So if we enforce the borders and immigration laws we will be eating tree bark, huh Dane?
Brilliant.
This one's for you, Dane:
Ahhh, that felt better.
Posted on 09/07/2006 9:06:20 AM PDT by Dane
Colorado's new immigration laws are starting to cause a stir among businessmen in the valley. For contractor Mark Gould one bill in particular could mean the loss of about a quarter of his workforce.
Since House Bill 1343 took effect Aug. 7, Gould is now required to certify that he has no illegal workers on his payroll. The law applies to contractors working on projects for cities, counties, school districts and other governmental agencies.
According to the law, new workers must be checked through a Pilot Program, which is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security. The program links employers to an online database that checks names against Social Security numbers to determine if the number is valid.
"We've been told (the database) is only 80 percent correct," Gould said.
Gould Construction employs about 100 people, many of them unskilled laborers, many of them Hispanic immigrants. About half his contracts are with local governments.
Although Gould said his company checks people's documents as a condition of employment to make sure they are legal immigrants, it's a matter of simple math to realize that many of them are probably living in this country illegally.
According to Denver's Bell Policy Center, in 2004 there were 435,000 foreign born immigrants in the state. Gould estimates there are about 250,000 who are here illegally.
"As you walk down the street one of every two immigrants is illegal," he said. "This is not rocket science."
He has already seen the fallout from the bill.
Currently the company has 10 openings, and only three people have applied. Hispanics are not applying, Gould said.
"If you listen to (congressman and anti-illegal immigration advocate) Tom Tancredo, he wants to send 250,000 people back home. Congressman Tancredo says employers are employing illegals when there are legal workers standing in line," Gould said.
If Tancredo, R-Colo., has his way - and HB 1343 could go a long way to making that happen - businesses like Gould's, hotels in Aspen and Vail, landscapers around the valley and others would be hard put to find employees.
Gould pays $14 an hour as starting pay. At that rate, a worker who puts in the usual 50 hour week and who makes time-and-a-half in overtime will get $770 a week. That's good pay for unskilled labor, but still Gould would be hamstrung without Hispanics applying for those positions.
American kids are finishing high school and going on to skilled jobs.
"Kids are trained on computers, they don't want to dig a ditch," Gould said.
"What's going to happen to our economy if those workers go home? It would mean the loss of about a quarter of the excavators, laborers, masons, concrete workers, landscapers, roofers, drywallers and insulators in the valley," he said.
"So far business has been silent, they're assuming no politician would hurt the economy to make their constituency happy, but that's just what they've done."
Gould, representing the Colorado Contractor's Association, was part of a round-table discussion with Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs Monday, Aug. 28. The secretary was there to gather comments about President Bush's proposal for comprehensive immigration reform, including a guest worker program.
Businesses are also keeping their heads down and not speaking out about the new immigration laws because they're fearful they'll attract the attention of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), Gould said.
Another Glenwood Springs contractor and former state representative, Gregg Rippy, agrees HB 1343 is flawed, although it will have less effect on his business. Rippy's government contracts account for about 35 percent of his business.
What the law is likely to do is drive contractors away from government projects and exclusively into the private sector, he said.
"You look at the level of work in the valley and why would you bid a city job when there is plenty of private work," he said.
That will also mean higher bids from contractors bidding on government contracts and higher construction costs. Contractors who do bid on government jobs will build in the cost of going through the process mandated by HB 1343.
Colorado should have waited for federal legislation to be put in place before passing its own immigration reform law, Gould said.
Any immigration reform should include a provision for a guest worker program that would allow employers to go to Mexico, for example, to choose workers and check their medical background and whether or not they have a criminal record. Most importantly, Gould said, foreign workers need to have biometric identification that contains individual and unforgeable markers such as fingerprints or eye scans.
Gould is now in the process of applying for 15 H2B temporary work visas for his employees. But this avenue of filling the need for unskilled workers is hampered by the U.S. State Department, which grants only 33,000 such visas annually for the entire country.
"We have 7 million workers in the construction industry in the U.S., and we project we'll need 180,000 new workers annually for the next 10 years - that's 1.8 million," Gould said. "That's just our industry, not hospitality or tourism. This economy would be toast if we lost (immigrant) workers."
3 years ago, we had to hire bicycle police to patrol our local baseball park, you see the gangs had forced the closing of a similar park one town over, too dangerous to play evening games. Well, they then migrated to other parks and the initiation into the gang was to gang rape young girls in the 10-12 yr. old range.
I live in Southern CA, in the same house for 30 years.
I have 2 young beautiful daughters I am responsible for.
I am seriously thinking of moving.
Yuh know your type of protectionism does not work, unless you like having suppers of tree bark, ala crazy kim's North Korea.
Where do you go? Georgia is absolutely overrun with illegals. Even the small towns. The Dalton area, which is on the border with Tenn. is so crime ridden because of all of the illegals. We played in a baseball tournament up in Ellijay and we were shocked by the amount of them there too. Maybe we should all move to Mexico.
Idaho is real nice.
LOL! When losing an arguement post a bozo picture.
Huh can you point to me to the clause in the US Constitution where it states that shelter and buildings must be built by native born Americans. The only thing stated in the US Constitution of a position that must be filled by a native born American is President.
As for credibility, I could care less what you think, I don't beleive in killing the goose that lays the golden eggs(i.e construction that provides jobs and shelter) as you and the democrats do. You in hating the people construction companies hire, the democrats that construction companies actually make a profit.
If your son wishes to work, no problem, the problem is with state govt.s that have put a myriad of under 18 labor laws restricting their entrance to the workforce.
So before you go blaming me, why don't you blame state govt.'s.
Glenn Beck when he was under 18 had the gumption to take a graveyard shift DJ job at a radio station, nothing wrong with that and his gumprion should be applauded, but when he gets on the radio and on TV and states that "companies should be choked to death" for who they hire for doing such good things such as building shelter, he is being hypocritical.
Especially in one of his first jobs the radio station probably violated under 18 labor laws which gave him his start in radio, which has become a very successful career for him.
Uh what the native born Americans on welfare. You guys never address that. You all go nuts over Pablo working hard picking tomatoes or building shelter. How dare Pablo do something good that benefits a lot of people, but Bernie sitting on his butt collecting welfare, that's a ok.
Read some of the posts on the links you provided. You have to hand it to Dane for the ability to take punishment. He/she gets pummeled with logical arguments over and over, but keeps coming back for more.
LOL! It drives you crazy that I have arguements, while rottndog only has pictures of a bozo doll for his arguements.
And the vast majority of those people are hard working otherwise moral people.
I guess making a living for ones self doing such evil things such as picking food or building shelter, is the ultimate evil to you.
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