...it's with us.
And to be perfectly clear up front, I mean Latin American immigrants. Which is its own can of worms because it's really jacked up they're the only immigrants that come to mind for most people, but I'll briefly touch on that in a bit.
Anyway, regarding Latin American immigrants, I'm not angry at them or consider them lawbreakers who need to go back to their own damn country. I've met a good number of them and seen a good deal more all across the country. Mostly they're poor people trying to work hard to have something in life. I'd be a major ass-hat to be pissed about that or angry with them.
No, the issue really, for me, is...why is it okay for us to have a servant class of foreign brown people?
Because that's really what we're saying when we say "they do the jobs Americans don't want to do or simply won't do."
They work construction or migrant farming jobs for the most part, right? They're manual labor at a minimum. And so what we're saying is, well, we know we need this stuff done and they'll do it.
But why won't Americans do these jobs? Because they don't pay well at all and require backbreaking labor.
Sharecropping wasn't a whole lot different.
But we need those services!
Then shouldn't we pay for them?
And, if we do, then doesn't that negate the need for the Latin American immigrants?
Or, if we grant amnesty or give them a path to being citizens or getting legal immigrant status, aren't we then required to make sure they get paid a minimum wage (and paid overtime) and have labor laws apply then?
But that'll make our stuff cost more. And we can't have that.
I mean, there's a story that the workers in China who were putting together iPhones were committing suicide by jumping off the top of the factory. They were committing suicide to protest unfair work conditions. How was this handled? Did the Chinese government force the Chinese manufacturer or Apple to improve the conditions? Nope. Of course not. The manufacturer installed nets to catch people so they couldn't commit suicide (that way).
I don't know if that story's true. And it doesn't need to be. It goes back to the same thing. We can't have our stuff costing more. That iPhone or iPad better not double in price.
But to get back to the Latin American immigrants. I hate that they're having to uproot and come to a foreign country to do crappy labor for crap pay. But I don't see how getting them legalized solves a problem, because then the people who hired them when they were cheap(er) and illegal don't have the incentive to hire them anymore. My immigration reform would involve hammering the people that hire illegal immigrants and enforcing labor laws (minimum wage and overtime, etc).
And guess what? If the enticement of minimum wage and overtime didn't get Americans to do those jobs, those jobs would have to offer more than minimum wage and minimum benefits until Americans would do them.
But that would cost more money. And we can't have that.
Now, there's a whole other aspect of why we're getting Latin American immigrants, that being that their countries are wildly dangerous and corrupt, and so they're coming to America for safety. I'm not going to address that because this would spiral out of control, but, I do need to bring up a side issue regardless...
How on earth is it fair to all other prospective immigrants, you know, the rest of the world who doesn't have the ability to run across the border, who are oceans away, that they're blocked and we allow others to get in willy-nilly (well, not quite, but you get what I mean)? Nope, sorry Zimbabwean(?), Kazakh, Estonian, etc. You have to go through the official channels and the official channels are bureaucratic nightmares that last forever. We require/filter for other immigrants because of course we do.
So it's fair we do that for the rest of the world's immigrants but not Latin American immigrants?
Anyway, my issue isn't with the immigrants, be they Latin American or from the rest of the world. It's with us. We need to pony up for the goods and services that the poorest of them are doing for us. We need to open up more for the best and brilliant of the rest so they can come here and contribute.
But that would cost more money. And we can't have that.
And to be perfectly clear up front, I mean Latin American immigrants. Which is its own can of worms because it's really jacked up they're the only immigrants that come to mind for most people, but I'll briefly touch on that in a bit.
Anyway, regarding Latin American immigrants, I'm not angry at them or consider them lawbreakers who need to go back to their own damn country. I've met a good number of them and seen a good deal more all across the country. Mostly they're poor people trying to work hard to have something in life. I'd be a major ass-hat to be pissed about that or angry with them.
No, the issue really, for me, is...why is it okay for us to have a servant class of foreign brown people?
Because that's really what we're saying when we say "they do the jobs Americans don't want to do or simply won't do."
They work construction or migrant farming jobs for the most part, right? They're manual labor at a minimum. And so what we're saying is, well, we know we need this stuff done and they'll do it.
But why won't Americans do these jobs? Because they don't pay well at all and require backbreaking labor.
Sharecropping wasn't a whole lot different.
But we need those services!
Then shouldn't we pay for them?
And, if we do, then doesn't that negate the need for the Latin American immigrants?
Or, if we grant amnesty or give them a path to being citizens or getting legal immigrant status, aren't we then required to make sure they get paid a minimum wage (and paid overtime) and have labor laws apply then?
But that'll make our stuff cost more. And we can't have that.
I mean, there's a story that the workers in China who were putting together iPhones were committing suicide by jumping off the top of the factory. They were committing suicide to protest unfair work conditions. How was this handled? Did the Chinese government force the Chinese manufacturer or Apple to improve the conditions? Nope. Of course not. The manufacturer installed nets to catch people so they couldn't commit suicide (that way).
I don't know if that story's true. And it doesn't need to be. It goes back to the same thing. We can't have our stuff costing more. That iPhone or iPad better not double in price.
But to get back to the Latin American immigrants. I hate that they're having to uproot and come to a foreign country to do crappy labor for crap pay. But I don't see how getting them legalized solves a problem, because then the people who hired them when they were cheap(er) and illegal don't have the incentive to hire them anymore. My immigration reform would involve hammering the people that hire illegal immigrants and enforcing labor laws (minimum wage and overtime, etc).
And guess what? If the enticement of minimum wage and overtime didn't get Americans to do those jobs, those jobs would have to offer more than minimum wage and minimum benefits until Americans would do them.
But that would cost more money. And we can't have that.
Now, there's a whole other aspect of why we're getting Latin American immigrants, that being that their countries are wildly dangerous and corrupt, and so they're coming to America for safety. I'm not going to address that because this would spiral out of control, but, I do need to bring up a side issue regardless...
How on earth is it fair to all other prospective immigrants, you know, the rest of the world who doesn't have the ability to run across the border, who are oceans away, that they're blocked and we allow others to get in willy-nilly (well, not quite, but you get what I mean)? Nope, sorry Zimbabwean(?), Kazakh, Estonian, etc. You have to go through the official channels and the official channels are bureaucratic nightmares that last forever. We require/filter for other immigrants because of course we do.
So it's fair we do that for the rest of the world's immigrants but not Latin American immigrants?
Anyway, my issue isn't with the immigrants, be they Latin American or from the rest of the world. It's with us. We need to pony up for the goods and services that the poorest of them are doing for us. We need to open up more for the best and brilliant of the rest so they can come here and contribute.
But that would cost more money. And we can't have that.
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