I could mention other things but migrant fruit picking is a siginifgent point.
The basic fact is if it weren’t for “illegals” getting paid (being illegal) much less that a legal wage, fruit (Just as an example) would be 2X or more then it is now. And if you’re opposed to it, don’t benefit from it. No peaches for you (unless you pick them yourself).
Sorry, just something i got pissed off about…particularly as illegal immigrants are so often pictured as lazy and expoiting us. And we pay no attention to what it would do to our economy without them. They shouldn’t be here…they ARE illegal. I agree. But we shouldn’t be exploiting them either (and fruit pickers are exploited more than anyone in the contry just about). Sad situation both ways.
But I’m just saying if you’re really opposed, don’t benefit from it.
My morning rant.
Cite that the majority of them are earned less than minimum wage, let alone “much less”? :dubious: I was under the impression that they make as much or more than a burger flipper, but the work is so hard that few natives want to do it, and furthermore, you don’t have to mess with taxes and regulations when you hire an illegal. (However, if you do show up as a native asking for a job, they won’t hire you due to both stereotypically not being as hard a worker as an illegal, and also you have more rights so they can’t jerk you around as much.)
Your point is correct, in that fruit would probably be more expensive if we only hired fully legal employees. I say “probably”, because fruit-growing might just fully move to Florida instead of California where the taxes and cost of living are lower. There, I wouldn’t be surprised if even legal workers can’t make much more than minimum wage (I know someone who did work similar to that and didn’t make a whole lot here in Orlando.)
I don’t personally feel like I am exploiting foreign workers. I would be willing to pay more for food that went through proper legal channels, as I can’t “play the system” as much as some people, so I would prefer to have a system that doesn’t reward people who can (i.e. rewards people who can sneak into the country over people who cannot, and rewards people who have no qualms about establishing a win-win with illegal people to jack over the government and honest American workers.)
Big wave of Irish immigration in the past and those living here prior to their coming shared much of the negative sentiments expressed today against our newest incomers.
I remember learning of signs posted proclaiming, “no Irish need apply” for jobs in American History class.
Weren’t some of the laws enacted to limit immigration based on the wave of poor Irish people looking to better themselves? I’ve heard acquaintances of Irish descent speak negatively about the newest immigrants.
This mentality of “we” versus “them” makes me sad.
You got a breakdown on that? I’m immensely skeptical that the price of produce would go through the roof if we regained control of our borders.
And why, exactly, did you put the word “illegals” in quotation marks? Are you trying to suggest that their presence in our country somehow isn’t illegal?
Spewing bile at those who disagree with you and flaunting your supposedly superior moral insight isn’t exactly the best way to change people’s minds.
When the wave came, there were no such laws. The laws were in reaction to the influx of “foreigners”. My point is that the “we’re here - that’s enough - no more” mentality is so unfair. The rest of the starving world should just suck it up.
America can’t reasonably be expected to absorb unlimited immigration. That’s an outrageous demand to make on any nation. And there’s always going to be immense suffering elsewhere in the world. The American people are not morally obligated to save everybody everywhere in the world from every possible evil and injustice.
So, if I oppose illegal immigration, and you tell me I can’t eat fruit, how would not eating fruit make me different from those who support migrant labor and boycott fruit, too?
If your point were to make any sense at all, if you eat fruit, betenoir, you’re in support of people violating federal law to enter the country, AND in support of the big agricultural companies that pay farm workers exploitative wages. I condemn you for your support of big business that makes white people rich through the exploitation of migrant labor!
Don’t lump so many people together–migrants workers, foreigners and illegals are all different.
I love migrant workers. When they migrate and pick fruit they are doing something that apparently few others are willing to do–they migrate. They move. I am unhappy that so many workers have not migrated–they stay and add to our unemployment and public-assistance roles. They bring the whole family for me to support.
Foreigners? I don’t care if you are not native born, I can about how you came here if you’re fixing to stay.
Illegals absolutely piss me off. They are stealing jobs from people who are here legally (native born or going through the proper channels) and they add to my tax burden without giving a whole lot back.
You know who really pisses me off? The employers. They import poverty to an already impoverished area and then they bitch about taxes increasing to support all of the folks they encouraged to come. They don’t follow labor rules, they don’t check documentation; shit, they don’t even make sure they don’t have multiple employees with the same fucking SSN. Fuckers! I hate a significant number of the employers in my area.
While I am in agreement with the majority of your post (especially the bit about the employers), I take issue with the characterization of illegal aliens as “thieves” of jobs.
I understand that countries need to decide immigration policy for economic reasons, but there is no ethical justification for saying this group of people should have an advantage over that group of people based on a seemingly random criterion, namely geographic location.
If we changed the system to use a completely different random critereon, lets say only people with names A-M were allowed to be part of the formal economy, and anyone N-Z applying for those jobs would be “stealing”, would people go along with this? How about only white people are allowed to apply for the jobs? If you found yourself on the wrong side of the fence, would you happily go along with it, knowing that if you applied for a job you would be an evil job stealer? Or would you think “to hell with this?! I’m a decent person, willing to work hard! Why should I be disadvantaged?”. While under normal circumstances I believe strongly in the rule of law, the “but it’s illegal and therefore immoral” argument seems a little circular in this case, in much the same way as someone breaking Apartheid South Africa’s pass laws should surely not be accused of being immoral!
For this reason, I am strongly opposed to the painting of illegals as immmoral. This is a hard issue for me to resolve in my mind, because at the same time I recognize the goverments right to seek economic prosperity for it’s citizens (the people who elected it in the first place!), and if this requires involves less than open access to foreigners than perhaps a compromise between ethical stance and economic reality is the only way forward. I still think it’s awful, but not nearly as awful as claiming immigrants are thieves and somewhat less than other people.
Gosh, what if I buy my fruit at the public market? By the way, doubling the labor cost would not lead to doubling the price of a product, although it would certainly mean a price increase. In that case, though, every time you eat fruit you are sponsoring the businesses that pay people considerably less than half the minimum wage. If you’re participating in that kind of exploitation, hypocrisy is the least of your problems. It’s like telling Mussolini his shoes don’t match his belt.
Well, Driver8, I see your point. Where a person is born is just happenstance, and I don’t think people should be punished for being born somewhere other than the US. Personally, I think the US could do a lot more for the folks by assisting them in improving their lot in the home countries instead of letting large employers make assloads of money off them here. That’s a whole 'nother thread, though.
However, people who are here illegally are taking resources away from people who are here legally–jobs, public assistance funds–and they give little back.
And when people say that no one else would work that job, I say bullshit. I come from a long line of fruit-picking* white folk. The employers changed that dynamic. I cannot stress enough how much I hate the employers and what they have done to my area.
*and other jobs that have become dominated by immigrants both legal and not
Sure there is. The resources of a country are for the primary benefit of those in the country, not for foreigners, and especially not for those foreigners who come into the country illegally, uninvited, and unauthorized.
