Is America such a rich country that it requires illegal immigrants to do undesireable jobs not unlike Saudi Arabia)?
Americans won’t fill those jobs, so the employers are happy to hire immigrants. Isn’ t this blatantly against the law?
Why is it so easy for Mexicans to sneak into the US? Is this done on purpose to ensure that there is a constant supply of cheap labour?
Yes. Next question?
Yes. Next question?
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WpgTriniman, you have posted MANY topics in this forum in the past few days and you’re not debating in them. While I appreciate your enthusiam, you’re pushing other people’s debates of the front page. From now on, no more than three topics on the front page at once.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
Why does the US allow illegal immigrants to work?
Because it gives the corporations a steady stream of cheap, non-union workers who can be easily exploited. You don’t need labor relations when all you need is a threat to call the INS to keep the workers in line.
Regretfully, rjung I can’t argue much with your premise. Of course, you are speaking of the evil corporations and Republicans. Now, let’s consider the Democrats that look the other way because everyone knows they are the champions of the common man and therefore they will get the votes. Which is worse? I call it a tie. So, if you and I agree what the hell are we going to do about it? A vote for Bush; a vote for Gore/Kerry ends up in the same court.
> Is America such a rich country that it requires illegal immigrants to do undesireable jobs not unlike Saudi Arabia)?
Well, we’re such a rich country that even our poorer citizens are unwilling to work at certain jobs for the wages that the jobs will pay (immigrants are required, it doesn’t matter whether they’re legal or not). That’s not a bad thing. The alternative would be to make our own citizens more desperate.
> Americans won’t fill those jobs, so the employers are happy to hire immigrants. Isn’ t this blatantly against the law?
Most immigrants hired in these “undesirable” jobs are legally here. Employers can get in trouble hiring illegals, so most choose not to.
> Why is it so easy for Mexicans to sneak into the US? Is this done on purpose to ensure that there is a constant supply of cheap labour?
This sounds like you don’t have a good understanding of how big the US-Mexican border is, and how remote most of it is. We spend quite a bit trying to block the border around more populous regions, but it would be very expensive to seal off the whole thing, and we don’t think it’s worth the expense.
Americans like cheap groceries, they like clean, affordable hotel rooms, and they like clean dishes at restaurants while paying an affordable price for the food.
Illegal immigration, to a certain extent, lets that happen. Legal guest workers also allow that to happen. All the people who are against Mexicans coming here to work for cheap wages should realize exactly what they are proposing when they call for a halt to such things – much higher prices at the grocery store and for services at hotels, restaurants, and other such places.
Wouldn’t any company doing this essentially be telling the INS they were hiring illegal immigrants? The illegal immigrant that was caught by the INS would fink out which business was hiring illegals. Both the employer and employee would want to keep things hush. Even someone who let go an illegal Mexican maid they were paying cash would rather just let her find work elsewhere, and hire another illegal alien.
But they also like a society where nobody has to work for poverty-level wages. Last November the voters of several states, including Florida, passed ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage above the federally mandated level (with future increases to be automatic, keyed to inflation). We voted for that with full knowledge that the extra costs to employers might be passed along for consumers. No exceptions for illegal immigrants.
There was already a thead on that here (or was it in the BBQ PIT?), just a while ago. A couple dudes posted cites showing that ILLEGAL immigration, if ended, would have no significant effect on our economy- no large jump in food prices, etc. Note that legal immigrants take up most of the slack of migrant farm workers, domestic help and such. (Thus, if all legal immigrants & guest workers were kicked out- there would be a significant effect on the economy).
Even when a Illegal migrant takes a job- they are often treated the same as their legal co-workers. There are several reasons for that, not the least of is that: if you are shown with Illegals on your workforce, and you can show that you honestly didn’t know and treated them as legal workers- then there are no criminal charges against the Employer.
Certainly you do read newspaper stories about illegal immigrants semi-forced into working as protitutes or as farmworkers being kept in near serfdom. The reason you read these stories in the papers is that such practices are illegal and* uncommon.*
I have quite a bit of experience working with the Migrant Farm workers here in CA (enough to know that “tu Madre” isn’t Mexican for "Yes Boss’ anyway. 
) and from my experience, there are only a few "illegals’ in that workforce (maybe 20%??) and they are treated by nearly every employer the same as legal migrant farmworkers (which isn’t all that great, sure.) There is no “stream of cheap, non-union workers who can be easily exploited” - well, the legal migrants often fall into that caegory, sure. But damn few employers know, or want to know that some of their worked are illegal. It’s kind of “don’t ask don’t tell, and give us some fake paperwork so we can say we checked”.
Finally- the OP is wrong- the USA does NOT “allow illegal immigrants to work”. The Border Patrol tries to stop them, INS rounds them up from time to time, and Employers that knowingly or negligently hire Illegals are fined or jailed.
Sure, the US could do more. A few 10’s of Billions on a “Berlin Wall”, another couple of Billion$ on more Agents, and it’d slow to a trickle. But it would make relations with Mexico very bad, and it doesn’t seem to be worth it. Not only would we all have to pay higher taxes for this, but yes, indeed- maybe a few pennies more for produce. It seems like the American Public doesn’t want that.
Here’s an easy way to do it: A fine of 1% of a company’s gross revenues for each illegal alien found to be in its employ. All that money can be used to finance the inspections and recordkeeping necessary to enforce the law. I suspect there would be a lot fewer illegal aliens to worry about once the companies got the idea that it doesn’t pay to break the law.
So what? What are they going to do, invade Texas again?
Well, sicne they already have large fines and prison time, your idea has no merit. Already empoyers know that they can’t blatantly break the law- they go to jail. The fines are already enough to put most such "companies’ out of business- since most of them are small “fly -by-night” businesses anyway. 1% of nothing is nothing.
It’s also of doubtful legality to fine a company that hired a worker in good faith, with apparently legit papers.
Of course- the USA is powerful enough to scorn it’s neighbors- and in fact pretty well the rest of the world- if we wanted to be assholes. But we have trade agreements and treaties with Mexico that are very advantageous to both economies. We want Mexico as a partner, not a sulking enemy.
Would this even be feasible, given the possibility of entry to the US by boat? I’d think surely if anyone south of the border was serious about doing so, they could pull it off. This reminds me of when years ago I used to regularly travel between the US and Canada through what must be the most tightly controllled border crossings: Detroit/Windsor. On the Canadian side, the customs man/woman used to ask 2 questions of me and all passengers. “Citizenship?” Response: “United States of America.” “Purpose for entering Canada?” Response: “Tourism”. Maybe things have changed since 9/11, but on the Canadian side they just waved us to pass. I never have had a US passport. I had a Michigan driver’s license and Social Security card if asked, but that wouldn’t prove citizenship. The Canada/US border was all kinds of porous. They just didn’t care if we stayed a few days there, and paid in Canadian currency bought at the border crossing. The Canadians apparently weren’t much concerned back then about this. Do they today just turn away US nationals without a passport?
Your right- even after spending Billions, it might not be totally effective.