That’s not actually what I said and it’s not what I meant, either.
Darned tooting I would pick up and flee if I faced what any of these families face.
If only those hungry Irish had stayed and risen up against the British Army and colonial powers, everything would have been cake and roses. That never ended well.
It’s time we give the Statue of Liberty back to France.
Since I work with many people impacted by these situations, I don’t find the circumstances to be a joke. It’s actually not funny. To me anyway.
And I stand by my position that we owe them better than the destruction of their families and communities, and certainly better than dangerous crossings and menial jobs.
I find it amusing that while we are having this discussion, entire fields of agricultural produce are left rotting in the fields of California because no one wants to work the job picking them.
Ironic considering the Irish did attempt multiple uprisings over the centuries…only to be ruthlessly suppressed by the British Army and continued subjugation under the Irish protestant aristocracy and absentee British landowners.
And similarly, one legacy of US intervention in Central/South America and the Carribean is the reinforcement and support of dictatorships(Nicaragua*, Guatemala, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, Chile, etc). It’s a bit hypocritical for an American to tell Mexicans and Central/South Americans and those from the Carribean to stay home and work to improve the society when the US played a key role in making those societies the way they currently are to advance its political and economic interests.
It’s not too different from how most Irish Catholics would feel if the British had made the same argument back in the late 18th through early 20th century.
- The last Somoza to rule Nicaragua attended West Point (Class '46) and upon graduation was given command of the entire Nicaraguan Armed Forces.
When I was a teen, I was a farm laborer. I worked the potato farms in our area. Many of my friends harvested corn and cucumbers (‘pickle pickers’). I was not poor, and in fact was a ‘city kid’ but the farm owner’s kids all got their friends to come work in the spring and fall. The summer workers were my brother and others who drove the trucks and work the irrigation.
The answer to ‘who will pick their crops or scrub their toilets’ is that we will.
Seems like you’re in the great minority of Americans considering recent accounts like:
“The answer to ‘who will pick their crops or scrub their toilets’ is that we will.”
No we won’t. There have been report after report citing farmers/hotels/roofers/construction firms detailing how they can not get any Americans to work for them - no matter how much they are willing to pay. Even Mar-a-lago depends on foreign workers for its staff (not to mention Trump’s winery in Va and other Trump golf course properties.)
@twoinanddone – “The answer to ‘who will pick their crops or scrub their toilets’ is that we will”
Sorry. That argument has been proven to be false. Proven false in the South. Proven false in the West. Proven false in the Northeast.
NATIONWIDE it’s been proven to be false.
What should happen is that farmers have to increase pay until it is high enough that folks will go pick the crops or develop machinery to do it. That will happen and prices for fruits/vegetables will increase and folks will scream that they cost too much. At that stage hopefully the immigration system would be revamped. It is not as impossible as many make it seem, just a bit painful.
Will they scream that much? Most Americans do not eat much fruits and vegetables.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6426a1.htm
Of course, among those who do try to eat enough fruits and vegetables, increased prices could increase health disparity by SES, since the non-wealthy may have to cut back on most of them if they get more expensive.
Fair point, but the animal products they like to eat need the crops so still get to the screaming part in the end…just not as directly as I thought.
Immigration is a complex issue that far too many make simple, and there are a variety of reasons why people are pro or anti it. It is interesting, almost everyone from all ends of the spectrum, has said we need immigration reform, the problem is that rather than try and find compromise, like most things it comes down to ‘this is the only way’. Those who argue, for example, for relatively unfettered immigration access to the US, claim that in the end this generates a huge economic boom, that it helps everyone, but the reality of that view is questionable, because in more than a few cases immigration is used and always has been used as a source of cheap labor willing to take any wage the business owner is willing to give, in the late 19th century the nativist movement and the like was based in part or large part on factory owners or mills replacing native workers with immigrants at much less wages and unlikely to complain about the conditions, was true in the steel mills of Pennsylvania (mostly eastern European, owners called them all “Hungarians” for some reason, though it was a very mixed lot), the factories and mills of Patterson, NJ (heavily Italian), and so forth.
The people saying they can’t get American workers at any price they are willing to pay are quite frankly, at best distorting the truth, if not outright lying (and with construction I have family still in the business). They don’t turn to day laborers because they can’t get US workers at any price, they turn to them because they work cheap, with no benefits, and no worries about insurance and such, the reality is ‘any price’ often translates to “any price I am willing to pay”, which isn’t much above what they are willing to pay the day laborers, yet they charge as if they were paying full rates. So there is some truth to that, on the other hand with jobs like bus boys, kitchen help and so forth, immigrants, often illegal, take these jobs because they pay often below minimum wage (I was told they are exempt from minimum wage laws because they work in a restaurant, but unlike servers, they don’t get tips). For them, and farm help, it is filling a need.
And yes, racism plays into it, when you hear opponents say things like “the loss of American culture”, “People having different values”, or with Muslim immigrants “they want to bring Shariah law here”, it is very much bigotry and yes, racism, much of this attitude is expressed in places that are some of the least diverse places in this country, given that kind of correlation it is kind of hard to argue that racism isn’t involved (and I would love to hear how pro immigration people are ‘reverse racists’ or the like that I have heard, does that mean people think immigration advocates are anti white or anti whatever and that is why they want immigration? If so, that one is really a stretch). Thinking people have changed their stripes much from the past is assuming human nature doesn’t hold, and the Asian exclusion acts (c1880’s) that kept out Asian immigrants until the 1960’s, or the bias that led to the immigration reform act of 1920 (kept out Jews, Italians, Balkans, anyone from southern europe, but basically gave carte blanche to those from Northern Europe, especially England and Scandinavia and Germany and so forth) which was supported openly "to prevent the loss of American culture and identity (was also religious bigotry to a large extent as well, anti Jewish and anti Catholic as well).
In other words, it likely is a huge venn diagram where you have overlap, some people it is mostly determined by bias, others a combination of bias and economic fears, others economic fears mostly, others because of security fears (terrorism), likely no one issue is behind anywhere near a majority of the anti feelings.
The reason nothing gets done is because of this tangle as well. Revising immigration laws makes sense, creating simpler ‘guest worker’ programs where the need can be established, making immigration more streamlined, even giving priority to people with needed skills makes sense to me (for one thing, would allow cleaning up the H1B program and take the abuses out of it), but yet there are those who basically say “no, close off immigration, build the walls, then we will talk about reform”, which to me is the same when you ask a parent “Mom, can I do X” and the response is “We’ll talk about it later” which means “no”…an d with that, it is kind of 'no immigration". Those on the extreme immigration pro position on the other hand are kind of like “we should just let anyone in” it is very kumbaya but also not practical.
Personally in the current climate I doubt you will see significant immigration reform per se, I think it is going to be pretty much on the enforcement side whereas the rest of the process remains a mess.
Animals commonly grown for meat are fed foods like corn and soybeans which are harvested largely by combine harvester machines that require very little human labor compared to fruits and vegetables (boutique free range animals harvest their own food by walking around the pasture and eating it where it grows).
Also, when most white Americans are at least somewhat worried about the changing ethnic makeup of the US, and immigration is the most obvious policy lever to pull to affect that, it should not be hard to see race / ethnicity behind anti-immigrant politics.
I have worked in Welfare, the Superior Court in the county where I live, and for a Title 1 school. Illegal immigrants are a huge drain on our resources. People aren’t aware that illegal immigrants are entitled to medical benefits that the working public can only dream about. One of my clients had a kidney transplant. Thank you State of California. Once you have a child, that child is your golden ticket to housing, food and medical benefits. Stolen identities and SS# are the tip of the iceberg.
Court dockets are clogged with illegals who have broken the law and want a jury trial. When they are found guilty, they are not always deported, they are sent to state or federal prison.
I worked for a Title 1 Dual Immersion school. To be blunt, it was like a private school for hispanics. Spanish was the dominant language. In Kindergarten 100% of instruction was in Spanish. In 1st grade 90% was in Spanish and so on until in 5th grade it was 50/50. The entire school was on a free meal program. The kids received breakfast, a mid morning snack and lunch. There was a free after school program that offered tutors, IPads, and essentially babysitting services until 6pm. There was an afternoon snack for these children and last year free dinners were being served. On Cesar Chavez Day the kids marched around the school (led by their teachers) chanting Si Se Pueda. On Mexico Independence Day it was a “family picnic” day. Kids were given new backpacks and school supplies. A dental truck came around twice a year. The yearly 5th grade Outdoor Ed adventure was free. Children in the other schools paid $150 for this adventure. This school was rated almost dead last academically when compared to other schools. When parents were offered the opportunity for their child to go to another school, only one parent accepted the offer. And every day a huge yellow school bus pulled up to accommodate this one child.
Do I feel all illegal immigrants should be deported? Absolutely not. Do I feel they need to assimilate better into our culture? Absolutely.
There is no excuse to live in a country for 20 years and not know at least enough of the language to get by. For those illegals that have committed crimes, they should be deported. And I believe stealing Identities and SS #'s is a crime. For the people that are working and productive, give them a chance to become citizens. If they choose not to, that’s fine, but make them at least get a working Visa. To all the children of illegal immigrants, my heart goes out to you. You are caught in the crosshairs of something you had nothing to do with. Give these kids a break.
To those of you who are here legally, my hat is off to you. My husband is a Naturalized Citizen. Our two daughters are adopted from China and we had to traverse the the INS. Even with being a US citizen, knowing how to read and write English and having college degrees it was an arduous but well worth it journey.
Sorry to be so long winded.
Why was the school rated dead last? Bad teachers, low expectations, students changed schools often, parents didn’t care about school? To me, that’s the most infuriating part of your message - we’re spending huge amounts of money to fail these children.
It is a fallacy that in the past everyone learned English soon after arriving and that schools only taught in English.
The musician born in North Dakota named Lawrence Welk spoke only German at home and was educated in German. He had to learn English to become a professional musician.
In my area, elementary ed was taught in Norwegian and Swedish. My friend’s church kept records entirely in Norwegian well into then1940s.