Posted on 11/22/2002 10:47:08 PM PST by JohnHuang2
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:59:08 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The Bush administration wants to grant amnesty to hundreds of thousands of Mexican illegal aliens now in the United States, according to the new U.S. ambassador to Mexico.
Tony Garza, sworn in this week at the White House, told reporters in Mexico City that reaching an accord legalizing the status of Mexican immigrants
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Wake up. We can't turn the clock back to 1950. The fact is that we don't have the Americans to fill those jobs anymore. Just where do you plan to hire people to pick strawberries, for example? Out of our high schools? ARE YOU KIDDING?
Nobody wants to do that work, not even if you paid $20 an hour. Of course, even if you could attract enough workers at those wages, you would no longer be willing to buy strawberries at the prices that would have to be charged.
Hell, maybe we should just close down our farms and import all our food from Mexico, where it wouldn't be so expensive. Whatever it takes to make sure we don't see any Mexican workers in this country, I guess....
Up here where I live in NY, there are no illegal aliens yet. But guess what? All the hotels are staffed, and so are the fast food places, and every other service oriented job. Canada has hardly any illegal aliens, who's doing the work up there, the invisible people? Maybe a limited program for agriculture workers, leave the rest for Americans.
Close the borders and deport all illegals NOW.
Yes I do understand and fully agree. I just see how this is used to put a guilt trip on people - because of course, all of us came from somewhere, so how in the world can we deny these poor people their part of America. So I cringe when I hear that phrase.
As someone else posted on this subject not long ago, I used to feel so proud when I would hear a new American valiantly attempting English and always went out of my way to make them feel welcome and to aid in any way. I just don't have that same feeling any more.
Well, fine. If the problem is that their wages aren't being taxed enough, then change the law as part of this program so that they are. Charge some sort of special temporary worker tax which is withheld from the paychecks and not subject to refund.
I just don't see the obstacle here to addressing this in a way that can make some sense.
"It doesn't do us any good to overpromise to the Mexican side or to indicate that we can do things that really we understand have no chance of getting through the Congress at all," the official said during a briefing on Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's trip next Tuesday to the U.S.-Mexico summit.Several Republicans on Capitol Hill are expected to oppose any effort to grant amnesty, led, in part, by the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.
My understanding is that GW wanted to ask Congress to legalize Mexican aliens if they took jobs others didn't want:
"If somebody is willing to do jobs others in America aren't willing to do, we ought to welcome that person to the country, and we ought to make that a legal part of our economy," Mr. Bush said at White House ceremony with Mr. Fox. "We ought not to penalize an employer who is trying to get a job done, who hires somebody who is willing to do that kind of work."
I recall reading a thread a few weeks ago where Powell made comments very similar to those of Ambassador Garza's in this article. I think it was in one of the articles about whether or not Mexico was going to support us against Iraq in the Security Council, though I could be mistaken.
At any rate, I ran a search and came up empty. I think I recall that one of those threads originated from American Patrol, and was deleted. Perhaps madfly can be of assistance?
The Jobs they have are now so depressed on the wage side that they are no longer worth working. Why is that? The houses still cost more, the landscaping still cost more, Where is the benefit? The workers used to get 15-30 an hour for this work. It is now being done for 5-12. Where is the money going?
What benefit is there are the Builders or the owners of landscaping companies are getting 40% more profit? What if they got the fair share and the employees got a decent wage? Why should these people get rich and I pay for the social services? And lose my Culture?
Now you are suggesting that all Americans should have to carry ID's because we have become overrun by illegals - they will just get their own ID's made up. Then what? We will all have 'papers' to keep in order and they will not. HEck, our government and the employers can't even spot an fake SS card (so they say) when all they have to do is enter it in the system and find out if it was originally issued to Jose Rodriguez in 1996 or Betty Jones in 1942. That is simple and they can't even seem to do that - so no an ID card will just put the Americans under their thumb - not the illegals. Every thing the government can make in the way of an ID card - can be forged.
As for not expecting an employer to enforce the immigration laws - the government and most of us have accepted they must enforce the tax laws, what is so hard about ascertaining if a person is handing you the right SS card. Much less grief than the tax laws.
Question: How much are these American employers paying their employees to clean toilets, make beds in hotels and stoop to pick lettuce? Pay enough money and those employers would have no problem finding Americans to do these jobs.
When the President makes such comments, he's being disingenuous. Illegals flood the labor market and erode wages to a point that many Americans can no longer afford those occupations. This is particularly true of many blue collar jobs.
We can't, a fact that millions of Americans who voted for him are realizing.
What makes you think they will get rid of 85% of the established illegals? They'll all just stay waiting for the next amnesty program. This is a lose-lose situation. They should all go, and apply legally!
Let's give up then. All of the bright ideas suggested on this thread require enforcement of something, and it's obviously futile, right?
Or is it more of a case that each person here thinks that his/her suggestion can be enforced, but nobody else's can?
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