Immigration

[The Bull]

Let us not kid our selves the United Stated needs laborers.  The question is why so many laborers find that entering the country illegally is their only or best alternative to get here.

 

We should probably look at the situation inside our borders.  Once here there is very little in the way of employment, welfare benefits, health-care, freedom of movement, and education that is restricted to them. Every ten to fifteen years a President will grant amnesty so all you have to do is get here and eventually you will become a legal citizen.

 

If there were no benefits, no work, no opportunities, and no place to live, no schools, no health care for illegal aliens they would not be here.  In fact they would go home. We simply can not afford to continue enable people to come to this country illegally.  By allowing illegal aliens into the country we are discriminating against their rights and the rights of American workers. As a result of their illegal status they are underpaid; they have no bargaining power, workers benefits, and no social security benefits, they are virtual slaves to their employer, and they are taking jobs from citizens that would do the same work, if paid the benefits required by law. Furthermore we have no control of our borders we have no idea who is coming or going across that invisible line.

 

Anyone that enables illegal aliens should suffer exceptionally severe penalties not only employers but states and cities and individuals.  No less a punishment should be imposed then those who are guilty of embezzlement or harboring a criminal.

 

Discrimination against legal alien workers cannot be permitted.  They should have the same benefits, wages, and opportunities as a citizen. They would be required to pay the same local taxes, and would have to file an income tax return, just like anyone else. As a tax payer and with legal status they could send there children to school, and would have workers compensation, and unemployment insurance health care benefits. Opportunities would be available for citizenship if they so desire.

 

Illegal aliens often work as independent Contractors: this does not require employers to pay benefits but requires the employees to pay their obligations themselves this big part of the problem.  We have more and more our citizens are taking advantage of this loophole in our tax code by fraudulently declaring no income at the end of the year all yet making thousands in cash payments for services rendered, I am not a fan of taxes but we need everyone contributing to support our country. 

 

To come to America legally currently requires applying, then waiting often times many years perhaps decades, and often having to know where you are planning to go and who your employer is going to be, and an address of where you will be living. You may not be able to bring your wife or children until you have become a resident often fifteen years down the road. For many the questions and restrictions are impossible. The jobs for laborers often do not pay enough to allow a person to go through the necessary steps to get here in a legal way.

 

What we need to do is make it very easy to be a legal alien worker in the United States.

Workers ID cards could be issued at the border. The card would identify the individual as an alien worker this would have his photograph and finger print. It would remain with the worker at all times. It would establish an account for his Social Security benefits and a means of accounting for other workers benefits. It would positively identify them as a person that we would want in the country, one who does not have a history of crime and obeys immigration laws. Provisions could be made to track the persons whereabouts and employment history.  People not finding work would have to leave the country after a prescribed period of time. We could require that alien workers return to their home of record each year this would insure that they were not homesteading and were here just for employment.

 

The bottom line is that our government has made the situation what it is. By not enforcing established law it literally encourages people who are seeking a better life or a job to come here illegally.  Why because large farms, and businesses, and foreign governments, have encouraged our government to ignore illegal immigration, and state government agencies and schools are paid by the number of people they serve, regardless of their immigration status. Political parties use them as political pawns, not caring about them for any other reason, then the number of votes they may bring to their party

 

Why you ask, because it is more profitable to take advantage of a person’s illegal status? Employers can deny benefits, wages, and pay them under the table, in a way that no legal citizen would or could agree to. It makes businesses more competitive especially when government trade regulations allow unrestricted cheap products and produce to enter the country, repressing honest American competition.

 

With out illegal workers the government will have to protect American interest by requiring an import tariff that would protect American products and produce and would also need to protect American workers from the unfair labor practices of other countries, and it would increase the number of much needed jobs for Americans.

 

There is something else that should be considered. A needed a change to our laws, to require that any child born in the United States has at least one parent that is a U.S. citizen for that child to become a citizen. It would end another reason to cross the border illegally.

[The Bull]

The real question is why is Mexican labor cheep?  I contend that is cheep because companies are not complying with state and federal labor laws and regulations when they hire an nonresident laborer. Something that they would be required to do if they hired a citizen.  

[The Bull]

There  lies the problem if everyone had to comply by the same rules get the same wage and employers had to pay the same benefits, then the best employees would get the jobs .  Not the cheapest.  A lot need to be done. at every level of government.

[The Bull]

What can the new Republican Congress do in the face of the President’s ideological intransigence?

* Pass Keystone pipeline legislation and bills promoting expanded leasing and drilling on federal lands.

* End abuses detailed in the Senate Staff Report, Chains of Environmental Command, and other studies that reveal how Big Green colludes with federal agencies to impose job-killing policies and regulations.  Hold hearings and question agency heads under oath. Root out collusion between agencies and activists; sweetheart sue-and-settle lawsuits; and other agency misconduct, deceit, and fraud in devising regulations. Apply the same ethics and integrity rules to them that they impose on us.

* Employ budget reductions, budget restrictions, and specific legislative language to: block regulations that do not pass Information Quality Act standards of transparency, integrity, and scientific analysis; end payoffs to advisory panels and pressure groups; and prohibit EPA from expanding its mission and personnel by launching sustainable development, “environmental justice,” and climate programs.

* Require that the EPA and other agencies fully and honestly assess the potentially harmful effects that their regulations are likely to have on jobs and human health and well-being – and subject proposed rulemakings to review by industry and other independent outside experts – before rules can be implemented. Alleged benefits of rules must clearly exceed their monetary, job, health, and welfare costs.

* Require congressional approval of any “major” regulatory actions likely to cost $100 million or more – and periodic assessments of the cumulative costs of all federal regulations.

* Prohibit the Executive Branch from spending taxpayer funds on climate change “adaptation/mitigation” payments to developing countries, until all other countries make binding pledges and we have proof of manmade climate change. Ban requirements that grants be used solely for renewable energy projects.

* Use vetoes and Democratic obstinacy to underscore the need for more pro-growth and environmental-balance candidates in 2016 congressional and presidential elections – by showing leadership and responsible alternatives to eight years of Reid, Pelosi, and Obama obstruction and job destruction.

State governors, legislatures, courts, and AGs should do likewise – and voters should demand nothing less.

http://s12168.p164.sites.pressdns.com/17204/editorials/obama-thumbs...

[Thomas Vincent Coffey]

The USA has an increasingly high-tech economy which, most emphatically, does not need Mexican labor to perform jobs that machinery could do infinitely more efficiently; such as picking grapefruits!!!!

Workers exchange their labor for a wage that is determined by how much value they add to production. Mexican labor is cheap because they add little to no value to the process!

[The Bull]

I understand your position Mr. Coffey:  However your understanding of economics is lacking.  If farm labor did not add value to the production of product it would not be used.  If the cost of Production is too great to make profit then it is not produced. One of the reasons why much of our food is produced in Mexico and Chile is the cost of production. It is simply cheaper to produce it there and ship it here then it would be to grow it here.  Also the seasonal constraints makes it possible to get fresh produce year around.  The bottom line is this We still need migrant labor. We should make it easy for people to come and work here. We should stop cheating them by paying slave wages because they are illegal.  Make them legal and pay them the same wages that any other American would expect. Then if it is no longer profitable to use migrant workers we will quit using them and they will have no reason to come here to work.

[Thomas Vincent Coffey]

Bull,w/respect;

I again assert that we do not need Mexico's, or any other nation's labor, to collect our agricultural commodities.That we choose to use migrant labor does not mean we need to.

Consider Cotton. It was picked by hand and is now gathered by machine like our barley, corn, soy, wheat etc.

Archaic customs and regulations inhibit the application of the Law of Factor Substitution (Capital in the form of machinery for manual Labor).

Robots literally build the Mercedes-Benz and most certainly they can gather apples. oranges, tomatoes,  lettuce etc; which was my point.

[Mangus Colorado]

TVC,

Right on point. However we now have the caring for the old and hospital cleaning and laundry. Robotics will lessen this issue over time but we are a long ways from that time. 

We will always need trash workers, cleaners, caregivers, housekeepers, maids, landscaping, construction workers and the myriad of other tasks American will just not perform even at $ 15 per hour. An example was many years ago in the Junior Chamber organization. I was mentoring some of the young men, one drove a trash truck and earned over $ 20 per hour plus overtime when that was a good salary.

He had social issues with dating . . he was not proud to tell girls he drove a trash truck for a living because they immediately wrote him off as a loser. He was actually thinking of resigning - I said try this and take them to nice expensive places for dinner and drinks - just tell them you are truck driver so you will not be lying.

Lesson to be learned it is not what you do it how you do it that differentiate a winner from a perceived loser.

[Rhodes]

Assumption;

"Let us not kid our selves the United Stated needs laborers."

If the above is true then a free market would solve such with increased pay and automation innovation, is this not circumvented by bring in cheap labor? 

If the above is true why are so many millions paid out of the state coffers to not work?

If the above is true why the push for an "open voting" system?

It is long past time to question all assumptions.

[The Bull]

I believe that farmers automate as many labor intensive jobs  possible with todays technology, but there are many things that require laborers.  My discussion revolves around workers. Not looters that come here for the welfare and have no intention to work. 

[Rhodes]

No they automate as much as is required to be profitable.

And of course this is exactly what one would expect except that the influx of cheap labor makes automation unprofitable as things stand currently.

We already tried keeping things on the up and up, many times in fact.

Where exactly did it get us?

Right where we stand now as all government is corrupt and eventually one becomes so enough to sell out their own country.

[The Bull]

Labor is not cheep, and I dare say not even slave labor is cheep. If it were possible to automate all of the processes involved in farming it would be done. Not all immigrants are farm labors.  What I am trying to present here, is that if all thing were equal, regarding pay, benefits, and taxes and that immigrant workers were competing on the same level as natural born residents for jobs.  There would not be an immigration crises like we are now experiencing.

[The Bull]

Forbes says a computer programmer from India who wants to work in America legally must wait an average of 35 years. A Mexican teenager would have to wait 131 years. No wonder people give up on the legal approach and sneak in.