigration-overhaul bill this year, groups that want more restrictions placed on immigration — both illegal and legal — are hoping to push the political debate further in their direction.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
ping
Doubtful.
The group behind the ad, the Coalition for the Future American Worker, says there are 54 million Americans of working age without a job, and nearly 28 million foreign-born workers
That being said, we need to give illegals their walking papers, ASAP.
28 million foreign-born workers - doing the jobs Americans won’t do...
Don’t forget the grad students. They are unemployed.
The big problem with bushononmics is we replace all these good american jobs with low paying ones. The workers at the low paying jobs can’t actually afford to buy the shiny new products.
Some hedge fund guys and ceo’s become worth hundreds of millions in the process, but they just don’t consume very much. And what they do consume is usually european luxury goods, like French wines, Swiss watches, German automobiles, Italian furniture, etc..
A *little* misleading is right. I’m an American of working age, and I don’t want a job. On the other hand, I’d love to find Americans who would like a job cleaning house, doing yard work, etc. Those don’t exist here.
Foreign born workers will go where the jobs are; Americans want the jobs to come to them.
Students includes grad students.
Also, foreign born workers can include people who are now US citizens. I have one of these working for me.
Those 54 million includes a large number of stay-at-home mothers who really don’t want any jobs beyond their maternal responsibilities. That demographic alone probably dominates the group. Then you also have students, prisoners, members of the military, disabled Americans, drug addicts, early retirees, independently wealthy Americans, and undocumented workers with citizenship (who may or may not get included depending on the surveying method).
For all jobs except President, Vice-president, and a few particularly sensitive national security jobs, I oppose any discrimination between native-born and naturalized citizens.
Please, would one of the noble freepers say that part about how they are opposed only to illegals and how much they love legal immigrants?
When will union members figure this out and quit supporting the sellouts on both sides of the aisle? It seems union leaders are more interested in getting new members (leagla or illegal) and enriching themselves than protecting existing union members jobs.
Yikes! leagla = legal.
If that were true, our consumer based economy would have imploded long ago.
That’s not true. There are plenty of cleaning agencies that are not illegals and try finding a job today that you don’t have to go through an employment agency of some sort or another.
Give us the missing context.
Just for kicks, I’m going to start checking “no” on the little area where they ask if you can provide proof of your right to legally work in this country next time I fill out a job app.
I bet the phone rings off the hook.
Yes, the figure has no meaning unless it means willing workers unable to find a job. 54 million is probably about a third of those.
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