Illegals commit 1,000,000 sex crimes in US

Parent Cafe
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<p>“I don’t think Christians must support illegal immigration. Indeed I don’t support it. But a lot of Christians are against “The Illegals” themselves, and demonstrate little or no compassion for their plight. I think their attitude runs contrary to the heart of Christ”</p>

<p>I am a Christian who is adamantly opposed to illegal immigration. Without question. As I’ve posted before, I am also a Christian who realizes that people are here and it’s better for everyone if they succeed, so I’ve been a literacy volunteer dealing primarily with illegals for more than 20 years. I don’t regret my time. I’ve seen and learned a lot, helped some. That’s good enough for me. I think this issue is extremely complicated, though, and have been reading in various newspapers lately about how economic downturn will affect illegal immigration and wonder what the whole picture of that will be. I also do think that employers should face enforcement of existing laws. I’m not a cruel person, but I sincerely don’t believe that unregulated immigration by many uneducated people in the era of the welfare state is a wholly good thing. I also think (as I’ve posted before) that not every person who crosses the border does so to make a better life. As someone who actually interacts with and maintains relationships with people so situated, I think I’m correct in saying that people here illegally are a complicated mix.</p>

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<p>Most waitresses understate their tip income. Why aren’t people demanding that they be sent to Mexico? In fact, why aren’t people pointing out that most of them are tax evaders?</p>

<p>If people were concerned about people who shortchange the public fisc, they wouldn’t target illegal immigrants. Certainly not to the exclusion of others who do so more readily and to the tune of far more lost revenue than the illegal immigrant population shortchanges the public fisc.</p>

<p>Illegal immigration poses some problems, but the ones I keep hear (and read) as the biggest ones just aren’t so awful. And I very much want to see controls in place and enforced, but the righteous of people who, like me, have done NOTHING to earn our American citizenship besides falling out of our mother’s wombs in a particular geographic zone, is just a bit much.</p>

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I do not think this is a good argument to support illegal immigration. Let’s say all illegal immigrants left gradually-- leaving unskilled labor opportunities for legal residents. What would happen? It seems to me the next lowest group would take the work. That work will not by any means go undone. Employers would raise wages for these jobs until they attract legal people to do them. I don’t know much about these things, but I can’t see how it would cause a disaster in the long run.</p>

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<p>Zoosermom, I think you’ve hit it on the head: it’s a complex situation involving lots of different people/situations/motivations, etc. Simplistic answers are unlikely to result in a good solution. </p>

<p>And Drosselmeier - you’re also right: if there were no illegals to exploit the work would still get done, but the pay scale would have to rise - and that’s not a bad thing, in my opinion. But the driving force isn’t the workers, it’s the employers who make out by having an easily exploitable and compliant mass of workers available to depress all blue collar wages and minimize worker’s insistence on being treated with respect who will prevent any significant change to the status quo.</p>

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<p>Let’s say all illegal immigrants left gradually-- leaving unskilled labor opportunities for legal residents. What would happen? It seems to me the next lowest group would take the work. That work will not by any means go undone. Employers would raise wages for these jobs until they attract legal people to do them</p>

<p>Ok lets say I have a landscaping company. I hire undocumented workers ( or at least I don’t check), because I only pay a few bucks over minimum wage, more for my head worker. Lots better than what they were earning in Mexico, but about half what my husband earns to make specialized parts for the space shuttle.</p>

<p>My clients are singlefamily homeowners or property managers. I charge them about $30-$-40 an hour. I have found that this amount gets us the most work, gives me enough to pay more workers and expenses and a little to keep the business going. My clients can’t afford to pay more, how can they? For many this is a splurge that they rationalize because they really don’t have time or knowledge to do themselves.</p>

<p>Without charging more, I can’t pay my workers more- however I would love to know how that can be done?</p>

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<p>"Zoosermom, I think you’ve hit it on the head: it’s a complex situation involving lots of different people/situations/motivations, etc. Simplistic answers are unlikely to result in a good solution. "</p>

<p>Wow, Kluge, thank you. On a purely personal note, religion and politics aside, I don’t have it in my heart to deny a person the ability to read if they happen to cross my path.</p>

<p>“you’re also right: if there were no illegals to exploit the work would still get done, but the pay scale would have to rise - and that’s not a bad thing, in my opinion. But the driving force isn’t the workers, it’s the employers who make out by having an easily exploitable and compliant mass of workers available to depress all blue collar wages and minimize worker’s insistence on being treated with respect who will prevent any significant change to the status quo.”</p>

<p>I think this is the absolute core of the problem.</p>

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<p>*But the driving force isn’t the workers, it’s the employers who make out by having an easily exploitable and compliant mass of workers available to depress all blue collar wages and minimize worker’s insistence on being treated with respect who will prevent any significant change to the status *</p>

<p>The driving force is the American consumer who insists on cheap goods and services.
My husband has belonged to a union as long as I have known him. For about 9 years he worked in the shipyards installing airtight doors- hardly unskilled. However, shipyard contracts are few and far between and they had to all but shut down during the early 80’s. It took him several years to find a comparable paying job, because all the potential employers said that as soon as the shipyards started up again, he would be back to them. They never did start up, and we made ends meet by mowing yards and doing child care.
He now is the only one at his site in his position, still belongs to a union, but when the company determines your job classification cap, the fact that you have been in your position for 20 years doesn’t mean a lot to your paycheck.
His income hasn’t changed for 10 years, except for when he has forced overtime. Luckily he has workmans comp, as it is a very physical job that not a lot of men in their mid 50s would be able to do.
I wouldn’t be able to pay my undocumented workers if they were hurt, how could I , I wouldn’t have any money coming in.</p>

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<p>Im expecting that those who are against workers without documentation, also refuse to buy anything ( or at least limit their purchases of) goods made where workers are paid a pittance to what they would be paid in US?
And never fly Airbus of course ;)</p>

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<p>

It seems to me they can and will pay more for the service if they think it is needed. They will afford it by charging more to their clients, who will in turn charge more to theirs until all balances out. Everything should balance until we have what we have now, but without exploiting illegal workers. It seems our current low prices for goods are necessarily temporary—or they depend upon a perpetual flow of illegal/exploited workers.</p>

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<p>EmeraldKity, of course consumers will buy the least expensive goods and services. But its all relative. If the least expensive goods and services cost 20% more than they do now, that’s what people will buy. The problem is that consumers now have the option of buying cheaper stuff, so they do.</p>

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<p>The IRS has made it very tough to underreport tip income. They are regularly doing audits of credit card receipts and comparing that to reported income. Several have gotten into very hot water so most are being more truthful.</p>

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<p>Perhaps I am unusual- but even though we hardly have unlimited income- we don’t use cost as main criteria for our current expenditures.</p>

<p>We are more likely to shop around and patronize companies who are local,who treat their workers fairly, who don’t invest in things that harm people/environment in the case of larger companies & who provide quality goods/services.</p>

<p>These are all things that anyone can do now.
<a href=“http://ethisphere.com/2007-worlds-most-ethical-companies/[/url]”>http://ethisphere.com/2007-worlds-most-ethical-companies/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/sc/0510/sc0510-fairtrade.html[/url]”>http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/sc/0510/sc0510-fairtrade.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://www.globalexchange.org/[/url]”>http://www.globalexchange.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>If people refused to patronize companies who offshore their work and told them why, if we refused to buy things produced by countries that apparently have quality control issues, where we buy our groceries even boycotts companies that they have carried in the past because of human rights violations, if the consumer showed with their pocketbook that they are going to spend their money elsewhere- the effect would be much faster than simply “ending” illegal immigration and forcing companies to manufacture products within US borders and force those companies to pay a living wage.</p>

<p>Im thinking about all those families for whom it wouldn’t matter how much factory jobs pay an hour, because perhaps they are the only adult in the house working. Maybe they can’t even get full time work because of injury or whatever. You are going to tell them that all their goods and services are going to cost more so that , that factory job, or housekeeper in a hotel is paid more?
Gas will go to $5 a gallon instead of $3.20? How much are we going to have to pay people in order for them to be able to afford that?</p>

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<p>so to apply this to college costs- Colleges should charge more- until they have enough funds to pay all their profs and staff fairly- because the families who pay for tuition will compensate by earning more money.</p>

<p>Seems pretty clear to me</p>

<p>It seems to me they can and will pay more for the service if they think it is needed. They will afford it by charging more to their clients, who will in turn charge more to theirs until all balances out. Everything should balance until we have what we have now,</p>

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If they can’t afford it, the price of gas WILL come down. No one is gonna sit on a million barrels of gas just because no one will buy it at $5/gal. I remember when gas was $.88/gal. We are now paying $3.50+ a gal. And wages have/are going to either increase to accommodate this, or the price of gas will fall. The same would happen with price increases due to the elimination of illegal workers.</p>

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I have never taken economics, so I am not trying to act like I know what the fact is here. But price, it seems to me, is a function of the aggregate value a market places on any service or good. So colleges will charge as much as the market is willing to pay, that figure being in a sense a “vote” of the market’s confidence in the service. Professors’ salaries will be derived from this figure, however “fair” we individually and subjectively determine them to be.</p>

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<p>College costs are not comparative to other products and services. College tuition cost is not based on what a student will pay. Part of the cost is whether it is a state/public (Mandated) school or a private school. Another cost issue is for state/public is if the student is “IN STATE” or “OUT OF STATE”. It’s also based on how many people apply to go to the school. If more people apply than traditional openings, then the price will go up over time. If the school is under registered, the price will go down over time. Part of this is because of the cost of teaching and supporting more students. (It isn’t proportional). Also, rarely if ever does any person in a traditional 4 year college or university pay “Retail” price for college. There are usually scholarships, grants, on campus student employment, etc… That offsets the cost. I.e. My daughter is a resident advisor in the dorm. She also gets an academic partial scholarship. The RA job gives her free room and board and the academic scholarship covers most of the tuition and books. An AVERAGE year of college is costing us between $2000-$3000 for a year. That is nothing. If you are poor, you can get that down to almost nothing.</p>

<p>Retail products and services on the other hand are priced based on 3 factors. Supply and demand, Overhead and profit margin, and competition. Obviously, the first factor is overhead. What does it cost to produce and sell to the customer. Then, the profit margin must be considered in order to pay back investors, expand the business, R&D, or any other factor that revolves around future business. Finally, you have to compete with your competitors. If they sell a similar product or service for $1, and you sell it for $2, then you either justify the extra cost in service, quality, after the sale support, etc… That will need to be advertised real well to convince the customer that the extra cost is worth it. if you can’t justify or at least rationalize the price difference, then customers won’t purchase it and you will lose money and possibly go out of business.</p>

<p>The areas where customers paying whatever the cost and don’t really question the cost, is in areas like gasoline, other fuels, utilities, etc… In these areas, there is a consortium where the competitors all agree on a basic price range. This should be totally illegal, but it isn’t. The local gas station is controlled by the distributor. Who in turn is relying on the shipping and refineries. Who in turn buy from the importers and oil companies and traders. So, in reality, there isn’t really any competition in fuel. neither in utilities like electricity, water, natural gas, etc… Because there is no real competition, government involvement is required and justified. When there is legit competition, government needs to stay out of it. That will control the price.</p>

<p>Companies that hire illegal immigrants/aliens are basically profiting the extra gain. In many cases, they are small companies trying to compete with larger companies. If these companies lose their illegal labor, they either raise prices, but still below the legal competitors, or they go out of business. I don’t believe losing illegal immigrants would raise the cost to the consumer that much. It would if ALL the employees in the country doing that particular job was an illegal immigrant. But that’s not the case. No one can convince me that every produce picker/worker, and other similar jobs is done solely by illegal immigrants. They aren’t. So, it might put a particular company out of business; no big loss; but it’s not going to raise the price to an outrageous point.</p>

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<p>* If these companies lose their illegal labor, they either raise prices, but still below the legal competitors, or they go out of business. *</p>

<p>I guess we can always get our food from China- oh wait…</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/194109/4/[/url]”>http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/194109/4/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003235014_appleharvest30m.html[/url]”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003235014_appleharvest30m.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>What? Do you think that the ONLY place we get our food from is illegal immigrants? Sorry, but no. They may do a lot of migratory farming in California, but not all of it. And FWIW, California is not the center metro of the United States.</p>

<p>There is no doubt that illegal immigrants/aliens pick a lot of our produce. But not all of it. Just like there are a lot of them doing unskilled labor in the construction areas. But not all of it. We don’t lose all our food source if you get rid of illegals.</p>

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<p>[We check less than 1% of authorized imports](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/19/AR200”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/19/AR200&lt;/a&gt; 7051901273_pf.html)</p>

<p>Both of those articles were regarding cropa from Washington not California</p>

<p>Do you think that the ONLY place we get our food from is illegal immigrants? Sorry, but no.</p>

<p>Who do you think is working in the meat packing and canning factories?</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/11/17/schlosser/[/url]”>http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/11/17/schlosser/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.askfarmerbrown.org/labor.htm[/url]”>http://www.askfarmerbrown.org/labor.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Not the kids of doctors and engineers are you kidding?
Not the kids of blue collar workers either.
ConAgra and Tyson hire immigrants.</p>

<p>.</p>

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<p>It’s amazing how the part of the brain that leads to this sort of logical thinking shuts down when the conversation shifts from food supply to sex offenses. How the marginal impact of illegal immigrants on the food supply transforms into them having a gargantuan and disproportionate when it comes to rape and sexual assault is beyond me. Besides, if they are are raping and assaulting other illegal immigrants…we shouldn’t count those stats because those victims don’t count, right? But what if they are raping and assaulting the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants. Can we at least count that as criminal activity? Please? As for whether we have to prosecute U.S. citizens who rape and sexually assault illegal immigrants or their children…well, that’s a trickier, more controversial question, I suppose.</p>

<p>The points here, of course, are that (a) it makes no sense to downplay their positive impact while at the same time screaming that they’re taking all the jobs and destroying our economy and society; and (b) as simplistic as it seems to say that they should have no rights, it’s actually quite complex because there are some rights and legal status that even the person just one grayscale shade to the left of Mussolini would concede giving illegal immigrants and where the line gets drawn is not as bright a line as many would hope for.</p>