TerpDad

On the fourth of July, We celebrated at the beach. While driving through the neighborhood of Encinitas, I was stunned at the number of day laborers milling about in hopes of finding work. The local community is overwhelmed. It can be seen as an indication of the cutbacks that are starting to take place.

sueinphilly

zoosermom, I am sorry if I insulted your husband. Congrats to him for making a living without the benefit of education. I only have a HS diploma, and am grateful for having made my way up to middle class.

You do have to agree that no or only HS education puts someone behind before they get started. Unfortunately not everyone is willing/able to work 2 jobs.

zoosermom

I agree completely. Which is why I'm here. I want better for my kids. The cool thing for me is that when decision time comes next year, I know there's a group of posters who will help guide us through. I feel very fortunate.

ucsd_ucla_dad

terpdad:

A large number of day laborers, many to most illegal according to articles I've read, milling about waiting to be picked up for different day jobs is normal in that area and many other areas in the county. Most locals can tell you exactly where they are. There have always been large numbers of them - for years. I'm sure the economy must have some effect, especially in the building profession, but even in boom times there are plenty of them looking for work.

Encinitas, Solana Beach, Rancho Santa Fe (a very wealthy area), Escondido, and many other areas have unofficial 'designated pickup spots' for them. There are a lot of fairly expensive homes, many on a quarter acre, acre, several acres, in the general area there and they frequently are hired to work in landscaping as well as building labor. Many of them live multiple families to a single family dwelling and a fair number just live in camps in the canyons around here (you can tell by the enormous amounts of trash they leave behind).

mathmom

I'm still confused about NAFTA, I thought there was supposed to be a big sucking sound of jobs going to Mexico not a wave of Mexican immigration here...

barrons

Oh that's just Mini trying to blame all the world's problems on the US. If you do a little research on it you will see he's as full of it as usual. Most starting coming because they saw a former neighbor sending home what to them was riches to his family and they wanted that for themselves. Farming would never allow them the lifestyle a US job could provide--even a menial one.

lspf72

I have very mixed feelings about this whole issue, and no good ideas for solutions.

However, I think the attitude that we need illegal aliens because Americans won't do the jobs they're doing is untrue. The jobs got done in the past. My husband and I both grew up mowing lawns and doing yard work (now called landscaping), as did many teenagers. S's friend is a custodian, and we know plenty of non-illegal people who do the grunt work in construction, painting,masonry, paving, and yes, landscaping. Most of us clean our own homes. Locally, at least, I just don't see it.

I do agree that there should be crackdowns on people who continually hire illegals and landlords who fill rental houses to the brim. And as a parent of daughters, I'd be lying if I said I loved walking downtown and seeing a couple dozen young men hanging out on the street, regardless of who they are or where they came from. There aren't enough jobs, they have nothing to do, and it's trouble waiting to happen. Several surrounding towns now have trouble with gangs, which isn't surprising.

Another problem is the lack of education in some of the basics, like driving. I see many immigrant parents driving without their children buckled in. And I know I posted once before of our own close calls. S1 and I were one swerve away from being killed by an illegal immigrant using a borrowed license who had absolutely no idea how to drive. Luckily he just ended up sideswiping some parked cars, and neither he, his friend, nor his terrified (unbuckled) little boy were hurt. Another time my VW ended up on the sidewalk in a busy town after being broadsided by a pickup being driven by some immigrant men who were desperately trying to follow their co-workers' truck, by going left through a red light. Two coincidences too many for me.

Also, when people speak out against illegal immigration,, there seems to be a tendency to brand them all as intolerant or prejudiced. You can recognize or critique a problem without personal malice. I've gotten to know some of the hispanic families in our middle school and have taught ESL to young women who have arrived here from Central and South America. I don't know if they're here legally or illegally. But that doesn't mean I think the overall picture is a good one. There are so many complicated issues tied in that need to be addressed, and I don't think there are any easy solutions.

spideygirl

My two cents is that this is a very difficult issue to sort out. For the future, we certainly need as a nation to control our borders. As far as those who are already here illegally goes, can we really send children "home" to what is now to them a foreign land? I'm not sure that when we consider an actual person, someone that we know or have met (instead of abstractions), that many of us could actually carry out sending illegals home. I know I couldn't. If someone committed a crime - of course I would feel differently. I just think that to really know what we think, we need to consider a real person instead of a statistic, and see what the heart tells us to do then.

Now for some levity...If you haven't watched this crazy character already, go to youtube.com and search "the guy from Boston immigrants". It's unbelievable (offensive, yet hilarious because there really are people out there like this guy). Do not watch this if you are easily offended or have no sense of humor (or a different sense of humor). This is for those who like stand up or SNL-type stuff. I'm wondering if he is a real person, or an actor. My guess is that he might actually be real. Now THAT is scary!

epiphany

"However, in general, discussions seem to relate monolithic and faceless blocks of world citizens, and not families and individuals. "

'Seem to' --to you, perhaps, but it is not a valid conclusion about the viewpoints of those who actually want a policy, taking into account the mathematics & practicalities involved -- including economic, environmental, educational, & many other consequences. The 'seems' is merely your impression, which strikes me as a surface & very generalized impression. This whole line of argument is part of the undifferentiated 'either/or' I mentioned on a similar thread. Scratch the surface, and it doesn't work. There are xenophobes, there are idealists who can''t bother with everyday details & consequences, and then there are millions of caring, thoughtful Americans in between those extremes who believe that the only just, compassionate, & effective policy is to consider the LONG-RANGE futures of undocumented workers from Mexico (especially), potential immigrants (legal & not, from many countries) & the present/future needs of the U.S. in many domestic spheres.

Just because I am not personally housing Homeless Joe in a neighborhood near me, does not mean that he is faceless and nameless to me, or that collectively all residents from an economically depressed neighborhood near me are just "blocks" of "people," in quotes.

Bay

That Mexico would feel like a "foreign land" to Mexican illegal immigrants living in California is a stretch. We have entire cities here that are made up of mostly Spanish-speaking immigrants. All of the advertising, services and storefronts are in Spanish, and the children are taught in Spanish. It is more likely that non-Spanish-speaking Americans driving through these American cities would feel like they are driving through a "foreign land."

xiggi

Epi, that is one heck of an erroneous conclusion, but also one that hardly needs a correction. I am sorry you believe me to be a person who confuses surface and very generalized impressions with the pursuit of facts and truths.

ReneeV

Humanitarians have legitimate concerns about NAFTA's effect on Mexico's rural poor. I was in southern Mexico in 1994 when violence broke out in Chiapas, Mexico's poorest state. The rebels (EZLN) had strong leftist backing, but they also had broad appeal because they held out hope for change to peasants who knew their marginal economy was about to be wiped out. Corn was the main product of small Chiapas farmers, and the peasants knew it would be impossible for them to compete with the lower priced corn that would be flooding in from US mega-farms. At the same time, they were being squeezed by the big coffee, banana, and cacao growers (who would profit from NAFTA), with the result that more and more peasants were being forced off their land.

According to a World Bank policy research working paper (SSRN-Poverty in Rural and Semi-urban Mexico During 1992-2002 by Dorte Verner, the headcount poverty rate in urban areas of northern Mexico (where the “NAFTA” factories or maquiladoras are) in 2002 was just under 5%, an improvement of 3% from 1992. Some US factory jobs did move to these regions, where maquiladora workers earned 6-10 dollars a day (roughly double the average daily wage). However, I think in the future they’ll find it difficult to compete with China. In rural areas of southern Mexico, the poverty rate is 47.9%, up 2% from 1992 (before NAFTA). Poverty is defined in the report as extreme poverty, with insufficient means to meet nutrition needs.

Granted, the statistics I cite do not support a causal relationship between the implementation of NAFTA and increasing immigration. But I grew up in agricultural central Washington. What is happening there now is “new” immigration—not from the Cristero war-torn central highlands like my grandparents’ generation, nor from Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas, like the 60s-70s migrant kids who were my classmates for part of each year and had decent homes and attended school in Mexico during the winter (and many of whom are now solidly situated in the middle class in my hometown), nor from the border cities after a several-year sojourn in SoCal barrios like those that arrived in the 80s and early 90s. Now many come straight from Oaxaca and Chiapas, the areas hardest hit by NAFTA. They have had no formal education and are illiterate in Spanish, which is frequently a second language. They were marginalized before they ever left home, and they are desperate, and they will take any job they can get to support their families.

Like others, I don’t have a solution. But I think any response should include compassion and an understanding of contributing factors.

epiphany

"I am sorry you believe me to be a person who confuses surface and very generalized impressions with the pursuit of facts and truths."

^^ only in the particular statement so cited. It was very generalized, i.m.o., very broad-brush. Appreciating the human needs of individuals is not incompatible with desiring & forming an immigration policy which has limits in mind (whatever those are) and which is actually enforced.

xiggi

Epiphany, I could not disagree more with your conclusion, but so be it. My statement, even taken out of its original context, is not superficial and actually goes to the heart of the problem.

If you happen to think that a statement such as "Blame the Mexican government" is an example of deep and balanced analysis, power to you.

cptofthehouse

Perhaps the jobs that are not getting takers from Americans do not pay enough for the difficulty and danger that such jobs entail. I know that there are some companies that offer seasonal work at $10/hr which is above min wage, and when those jobs become available, the lines are miles long to get such positions. I know that some of the payments that the construction/lawn folks are offering the men who wait for such jobs at the site down the road are not the sort of thing that many Americans would consider adequate with safety measures sometimes nonexistant. I don't think you can point to the site and say that because the men there are mostly (presumably) illegals, that only illegals are willing to do the work. I would not want my kids, for instance, to be milling around there waiting for the boss man to pick them for a job somewhere, with no idea of terms, conditions who the person is, illegal payments, etc. However, if anyone calls here asking for some big strapping boys to do a hard day's work for a fair or even low wage, he'll get some LEGAL workers in a heartbeat. My kids and many of their friends are eagerly looking for work that is hard to come by here.