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Windflier, my first comment in response to your lengthy response is directed at your last paragraph where you in quire of me “What about American Workers? Did you ever hire any of them? Answer: From 1971 to around 2009 I hired (myself and through sub contractors on my jobs) many thousands of American citizens. That’s a fact. No doubt too, some of the people that worked for some of my sub contractors were illegal. E verify was not even a pipe dream back then. I am 99% sure I never directly hired an illegal worker on any of my jobs.

Now, let me give you, and any other readers, some perspective so that this discussion can hopefully progress some. I came home from 2 years active duty in May 71. I was 23. By 1978, I was building my first apartment project at 29. I owned half the project and was the General Contractor. Oh, and there was zero wealth in my family back then. The project was successful and we built many more, in that same general ownership/construction modality.

The first sub on the jobs were always the excavation man. Whether or not his operators were “legal”, I confess to not knowing. I do know he was the low bidder and available immediately which, back then, was all that mattered. After site work and foundations, 90% of workers on my jobs were obviously legal (Caucasians) and spoke English but in those days this was not a hot issue like it is today, as it should be. So much for some “perspective”.

To your points, or most of them: I assumed you were “probably” a union guy by the comments you made. Since you were not and are not, that puts us on the same page, or close.

Regarding the unscrupulous, illegal hiring of non citizens, I went out of business and lost a half million dollars in a sitework company for the exact same identical reasons you cite! So, once again we find ourselves on the same page and moving up on the over-arching point that you did not catch in my original post.

RE my “hard working guys” statement. They just are. But, when I say that, I am speaking of Mexican General Laborers performing semi skilled work out in the hot sun and, again, I don’t know where u come from but down here in Texas these hardy Mexican Workers are the only ones that will do that work. I know and/or have not met one fellow developer/contractor that disagrees with that statement.

Now, predictably, I know some freeper is going to say “bs” you don’t pay them enough. If you did, a white guy (American Citizen) would do the work. LOL, I call bs back on that, in advance! In emergencies, I have paid $25.00 to Caucasians to swing a sledge, I have yet to find one that would do it more than an hour or so before throwing it on the ground and walking off. Sometimes, I had to do it! So, paying a guy that swings a sledge hammer at a stake in the ground 25-35 an hour is nothing short of an “hallucination”. The market will not permit it! AND, Caucasians cannot and will not do it all day long, day after day, week after week in the hot Texas Sun....for any amount of money! Thus, in an ironic way, we all owe that hardy Mexican worker out there swinging that sledge, because without somebody swinging it all day long every day, there is no sitework and there are no foundations and no job for any of us.

Any sub, like Windflier for instance, who is paying these type wages (25-35$) to an “American Citizen” to swing a sledge hammer will be out of business from the START in Texas, a right to work state that is extremely HOT in the summer!

I am not even going to argue that point any more with anybody. You cannot blithely dismiss “right to work” and the competitive environment it creates (in the construction industry in Texas) while claiming to advance intelligent argument points.

So, what to do? Well, some freepers will say “throw em all out of the country”. That feels good to say but will NEVER happen short of installing a conservative dictator!

So, AGAIN, what’s the answer? The only answer I’ve heard of is a “Guest Worker” program and I am not going to rehash (state again) what the advantages of one are because I want to get to your MAIN point (Windflier’s).

In a properly structured and monitored Guest Worker (hereafter referred to as just GW) program, the MAIN complaint you have is, “the presence of illegal alien labor in our industry has decimated wages across the board”.

AGREED! (and, I am only commenting on Texas)

Again, the question though is “what to do about it” that is doable, not a fantasy! I say “guest worker” because it will immediately move the players around on the table by: 1. the number of guest workers will be far less than the cash out of someone’s pocket scenarios we see going on around a sub’s pick up today. This is because in a properly enforced and set up GW program the EMPLOYER will have to have proper paperwork on each worker and the worker himself will have to provide some of it. If he can’t, and MANY won’t, he will get no work, because the Employer, (you and me) does not want to go to jail. (2) The GW’s will have to start paying WITH-HOLDING INCLUDING SS and FICA, another leveler of competition as it will drive their wages UP! (3) A GW program could require a GW to take a basic one day English class so MINIMUM communication could go on between the employer and the employee without an interpreter in the middle that sometimes intentionally lies for personal gain which again artificially inflates costs.

So, there is no question that a GW program would level the playing field SOME and help do what you want to do which is “HIRE MORE “AMERICAN’ WORKERS AND FEWER ‘NON CITIZENS’. Part of the problem in the past is guys like you and me did not get involved. This time around, that should change and hell, let’s make it (an enforcement regimen) tough!

Now, this gets me to the question I will be attacked on. Can the “existing” federal government do this? Probably not since they cannot build a website. So, we must get to a situation this coming November where we retire 90% of the lifelong professional ruling class in DC. Short of a live fire revolution, that is the only answer. Some guys and gals with brains, will hire some federal bureaucrats with brains instead of gender or sexual preference.

In the meantime Windflier, I feel from reading what you say that you are more of a Guest Worker supporter than you think.

Thanks. Nice discussion!

So, what to do? Well, some freepers will say “throw em all out of the country”. That feels good to say but will NEVER happen short of installing a conservative dictator!

Nonsense. There is an easy way to do it, and it's the same means as successfully extirpated a good many animal species: A bounty system. Bounties work. Place a bounty on the head of any illegal with stiff penalties for false imprisonment, harassment, or detention. The illegals would self-deport in months.

Oh, and as to "hard work," I do work that would be illegal in California even for illegal aliens: hand weeding for months on end, distinguishing 110 exotic species from native annuals, many in their juvenile stages.

You are making a "peas and apples" argument. You are posing competition between those willing to hire illegals against a straw man of one who would not do so under those competitive forces. Were the illegals out, the playing field would be even despite that you had to pay those higher wages to get that work done. Hence, yours is a false argument.

You have already tacitly admitted that such a system is impossible to enforce in a day-labor market.

Can the “existing” federal government do this?

The problem would be our Marxist Federal judges, who should be impeached. Electing a conservative government could get that done, but for the threat of amnesty. This means you.

So, your entire argument is that Caucasians can’t and won’t swing a sledge hammer all day in the Texas sun for any amount of money, therefore developers like you are forced to use illegal labor to get the job done. Uh-huh.

First of all, site work is only the first level of invasion by illegal workers. Their infiltration into the skilled building trades goes far beyond that, and you know it. I defy you to walk through a project phase by phase, and show me any phase where American workers predominate. You can’t. Foreign born workers now predominate in every sector of the trades, from pounding stakes to setting doors and windows.

You would have us believe that American men never built a thing in Texas, which is a provable falsehood. I’ve been in the trades long enough in the southwestern U.S. to know better. I’ve witnessed the changes in the building trades with my own eyes. Up until the early 80s, nearly every phase of construction on projects in this country was performed exclusively by American men.

American men built the southwest. They built the infrastructure, from the water and electrical systems, to the houses, commercial buildings and skyscrapers. They built the dams, the bridges, and the deep water ports. They built the airports, schools, and government buildings, and every U.S. military base. And not just in Texas, but across the whole country.

Do you really have the gall to sit there and try to convince me that American men are suddenly incapable of doing what they’ve done for over two centuries? It’s a damnable lie, and unbecoming of a Freeper.

No. American men have been PUSHED out of the construction trades for all the reasons I’ve previously stated. The good jobs they once held have been given over to a colonizing force of cheap illegal laborers who don’t give two shits about this country or you.

You can dance around this issue all you want with justification after justification, but understand that professional tradesmen like myself see right through it. The almighty buck is the ONLY reason you and other developers have given a whole industry away to Mexico.