I apologize if there’s a thread on this question already but I couldn’t find it.
We’re debating in various threads (to which I’ve contributed both heat and light) the illegal immigration question insofar as it concerns the U.S. What would happen south of the border if all the people who are now in the U.S. were back in Mexico and couldn’t come to the U.S. Does anybody have any good ideas? The U.S. currently is Mexico’s safety value for Mexico’s surplus labor. If that outlet was taken away what would happen?
Mexico’s largest single source of money would disappear. If you took away my job and banned me form any legal way of earning money, I think I’d take a hard look at my illegal options. Drug-running would permeate Mexican society at higher and borader levels than it currently does.
On this side of the border: Do you like table grapes? Do you think $2.69/lb is a reasonable price? Deport all illegal Mexicans, and you can watch that price triple. Plus a hefty tax; Deporting ten million people in one fell swoop will be expensive, and you know by now who will pay for it.
On the plus side, the station formerly known as Telemundo will probably show a lot of Law & Order reruns, if you’re into that…
As I said in the OP, I’m not interested in discussing what happens on the US side of the border in this thread because there are already many threads on that topic. (Although the loss of Jackie Guerrido’s morning weather reports on Univision will be missed. ).
You make an excellent point about the money supply though. That’s the type of thing we need to think through. I agree that some desparate people may turn to crime but what will others do? Put pressure on the Mexican government for reforms? What reforms? Would they/could they throw out the ruling party? Will the peasants seize the Mexican oil fields? I dunno.
I brought this up in one of those other threads, though I can’t remember which one. While it would be painful for individuals, in the long run it might be healthier if the leaders of certain countries didn’t have the US pressure valve for their most desperate citizens. These leaders have millions of people who can’t stand living in their home country, and hopefully they’d have to finally address that. Why doesn’t anyone want to live in our wonderful country of Guatemala? Uh, because you’re leadership sucks and people are starving?
Hmmm, that got me thinking: who picks Concord grapes? (My brother asked my Mom, who’s lived in Upstate NY for awhile, if there’s a lot of itinerant farmers and she said no, but then again she’s in the Albany area.) If it will get more Concord grapes down in Florida I’d be all for deportation.
What ruling party? No one has a majority in the legislature. National elections are just a little more than a month away.
Peasant siezing oil fields? Ridiculous.
The numbers thrown around in the American press speak of an estimated 11 million illegal aliens in the US and that half are from Mexico which means roughly 5 million. That equates only to 5% of our population. While many families who have come to rely on the remittances would suffer a drop in their income most of us will notice very little difference.
BTW my daughter, a recent graduate of a prestigious university here, just completed her first week of employment with an American company located here in Guadalajara. One of her qualifications for the position is her fluency in English. Her starting salary is $8500mn a month. The equivalent of $780usd. This is less than I paid monthly for her tuition. Two classmates were hired for similar positions at Mexican companies at about 150% of her salary. Do the Americans on this board feel that the “ruling party” should force the American company to pay a higher wage?
I should think that having 5% of one’s population abandon the country would be a cause for alarm and not rate an “only.” What is Mexico doing, or what are its many party candidates proposing to do, to keep such people at home? I imagine that they are proposing nothing, but perhaps public works projects should be built to keep the Mexicans employed at home and simultaneously improve Mexico’s infrastructure.
As for your daughter’s salary from the US company I would say that US companies rip off American citizens employees so the fact that they do the same thing to Mexican employees is similarly regretable. I am more concerned about American companies dodging employment standards here at home by hiring illegal immigrants who don’t insist that their employers pay for workers comp, SS and medicare benefits, or OSHA standards than that pay Mexicans in Mexico less than they could get from Mexican employers though.
Actually, now that I think about it, I am more interested in an answer to my somewhat-facetious comment.
There doesn’t seem to be a whole bunch of illegal migrant labor involved in agriculture in Upstate NY. I mean, I am sure there are a lot of migrants who come for the apple and grape harvests but when I lived there I didn’t see even one foreigner involved in agriculture, so they must be natives.
If the farm laborers involved in the apple and grape harvests (in NY) are indeed mostly natives, it would tend to belie the assumption that you can’t make a viable product without illegal immigrant labor.
(Come to think of it, my grandfather, who owned an apple orchard outside of Syracuse, did mention there were a lot of foreign apple-pickers, but I never saw any, and all his employees I ever saw were Anglos.)
As the OP mentioned, he isn’t asking about the effects here in the USA. However, the cost of produce would only rise around 5% (see many, many other posts & threads on this subject), and the cost of deporting them (20 Bil$)would be only about half the annual cost of the “War against Drugs” (40Bil$). :eek:
But you are more or less correct- I think cash sent home by Mexicans in the USA is the 2nd largest source of cash in Mexico.
Did someone put a gun to her head and make her take the job? It sounds to me that she made the wrong decision if she could have earned 150% more somewhere else. As was mentioned earlier, students out of college here, routinely get a low initial salary. They have no experience and regardless of their schooling they are a bit of a liability to their employer.
To answer your question, I’d like to see the “ruling party” kick the American companies out of Mexico, forcing them hire Americans and pay them somewhat of a living wage. Probably not the answer you were looking for however.
Cute. As I said in the OP, my question concerns Mexican illegal aliens who wind up “back in Mexico” which to my mind excludes illegals from Guatemala, Canada, China, etc because a person cannot be sent “back” to a place he/she was not from in the first place.
Are you asking about the cost of produce, the cost of deportation or how much cash is sent back? You’re a member, try a Search if you are dying to know. If you ask for cites within the limits of the OP, I’ll get you an answer, but you’ll have to define your acronyms.
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If you ask for cites within the limits of the OP, I’ll get you an answer, but you’ll have to define your acronyms.