Posted on 07/09/2008 4:05:30 AM PDT by RU88
At least 12 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S. Most pick crops, wash dishes, build houses, cut lawns and do other jobs for between $6 and $15 an hour. They make up about 5% of the total U.S. work force. But …
What if we threw them all out?
Lettuce and strawberries would rot in the fields. Dirty dishes would pile up in restaurants. Thousands of farmers and builders would go bust. Predator aircraft drones would prowl the Mexican border. And chunks of Los Angeles and Houston would look like ghost towns.
The biggest losers would be middle-class families with two working parents, living in high-immigrant states such as California, Texas, Florida or New York. Why? They would pay more for food, housing, entertainment and child care as a shortage of low-skilled workers drove up some wages, and therefore, some prices. Meantime, their own pay would remain the same. What's more, the ripple effect of thousands of businesses shrinking or closing for lack of staff might put one of the parents out of a job. Not to mention the garbage collection going to pot and no one to polish the missus' nails.
The winners, for a change, would be the low-skilled unemployed, living just about anywhere -- if they were willing to move. Of the 12 million illegal immigrants, about 8 million are employed, mostly in low-skill jobs. The U.S., meantime, has about 22 million less-educated jobless adults, many of them blacks and legalized Hispanics, according to a 2008 report from the Center for Immigration Studies, a research group based in Washington, D.C.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.moneycentral.msn.com ...
Forget fines alone, we need actual real prison time. That’s the real motivator to get this crap stopped dead in its tracks.
Grow 'em myself. And I pick 'em myself. And a native-born guy cuts my grass. Such a hardship.
Imagine how safe the roads would be if hoards of drunk illegal aliens were not driving them every night.
Imagine how simple dealing with government agencies would be if they did not have to deal with illegal aliens' language barriers.
Imagine how responsive our representation might be if they cared more about addressing our needs rather than the wants of illegal aliens who are basically just here for the cash.
Imagine lower taxes with fewer indigents bilking the welfare state.
Imagine cheaper car insurance without having to cover for so many uninsured drivers.
Imagine how much cleaner the air would be without illegal aliens' jalopies that the DMV is unwilling to enforce emission standards on.
Imagine a few less gang-bangers and their activities.
Could mowing your own grass be that bad?
I just came from a meeting in a very wealthy district here on Long Island... VERY WEALTHY. It's the kind of community where you can't see the house from the driveway entrance.
It's also Gary Ackerman's district. It seems that here, at least, the wealthier the community the more liberal they vote.
I don’t understand how one can say we need illegal immigrants and also say we need a minimum wage.
They won’t be illegals they will be recently voted out of office city, county and state polidiots !
NEVER RE-ELECT ANYONE ! Set the term limits at the voting booth !
Never said it did. I was speculating and I didn’t have all day to play out the scenario.
Valid points. Now, how do we do it? Just being in the US without authorization is not automatic grounds for deportation. There has to be a hearing. Best to use indirect methods, such as legal tests for benefits and employment; we know that works. And I’m not going further on this tonight; I have to get some sleep!
I grew up in Los Angeles in the 50s and 60s. Even HERE we had few Hispanics at the time and also none from Guatamala, El Salvador and environs. It was great!!!
No one suffered from un-mowed lawns.
Well, if you put it that way...I wouldn't want to watch over some snot nosed liberal brat either.
“This is a bunch of hog wash. After WW II Truman deported millions of illegals so our troops coming home would have jobs. After Korea, Eisenhower did the same thing.”
Just as a technical point, neither Truman nor Eisenhower deported millions of aliens. I think about 130,000 were deported during Eisenhower’s big push, and many more “self deported” (left on their own) during that time. I don’t think Truman instigated any big pushes to get rid of illegals. I’d be interested in seeing anything on Truman deporting lots of people that you could show me.
You are correct about Truman but wrong about Eisenhower. He deported 1.3 million illegals. You had the right number but not enough zeros.
Back during the early years of the Great Depression, then President Herbert Hoover ordered the deportation of all illegal aliens in order to make the jobs available to American citizens that desperately needed work. Approximately one-million Mexicans were sent home during this endeavor
Once again in 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower deported 1.3 million Mexican nationals (called ‘Operation Wetback’) in order that returning American WWII and Korean veterans had a better chance at jobs.
Over the short run, strawberries would rot. Over the long run, somebody would develop a mechanical strawberry picker, which over time would get cheaper until it was cheaper than any Mexican. Technology is like that, once you have an incentive to want a solution
Operation Wetback was a 1954 project of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to remove about four million illegal immigrants from the southwestern United States, with a focus on Mexican nationals. It deported more than 130,000 Mexican nationals in the space of almost a year, although local INS officials claimed that an additional 1 million to 1.2 million had fled to Mexico. The INS estimates rested on the claim that most illegal immigrants, fearing apprehension by the government, had voluntarily repatriated themselves before and during the initiative. Proponents of increased deportations point to a multiplying effect, where each individual deported resulted in roughly nine voluntarily returning to their home country. Still unknown is how many native-born Mexicans and even American Indians were deported by the operation
Some of this is going on today too. A lot more people are getting deported. Criminal charges are being filed against people coming back in after being deported, and if they are “criminal aliens,” having been convicted of felonies before being deported in the past, they're looking at some potentially serious federal prison time. Those that weren't deported as “criminal aliens” are getting charged and usually spend a few months behind bars and are given time served and sent home with a warning that there will be a lot more prison time the next time they are caught here. We're even deporting a lot of green card holders for things we weren't likely to get deported for in the past. A lot are being deported for past crimes the government has known about for years and even renewed their green cards knowing about their records. Now they are deporting these people who are often married with children, homes, jobs, the works. When they go a lot of times their families go too, and others are seeing what is going on and it's scaring them. Record numbers of green card holders are filing for citizenship now because they are worried they'll get deported too. All the indicators are showing a marked decrease in the number of people coming over here and it looks like a lot are leaving. If things keep going like they are going we may very well see millions leave in the coming years.
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