Posted on 12/28/2019 7:56:44 AM PST by karpov
...
Mr. Grant clearly remembered Aug. 7, the day the Trump administration performed sweeping immigration raids on seven chicken plants in central Mississippi. He remembered the news flashing on his phone: 680 Hispanic workers arrested. He remembers seeing an opportunity.
“I figured there should be some jobs,” he said.
He figured right.
The raids were believed to be the largest statewide immigration crackdown in recent history and a partial fulfillment of President Trump’s vow to remove millions of undocumented workers from the country. The impact on Mississippi’s immigrant community has been devastating. For nonimmigrant workers, the aftermath has forced them into a personal reckoning with questions of morality and economic self-interest: The raids brought suffering, but they also created job openings.
Some believe that the undocumented workers had it coming. “If you’re somewhere you ain’t supposed to be, they’re going to come get you,” said a worker named Jamaal, who declined to give his full name because Koch Foods had not authorized him to speak. “That’s only right.”
...
[T]he belief that native-born Americans are not sufficiently motivated to work persists, even among some African-Americans. Jeff White, a Morton-based builder and rental property owner, said so many chicken plant jobs became available in the 1980s because American-born residents “didn’t want to work, period.”
He added that he quickly learned he was not chicken plant material after landing a job at one shortly after high school. “I worked there three hours and 20 minutes,” he said, chuckling. “I didn’t even get the check. It’s too hard.”
For a while, Juan Grant said the hard work was worth it. With his better wage, he was starting to finally save a little. He talked about buying a used Honda, and about getting serious with his girlfriend.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Working at a chicken plant is honest but unpleasant work. If the NYT cares so much about "inequality", why doesn't it support immigration enforcement that will enable American citizens who do these tough jobs to be paid more?
Related thread: Rank-and-File Workers Get Bigger Raises. Short supply of labor, minimum-wage rises and increased poaching have helped lift wages for lower-income workers.
Let’s hope Pres. Trump puts the full package out there. This should be part of a Comprehensive Immigration Enforcement bill, missing since 1987 ONE TIME amnesty. The List of Comprehensive Immigration Enforcement, missing since 1987 goes like this -
1) southern barrier;
2) require eVerify to hire;
3) end all chain migration;
4) birthright per Minor v. Happersett (plural parents);
5) end work visas;
6) 10-year moratorium on all new applications for citizenship (40 years to allow workplace automation effects on downsizing population);
7) Set up an illegal aliens’ victim restitution fund.
Enactment of these provisions will motivate illegal aliens to SELF-deport, and remove colonizadors from our welfare rolls.
The 2006 Swift Raids Assessing the Impact of Immigration Enforcement Actions at Six Facilities
I dislike posts like this because I don’t subscribe to the NYT, I can’t read it. I won’t give them a dime. So, I say either point to a similar source for the study or don’t post it at all.
You can read 5 a month for free.
Having worked at a cannery cleaning fish, I have to agree that it is probably really tough work.
...and the reason that it is really tough work is because the plant operators see no need to invest in automation, since they have a steady stream of desperate (and capable) people willing to do the work. Cut off that pipeline and operators will either pay enough to find Americans willing to work that hard, or they will automate (or both). It’s not hard to do.
#3 and #4 can be done with existing law if we had an actual conservative SC. Trump needs to replace at least one Lib judge before he goes for it. He needs to bide his time because you don’t want this SC to set precedent on those two. Same goes for the 2nd A infringement cases.
I’m with you. There are other sources for the same information.
5 a month? What’s the point when there can be that many in a morning?
They didn't "come at the Hispanic race," they arrested illegals.
He did not know the time before Hispanic workers began arriving in the heart of chicken country by the thousands, recruited by plant managers looking to fill low-paying jobs in an expanding industry.
And why aren't the people who brought them in being prosecuted?
The owner of Koch Foods, Joseph Grendys is worth $2.8 billion and lives “relatively modestly in the Chicago bungalow where he grew up and drives a beat-up old Cadillac.
When Joe finds himself in court found guilty of a racketeering charge for conspiring to break immigration laws, he can live modestly in a 8x10' cell.
now why don’t I believe that?
And also cut back on welfare benefits. It's hard to convince somebody to do an on-the-books job, when she can be on public assistance (and work off-the-books as a nanny or housekeeper) and get more money for less work.
I said FULL.
Could not agree more. Make $13/hr on welfare, or $15/hr working your %&$^% off...easy call.
Same thing going on in Storm Lake and Marshalltown in Iowa, and probably hundreds of other small towns around America.
Like your list but would add one more. Jail time for managers/supervisors/owners/CEO of business and companies that employ illegal aliens.
People will do tough jobs if they are sufficiently remunerated.
Cut off the supply of foreign serfs and the companies will 1) have to hire locals and 2) pay them sufficiently and 3) improve working conditions such that they can retain people, just like every other employer in America.
I have heard horror stories in other industries, even professional, where people on iffy immigration status are abused because they really can’t say anything. Force companies to hire Americans, or at least legal residents who have access to the law and magically work conditions improve or they leave.
You left off one instant alternative available to you and everyone else, don't click on a NYT sourced thread.
The advantage of doing that is that both you and others, like myself, can have what they want.
I thought everyone worked at the pickle plant.
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