The incentive to hire illegals needs to be taken away. Companies like Wal-Mart should be forced to hire illegals at minimum wage or higher. Then they have no incentive to hire an illegal over a guest worker or an American. The trick is in the enforcement.
Let the Mexicans come and do the work that we need done, just make it a legal arrangement, so they can be registered, monitored, and taxed. We can't let Abdul slip in alongside Pedro. So we make it attractive for Mexicans to get legal work permits and then ruthlessly clamp down on the illegals and those who hire them. The American's that support continued hiring of illegals are the ones profiting from it at our expense.
The program is already in place, and has been since the mid-80s. Employers are required to complete the I-9 form that verifies an employee's work status. As with most government regulations, the enforcement sucks...
No you shouldn't be suprised but you should be appalled to the point of sickness. Politics in this country are sick.
Um no let them find work where they live. Let the SOB's that wont hire US citizens RAISE the price of Grapefruit until they can pay minimum wage or to the point where someone will work to pick the fruit LEGALLY. key word is LEGALLY. If they can't then let it rot. Eat apples, supply and demand. Maybe next year he'll plant cotton and that way he can use an eight row cotton picker. Eventually someone will want a head of lettuce bad enough to pay what it costs to have it picked LEGALLY. Or someone will invent a cheaper machine to do it. Necessity is the mother of invention. This is no different than the "slaves" picking cotton. Illegal Aliens aren't paid Minumum wage in most cases. In most cases they take what they can get in "fear" that if they don't they'll be turned in to authorities. Then of course the fellow growing the stuff "claims" he paid them in full on his income taxes. Same song, new dancers.... :dis:
I'm talking about legally. LEGAL, approved foreign workers instead of anonymous illegal ones. I would agree with your policy except for one thing. It might work as far as construction laborers, but there just really aren't enough Americans willing to pick fruit and be hotel maids and domestics, even at higher wages. Most of us have diplomas and degrees and aspire to more than that. Those poor Amerticans who could do agricultural work don't seem inclined to work at all. It is esential that America remain self-sufficient in food production. Let me give you an example. There are big farms in the Red River valley in Louisiana that can no longer count on local help to plant, cultivate, and harvest the crops. The former rural blacks that once did this work, now have high school and college educations and can get better work in the city. So, legal Mexican guest workers are doing the jobs. Every spring when the fields dry out, they come up from Mexico and man the tractors until harvest time. They stay in trailers provided by their employers, work hard, pay taxes, and save their money. After harvest, they collect their pay, go to Walmart and load up their vehicles with bicycles and TV's and other Christmas presents and return to Mexico where they live like kings with their families all winter. This is a no-lose situation. The farmers get their crops in. Poor Mexicans get to make high US wages in jobs that the locals don't want. US taxes get paid. The Mexicans return to live in their own country, don't have to bring their families over illegally, bring badly needed money into the Mexican economy, and don't become a burden on US welfare. Moreover Homeland Security can approve them and track them. We need more legal guest worker permits to meet the legitimate needs of the US and Mexico and we must ruthlessly deny illegal aliens any privileges or rights in this country. Illegals don't pay taxes, they commit crimes to make ends meet, and if they find an illegal job, they then work to bring their families over creating more problems. We should stop the practice of just letting captured illegals go home with no penalty. They always keep trying and eventually they get past the border patrol. I say make them pick up trash on the highways in a chain gang or pick lettuce and oranges without pay for a year, then send them back. That might provide some discouragement to illegal entry and encourage them to seek legal worker status. We also need to start convicting Americans who hire the illegal aliens. This is the source of the problem. Illegal immigration would stop very fast if people went to jail instead of making big profits off of illegal labor.
You say esential. Esential for what? So you can have Grapefruit? they aren't picking oil wells. If the pay was higher someone would do it. Those poor Americans that could do agricultural work aren't ALL lazy, some just don't work because it isn't profitable to do so. It doesn't matter what kind of education you have, if the pay is right, workers will show up. supply, demand. if it paid well enough, you'd get more locals.
right because americans can get better jobs, because they speak english and have advantages over immigrants. they are in such a good poistion that they are allowed to be too lazy. i dont want those jobs to pay well. i would prefer to have cheaper grapefruit than employ locals. i dont care who does what job. if americans have it so good that they refuse to pick fruit, then good for them. why? yunno we can just buy things we need without making them ourselves. even food.
Martin, YOU don't run the economy. what you want or what Red thinks people will or wont do, doesn't apply to everyone. Want in one hand and take a crap in the other and see which one fills up faster. :dis: the simple fact remains that A. if people want the product bad enough B. the growers will pay someone to pick it ( or whatever ) C. or it will sit and rot and they will go out of business D. It makes no difference who YOU want them to employee, they will employ the cheapest means possible to get the product to market. this is why I have a job, I do automation... it eliminates people. E. if they can't afford american workers and illegal aliens are Illegal, ( notice the word illegal, how ironic ) then they will figure something else out, OR WE WONT HAVE ANY WATERMELONS. GET IT? dude you are seriously impaired with your own ego. it's like you stand in the road and dare the sun to rise. it will rise trust me. :dis: Here's a Novel idea, why not pay LEGAL immigrants minimum wage? oh I forgot, they are locals now and won't work for minimum wage, welfare is easier. Politicians cant see the forrest for the trees. Overhaul welfare, raise minimum wage to a level workers can survive on, eliminate nafta, and the loacls have a job. We pay 30 cents more for underware a pack. big deal.
Are you kidding me? It ain't just grapefruit. It's the entire agriculture industry. More importantly, we are exporters of food and we need to make a profit somewhere to pay for that oil That works in some fields like construction, which can't be outsourced. But agricultural products are commodities which are available worldwide. If our prices are higher than the everybody elses prices, then we can't sell our product and then our government has to subsidize farmers, which is ridiculous.
