<p>Community college.</p>
<p>“zm, they are going after employers pretty hard. Lately meat packing plants. If memory serves at least some factory execs of one of the major players were facing criminal charges . I haven’t heard of landlords facing similar concerns. (Doesn’t mean it’s not happening in a Dallas suburb right now. LOL)”</p>
<p>Curm, there are several places where landlords have been targeted, although I’m not sure what the outcome of the legal challenges have been (did that make any sense?). Did you read about the Swift raid and how within two days there were lines around the block of legal immigrants and American citizens trying to get those jobs that Americans won’t do? I thought that was very interesting.</p>
<p>Let 'em come here! I will promise jobs in the cherrypicking season for any and all able and willing to do the work - averaging $15/hr and up. (Most won’t last two days.)</p>
<p>Employers are smart: they learn over time who is most able and willing to do the work, and work hardest, and produce the best bottom line. Their biggest problem is that there aren’t enough undocumented workers to go around.</p>
<p>“Employers are smart: they learn over time who is most able and willing to do the work, and work hardest, and produce the best bottom line.”</p>
<p>They also know who they can take advantage of and who is and is not protected by the law.</p>
<p>That’s absolutely true! Which is why I think undocumented immigrants should have greater legal protections, greater access to health care, in-state tuition, a path to citizenship, and more of them. And definitely NOT a guest-worker program where they can be exploited by labor contractors (as U.S. companies do in Iraq). Put the protections in place, let the free market reign, and businesses will flourish.</p>
<p>Sorry. Disagree Mini. I do not believe we should make it more lucrative for people to enter our country illegally.</p>
<p>I do. That’s how we will ge the best and brightest. Land of opportunity. (It’s how my grandfather, from Lithuania, got here. Denied at Ellis Island, went to Canada, changed his family name to something Frenchified, and came in as a French-Canadian.) Let the market do its work.</p>
<p>I disagree as well mini. I’m all for immigration, but I’d like to know who’s coming here. I respectfully believe that there is a small but important minority of folks sneaking across the border who are hardcore criminals.</p>
<p>“Is someone alleging that these students crossed the U.S./Mexico border to attend ASU? Is someone alleging they didn’t live in AZ for the requisite time period before enrolling?”</p>
<p>Well…they are “undocumented”, so we don’t know know where they have lived and for how long. If they are here illegally to begin with and already enrolled in the state schools, as some of the protesters were, then they have already withheld information about themselves from the state authorities.</p>
<p>“I respectfully believe that there is a small but important minority of folks sneaking across the border who are hardcore criminals.”</p>
<p>Probably true, though I’m pretty sure we breed more of those domestically.</p>
<p>I expect the major criminals come into the country through Canada. (that wasn’t a slap at my grandfather).</p>
<p>It is hard for me to deny someone a chance to feed their family. I don’t have it in my heart to be angry at these people for simply wanting to work. They take the most basic jobs our country provides without complaint. </p>
<p>Where I have a problem is the companies that knowingly employ these people without helping them do it the right way. The reason? I strongly doubt these employers pay any taxes on these folks, even though they collect them. They’re double dipping the system, not paying payroll taxes and still collecting them and keeping it as profit. </p>
<p>I actually support a worker card system, not so much to control the illegals but to deal with those who would employ them and steal both from the government and the employees.</p>
<p>
:eek: You believe that we should make it more lucrative for people to enter illegally?? :eek: :eek:</p>
<p>Wouldn’t that require SAT’s at the border?</p>
<p>“Probably true, though I’m pretty sure we breed more of those domestically.”</p>
<p>We certainly do, but we are more likely to know who they actually are and they are less likely to slip in and out of the country.</p>
<p>Opie, there’s a lot to agree with in your post. I think employers get away with an enormous amount of abuse and I don’t think the real answer is that they can’t find employees legally, but that they choose not to pay what that would cost.</p>
<p>My personal anger (if that’s the right word) is directed toward the dysfunctional governments who are using our border as a safety valve for their internal problems, rather than reforming the messes in their countries. I really do find those policies racist and I’d like to see pressure (serious pressure) brought against them to force reform and make those countries places where the people who were born there, speak the language and hold the culture in their hearts, can stay and thrive.</p>
<p>“Let’s remember that many of those students (and their parents) would become legal immigrants if there was a way.”</p>
<p>Heck, half the world (and that may be a conservative estimate) would become legal immigrants if there was a way. We should welcome immigrants and we should grow our population but we also have to have some control over our borders and over to whom we provide a range of social services and benefits.</p>
<p>I respectfully believe that there is a small but important minority of folks sneaking across the border who are hardcore criminals.</p>
<p>I do see this- not necessarily big time criminals but…
I live in an area where the fishing industry is very important
Some of the employers don’t care so much if you are legal, as long as you are cheap and do your job.
However, some are here to get away from legal and other repercussions from their behavior in their own country & they aren’t so interested in learning about US law, or becoming citizens, they just want to make money.
It also quite unnerves me, to learn how many have weapons, as the docks are not the safest place, combined with hot tempers and questionable judgement-
(especially since my neighbor who is an independent welder on the boats, has a hot temper himself & weapons )</p>
<p>
On this we are on common ground.</p>
<p>“On this we are on common ground.”</p>
<p>And I’m delighted to be there with you!</p>
<p>“dysfunctional governments”</p>
<p>The problem is so much worse because of the pull here and the push there. My impression of many of the Mexicans that I have had contact with (yes, likely illegals) are that they are a very hard working lot. And Mexico has an abundance of natural resources. That combination of human and natural capital should make for a wealthy country. Instead we have a country run by a small, prosperous criminal class and widespread, grinding poverty that drives its people away.</p>
<p>That said, I don’t think it is our responsibility to solve Mexico’s problems by providing all kinds of services to that portion of its populace that happens to find itself on this side of the border.</p>
<p>“My personal anger (if that’s the right word) is directed toward the dysfunctional governments who are using our border as a safety valve for their internal problems, rather than reforming the messes in their countries.”</p>
<p>That said, there are about 400,000 predominantly secular individuals leaving Iraq as political refugees every year as a result of the U.S. invasion and occupation. I think we have a responsibility as nation that, once they are vetted, to accept most of them as political refugees. </p>
<p>“That combination of human and natural capital should make for a wealthy country. Instead we have a country run by a small, prosperous criminal class and widespread, grinding poverty that drives its people away.”</p>
<p>A little historical perspective, please. While there has been undocumented immigration for a long time, the mass of immigration we have seen in the past decade, predominantly from southern Mexico, has been a direct result of U.S. policy - NAFTA (thank you, Democrats) - which threw hundreds of thousands of self-sufficient farmers off their land, with no place to go, no jobs created. Their choices were the garbage heaps of Mexico City or chancing the border. Since these were always hardworking, creative folks (farmers usually have to be), they saw opportunity, and took it. If I were among them, I would have done exactly the same, and, as most do, become a credit to my new country.</p>
<p>“I strongly doubt these employers pay any taxes on these folks, even though they collect them.”</p>
<p>Not in my state, they don’t. Farm labor here is among the most highly regulated, heavily inspected sectors in the state, and the farm labor advocates are all over it. But eliminate these workers and the 1,050 WHITE medical workers at the Wenatchee Valley Medical Center are thrown out of work, groceries and department stores close, medical practices serving white folks disappear, and the entire eastern portion of our state becomes a ghost town.</p>