A Usa Today article noted that while the Congress has yet to do anything on immigration policy, 30 states have enacted more than 57 laws.
I was very heartened to learn that many states are taking action on the employment side, an issue the Congress seems to want to dance around
In all the talk about guarding the borders, "guest-worker" programs, ID cards, a huge part of the equation keeps being left out - an all-out federal crackdown on employers and businesses that hire these workers.
Few politicians are interested in doing it because there's too much to lose. Everyone - families with nannies and lawns, produce buyers, hotel guests - benefits from the work ethic and cheap labor cost of undocumented workers.
It's easier to blame the workers. Our consciences are eased, replaced by righteous indignation toward those who cross the border.
California, Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Texas are doing everything from making employers verify the status of their employees, to barring state agencies from awarding contracts to businesses that knowingly employ illegals, to investigating companies and prohibiting businesses from deducting any taxes for employees that they do not show documentation for.
Immigration reform is needed. Congress must forge a bill that follows some of these states' lead, that has clear guidelines for employers as well as for undocumented immigrants, that treats them with respect and allows a pathway toward citizenship.
Send those National Guard troops to shut down companies that illegally hire these workers! Bet things would change in a hurry.
On my Sunday morning run through the Barataria Preserve, a beautiful and quiet stretch of bayou that borders the southern edge of my little neighborhood, I pass by a new home in my subdivision where 4 men live. At about 5:00am, without fail, they load up their pickup truck and head out to their jobs as construction workers or painters. Not sure, but I know they are gone when I return, and they don't come home until after dark. I smile and wave and go on my way.
While I ran through the park, I wondered where they came from, and what specifically brings those men here.
From their language, the music I can sometimes hear on Saturday nights, and the early evening soccer game they play in their front yard, I can hazard a guess as to their heritage.
I can also guess what brings them here. Katrina devastated much of New Orleans, and new subdivisions like mine need people to build them and the destroyed subdivisions need people to tear them down. Even if they came from Texas, that’s a long trek to find work and work is in abundance.
On this morning’s run, my mind also went back to summer weekends spent with my grandparents, and my grandfather taking me to work with him when I asked to go. Bleary eyed but excited I would wake up as grandma poured his coffee and my hot chocolate’ and packed our lunches. Then we would drive into the barrio to pick up the other men and I would start my day “working”. It is probably 29 years to the day when I first learned how to hammer a nail or scrape paint off a wall.
Now I wonder if people thought the same of us as we got out of his old Ford. Did they look at us with a wave and a smile or think other things without knowing the particulars?
I know we have problems in this country and I also know that the challenges facing us have no borders. No country is an island either, for what happens to “Us” affects “Them” and vice versa. At the same time I also know that mothers and fathers everywhere are concerned for the safety of their families and seek to provide for their well-being by seeking and finding work wherever it may be. I can't fault them for that.
I couldn’t begin to answer these problems facing our country in a few early morning miles but I do know our answer must match our creativity, goodness, and long-term vision that we have in abundance. God never gives us more than we can bear; as individuals and as a nation.
We should have also learned from ancient and recent history that walls never work. Surely as they are built on one day, they will be torn down the next. People have a way of finding the gaps and filling them in.
So maybe later today when the sun is going down, and they are playing soccer in their front yard, I’ll walk on by, and fill in the gaps in my own mind of who they are and where they come from. The rest of the answers will have to wait, but not for too long I hope.
The awful truth of the matter is that we really can't supply enough menial labor and we are witnessing the greatest pyramid scam since the potato famine or southern slave ownership. Minimum wage should be in the neighborhood of $15 an hour. You want economic prosperity? It's called Henry Ford economics, pay your workers enough to make them consumers rather than slaves. The best line Bill Clinton ever used was, "People don't want a hand out, they want a hand up."
Posted by: Mike Collins at July 17, 2006 06:58 AMIts' almost funny that a lot of our politicians forget their own history of immigration! Sometimes, they forget History, period!
It is in recent American history that Ads for employment often were followed by "NO IRISH NEED APPLY." A notorious line in the Chicago Post wrote, "The Irish fill our prisons, our poor houses ... scratch a convict or a pauper, and the chances are that you tickle the skin of an Irish Catholic. Putting them on a boat and sending them home would end crime in this country" ... ring a bell?! Sounds familiar?!
How the Irish got into "mainstream America" would be a long treatise. Nevertheless, 5 million Irish migrated to this Country, while 35 million Americans proudly claim Irish heritage today! It is funny 'coz I am laughing!
A tonne of their descendants (Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs etc., are you listening?!) now want "illegal immigrants out"! I am cracking up now!
Here is another nugget from those times: Not only the Irish men worked, but so did their women. They became chamber maids, cooks, and the caretakers of children. Americans disdained this type of work (deja vu?!), fit only for servants, the common sentiment being, "Let Negroes be servants, and if not Negroes, let Irishmen fill their place..." The Blacks hated the Irish and it appeared to be a mutual feeling. They were the first to call the Irish "white nigger"!!
Seriously though, how people forget their own History ...
Posted by: Mel at July 17, 2006 05:27 PMStop using Orwellian language like "undocumented workers." Did they simply forget their wallet?
Also, recognize that the poor economics which underly the minimum wage law are part of the problem too.
I'm for a guest-worker program, but excusing illegal behavior for both employers and aliens is bad.
Posted by: Geoff at July 17, 2006 06:22 PMThere's no such thing as jobs that americans don't want.
If I'm an employer in an area where there are NO illegal immigrants and needed to hire 5 americans at $12.00 an hour each, I'd hire them.
If however I'm an employer in an area where there ARE illegal immigrants available, I'd hire 10 of them at $5.00 an hour and work them all kinds of long hours with no overtime. None would complain or make trouble, and none of them would file a complaint with the labor officials or human rights people. With all these advantages, why hire an american?
I find it interesting that politicians want to protect us from known sex offenders yet people who sneak into this country and may have committed who-knows-what offenses in their native countries, I am supposed to just smile and wave.
Joe posted above about 4 men living in a new home. I would hate to be the next door neighbor of men who are not US citizens, who the US goverment knows nothing about and they have choosen to live 4 MEN TO A HOUSE next door to mine! What happens when the 4 men become 8 men. Or 20 men? A home is an investment for Americans. For illegal aliens it's just a place to stay. No committment to be here but for the moment. And how do they afford a NEW HOME????? Either the wages are a lot better than what were told, or Joe only saw the first shift leaving after the 3rd shift came home!
Posted by: westside at July 17, 2006 07:25 PMI'm glad you asked. I did happen to go by the house yesterday, and they do in fact speak English and Spanish. The developer of my subdivision and the subdivision next door has allowed them to rent the home provided they take care of it. It looks fine and they are very tidy, mowing the lawn, taking care of the shrubs,as if it was their own. Meanwhile building the other homes. Part of being in a community is to reach out every now and then instead of letting yourself prejudge a fella or a gal. Didn't ask where they came from, don't care. All I know is that I didn't know them at all before yesterday, and now I know alittle more. Please read Flavia's newest post about reaching out and community. And maybe the own about manners. It makes the community better and broadens yourself. One can even look at it as a security measure as you wish, as to show interest in their activities is sometimes the best deterrent to anti-social behaviour - even if it might be your own. And I mean that in a neighborly way.
Posted by: Joe at July 17, 2006 09:21 PMGlad you spoke with the men. However, I find it amazing that when you parallel welfare reform and illegal immigration, they are occurring at the same time. This country wants people to get off the welfare roles and off the dole and yet many of the jobs, (hotel maids, factory, minimum wage jobs like McDonalds, etc) are now filled with illegals doing the work. So what does this country expect Americans to do?
My teenage son has put in applications and still no calls for a summer job. I am encouraging him to start his own enterprise. But let's be real here. It is not this country or poor American's job to be taxed to pay for those who CHOOSE to come here illegally. A mother with small kids wouldn't feel great about 4 men to a house. I don't care where they came from. It justs brings up an uneasiness.
I'd also like to know when did homebuilding become a job that "Americans don't want to do"? Those illegal employers just want to make themselves richer.
I'd like to see a howmeowner who looses their home to the ever increasing tax bill sue the goverment of a municipality if that tax bill was increased to contineue to educate children who shouldn't be here. As a country we will forever obligate ourselves to a bi-lingual education program if the invasion doesn't cease. A planner for a city sees 20 births in 2000 and estimates that in 2005, they will need maybe 30 seats for kindergarten. Come 2005, 100 kids show up. How can a community keep up with unknown numbers?
This is not an anti-immigrant stance. This is a pro-America stance and those who want to come here should follow the rules. Otherwise, Americans should be able to pick and choose what rules and laws we want to follow as well.
Posted by: westside at July 18, 2006 08:57 AMYour last point is spot on, and illustrates exactly why Congress' current fixation on building a great wall of Mexico is so shortsighted. A wall just looks and feels bad. It's a distasteful symbol with racist undertones. And it's not the most important step to curbing illegal immigration - simply enforcing existing employment laws would be far cheaper and more effective.
A panhandler, a drug addict, and an undocumented worker walk into a hardware store.
The shopkeeper eyes all three of them saying to the stockboy:
"watch the panhandler - he might harrass our customers for money."
The stockboy watches him closely, and the panhandler leaves empty handed.
The shopkeeper, a little relieved but still wary, tells the stockboy:
"watch the drug addict - he may try to steal something."
The stockboy watches the drug-addict, and the drug addict leaves empty handed.
The shopkeeper, then with a smile, says to the stockboy that his services are no longer needed and to leave his apron on the counter.
On his way out, the stockboy angrily asks why he is being let go after dismissing the other two.
The shopkeeper replied:
"If the panhandler asks my customers for money, they will have less to spend in my store and it affects my bottom line. If the drug addict steals something, I will have to pay for another, and that also affects my bottom line. But if I hire the undocumented worker to take your job, well, you do the math.
The moral of the story is, as you dismiss others, you too may be dismissed yourself.
Pro-American, as I understand it, is someone that actually sacrifices a piece of themself for the country. How can you be pro-anything, if you don't give something of yourself.
Pro-American is the ability to know that there is no blue-print of what an American is. Any other definition is Un-American.
We were all immigrants once. There are vast lands in Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, the shrinking 6 state- land of what is know as Red-America. Time to face reality. They are here. They are not leaving. Get used to it.
Posted by: kahuna at July 21, 2006 10:14 AM