So-called Illegal Immigration: Don't Doubt for a Moment

It is NOT about securing the borders.

Those who oppose open immigration want to keep people "illegal" because it keeps immigrants under the radar.

* No Worker's Compensation insurance.
* No Unemployment insurance.
* No employee taxes
* No OSHA standards
* No union representation
* No due process in the courts
* No wage minimums

In the olden days we called people who were forced to live like that "slaves."

We already see large swathes of America's citizens reduced to 2nd-class citizenship. No-class of citizenship is just another way of skirting the laws.

If you legalize the immigrants you free the slaves.

There are plenty of legal, eligible-for-work potential employees available to be hired by these employers today--employers pass them up in favor of cheaper labor. So make every illegal immigrant here in the US legal, and unionize them. The employers will just refuse to hire them, and they will instead hire the next round of illegal immigrants.

In other words, unless you "legalize" 6 billion people, there will always be somebody more desperate, and willing to work for less, than you. Just legalizing those here won't change that.

Not picking a fight, just sayin'

Its a one way door with our country doing all the giving.

...productive people become a liability?

Mexico wouldnt put up with 15 million Americans going across the border looking for work without following proper immigration protocols would they?

It has nothing to do with productiveness, and everything to do with they dont belong here.

...getting folks into programs and kids into schools.

Good point.

See, if these folks could "make it" in Mexico, they would stay in Mexico. However, the way that country works, with it's ultra-elite at one end and the destitute at the other, with almost no middle ground, makes this largely impossible for a great many people. Throw on top of this insane levels of curruption, a shadow civil war between the narcos and the government, and concerted repression against any popular movement, and you get a really bad situation for a lot of people.

So what should these people do, then, now that they are economic refugees and often political criminals simpy by virtue of existing?

According to you, and people like you, they should either pull off that famous bootstrap levitation trick that people who had the good fortune to be squeezed out on American soil think is the secret to their own success... Or they can starve. Just don't expect we self-made levitators to take in the tired and poor and the huddled masses... Unless each member of the family can pay upwards of five grand and prove a college-level education!

Open borders with documentation worked just fine to get your ancestors in here. I see no reason why it should be treated any differently for Mexicans or Somalis or Thai.

And who continues that clusterfuck called "the war on drugs"?

See downthread. This situation is one of our own making.

:blush: :blush:

Bad kath, for speedreading, then posting - generally ill-advised!

Still, it's good for others, perhaps less well-informed, to see this pointed out, no?

The U.S. fucks up so, so, so many countries around the world, then wonder why they hate us, or why the situation comes back to bite us in the ass decades later. Jeebus H. Christ.

all the dollars that get sent back to Mexico to family etc. A whole lot of money flows back to Mexico from their immigrants, legal or otherwise. The Mexican government is not likely to do anything to decrease that flow.... on top of what you said.

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Citizens of any self interested society regulate who is allowed entry.

Legal immigration channels alone vastly outstrip our economy's ability to employ them.

Lobbying for illegal immigration is anti-worker.

Lobbying for illegal immigration is anti-already American worker. I agree.

Management has the power.

Workers don't displace workers.

The pool of jobs is finite.

The only people who argue otherwise is the chamber of commerce. No conflict of interest there.

I do not understand how anyone can say that "the pool of jobs is finite."

Were that true, we should have closed the borders in 1800.

Workers create jobs, create wealth, create prosperity. We, the workers, are the only source of those. Management wants to control workers movement, for obvious reasons.

Yes, chambers of commerce know that this is true, because since workers are the source of all wealth they are the potential source of the wealth for the capitalists and owners, as well. Yes, once workers arrive in an area the age-old struggle between workers and management continues, but restricting the movement of the workers does not help the working class.

According to your obviously flawed belief system, we should have jobs out the wazoo. Instead, they are bulldozing half of Detroit and everything is going to hell.

Things are going to hell. And people are casting around for scapegoats, and targeting the most vulnerable and least powerful people for blame. It is ugly, and it is dangerous.

One thing you'll learn about DU, is that it's as much a den of corporate cutthroat "me me me me me" anti-worker fuckholes as any Right Wing site. They were brought up at the teat of red-baiting, and generally aren't ever going to be bright enough to overcome this character flaw.

Welcome aboard, though!

I didn't expect to be in pitched battles with people who were arguing for regressive taxation, privatization, and against unions and public education, and now against immigrant workers. It apparently is not the Democratic party I grew up with, that is for sure.

Apparently the term can apply to liberals as well.

Illegal immigrant workers.

The two are NOT the same.

One I have a problem with, the other I do not.

There are not two distinct classes. Millions are in limbo. Persecution and harassment by law enforcement at all levels and by citizens is directed at people who happen to be brown, not just immigrants.

You may make a distinction in your mind, but that is the same logic that is being used by the military when they blow up a civilian gathering because there is supposedly a terrorist in their midst. "I am against the Taliban, not Afghan citizens."

The anti-immigrant movement is in fact directed at all people of color - it would take some extreme sort of stubbornness to ignore or deny that. That doesn't change because you personally claim to be making some some artificial distinction in your mind between bad guys and innocents.

How many innocents should suffer so that you can get your "illegals?" How much of the Bill of Rights should we all lose for this glorious cause of yours? How many raids, how many detentions, how much suspension of Habeas Corpus, how much surveillance, how much snooping, how much suspicion, how much snitching, how many children should be interrogated about their parents? How many should be illegally arrested and detained? How many para-military raids on how many businesses? How many families should be split up? How many children should have their parents disappear?

There is a distinction, just like the one I have between someone who is a criminal, and someone who is not.



anti illegal immigrant. I didn't realize that the distinction between good and bad was artificial. One group broke the laws of the United states, one group did not. I didn't realize that the distinction between a criminal was artificial also.



The snooping wasn't because of illegal immigrants, the excuse was terrorism.

If I knew someone was illegal, I'd turn them in. If I knew someone had robbed a store, I'd turn them in. Are you saying you wouldn't?

There are laws in this country. Are you saying they shouldn't be enforced? Are there any other laws which you think shouldn't be enforced?

If I saw someone robbing a store, I would give law enforcement the information I had. There is nothing similar about immigration, since this "law breaking" you think is sufficiently dire that drastic measures are called for is invisible. I cannot "see" a person "being illegal." I can't "see" that a person is behind on child support or has a parking ticket, either. Your example perfectly illustrates the problem with your position.

If we had law enforcement round up everyone in the country and detain them until the authorities were certain they were innocent, no doubt some people with parking tickets or who are behind on child support would be apprehended, as would serious criminals. That is the only way to catch everyone who might have some violation of some kind - hold everyone, treat everyone as guilty until proven innocent. That would "work" at "catching" people - perhaps, in theory, but not in practice in police states that have approached things this way - but the social price is far too high. We would be destroying the country to save it. And save it from what? Poor people looking for work?

You cannot catch all of the undocumented immigrants without one way or another requiring all of us to prove that we have a right to work, live and walk down the street. That is the definition, the very essence of a police state, and is in direct violation of the founding documents which are the foundation of all of our laws as well as any authority granted to the government.

What laws to I think should be enforced? First and foremost the supreme law of the land, the law that gives all other laws their legitimacy - the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

Homeland Security has been steadily blurring the line between "terrorists" and "immigrants" by the way, and the line between immigrants and citizens as well. Giving policing agencies broad and sweeping powers with no checks always leads to expansion of the application of those powers.

I believe you would "turn them in" - and I believe you would define "them" in a very broad way. I believe you would support and participate in almost anything to "solve" this "problem" you are so worked up about.

You don't know me from adam. It's all about what you "believe." You have no idea what I would and would not support, and yet here you are, expounding on those "beliefs." You base your judgments on those "beliefs", which are mostly false, and not in any reality. You make these made up judgments, so you expect other people to do the same. Happy to tell you, we don't.

Oh, The Declaration of Independence is not in any way "The law of the land", and neither is the preamble to the constitution. Just FYI.

I am basing my comments on what you write.

The DOC established the legitimacy of the country and the government, the purpose of the country and government, and the context and parameters for all subsequent law and its application. Without the DOC and the Constitution, the law would be very different indeed.

Yes, The US Constitution, and the DOC, which authorized it, are in fact the law of the land.

Get back to me in 30 years, by which time, you'll have studied it as much as I have.

The Declaration of Independence in no way authorized the Constitution. It was a document of another sorts, and has no law basis.

Besides that, here's another one for you. We had a president before George Washington. Who was it?

I have been a scholar of history and voracious reader for 50 years.

Whatever the country is going to look like in 30 years will be all yours. I don't expect to see it.

It has been 30 years, and much more, since the massive wave of immigrants from Ireland. You have not answered my question - why did that not cause all of the terrible consequences that you claim today's immigrants will cause?

There was not one president before Washington - before the Constitution. There were seven - John Hanson, Elias Boudinot, Thomas Mifflin, Richard Henry Lee, Nathan Gorman, Arthur St. Clair, and Cyrus Griffin.

But they were presidents of Congress under the Articles of Confederation. The idea that John Hanson was the first president of the United States is a hoax, that goes back to claims made by Hanson's grandsons and given new life recently on the Internet.



Let's "read some history," as you suggest.

Claim: John Hanson was the first President of the United States of America.

A prime example of why history is best learned from history books, not comic books (or the modern equivalent, web sites of dubious validity).

John Hanson was not the "first president of the United States." John Hanson has not been purged from history books by a wave of revisionist historians who refuse to acknowledge his true importance to American history. The plain truth is that John Hanson was never considered "the first president of the United States," even in his own time. And John Hanson couldn't possibly have been the "first president of the United States," because neither the office of President of the United States nor the nation known as the United States of America was created until after he was dead.

When representatives of thirteen British colonies in North America, assembled in an organization known as the Continental Congress, declared in July 1776 that those colonies would henceforth be independent of Great Britain, they realized that unity would be necessary in order to sustain and win a war of independence (and to maintain that independence afterwards). Accordingly, they soon began debating the Articles of Confederation, a plan for a permanent union, which was approved and sent to each of the states (as the former colonies now called themselves) for ratification. Disputes over the several issues (including the western boundaries of some states) delayed the approval of the Articles of Confederation until 1781.

It is important to note that although both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation used the phrase "united states of America," neither of those documents was intended to create a single, unified country out of the thirteen former British colonies. Colonial leaders feared the creation of a too-powerful national government dominated by factions and so specifically refused to create a unified nation or to transfer sovereignty to a central government. Instead, they in effect created a national Congress to whom they could subcontract administrative tasks performed on behalf of all thirteen states: conduct foreign affairs, make war and peace, deal with Native Americans living outside the states, coin and borrow money, supervise the post office, and negotiate boundary disputes. Congress could not, however, raise money to carry out these tasks by levying taxes on the states, nor could it raise troops in order to defend the country or wage war, or even compel states to comply with the laws it passed. In short, the Articles of Confederation created a Congress extremely limited in authority, with insufficient power to carry out the duties assigned to it. Inevitably, Congress could neither pay off the war debt (because it could only print more paper currency, not raise money through taxation) nor protect the states' territories from encroachment by the Spanish and British (because it could not compel states to provide troops for the common defense); eventually the Confederation Congress lost much of what authority it had, often could not take legislative action because representatives had stopped attending meetings (thereby preventing the attainment of a quorum), and finally - out of money itself - transferred responsibility for the national debt to the states in 1787. The Confederation government had been, in the words of George Washington, "little more than the shadow without the substance."


The key point here is that the Articles of Confederation did not create a nation called "the United States of America." They created, as stated in the first two articles, an alliance of thirteen independent and sovereign states who had agreed to "enter into a firm league of friendship with each other" while retaining their "sovereignty, freedom, and independence." The title of the confederacy so created was designated "The United States of America," but no nation with that name was created by the Articles of Confederation, any more than the formation of the resulted in the establishment of a nation known as "NATO."

The failure of the Articles of Confederation led to calls for establishment of a centralized federal government with much broader powers than the Congress of the Confederacy, a task accomplished through the drafting and ratification of a new Constitution in 1787-88. It was this Constitution, not the Articles of Confederation, that created the office of a chief executive as part of a truly federal government for the United States - an office bearing the title "President of the United States of America" and first filled by George Washington, unanimously selected as the first President in February 1789.

Sometimes historical figures are relegated to the background because societal attitudes have led to a minimalization of their accomplishments, leaving future generations to re-discover and re-emphasize their contributions. Sometimes, however, they're relegated to the background simply because they were minor figures to begin with. John Hanson was far from an insignificant figure in American history, but if few Americans know that he was the first person chosen to preside over Congress under the Articles of Confederation, the primary reason is that the office wasn't one of much importance. Claiming that John Hanson was the first President of the United States doesn't help to preserve the memory of his real accomplishments - it merely perpetuates historical misinformation for trivia's sake.

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/hanson.asp

Different times, different circumstances. You cannot equate one group of immigrants to another. I'm not. You are. Illegal immigrants are a different circumstance. I could go into the exploitation and have tried to explain the economics, but you don't or can't seem to understand.

As far as Hanson, I knew about Libera and the articles of confederation. And as it was different times, and they were racists, they never would have had a black man as president.

I am not equating one group of immigrants to another, as I have said. I am comparing anti-immigrant attitudes from one tome to another.

If "illegal" is now the only argument you have, amnesty would solve that. Amnesty would also make it infinitely easier to remake policy so that this situation doesn't happen again. The "situation" I am referring to - the problem, the danger - is whites working themselves into a frenzy and calling for action that is un-Constitutional and extremely dangerous for all of us, and creating a climate of fear, hatred, bigotry and suspicion. That is the problem, that is the danger.

Which is frustrating me to no end.



Like the last time? 1.4 million people then, now it's 10 million people. Yea, that'll work.

You see "those people" being here as "the problem," and think the problem is worse because we have more of "them." I don't. I described the problem that would be solved by amnesty. I didn't say amnesty would get rid of "them." I said that amnesty would make it easier to rewrite the law so that the problem doesn't happen again, I didn't say it would prevent the problem from happening again.

Point them out in a crowd.

my bad

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unless they can find a job.

It seems to me I just saw a thread on people who have been unemployed since last summer.

minimum wage and working-condition laws.

There are absolutely zero illegal immigrants who were forcibly taken from their homes and transported to this country to work for free.

None.

So comparing them with slaves is utter bullshit.

The illegal immigrants don't have all these nice little benefits because THEY ARE HERE ILLEGALLY. Americans should be doing those jobs at fair wages. This has zero to do with "keeping immigrants under the radar." This has to do with respecting the laws of the country and making sure that LAW ABIDING AMERICANS AND LEGAL IMMIGRANTS have opportunities to earn an honest living without undocumented workers stealing food out of their mouths by not having to play by the rules.

So how about this solution: you're here, you get amnesty and are on track to earn a work visa and get your green card. Once we establish this, no more. You come here, you need to be legal, or you get the boot. Businesses that get caught with illegals on the payroll pay a $40K fine per illegal. No exceptions. Additionally, we institute reciprocal immigration policies in cases where the home country's immigration policies are tougher than our own. If Americans can't immigrate to your country, or find permanent employment in your country, then you can't come here either.

I hear a lot of whining and wailing and gnashing of teeth, but the truth of the matter is that all those nice little European quasi-socialist democracies which so many here seem to be in total love wouldn't tolerate the immigration situation here for a second. And neither would Mexico, for that matter.

occupying Latin America. Gee, what a co-incidence.

When do we invade Canada to complete the two continent sweep?

With a little help from Canada and France.

For the places where we don't have outright bases, go check out the "War on Drugs", which is basically counter-insurgency.

It is a new and unique form of imperialism, a refinement of the British system of using corporations to dominate other countries that are nominally "independent" and backing up the puppet regimes, friendly to US capitalist interests, with the US military.

The threat of intervention, and complete domination of the economy is countries in Latin America (so-called, as the "countries" are arbitrary creations populated mostly by non-European indigenous peoples) is a much more efficient and effective form of imperialism that militarily occupying the countries would be.

Pretty obvious to anyone with even a superficial knowledge of the history of the region, and with any political world view that is even vaguely left wing.

Please take a look at the effects NAFTA and CAFTA, and the effect these trade policies had on Latin America. Look up the origin of the term "Banana Republic".

Then come back and say "we didn't force them to come here"

And I like your reciprocal immigration policy there, bud. Seriously. "Oh, you're fleeing Saudi Arabia because you can't live under an insane theocratic dictatorship that will kill you for sneezing near a Koran? Nope, sorry, fuck you, we're not allowed to move to Saudi Arabia, enjoy your shithole ma'am"

What a fucking moronic idea. From what sewer-scraping Stormfront-lite place did you glean this notion of yours?

immigration for many years, and now find themselves with an unassimilated minority population.

We're relatively lucky insofar as our immigrants by-and-large _want_ to assimilate.

I actually wouldn't draw the line as much by legal vs. illegal as do they WANT to become Americans.
Those who want to become citizens, barring criminal activity, should have a way to do it.

Guest worker programs are another matter. Maybe we don't need all that iceberg lettuce that migrant workers pick, anyway. How much lettuce gets wasted because most people don't even _like_ it, but just believe that it has to be in every salad?

situation here for a second". We'll never know, will we? One result of opening borders with your neighbors is that those immigrants become "legal". EU countries have levels of immigration that would cause some people's (your?) worst nightmare. People from all over Europe immigrate to other countries in Europe resulting in more "immigrants" than you can shake a stick at.

Do they still have "illegal immigrants? Sure, but only a tiny fraction of what they might have if all European countries closed their borders with each other. (Ahh, the good ol' days of closed borders before WWII. Those were magical times of peace and plenty.)

Why does the EU allow poor countries to join? Aren't the rich European countries as afraid of the poor ones as the US is of Mexico? Apparently not. Go figure. You'd think that "nice little European quasi-socialist (might I add "progressive") democracies would know that they have to keep their poorer neighbors walled off and unwelcome lest the "invasion" from Bulgaria and Romania (Europe's "Mexico" in this context) destroy their standard of living. You and I might think that but we'd have been proven wrong by Europe's success.

What's interesting is how "illegal immigration" plays in domestic European politics. The far-right parties (like the BNP in the UK, National Front in France and others) play up the danger of and damage caused by immigration (legal and illegal) to score political points. The argument they make is that the more immigrants we deport the better life will be for the "real" British. (Of course, the BNP also wants to "reevaluate" the citizenship grants of immigrants who became British citizens and to dismantle the EU so that the UK can stop immigration from European countries, as well.)

The more liberal parties are the ones who are more open to legalizing and assimilating immigrants. The Liberal Democrats are the only party in the UK election who are proposing a "path to citizenship" for some of the illegal immigrants living there. That prospect, of course, drives the BNP and its supporters crazy. :)

I think you'll be hard pressed to find many Europeans, other than the standard allotment of crazed right-wingers that every country seems to be "blessed" with, who don't think that open borders are as much a fundamental part of modern Europe, as national health care, progressive taxation, strong labor standards and market regulation and and effective social safety nets. Compared to the importance of these things, keeping the Dutch or the Italians out of your country, just don't seem that critical to them.

class citizenship. I think illegal aliens taking jobs here lowers the wages for legal workers here.

I find it troubling that the Dems and Republicans have not adequately addressed border security.

Workers leaving areas where workers are paid $5 a day for work here that pays $10 an hour are not depressing wages, they are causing upward pressure on wages.

Is it an issue of "security" or is it an issue of wages in your mind? the two contradict one another and are incompatible. Workers are not a threat to security. Threats to security are not workers. Which is it?

Illegals depress wages here, period end of story.

If a manufacturer sets up a plant south of the border to make shoes and pays $5 a day, how is that better that the same worker coming here to make the same shoes for $10 an hour?

You are making an illogical argument. Merely repeating yourself, after your argument was refuted, and then saying "period end of story" does not support your case. In fact, saying "period end of story" suggests that you are merely making an argument based on emotion. What might that emotional reason be?

Does that theory go along with "trickle down"? it's about the same level of non-logic.

Why do you think jobs are disappearing? Do you not think that the movement of manufacturing to other countries collapses wages here? Of course it does. The corporations can pay less for the same work in other countries. Ergo, the value of the labor put into say making a pair of shoes goes down. If a person makes shoes in another country for $5 a day, or the same person makes the same shoes here for $15 an hour, which situation depresses wages more?

What does my argument have to do with "trickle down?" Are we going to turn that upside down now, as well, and apply the fact that capitalists seeking cheap labor and prospering is not trickling down to the workers the other way around and say that workers moving to better wages also hurts workers? Goofy.

Workers moving toward better wages helps all in the working class. Capitalists moving to where there is cheap labor hurts all in the working class. Wages fall in either case, but that is not because of immigrants, that is because Wall Street reigns supreme and organized Labor has almost collapsed and because all owners at all times are seeking the cheapest possible labor. If a worker comes here from south of the border, the owners can no longer hire him or her at $5 a day. How is that bad?

If he does get a job here, then that's one less job for a citizen to get, because there are a finite number of paying jobs. There are a finite number of shoes people need. You cannot get an infinite out of a finite.



Your wages going up because illegal immigrants come here is the same bullshit economics line of thought that "trickle down" came from.
The opposite of reality is true. White is black. black is white.


total BS. Your head has been stuck to long in the communist manifesto, comrade. come up for air.

You say that the supply of jobs is finite (don't tell the administration that, as they are trying to create more jobs) but you don't support that statement, or even attempt to support it.

You say that workers moving toward better opportunities is "the same bullshit economics line of thought that 'trickle down' came from" but don't make any effort to support that one, either.

I have no idea where the "communist manifesto" and "comrade" insults came from. How can a person's argument be both from the "communist manifesto" and also from Reaganomics "trickle down?"

You say that there is a finite number of shoes that people need. Not if more workers come to an area, because they all need shoes, don't they? That means more jobs making shoes.

if you have 300 million jobs, the amount of jobs is finite. If you have 360 million people competing for those jobs, you have unemployment. If you have a job, and 100 people want it, you get down ward pressure on wages.



300 million people, 300 million pair of shoes. Unless someone wants two pairs, the number goes up. Unless someone wants none, the number goes down. More then likely your not going to sell 300 million pairs of shoes. Still a finite number.


I thought most people had a basic grasp of economics from high school. I was wrong.

If you increase the number of workers, you also increase the number of shoes needed, made, and sold.

Why were there more jobs in 1900 than there were in 1800? There were far more people in the country, the population more than doubled - that should have caused more competition for the finite number of jobs that existed in 1800, and over half of the people should have been unemployed by 1900, according to you. Obviously all of those new workers were also consumers. The number of jobs increased as the population increased, because the number of consumers also increased.

New automation means fewer workers needed. Assembly line means fewer works needed.

I'm getting real tired of teaching these things.

You have introduced a new angle now - automation. So immigration causes automation?

You said immigrants caused jobs to disappear. I said, no, management causes jobs to disappear - outsourcing and automation being two of the ways.

Now you say that an increase in population does not mean an increase in jobs - because of automation!

As I said earlier, the anti-immigrant arguments keep evolving and changing, and are self-contradictory. You just gave us an example of that. The reason the anti-immigrant arguments are so illogical and contradictory, and all over the map, is because people don't dare give the real reason they are opposed to immigrants - "we don't want your kind here." That has been true throughout the history of the country every time anti-immigrant hysteria gained momentum, and is more obviously true in the case of the anti-immigrant talk coming from the right wingers - Buchanan out and out says that his goal os to defend and protect the position in society "white males," for example.

You missed my point entirely. Not just zoomed by it, more like light years.

I could explain, but your mind is snapped shut, and you can't see beyond what you think reality is. So sorry for you. Unfortunately, it seems to be a national trend. Had a discussion about it with someone from my class last night. You are a perfect example.

I will never "get" it - I hope.

However, the arguments you are using come up often, and I am responding for the benefit of others who are reading this exchange to possibly help when they encounter this in real life. That, I think, is time well spent.

Basic economics? that's sad. And we complain about the teabaggers being ignorant.

I posted some history for you about John Hanson. You said we should read some.

I was the one who asked, remember?

If you already knew that there was nothing to that, why did you bring it up and what possible relevance could it have to the discussion?

After all, Arizona has some really nasty laws for businesses that employ illegal immigrants.

And the new law? It makes it illegal even to pick up and hire a day laborer in your car. It also establishes the procedure for people to anonymously report illegal immigrants that are working. You see you job you want, you find out that an illegal immigrant has it, you turn him/her in--voila, next thing you know there's a job opening.

first it is illegal ... it is not "so called". Breaking our immigration laws is illegal and calling it illegal immigration is accurate




I will agree that there are people who want to keep a cheap labor force and are happy to exploit the people who come here illegally. I will also agree that it is not about securing our boarders, changing our immigration laws won't stop drug runners or any other criminal activity.


Comparing illegal workers to slaves is simply wrong. They choose to come here and work under those conditions. Slaves did not choose to be slaves.

They can also leave and go back home, slaves never had that opportunity.


We already legalized the immigrants once. Regan did it and it simply made more illegal immigrants. It didn't solve the problem last time, it made it worse. It won't solve the problem if we try it again, it will again make it worse.


One more problem is your refusal to address the people who are trying to immigrate here legally. If it were not for the number of illegal immigrants we have now we could allow more visas to people willing to come here bu Not breaking our laws. Giving legal status to the people who came here illegally is in effect a punishment for all the people who tried to come here legally.

So everything you say is based on that idea and is therefore meaningless.

Most undocumented workers work for employers who also hire documented workers. They are all treated the same in reference to the things you list.

What you are saying is mostly a myth.

I don't know the numbers to declare that is most but what you say is true in at least 1 case I'm aware of. Two years ago a friend's dad lost his job because his employer was hiring undocumented workers. What happened was they were using other people's social security numbers to work there and somehow law enforcement found out so they were shut down and went to another job doing the same work (construction) but for far less pay in $7.50 an hour. Yes he and the illegal immigrants at that job were all making over 10 an hour.

We had a payroll of over 3000 workers per week. Some were undocumented. They all had legal looking documents when we hired them. We could not tell who was legal and who wasn't and we did not ask. If they had the proper documentation (be it counterfeit or not we could not tell) we hired them if they were able to do the work.

The farms would contract with us. The farms did not hire the workers. We were self insured for workers comp. We collected taxes, paid social security, offered the same benefits to all.

Now only Hispanics applied for the jobs. I never saw an anglo come in for an application. Sometimes Indians came in and were hired.

We paid 8 to 10 per hour. That was charged to the farmers plus the cost of taxes and a commission amount which was our income.

It was beneficial to the farmers because they did not do payroll or had to keep people on during off seasons or have to pay workers comp or benefits. Economies of scale were in our favor.

srsly

But the exception doesn't prove the rule:

http://www.workplacefairness.org/sc/undocumentedworkers.php

A quick google search reveals just how much undocumented immigrants are exploited.

And yes, some are kept from freely leaving.



http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/02/global-sweatshop-wage-slavery/

I'm glad the company you worked for is more humane but that does not disprove the rampant abuse these poor people suffer.

How many people in your examples? There are approximately 12 to 20 million undocumented people in this country. There are hundreds of thousands of employers, how many in your examples? You have the exception not me.

I agree with everything you say here, and that is what I see as well and I am in position to be very familiar with and knowledgeable about this issue.

At the same time, I think what the OP is saying is also true - that the anti-immigrant hysteria tends to erode protections for all workers, and that amnesty would end the threat to all of us.

Every detail in your description is 100% accurate and is the rule, in my extensive experience.

Employers cannot legally refuse to hire or do special investigations on people they "suspect" of being "illegal." That is why the "go after the owners" mantra from liberals is nonsense.

It is also true that farm work starts at $8-10 an hour just about everywhere, and that housing is provided.

It is also true that there is no double standard in the way documented or undocumented people are treated.

It is also true that white people almost never apply for farm work - at any level, they are not interested in being farm owners or supervisors or skilled workers and there is a shortage of people there as there is in all phases of agriculture.

One of my friends worked in a hospital laundry for about 20 years. Sometime in the middle, she was able to get her green card and eventually became the unit manager. But it took nearly 20 years and she was lucky. Her brother is a florist. One of her cousins (still undocumented) is the best mechanic I've ever seen. And so on.

I am just speaking of the area with which I am familiar, and the none that gets the most attention from people and from which they form their bigoted and stereotyped perceptions. People should know that immigrants are the fastest growing group of new farm owners, by the way.

You are hinting at a serious problem - the difficulty that immigrants from Latin America have getting their status clarified when compared to white immigrants. That has left millions in legal limbo, through no fault of their own, and vulnerable to hideous persecution and now Gestapo-like raids and detentions.

300k in the last twelve months. It makes you wonder how many families that sums to. This is Laura Flander's segment. No transcript but there is a brief summary at link.

http://www.grittv.org/2010/05/03/monique-harden-john-fugelsang-hari-kondabolu-and-may-day/

And then there was this story about Francisco Castaneda who got cancer in custody and no treatment. He died.

Immediately upon arriving at SDCF, Mr. Castaneda complained to medical staff about a bleeding lesion on his penis. United States Public Health Service (PHS) medical personnel, senior ICE officers, and administrators within the Division of Immigration Health Services (DIHS) knew that the lesion on Mr. Castaneda’s penis urgently required a biopsy to determine whether he had penile cancer. Not only did Mr. Castaneda repeatedly file urgent requests for medical care, but he resorted to showing guards and medical officials his bloody underwear and bed sheets. They gave him clean replacements, but he never got the medical care he needed.

http://www.publicjustice.net/Who-We-Are/Faces-of-Public-Justice/Castaneda.aspx

It is an ongoing nightmare, as our Democrats try once again to "out-Republican" the Republicans and prove they are not "soft on immigration." We are seeing things we never saw under the Bush regime, and things we could never imagine happening. Grade school children interrogated at the school bus stop about their parents, people encouraged to snitch on their co-workers, a dramatic increase in raids and persecution, expanded coordination with all government agencies, including now even the game wardens, people being isolated and bullied and interrogated, anyone questioning the actions of the swat teams being threatened with felony charges. The terror being leveled at small farms and workers right now, all of it flying under the radar and largely unreported, is something I never thought I would see in this country. It makes me physically ill to debate this issue with people here. They do not have a clue what they are asking for and encouraging, what they are blithely defending, how ugly their cute little one-liners and hateful rhetoric is.

Everyone in the immigrant and farming community was certain that Obama was promising relief from the terror and pressure. Everyone is dumbfounded to see what is happening, and fees betrayed and is heartsick over that. Perhaps the worst thing is that we have lost many allies, since now that it is a Democratic administration prosecuting this war of terror many who were opposed when Bush did it are now defending it.

Well, the Democrats have an opportunity. Let's see what they do with it.

The anti-immigration arguments are ever-evolving and shifting, and once one line of attack has been refuted, they don't defend it but search around for another justification for taking an anti-immigrant stance. That strongly suggests that they are not expressing the real reason they are attacking immigrants, and the entire issue and debate is so obviously charged with racism that it is the most logical conclusion that it is actually racism motivating the people attacking the immigrants. We now even have one person saying that since Reagan favored amnesty, we should therefore oppose it. I think Reagan favored good dental hygiene, as well. Maybe we should now come out against that.

Clearly there is something emotional and irrational behind the anti-immigrant arguments, since none of the lines of reasoning hold up and the anti-immigrant people do not even try to defend them. That emotion and irrationality at play could only be racism.

Nativism has been fanned in this country forever. This just another peak.

such jobs. $7.50 or even $10 per hour is barely above minimum wage. 30 years ago construction jobs paid many times minimum wage (something like 4X or 5x, at least) - I know because my husband did such work as a high school and college student.

Wages are falling because capital has been unleashed and gone global, and because the organized Labor movement has collapsed.

This is happening in all industries whether or not there are any immigrants involved.

Management depresses wages, and eliminates jobs, not workers.

...an undocumented worker can go before a judge and not fear deportation?

But, hey, I'm just making suff up, right?



http://www.alternet.org/immigration/94703/exploited:_the_plight_of_the_undocumented_worker/

especially the union part

working class Americans have much more in common with those crossing the border than they do with those with the power to secure it.

Thing is, those people with the power don't really want to, for the reasons you outline. But boy does it sure pit Americans against each other (and often the immigrants themselves) to focus on it.

Thank you for that.

People should know that almost all small family farmers support amnesty, and that right now the country is completely dependent upon immigrants for our food.

If people want only corporations to be able to hire people from Latin America - at a fraction of the cost on the other side of the border - and want all of our food to be imported, and allow the corporations to circumvent healthy safety and labor law here, then by all means jump on the anti-immigrant bandwagon.

Some claim that their anti-immigrant stance is somehow pro-Labor. How does ten dollars an hour here depress wages, while the same person doing the same work south of the border for $5 a day not depress wages?

Farmers won't grow food if illegals aren't available to pick it. :eyes:

I didn't.

Make your argument if you have one. Eyeroll smilies are not an argument.

This is nearly the most pretzel-ified logic I've seen. You are saying that allowing illegals (those who would benefit from amnesty) to displace jobs here is striking a blow against corporations.

We are not dependent on illegal immigrants for our food. The businesspeople are dependent on them to maintain profitable business operation. If all the illegals were deported tomorrow, we wouldn't starve because farmers would raise wages (and thus prices) until they could attract legal labor.

Of course businesspeople are in favor of amnesty. Why should farmers be any different from contractors in this regard?

That is true today. It need not always be true. But the massive and sudden disruption being experienced now will and is putting small farmers out of business. I believe that is the goal of corporate agri-business, and they are using the immigration issue to advance that agenda. This is not a question of siding with owners over workers, it is a question of siding with small local owners (and more importantly their workers) over multi-national food industry corporations. Send people back south of the border, and the corporations can have the same people performing the same work at 10% of the pay.

The workers are in favor of amnesty and so are the small farmers. Both the workers and the farmers are also opposed to murder and theft. Go figure.

All businesspeople in every industry under Capitalism are dependent on the cheapest labor they can get to maintain maximum profitability in their business operation. It is the nature of the system, the owners are trying to drive down wages any way they can everywhere they can. That is nothing unique to agriculture nor to immigrant workers.

It is not merely entry level farm work where there is a labor crunch. Farm work of any kind, including farm ownership is no longer attractive to people in this country. The solution to that is job training and subsidies. Food is a public resource and should be treated as such.

No one said we will starve if family farming collapses. We will be eating imported food, and the corporations will further consolidated their control over the food supply system.

Immigrant workers are organizing at a rate much higher than the general population. That is the solution to the problems of job loss and declining wages that you are blaming the workers for.

Small farming is very much different than contracting. It is highly regulated, more so than any other industry, the debt load is unlike any other industry, and moving, re-tooling, etc. is very difficult, and farmers have little or no control over prices.

That being said, I favor farm workers organizing, I favor finding a way to increase wages in farming, I favor policies that preserve small farming rather than subsidizing imports and plantation style corporate farming, and I support finding ways to get native born people into farming.

I am open to any and all ideas you may have as to how to accomplish those goals. "Raising wages" is not possible without a serious and major overhaul of our food system, starting with restoring funding to the USDA, the land Grant colleges, and the state agricultural departments.

If the small family farmers cannot find workers here, food production will move there to where the workers are and will be in the hands of the corporations.

Corporations have no such disadvantage. They want the biggest pool of labor possible, because if labor were constrained, the employees can get better jobs.

Limitless labor is a big advantage to agricorp, it drives prices down until the small farmer can't profitably operate. Only the big operations survive.

Still, I would say that an owner is an owner and it is the system that is the problem, not individual owners, and most certainly not individual workers - particularly impoverished, illiterate, unskilled and uneducated workers.

I cannot imagine anything more disgusting that Democrats (!) calling for going after our most vulnerable working class brothers and sisters.

At issue is not the "quantity" of labor - people are talking here about their fellow working class brothers and sisters as though they were a commodity - but rather whether workers should be at least as free to move as the wealthy owners are.

This "labor pool" stuff - horrific that people use that expression, yet argue against the interests of the working class. If you are going to say that we are all a commodity in a pool subject to supply and demand, then you have either contradicted any and all arguments against the immigrants, or you are speaking for the owners and not the workers.

You don't get back the hours that you sell to your employer, you sold them. It is in your interest for those hours to be as valuable as possible by limiting the pool of people capable of doing what you can.

I find it far more disgusting when people piss on my boots and try to tell me it's raining. Advocating for open borders and amnesty for 10 million illegal workers is not promoting the interests of working class americans. I find it offensive that I have to explain this to ostensible Democrats.

I am not the one shilling for the the owners. You are.

That is the problem. Our labor - our time, our work, our creativity - is all for sale. That is true for all workers, immigrant or not, working here on this side of the border or working there on that side. For the working class as whole, and for the majority of people in the working class, this does not work and it is clear to them that it does not work. Management has much more power, and we are not really "free" to sell our labor on an "open market" - especially if we are going to be restricted as you advocate, from moving to opportunity.

You are accepting that as inevitable reality, and then saying we need to be clever when we sell ourselves. That only works, or even makes sense, for a relatively small number of privileged people - educated professional people - who have some sort of freedom, or sense that they do, to sell their labor and be fairly well off as a result. That is an anomaly and it distorts their view of how this all works. Even when they can see that it does not work for most people, they fancy themselves to be more talented, smarter or more clever, or more motivated or something and so think that they deserve more status and perks and higher pay, and that some sport of "natural" order is at work there.

Shilling for the managers means accepting and promoting the idea that labor should be a commodity that is for sale, so that our clever strategy should be to exclude some of our working class brothers and sisters from the market so as to inflate our own value.

Please stop calling human beings "illegal workers." The work they are doing is not illegal. Human beings cannot "be" illegal, acts are, and we have due process and a system of justice for addressing this. People who are undocumented, or whose documents are flawed our outdated, or who are waiting for clarification as immigration service drags their feet, have committed an extremely minor crime, a misdemeanor at worst. Declaring millions of people to "be" illegal is disgusting and can only promote racism. Or would you deny that the entire flap about immigration is thoroughly steeped in racism?

No.

I will not stop using the terms "illegal aliens", "illegal immigrants" (although I doubt that most actually wish to immigrate) "illegal workers" or simply "illegals".

I don't care about the sensibilities of those who work here illegally. I care about the livelihoods of the legal workers they displace.

And yes, I deny that my beliefs about immigration are based on racism. I don't presume to speak for anyone else, but I find that ad-hominem to be intellectually lazy.

If your goal is to solve the problem that "Our labor - our time, our work, our creativity - is all for sale." - good luck with that. In this world, they are.

You are free to refuse. Others may read what I wrote and think about it and stop using that terminology. The words "legal" and "illegal" lose all meaning the way that you are using them. The word "illegal" becomes merely a convenient label for some group of "them" that you don't like - so much so, that you are willing to call for the sacrifice all Constitutional rights to get at them.

If a person had committed a murder, and was still on the loose, would you call that person an "illegal" person? Even if they were apprehended we wouldn't call them an "illegal" person, we wouldn't say that they "are illegal." Why do you suppose that is? Because we have an assumption of innocence until proved guilty, we have due process, we have the Bill of Rights. We have a system of justice, in other words. Throw that away and "legal" and "illegal" no longer have any meaning.

Yet you would throw all of that away for the sake of going after these immigrants you are so hostile toward, and you refuse to give them the same humanitarian consideration that you would give to an accused murderer. What could possibly drive a person to do that? You are correct, it may not be racism, although it is undeniable that the entire anti-immigrant movement is riddled with vicious racism. But maybe you are the exception, and instead are merely authoritarian and would deny basic human rights to all sports of people without regard to race.

Even a convicted murderer we do not call an "illegal person."

It is not an ad hominem to point out racist statements, or arguments that defend racism. That notion that talking about racism or challenging racist ideas means making ad hominem attacks is a relatively recent one, popularized by the right wing hate radio people. "How dare you call me a racist!!" is their clever and predictable response every time the subject of racism comes up., and that effectively prevents any discussion about racism at all. They are free to make whatever racist remarks they like and not be challenged on them, because to challenge those statements would be "calling them a racist" - which is very rarely actually the case, and is not the case in our discussion - and we are then to think that being called a racist, even were it true, is somehow worse than racism itself.

Thanks for wishing me luck on solving the problem of labor being a commodity completely controlled by management. That is the very problem that organized Labor had great success with, so I guess that your suggestion that it is a fool's errand is not very accurate. I guess from management point of view, buying and selling labor is the world we live in and will never change (they hope.)

Wrestling total control away from the owners, maybe, yes. But getting from there to restricting "the supply" of labor so as to increase its value is going to be a problem for you.

I don't recall Labor offering management to eliminate jobs or workers, so as to reduce supply in order to increase the value of the remaining workers. I do remember Labor demanding jobs for all and good wages for all. That demolishes any pretense of your "supply and demand" argument being pro-Labor.

Be anti-immigrant if you like, but you have failed at selling that as a pro-Labor position. Your position is anti-immigrant and anti-Labor.

My grandfather was a Molly McGuire. Unionization of the mines was a messy and violent affair. Organizers knew that the key to their power was to shut down the mines if the labor wasn't unionized. They effectively constrained the labor pool to members of the union. If you weren't a union member, you weren't a prospective mine employee - i.e. "labor".

I waste my breath. You're trying not to get it.

Scabs are an issue, yes.

Immigrants are not scabs. In fact, they are leading the way in organizing and are reviving organized Labor.

successful and are more industrious than we are. The can get millions to march on May Day if wanted. They can organize and win living wages as in Santa Monica and LA.


They are able to live like animals to provide a better life for their kids. They make us work harder for success. We want to vote in a liberal government and sit back and let the politicians make laws go grease the way for us. We don't march together, we don't organize, we don't fight for our rights. We have no skin in the game yet we want it made "fair" for us.

Immigrants are more willing to challenge the system, to organize and mobilize, and to resist the owners and fight for the have-nots.

It stunned me that when Los Angeles was seeing its biggest political demonstration ever in its history, so many white liberals were still lamenting "when oh when will those stupid sheeple wake up and take to the streets?" The immigrant rights marches were completely invisible to them.

unemployed or underemployed and losing everything they own. We don't need new labor in the pool. We don't need the existing illegal labor driving down wages. Pro illegal immigrant advocacy is retreaded RW anti-labor garbage sold to soft headed people as 'social justice'. It's the insurance bailout all over again.

There is no such thing as too many workers.

Labor is not a commodity in a pool, it is human beings. More workers means more jobs and more prosperity.

regulates the number of each trade/profession emigrating. 500 plumbers applying for 20 jobs does not bring wages up, it brings them down. Google 'supply and demand'.

Applying supply and demand to workers is Reaganomics. Reaganomics has failed. Only when we insist on seeing workers as a commodity to be bought and sold does your "supply and demand" apply. I reject seeing human beings as a commodity and refuse to do that.

More workers, be they plumbers or whatever, means more demand for plumbers. Doh.

It is always in management's interests to control and restrict workers, and always in the interests of all in the working class when labor is as free to move toward opportunity as capital is.

Jesus. How simple does it need to be?

It is not in management's interest to restrict availability of labor. That is the entire fundamental point of labor unions.

...including a path to citizenship.

The IBEW - the union in my trade - opposed the insurance company bailout/'health care' screwjob.

Labor is divided. Progressive Labor voices are supporting amnesty and promoting solidarity. Other labor leaders are pandering to racism, as has happened in the past.

Rather than just making simple-minded generalizations, this will give people a sense of the issues involved and the ongoing debate about this.

Here is a sampling of pro and con positions on the issue as related to organized Labor -

Pipes create demand for plumbers? OK.... do you really think the pipes care about whether or not they are in working order? What do you suppose causes there to be more pipes?

I did not say that management wants to "restrict availability of labor" I said that management wants to restrict and control workers.

The optimum workforce (from capital's perspective) is the number required to create mass unrest, minus one.

There is a finite amount of work to be done, and it is not in labor's interest to double the population of people seeking it.

So to protect some of us in the working class, what should we do with the rest of our brothers and sisters so that the capitalists are thwarted? Lock them up? Kill them? Have the Gestapo chase them around? Restrict them to impoverished countries where they can REALLY be exploited by the capitalists, who will then move jobs out of this country and to those countries that we are sending immigrants back to?

You need to think this trough a little more, I think.

There is not a "finite amount of work to be done." That is nonsensical and illogical. The more people there are, the more work is needed (and the more workers there are to do it.) All people are workers and consumers.

The answers to your questions are;
a) The "brothers and sisters" who are citizens of other countries must work to improve their own societies. I have a responsibility to the brothers and sisters in this one.
b) no.
c) no.
d) no.
e) yes.

If Carlos Slim (the richest person in the world) must deal with the social problems in his "impoverished" country, he can afford it. So long as third world labor is available to flood every productive economy, labor will ALWAYS be devalued.

You can't obtain permission to live in Mexico unless you can demonstrate that you are depositing $1200 in a bank account each month. They have less open borders than we do. Calderon sees the border as a one-way-street.

If more people = more wealth, then explain why the US GDP per capita (312 million people or 88 people per square mile) is $42,500 while the GDP per capita of India (1.18 billion people or 1029 people per square mile) is $1060.

Unless I miss my guess, you're now daydreaming about how cheaply you could get your house painted in India.

Capital is free to move. Labor is not.

That is what drives wages down. That is why jobs are moved overseas - to get at cheaper labor. That - obviously - depresses wages here, devalues labor. People moving from cheap labor areas for better pay raises wages. Any time any worker anywhere makes more, it helps us all. The more we stick together - including across borders - the stronger we are.

The problems in India and Latin America were caused by imperialism.

Please stop with the gratuitous insults. There is nothing in anything I have written that supports or is even related to "you're now daydreaming about how cheaply you could get your house painted in India," not to mention the 4 or 5 insults in your other post.

I have no idea what this means - "If Carlos Slim (the richest person in the world) must deal with the social problems in his 'impoverished' country, he can afford it."

You say "so long as third world labor is available to flood every productive economy, labor will ALWAYS be devalued." So it is the fault of "third world labor" - the workers, and so we should restrict and exclude them from the global economy?

Can you truly not see that we are all well on our way to becoming "third world labor?"

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his livelihood depends on his not understanding it."

Schrodinger's cat. The simplest explanation is usually right. Some degrees of willful ignorance are difficult to reconcile in any other way.

If half of the workers in a place where wages are depressed move away, it may improve wages in the community they leave, but they have the opposite effect in the community they move to; e.g. *here*.

Mexico's GDP per capita is $9960. If, instead of giving their citizens brochures explaining how to illegally come to the US, they had to take care of them, it'd be less. Were it not for one-sided immigration, american blue collar workers would enjoy 3-8% better incomes.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5312900

I am not an employer. So much for your cat.

From the article you cited:

Screwing the workers so the companies can make a few more bucks.

Do some thinking before you post.

Reagan and Bush supporting amnesty - taking a position to the left of you - just tells us how far to the right you are with your position on this. Even the US Catholic bishops have taken a position far to the left of yours. At some point it becomes a matter of sanity and humane compassion and human rights that transcends partisanship and politics.

Many of the posts here the last few days - on regressive taxation, on privatization, and now on immigration - make Nixon look like a far left radical by comparison. I think there is a huge shift to the right going on with Democrats, and this issue is a real bellwether.

The church is seriously waning in influence in the US, and most of the Latino immigrants are some variety of Catholic. So the Bishops are definitely going to be "Hey! Let 'em in, more tithes and voting blocs for our interest!"

That said, you're on the right track otherwise.

Whatever the motivation, though, the position paper they put together on the issue a while back was pretty good and we found it useful.

That is a RW position. Your appeal to emotion is all fine and dandy, but as a labor policy it's an abysmal failure.

Maybe you've never actually WORKED for a living.
Maybe you are here to 'catapult the propaganda'.
Maybe you share the contempt for American workers that many have here.

Whatever the case is, you clearly are NOT on the side of Americans that work for their money. Reagan was not a friend of labor. In fact, he was a labor buster. The illegal immigrant amnesty was part and parcel of his attack on the middle class and labor in particular. You can attempt to spin it however you want, I don't give two shits. You are advocating RW policy and nothing you say or accuse me of will change that.

At the very least, Labor is divided on this issue. There are just as many Democrats in favor of amnesty as there are Republicans. That means that almost everything in your post is a smear, or a personal attack, without foundation.

No one said Reagan was a friend to Labor. No one praised Reagan. If Reagan had set aside a new wildlife refuge would we oppose that merely because he had proposed it?

Workers moving toward higher wages - letting workers have the same freedom that owners do - is not right wing policy, nor does it depress wages.

Owners try to move jobs to where labor is cheaper. Workers move to where wages are higher. Restricting the movement of workers depresses wages, restricting the movement of owners raises wages.

Would you deny that owners move to where they can get labor cheaper?

Would you deny that workers move to where wages are higher?

They get to kick labor in the teeth by magnanimously offering *MY* job up as a sacrifice. They then break their arms patting themselves on the back for 'doing the right thing'. If you dare point out how you have been royally screwed by this, you are labeled a 'racist xenophobe that just needs to adapt to the new global economy'. These same fucking hypocrites then cry bloody murder if THEIR job is affected by, say, H1-B visa holders. See how that works? Blue collar loses his job = racist. White collar = victim. These 'democrats', btw, are supporting the financial destruction of people the least able to deal with it. That makes it particularly loathsome. Like your posts.

You still seem to be having trouble with fact that more job applicants = lower wages. That is something anybody with an IQ higher than their belt size can understand.

Flooding the market with low wage, desperate workers is INDEED RW policy. It is labor busting. Your hero, Ronald W. Reagan, was ALL ABOUT LABOR BUSTING. That includes the amnesty.

I don't have to deny foreign workers anything. We have an immigration policy in place, a border, and guys with guns that are supposed to enforce the policy. It is their job to turn them away.

As I have pointed out before, every place worth living regulates what skills emigrate. Every place with a high standard of living has very difficult immigration requirements. You apparently lack the cognitive function to grasp that, much less what the purpose of those requirements are.

I've got about 7 months till I qualify for permanent residency in a place that actually gives a crap about its workers. Hopefully I will be there about a year from now.

Good luck with your 'up is down' Orwellian crap. You're gonna need it.

it was pitting groups against each other and vying for the cheapest labor. Germans were supposed to be hard working, industrious (stereotyping)-they'd go to the german immigrants and tell them that they were going to replace them with the Irish because they were cheaper--then it was the blacks from the south. You had the germans against the irish, the irish against the blacks--and the ones responsible sitting back smiling and raking in the dough on the backs of labor.

You think anything has changed since then? The new robber barons are just bigger-same old sociopaths, same old cons.

Your logic makes no sense at all. Economics is real, and people are both consumers and producers of labor.

We have plenty of workers. Why do we have unemployment? How does having more workers create more jobs (unless the new worker you add creates exactly one new job to support that particular worker)?

can pick and choose and use their advantage to depress wages. It is when there is a stronger labor pool without excess capacity that wages go up. Management likes having large pools of people because it means they don't have to offer the people who work for them much in exchange.

It is management's interest to control and restrict the movement of workers in that they don't want them to be able to move where working conditions would be more advantageous to the worker and they certainly don't want workers to feel free to dump a job where the employer is treating them badly in favor of an employer who will be more fair to the worker. But management is all too happy to have large pools of undocumented workers around because they know that they can treat these workers badly and they are the least likely to join a union.

Yes, if the owners have a captive group of workers, then more workers could mean fewer jobs or lower pay. Not necessarily though. In Detroit, more workers meant more car plants opening up and more cars being produced. At all times the owners were trying to depress wages - playing one group of workers off another and creating scapegoats is a favorite tactic, as we now see happening in the immigration hysteria. Higher wages are a function of and can only be a function of two things - worker mobility (as in immigration) and solidarity and organizing (as the immigrants are doing.)

More workers in an area who cannot move and have no options creates the situation you are describing. Actually, the same number of workers in an area who are restricted creates that situation. It does not apply here - less so than in any situation - because we are talking about workers who are moving to higher wages.

Workers are not cattle held in a corral. If there are, as you say, too many in an area and wages start dropping or there are fewer jobs, then workers move. The idea that workers travel thousands of miles into hostile territory seeking higher wages, and then mysteriously become stuck in place and immobile, being exploited and where they soak up jobs of others, or welfare or something, is simply illogical. Why would the most motivated and courageous people in the hemisphere suddenly become the most timid and immobilized?

Immigration is people moving away from the situation you describe - low wages, too few jobs - to situations where that is not true, where there are more jobs and higher wages. Immigrants are not causing too many workers, too few jobs,m lower pay, they are responding to those conditions and resisting them. They set a good example for all of us.

continent. A Polish or Spanish plumber can work in any EU country. Progressive countries take care of workers much better than we do and the thrive on free movement of labor on the continent. Regressive countries like the US spend our energy and money keeping "others" out to keep what we have left from "them" rather than taking care of people. A Mexican plumber doesn't have the options that a Polish plumber has.

The EU also has a common currency.

Those 500 million can immigrate to any other EU country. I'm sure you've heard of the Schengen Agreement. Europeans have even more freedom of movement on the continent than just within EU countries.

By way, the EU does not have a common currency. Just ask the UK. :) The Eurozone (which includes 16 of the 27 EU countries) has a common currency - the euro.

"I'm sorry sir, you don't seem to have authorization to be here. I'm afraid you'll have to accept these tickets to the UK"
No. Your example is a false comparison. You have to be a citizen of a member state. I, as an American, cannot simply go there. I have to apply and be accepted. Just like everybody else, just like everywhere else.

countries (more than 30 counting the Schengen Agreement countries), while the US has open immigration with zero countries. And which is more progressive the EU or the US?

If your response is "Yeah, well EU countries don't have open borders with everyone - just with 30 countries that share their continent", I will concede your point.

Hint: 'State' is synonymous with 'country'.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8363297.stm

You are attempting to portray the EU as some kind of revolutionary idea, when it's really the same principle our country was founded on. Travel the EU is no more remarkable than travel with the US. Same with labor.

The same arguments being used to call for closing the national border all apply equally to closing state borders as well.

Why let workers from the poorer states and the right-to-work states take jobs away from workers in the prosperous states?

We are the United States, and a country.

And international border is not the same as a state border.

But towns and states have done the same things and used the same arguments - newcomers were taking jobs, were not welcome, were coming for welfare, should move along, should be out of town by sunset, etc. That has been used against Blacks since the beginning in various places, against Asian immigrants, and was used against Dust Bowl refugees in the 30's, by states and towns. That is my point. Why is it absurd for a state border but not absurd for a national border?

"We are a country" and "secure the border" is just the modern variation of something that has been happening for a long time - "we don't want your kind around here." Otherwise, how do we explain all of the same rhetoric and lines of reasoning being used, and how do we explain how animated and motivated people are about this issue? It is all quite clearly about "we don't want your kind around here." Nothing else elicits these arguments that people are posting, and nothing else motivates people the ay this does.


On edit - There ARE towns and states taking matters into their own hands on this right now. They can't literally seal their borders in any official sense, but they are doing what they can to achieve the same effect.

Not amount of ranting is going to change that. No amount of little snipplets of history taken out of context is going to change that.

Certain things are recognized in international law, and "illegal immigration" is not one of them. The right of a nation to control it's borders as it seems fit IS one of them.

I didn't say that they were the same thing. I said that prejudice, xenophobia, calls for police state action, and bigotry are the same, regardless of the pretext being used, and I said that all of your arguments apply to state borders just as much as they do national borders.

I am not saying, did not say, that the US should not have any border policy, but rather we are discussing what sort of border policy is best. What you are proposing is the Berlin Wall model, what I am proposing is the Rush-Bagot model.

What other "little snippets of history" regarding prejudice, racism, and abuse of people by law enforcement would you dismiss out of hand as not being relevant to this discussion? Previous detentions and removals and persecution of various people are hardly irrelevant. I will provide the context, though, for the mass deportations of Latinos in the early 30's, the "Black laws," the anti-Irish immigration hysteria, the vagrancy laws from the past and their application in 1890's and 1930's, the detention of people of Japanese descent, the persecution of the indigenous peoples here, and the many other examples of this sort of bigotry and persecution, and demonstrate the connection between those and your position if you like.

you equate each of those as the same thing, and as the same thing as is happening today. They are not equal, nor are they the same thing as is happening today.



I'm also sure you could demonstrate a connection, but it would be only a connection that you believe, not anything connected to reality, as you don't know me from adam, as I said upthread.

I didn't say those things are "the same," nor "equal," I said they spring from the same source - bigotry and xenophobia. That has nothing to do with "knowing you from Adam," or anything about you at all - unless you insist that it does. I said the anti-immigrant hysteria is racist. You are free to take that personally in lieu of re-examining and questioning your own line of reasoning. We live in a viciously racist society, and we are all liable to making racist comments. We can be alert to that, consider and discuss it when the subject comes up, or get defensive and take it personally. Getting defensive and taking it personally effectively shuts down any discussion about racism. That has become one of the main ways that racist attitudes are promoted and perpetuated, denied and obfuscated.

As being the same thing, and stemming from racism. You ignore legitimate reasons for not wanting illegal immigrants, and claim I also hate legal immigrants. When I say I see a difference, you claim I have the same mentality as those who kill innocent iraqis.

So you call me a racist and a murderer, and I'm suppose to be happy about it? And because I defend myself, I hide my racism.

I must hate myself, considering. I never realized! :sarcasm: I'll have to inform my Jewish best friend, my Jewish ex-girlfriends, Hispanic ex-girlfriends, catholic ex-girlfriends, my Hispanic relatives, and my Sioux grandmother.

If you look under every rock for demons, you'll find demons under every rock.

I compared your arguments to the arguments of others and illustrated the similarities.

I did not call you a racist and murderer. You, by way of contrast, have made remarks about me rather than about my statements.

Glad to know that "some of your best friends are...."

I do not believe that anyone "is" a racist, anymore than I believe that anyone "is" illegal. As I said, we live in a viciously and thoroughly racist society, so we are all liable to making racist comments, or to use lines of reasoning that promote racism. Racism is more a state of mind - a set of assumptions an misconceptions - rather than a state of being. To one extent or another, we have all internalized racist ideas and constructs. That is why it is important to talk about, and that is why the right wingers do not want us talking about it, and that is why they use their "how dare you call me a racist!" line to shut down discussions.

So I am not looking under rocks for demons, I am commenting on irrational arguments that we are all likely to be seduced by, that are right out in plain view.

"I am..."



More of "you're a racist and don't even know it."



Which ones would those be? If you grew up more then 50 years ago, aren't you making assumptions on who I am, how I am? How do you know my family life, and how I grew up, or even came into contact with that sort of thinking?

You're basing your assumptions on you. Not me, or who I am.



Sorry, didn't know I was dealing with a republican. You implied it. To me, same as saying I am one.



No you are. You're making assumptions based on your past, and applying them to everyone today. The arguments are only illogical to you. You're looking for demons under every rock.

How does growing up more then 50 years ago mean someone is making assumptions about you? I am not making assumptions based on my past, I am making observations about things people see saying right now.

I have no idea who you are, and don't care. All I know is the things you post. The funny thing is that you are making the assumption that I am making assumptions about you. You are reading "implications" into what I wrote - that because I called the anti-immigration movement racist that therefore I think you are an evil person. I am just responding to what you are writing. No need for any assumptions.

Are you denying that racism is pervasive? Do you not think that "we have all internalized racist ideas and constructs?"

Where did "I didn't know I was dealing with a republican" come from? Just a gratuitous insult to throw around?

Is that all those countries have relatively the same standards of living.

The US and Canada have an open border agreement, but if the countries were not equal, it wouldn't exist.

Open borders leads to equalized standards of living. Closed borders create inequality.

Back up your statement with some real studies.

If workers can travel across borders, then income inequality is eliminated - by definition. No "studies" are required for you to understand that. Workers on both sides of the border have the same shot at the higher standard of living. That is unless, of course, you think that people are poorer in one country than the other because they are somehow inferior. People often do think that. Do you?

When massive numbers of people came from Ireland, did not the standard of living increase for those immigrants? Subsequent to that, did the standard of living for all people here increase or decrease? Obviously, the standard of living increased for both the immigrants and for the general population. That holds true for very wave of immigration from every country.

Now, you could say that the case of the Irish immigrants is "different" because they were inherently superior in some way to the immigrants coming in today. Many people do think that. Do you?

I can tell you something that is not different, that has not changed. The same anti-immigrant arguments you are using today were used against the immigrants from Ireland.

Your line of thought is crap. From someone who didn't know a basic curve in economics, I should listen to you about economics. Sure!. While I'm at it, I'll get advice on fixing my car from a lawyer instead of a mechanic.

I said, show me real studies.

More workers means lower wages. The jobs Americans USED TO DO are now being taken by illegal immigrants willing to work lower than minimum wage. That means that American workers can't even get their feet in the door to be trained because the people they are competing with for jobs don't have to play by the rules that they do.

More workers means more work gets done and more work needs to be done. There is absolutely no logical argument to support the notion that more people means less need for workers, or lower wages.

Immigrants make lees when they stay then when they come here (or they wouldn't come.) Obviously, sending them back results in more jobs being outsourced and in the depression of wages globally.

Immigrants are playing by a much harder set of rules than you and I are. They are at a disadvantage, not an advantage. (If this upside down inside out world we are living in here???)

As with all of the anti-immigrant arguments, this one contradicts itself - the immigrants cannot simultaneously be advantaged, and disadvantaged. I think it is clear that people do not want brown people here, and are just making up and throwing out any old plausible argument against the immigrants to disguise the real reason. The arguments are so illogical and absurd.

Amnesty will solve all of the wage issues. Deportation will worsen the wage situation. Of course.

Not a less need, but in the system we have, there are a finite number of PAYING jobs ( That you can live on ), more people, more competition, lower wages.



Addressed above. more BS



Illegal immigrants, not legal immigrants. People love to do that, so they can pass it off as racism and ignore it.



supply and demand curve. You missed that part in economics in high school, as evidenced by this entire post.

I agree. Jobs are disappearing, wages are collapsing.

But less workers does not solve the problem, since every worker is also a consumer and all prosperity depends upon consumers. 100 workers/consumers is not somehow worse than 10 workers/consumers. How could it be? Explain that to me.



Yes, I missed that. I grew up in a Union household and before Chicago school supply-side trickle down Reaganomics were taught or taken seriously by very many people. Glad I missed that. You state "supply and demand" as though it were an immutable unquestionable law of the universe. Care to defend it, or are we all just supposed to "know" that it is true? Even Greenspan has fallen off of that bandwagon, and if that school of economics has not been discredited for people by recent events, I don't know what would snap them out of their "free market" coma.

If workers were not consumers, and if the economy were not dependent upon consumers, then we could look at Labor as a commodity. Even Henry Ford knew that - ya gotta pay the workers enough so they can afford to buy the car they make, and the more workers there are the more cars you will sell. Doh.



Now we are getting somewhere.

Here is a real life conversation I just had with someone who agrees with you and used many of the same arguments that people are using on this thread. I defy anyone here to claim that this is not a typical and representative discussion on this issue. It could go for hours around in the same circles, but here is a little sampling.

Him: We have to do something about the illegal immigrant problem.

Me: What problem, where?

Him: Well right here for example.

Me: How do you know there is a problem?

Him: I can see them, are you kidding?

Me: You can see immigrants, and tell that they are undocumented? How?

Him: Who is kidding whom here, I can see them on the farms I drive past.

Me: See whom?

Him: Illegals.

Me: How do you know?

Him: Well they are Mexicans.

Me: And that makes them illegal?

Him: Well, we know that most of the illegals are Mexicans, don't we, I mean come on. Let's not be naive.

Me: So that is the problem? How would you know that the problem were solved?

Him: If we didn't have all of them around everywhere.

Me: So not having Mexicans around everywhere would mean the problem were solved, would tell you that the problem were solved?

Him: Well sure, wouldn't it? I mean, they shouldn't be here illegally. That is the main thing.

Me: So you don't want Mexicans around?

Him: I am not against Mexicans, but the law is the law. Besides they are taking away our jobs and working cheap and pushing wages down.

Me: Don't you think they are contributing?

Him: No, they are taking welfare and benefits, but not paying taxes. And besides, there is more crime when they come.

Me: How do you know those things?

Him: The point is they are breaking the law.

Me: what should happen to them?

Him: They should go back to their own country and fix things there instead of taking from us.

Me: What if they want to stay here?

Him: Then they should be forcibly sent back.

Me: What if they have spouses or children here?

Him: Well they should have thought of that and not had children here.

Me: What should happen to their children if they are deported?

Him: They will have to go back, too I guess.

Me: "Back?" They have never been in the home country.

Him: Well, like I said their parents should have thought of that before. Should have been more responsible.

Me: Having children is irresponsible?

Him: When you can't support them it is.

Me: But the parents are working and supporting them.

Him: But the parents are illegal.

Me: But the children are not illegal. Why should they suffer? They are American citizens, born here.

Him: They shouldn't come here to have their children.

I did. For some reason, you don't want to see it. There are a finite number of jobs, as evidenced by the unemployment numbers. More people, more competition for jobs, lower wages. Or did you miss the fact that the country has 10% unemployment, and wages have been stagnant for the past 30 years?



you really missed the boat. Supply and demand wasn't Reaganomics. The Supply and Demand curve has been around since 1870, and even before that. It is taught in basic economics, and it is a law of capitalism.

If you don't want to understand, or can't, that's your failing.

As far as your little dialog, nice story. I could explain my reasons, from jobs, assimilation, and exploitation, but you're not going to listen. You have the moral high ground in your mind. Others view it as the moral valley, and that's why blue collar people vote republican.

As I said earlier, even Greenspan has gotten off that sinking boat.

You have yet to support your assertion that "there is a finite number of jobs." As I pointed out, as more people came to this country, the number of jobs increased. Therefore, the number of jobs was not, and has never been "finite."

How do "the unemployment numbers" show that there is a finite number of jobs? (there is not an infinite number of jobs, either, but the upper end is restricted by the number of people the earth could support, which is I suppose a sort of supply and demand. That very real supply and demand is at odds with your idea of supply and demand, however, which presupposes unlimited resources and growth, but a limited number of jobs.)

Do you deny that more workers also means more consumers?

Are you claiming that 10% unemployment, and wages being stagnant for 30 years is the fault of immigrants? If not why bring it up? If so, I would point out that approximately the same number of immigrants were here before there was 10% unemployment (it is much higher than that, by the way) and that there were far fewer immigrants back 30 years ago when wages began stagnating.

You said "show me some studies." Studies that show that the population has increased here and that the number of jobs has also increased? Do you doubt that? Do you deny that?

Let's hear that "assimilation" argument you have been holding back.

Supply and demand was taught in high school, even before Greenspan was at the fed. You seem to be getting the economic theories mixed up.

If you can't understand how there is a finite number of jobs, and the unemployment numbers show that, then going any farther is a waste of time.

Like I said, your mind is snapped shut, and you're not going to believe anything you don't want to believe, because then you might have to take another look at your views.

Workers try to move to where wages are higher.

Owners try to move jobs to where wages are lower.

When workers move away from where they can only earn $5 a day to where they can earn $15 an hour, labor costs more for the owners.

When workers are not free to do that, labor costs less for the owners.

When labor costs less for the owners, we lose jobs here and labor is devalued - the owners are in fact paying less, and there are in fact fewer jobs here.

When workers move to higher wages, the owners are in fact paying more, and there is less $5 a day labor available.

Now, explain to me how it is a function of "supply and demand" - the "law of capitalism" - that when workers move to higher wages, wages go down, and when owners move to lower wages, wages go up.

What about that is so fucking difficult to grasp?

The solution to that is to organize and collectively bargain. There is no other solution. Calling in the cops on your fellow working class people - never. Unthinkable.

What is so difficult to grasp about that?

Immigrants are reversing the trend in this country and leading the way to a revival and rejuvenation of the organized Labor movement. That is probably the most valuable thing they are contributing to our future. When I say "our" or "we" I mean the working people, not the wealthy and their shills who say "we cannot afford" this that or the other, who want to control the movement of workers, who want to enforce borders, and who claim that "there is s finite number of jobs" to obscure the fact that they are eliminating jobs and who want us to blame our fellow workers for depressing wages so we don't organize against the owners - the ones who are depressing wags and eliminating jobs to increase their profits.

Workers moving from where they are forced to accept $5 a day to where they can earn $10 an hour doing the same work helps all of us and hurts the bosses. It makes all of the difference in the world which side you are defending - the workers or the owners. The owners go across borders to increase their profits - by driving wages down. Why cannot workers defend themselves by moving across borders to get more pay? How does one worker making more hurt other workers? It does not. That is the classic argument used commonly against organized Labor - divide and conquer used against the workers, creating antagonisms and jealousies between workers. That always serves the owners.

bankruptcy attorneys and debt collectors.

"Helps all of us" - what intolerably disgusting lies.

Are you being paid to post this garbage?

Your position is as anti-labor as you can get.

You gain no credibility and do not help your argument with posts like this.

Abolish slavery UNION JOBS FOR ILLEGALS NOW. They are here for a better way of life.

That is how Capitalism works!!!!

Was on one of the cable shows yesterday explaining his plan for legalizing those here already. I found it interesting, fair and a doable solution.

This link doesn't cover in depth about the plan. Anyone from Illinois more familiar with the nuts and bolts of the plan?

http://luisgutierrez.house.gov/Issue.aspx?IssueID=4

'If you legalize the immigrants you free the slaves.'

You nailed it. K.Hovanian is building homes across the street. Have no idea what he's paying them or if they are legal. All the workers are Mexican. I know because I talk to them. HARD WORKERS exceptionally courteous and all around nice guys. They work from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. stopping only for 30 minutes to eat.

I have to agree with your post 100%. This has infuriated me for so long that I can't stay silent any longer.

The US business owners that hire illegals want them solely because they can pay them SLAVE WAGES with NO benefits.

If the illegals complain, they are deported or fired.

This is no different than plantation owners exploiting African slaves before the Civil War.

I guess I don't have enough posts yet to start a new thread, so I hope someone else will take up the mantle.

We need an EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION FOR ILLEGALS. IMMEDIATE CITIZENSHIP AND MINIMUM WAGE BY EXECUTIVE ORDER!

People argued that Lincoln overstepped the bounds of his presidency by freeing the African slaves. People also argued that his Emancipation Proclamation only applied to slaves in the SOUTH, and so was null and void at the time it was issued. Yet the slaves ended up free at the end of the war.

We need the same thing now! People will hate it but it will stand!

Minimum wage for illegals by PROCLAMATION! DO IT NOW, MR. OBAMA!

:hi:

These people come here because they want to work. I say, penalize the employers, not the undocumented workers.

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