<p>“They are here at the invitation of the governmnet for big business to make more profits. Do you realize how much business owners save not having to pay Soc Sec, unemployment taxes or benefits, as well as paying lower wages?”</p>
<p>All because the Bush Administration will not enforce the current law. There is absolutely nothing that prevents a company from doing exactly the same with citizens.</p>
<p>“By the way, Altmom, please excuse anything Mini says. He’s been anti-american even when he was on government board.”</p>
<p>The only anti-Americans are those who refuse to recognize the rights of their fellow CITIZENS, citizenship having been attained the same way they did. If you don’t like it, leave - there are plenty of others willing to abide by and support the Constitution, even if you aren’t.</p>
<p>Ah, but Mini, you know how much easier it is to exploit illegal immigrants than American workers, who must be paid minimum wage. The “living wage” argument, which businesses fight so vigorously, only affects citizens, not illegals. Businesses will absolutely continue to employ illegals, who require no insurance, benefits, government tax contributions…and who will work for less than minimum wage to boot.</p>
<p>My question to you LakeWashington is what were the average Wal-Mart employees doing before getting hired at WM. I doubt they were making $30 an hour at Boeing. Many probably were working similar wage jobs for other retailers less stable than WM such as your average 7-11 or maybe McD’s. Many were unemployed and getting by on public assistance–see the lines of thousands that lined up when WM opened stores in some ghetto areas of Chicago. To many WM is a step up the ladder to real steady work for real pay. Not high pay but not public assistance either. </p>
<p>As to the grants for roads etc by some cities to attract a WM, that is an economic development decision. In areas where the city gets a cut of the sales tax it often is profitable to the city to get WM. I’d let the local folks decide if it is worth it. I doubt they got much going into Renton and other areas near Seattle.</p>
<p>And my guess is that WalMart workers in Renton are paid more (don’t know how much more) than their fellow employees in other states because of the relatively high degree of preparedness [schooling?] of workers and the low unemployment rate in western Washington. In other words, WalMart can’t use its size and strength to demand concessions in relatively prosperous localities. And politically, those localities are not going to suffer gladly the voluntarily taking up the societal/social slack for WalMart and the like. I compare it to the growth/developement debate; new home construction/developers/purchasers should bear the extra cost for the provision of additional public services if that additional service creates a burden on the existing system [such as public schools].</p>
<p>“I compare it to the growth/developement debate; new home construction/developers/purchasers should bear the extra cost for the provision of additional public services if that additional service creates a burden on the existing system [such as public schools].”</p>
<p>When I lived in a high-growth area the developers had to pay a surcharge for roads. However, it went into a general fund that was not specific for the area being developed. Consequently the very wealthy areas used political clout to get money from the funds for their areas, and the less wealthy areas got less funding, even if they were the ones with more development. The wealthy areas also got the laws about requiring middle/low income units/houses to be built overturned when it was their turn to get the lower middle/lower income housing.</p>
<p>I worked for a city in Socal that had such fees for new homes. It was used as a slush fund to pay for whatever the city wanted to do–usually had nothing to do with new roads, parks etc.</p>
<p>“I did not obtain my American citizenship by being born here to illegal immigrants.”</p>
<p>My father did, strictly speaking. There were quotas on Jews from Eastern Europe, so my grandfather got a visa to go to Cuba. This was around 1920. After two years in Cuba, you could pretend you were entering the US as a “Cuban” immigrant, so that’s what he did. And then he turned a job selling blankets door-to-door into a business that eventually employed 20 union workers, he became a US citizen, and he sent all four of his kids to college. He had about a 3d-grade education and never really got the hang of English (no points for him!), but he did a lot more for the US economy than any of his grad-school-educated kids and grandkids. You never know who will turn up among the huddled masses. So I’ve never been tempted to judge native-born American citizens for the sins of their parents. Should my dad’s US passport be revoked because of my grandfather’s fraud on the nation? Where should he go?</p>
<p>Obviously, his US passport will not be revoked since the US Constituion, as presently interpreted, makes him a US citizen.</p>
<p>Whether it “should” be revoked is a question that needs to be addressed by the courts.</p>
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<p>Well, if he were to decide to repent for his fathers’ fraud on the US government (his choice at this late point), then to the country of his parents’ citizenship would make sense.</p>
<p>Finally, the contribution your grandfather made to the US economy has no bearing on a finding of his fraud on the US government.</p>
<p>Don’t forget worker’s compensation. In Louisiana, it’s extremely high for the construction industry. Something like 35% of gross pay. All that stays in the company if they have undocumented workers up on the roof.</p>
<p>Worse, this translates into carelessness with the workers’ safety. Workers don’t have gloves or eye protection, let alone mold abatement masks. (The employer is required by law to issue these things when needed). People have died in easily preventable construction accidents. Till someone does, the companies get away with this, because to whom can the workers complain?</p>
<p>I don’t know that I feel quite so strongly about the issue as Bay does, in the sense that all of the past relatives’ (anyone’s) mistakes should be paid for or rectified by the later generations. (Anywhere in the last 100+yrs., including recently.)</p>
<p>Nor do I feel it is appropriate to take the stand that our (laughably called) political “leadership” does: 'We can’t do anything about any immigration, legal or illegal. Immigration just, you know, “happens.” '</p>
<p>Certainly some things <em>can</em> be done. Mass deportation of everyday immigrants, working productively? No, not my position. Deportation of anyone convicted of a crime, particularly a violent one? You betcha. You see, Mexico is laughing all the way to several banks. They get the Free Ride from all the dollars being poured into Mexico by Mexicans living in the U.S. They get the free ride from <em>our</em> providing welfare to <em>their</em> citizens. They get a free ride by <em>our</em> housing <em>their</em> criminals. </p>
<p>I would not equate violent gang members with productive field hands or other workers. But again, we just have no intelligent, well constructed, proactive, responsive policy, to the reality – and it is a reality – of immigration. We don’t have one <em>toward</em> the countries of origin. We don’t have one with regard to their absorption & assimilation here. We don’t provide real transitions, educationally & culturally, for people we seem infiinitely willing to accept. We don’t take stock of the affect on our citizens (schools, hospitals, low-skilled native-born workers) of large waves of newcomers. It’s not that it’s always a negative: it’s that it does have an affect, period. And the idiot Congress (sorry for being disrespectful) refuses to acknowledge the extent of that affect, & how to make fair adjustments.</p>
<p>Rather than dwelling on the past, I’m more about going forward <em>now</em>, and stopping the nonsense, stopping the failure to differentiate between those who will likely add to our society and those (like criminals) who have proven to be a negative. I do not see this proposed bill as “getting real” about these distinctions. I don’t see realism in the US Congress about this. Not one bit.</p>
<p>OK, well, my statements were not meant as an attack upon anyone, or even a judgment. Some people in fact feel strongly about the issue, & I understand many of those reasons. That’s fine if you don’t, & you’ve clarified that; it doesn’t affect me one way or the other, though.</p>
<p>As an example of the lack of Congressional focus on the future, I have heard more recent amendment arguments & competing proposals by various congresspeople which, specify fluent English as a prerequisite to immigration, whereas I haven’t yet heard of how that has been proposed in practice or how it will be enforced. Nor have I heard or read any proposals about how to modify the decidedly semi-literate & non-Anglo focus of much of the current public school classroom – as an acknowledgement of what in fact uncontrolled illegal immigration has wrought, educationally. Congress is simply out of touch with the reality of day to day living for the non-privileged class.</p>
<p>Really a bizarre combination of pie-in-the-sky idealism on the one hand, and brute cynicism on the other.</p>
<p>I still don’t know why Congress thinks they have a mandate from the vast majority of US citizens to give amnesty?</p>
<p>In the schools, I think that educationally the children of all non-English speaking immigrants should only be taught in English. That has proven very effective for speakers of all languages. They lag behind in many different standards if they don’t get immersed quickly. That helps them, and makes it more cost-efficient for school systems.</p>
<h1>1 - I agree about the phony mandate statements. It’s quite the opposite,btw. I have read figures of 70% & 80%, when it comes to the public being very much <em>against</em> many of the provisions in this bill, & overwhelmingly in favor of far stricter controls. Yes, the Congress has a mandate all right: a mandate to <em>reform</em>, and I don’t think the public sees this as reform in the right direction, let alone “comprehensive.” (The most laughable of all descriptions.) Not realistic, not comprehensive, not cohesive. Just stupid. Just pandering. Just convenient. Just looking the other way. Just uninformed about impact.</h1>
<h1>2 - Classes are taught in English. (And bilingual education – a failed experiment if ever there was one – has been outlawed in the publics in my State.) However, the environment of the student is overwhelmingly Spanish-language (parents and neighborhood), and there is still quite a bit of accommodating, pandering, bowing & scraping, within the public school system. (Materials are sometimes bilingual, which imo crosses the line of the law.) And, as another poster also stated much earlier on this thread, translators are often on-grounds at heavily immigrant schools, to conference with parents. Their native language is forever being reinforced; the host language is not being required, encouraged in any meaningful way. English speaking teachers trying to teach high school curriculum (for example, history) to non-Engl. speaking students, is a joke. Zero progress is being made. Whole classes, even whole schools or portions of schools should be set aside for immersion – for parents & students. How to pay for it? Future taxes on those immigrants, possibly. Clearly they would not be in a position to pay for it upon entry, unless there were provisions in a bill for that.</h1>
<p>I think this is one case where the “public” may not understand the true options and the impact of them over time. This is why we have a paid group of representatives to study and consider all the impacts of the alternatives. Sometimes there are no happy solutions. Just the best of a bad lot. It is too late to turn back the clock to 1950.</p>
<p>A government is on occasion representative in name but not in actuality. The lawmakers are not for the most part listening to their constituents on this one, nor are they factually informed. Their approach has been lazy, superficial, and frankly, not really honest. They have not demonstrated a grasp of the facts necessary to construct relevant legislation.</p>