Day Labor Law?

Over the years I’ve chronicled the liberals’ ongoing war against American businesses — from the Clintons’ attack on Microsoft, to the left’s campaign against Wal-Mart. Now another successful company is a target: Home Depot.

The 1700-store home improvement chain has become a favorite spot for “day laborers” to gather, waiting to be hired by contractors or home improvers. Businesses — not just Home Depot — object to the men congregating in front of their stores, or taking over their parking lots. Some day laborers harass customers, make rude passes at females, and relieve themselves in public. Yuck.

A large percentage of the laborers are here illegally from Mexico and Central America. In Illinois, Hispanic activists are angry with Home Depot because of trespassing charges brought against day labors. An Austin, Texas, Home Depot is being pressed by “activists” to stop threatening trespassers with fines and arrest — and instead turn over a back lot to the men. But Los Angeles trumps all. A city councilman has proposed a law requiring all new large home-improvement stores to — at their own expense — build shelters for day laborers with amenities including toilets and drinking water. In other words, build homes for illegals.

Why stop there? If you liberals want Home Depot in the social services business why not go all the way? Make them provide health care, continuing education courses, insurance, nap rooms, kitchens and every other possible “amenity” — to make sure our illegal “guests” get their fair share of all they’re entitled to. Think big.

any such laws must be unconstitutional in some way. I haven't thought out how but ...

Home Depot should refuse to obey if such a law is passed and then they should refuse to pay the fine.

The HomeDepot shareholders / board should seriously consider closing down their presence in CA if such laws are passed. Yes I know its radical, it would "cost" zillions of dollars, and I don't take the recommendation lightly. The HomeDepot parking lot is private property. The owners of that property should not be compelled to provide public services just because the local government thinks it would be convenient for them to do so. Let the government lease the land, build the facilities, man and maintain the facilities, and explain to the tax payers why their taxes need to be raised for such services. Of course HomeDepot should still be free to tell them to buzz off on the lease deal. yeah , yeah I know, we also need to keep the illegals from showing up in the first place but that's another discussion.

Yeah good ideas. The hope is that the governments, more hungry for the revenue from sales + property taxes will capitulate, instead of forcing such stupid laws.

But on the other hand, if Home Depot feels they can make a profit even under such dumb restrictions, you can't fault them for staying.

What would be really smart is if Home Depot somehow got H1B visas for these guys and employed them legally. Then no more day workers bothering people, and Home Depot could make even more profit by managing the workers themselves and taking a cut. Plus since the workers are hired legally and not under the table, they'd pay their share of taxes, etc. And the government could go scratch.

Sounds good to me. I was trying to assert that somehow the Home Depot makes these illegals legal but I couldn't figure out how to do that without breaking our own laws -- if they are illegal to begin with we shouldn't reward them, we should deport them.

But I think too many people are addicted to the cheap labor from illegals. When I first moved to California I was amazed that when you rented a place, you would get a gardener as part of the rent. That sounded incredible to me -- how could "normal" people have their own gardener? And then I see people with [south american] housekeepers, etc., who are not exactly super rich.

Without proper data and facts I can't really assert anything, but I really wonder how many Americans want the cheap illegals' labor so that they can have servants and feel "uppity."

Bamagirl is suggesting a strategy that would not involve hiring illegals but that would allow all legal participants to capture a valuable business opportunity. It's a constructive suggestion since turning problems into opportunities is how businesses succeed. It would also require strict enforcement as you suggest, because it would be more expensive for contractors to hire through HomeDepot than it would be to hire from the new pool of illegals that would develop a couple blocks down the street.

At the end of the day - the illegals need to be stopped at the border or we will never get around this problem. "Jobs that Americans wont take ..." is a bunch of crap. There will always be destitute people in the world who are willing to work for just enough money to buy a days food. Until the standard of living in the US drops to those destitute levels there will always be a market for desperate, foreign laborers. The kinds of jobs my family did when they first came to this country are no longer available to my children because it is the equivalent of sending them back to the sweat shops. Those conditions exist because we have allowed desperate labor to enter the country. The prices of houses and labor services have now declined to reflect production costs that can only be sustained with government subsidies (mandated emergency room care for illegals, mandated public education for illegals ...). Flooding the country with these people is going to create more problems than it solves.

Thanks cdrw, you said it better than I did. Hopefully not as much enforcement would be required, because the Home Depot worked would be properly trained, bonded, screened for a criminal background, etc., making their work pool more desireable than the gang hanging down the street.

I think your analysis of "desperate labor" is quite insightful. Thanks for the analysis!

What do you think is the key difference between immigrants of a century ago and today? The massive government subsidies that keep them from really trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps? I think it is that, and a lack of desire to want to assimilate. (Although I've read that Italians had this problem as well.)

Well it's all just my opinion, no research or references ...

but I think you've hit the nail on the head.

The immigrants who came to the country a century ago came here legally and without a safety net. I'm sure they had romantic ideas about streets paved with gold but it didn't much matter. They came to escape starvation and other hardships in Europe. When they arrived they were NOT welcomed with open arms. Many arrived with virtually nothing and knew they had to struggle to survive. They too were desperate labor. But pick themselves up by their bootstraps they did. The Irish had an advantage in the English language. The Italians had a language barrier and a heritage of very, very close family ties that tended to bind them together versus everyone else. They may not have wanted to assimilate but the government wasn't going to set up Italian language schools for their kids nor were they going to encourage the entire working class of Italy to use any criminal means available to sneak into the US. Nonassimilation was simply not going to be accepted by the rest of the country. They could not achieve any of the benefits they perceived in America by remaining unassimilated. (Keep in mind that this was all before the depression era government safety nets were put in place)

My perception is that none of these people came here to recreate their countries on US soil. They came here because they saw such good and opportunity in the US that they wanted to BE "American". I have no doubt that very many immigrants today feel this way. I have known and spoken to many over the years.

I don't think that immigration is a bad thing per se. I, myself, can not trace my heritage here more than two generations back. Illegal immigration is very dangerous from a security perspective and we just can't look the other way any longer. Legal immigration can be positive so long as the immigrants are not encouraged to set up their own legal, linguistic, cultural islands within our society. You have actually made a subtle but very important point in the issues you highlighted (govt subsidies and assimilation). It is not the immigrants that are a problem it is the way our government manages the situation that is problematic.

Allowing them uncontrolled, illegal entry (huge economic and security risk), using tax money and private regulation to provide them with benefits that my family doesn't get (subsidizing their presence and thus reinforcing an us / them attitude), and encouraging them to remain culturally separate (mandatory bilingual schools and college entrance exams ...) is a formula for US disintegration.

If the US opened its borders, millions upon millions of people would flood in from all over the world. There are, what, 5-7 billion people in the world and something like 290 million people in the US? Surely they don't all want to come here but many, many do and would. There must be limits set or the US that everyone wants to get to will no longer exist. The world is much too big for us to conform to the potential immigrants. They must assimilate or stay home.
Sorry about the long winded response. I guess the bottom line is that the immigrants of a century ago were controlled on entry and were allowed to sink or swim on their own merits. Today we are encouraging a flood of illegal, unskilled entrants and we are confiscating existing citizens property (we call it taxes and regulation) to pay for it. Even the recent, legal immigrants are largely furious over what's going on.

Oh thanks for the well thought out, insightful post. You were not long winded at all! I agree with everything you said.

But your deserve credit for the point "It is not the immigrants that are a problem it is the way our government manages the situation that is problematic." not me.

My parents are immigrants and I have no issue with LEGAL immigration. It's the illegal part, along with the lack of assimilation that are the real problems. It is not right that you can go to certain areas of this country and not be able to converse with your fellow citizens (I am speaking about your cultural islands).

It is clear that people who support divisive measures like bilingual education want to keep these newcomers down, not raise them up so that they can participate in the American dream.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.