President Bush sends a message to Border patrol agents

[Dana]

I wonder if there has ever ben a study done as to the percentage of Mexican illegals who are only here seasonally to work?

Up here in Michigan, there is an influx of Mexican's during the summer who are working in orchards, vegetable farms, and lawn maintaince. Places that most of us are unwilling to work.  It's my understanding that they often work here for the summer, returning to Mexico for the winter. With the money made here the live quite well in Mexico. Being so far north my prespective may be different than those of you further south, as I only see the ones who are here to work, not run drugs.

Didn't our Government recently vote to lengthen the border fence with Mexico and then stop short by not actually funding it? I don't think we can put the blame only the President when this type of double speak happens in Senate and Congress as well.

[DanG]

Being so far north my prespective may be different than those of you further south, as I only see the ones who are here to work, not run drugs.

Good point, Dana.  I think our perspectives do differ somewhat, according to where we live.  Here in our little agricultural county, we mainly see the workers, and BOY do they ever work!  The ones that are just here to get welfare or run drugs don't travel this far, so the folks in South Texas see them, giving them a different view of the situation.

Cedarman, try growing a hundred acres of tomatoes or peppers, then tell me we don't need Mexican labor.  We would have to completely revamp the entire veggie industry if we didn't have them.  Some crops just do not lend themselves to mechanical harvesting, or even mechanical planting.  Ya like a little ketchup on yer burger?  Without the Mexican labor, the ketchup would likely cost more than the meat.

President Bush did propose a plan to stem the tide of illegals.  It was offered to Congress, who could have modified it any way they wanted to and sent it back to him for approval, but they refused to even discuss it.  Same thing happened with Social Security reform.  He said that these proposals were just a starting point, and challenged Congress to come up with workable solutions.  I heard him say that with my own ears, yet his opponents and the news hounds conveniently leave that part of the conversation out of the reports.

[Norwiscutter]

I don't think it is a question weather we are able to seal the border, it is more a matter of whether or not we have the will to do it. It unfortunately seams our country lacks the will to accomplish anything anymore. :-[

[Cedarman]

DanG, I think they have revamped the tomato for some varieties to ripen at the same time.  Aren't there machines that take the whole vine and strip the tomatoes. I know the cucumber fields are harvested by machines now.  
I believe we would reengineer plants to better accomodate machines.  Why do we have tomatoes that can bounce and not bruise?  I know my home grown ones won't bounce.  Every ounce of downward momentum is transferred into horizontal flying  tomato parts and seeds. :D
I really believe if we didn't have cheap labor, we would still have our veggies.  They might cost a little more, but business would find a way to satisfy demand.

[TexasTimbers]

If Reagan were CIC this thread would not exist. "If" is a big word.

[thurlow]

Be interesting to know how the rest of the nations of the world handle persons who are "guests" without benefit of passport, visa, etc.  I assume it's the same world-wide;  you just slip across the border, get an apartment, get a job, send your kids to school, etc;  have..........essentially.........the same rights as citizens?  Is it that way everywhere?  :-\

[TexasTimbers]

Maybe we should just let them have "thier" country back. They can have the current politicians too  since they don't seem to mind illegals too much, and they can keep the screaming libs who think we owe the entire world a full belly and dry a thatch.
We actual doers can take that mineral rich paradise, from which they have so much trouble eeking out a living, with as many natural rescources as ours, and build it into a place with an actual fence around it with the novel idea that free trade is good but free lunch is not, and that we have a right and even a responsibility for the good of the country to determine who enters it and who doesn't.

I know it is mean-spirited to think we have a right to establish a nation with our own culture but I'm old fashioned. A bonus is we won't have to deal with harsh winters, and Mango and Papaya lovers will not have to pay tarriffs for their favored fruits.

[PawNature]

And to think I got a political joke taken off.

[Furby]

If we can't have an intelligent discussion of problems like this, then we will never find solutions for those problems.
Political or not, these "problems" affect every aspect of our lives and business.

[PawNature]

consistency i think is the word.

[Tom]

Context and apropriate has to be considered as well.  There are a lot of things people think are taken off and they are just moved.

[maple flats]

I don't like illegals either but I must remember back about 110 years ago. My grandfather was a stowaway on a ship, he and his brother were orphaned when their father was killed by a bull and their mother had died a couple of years earlier. They were illegals, 7 and 9 years old, but the big thing was that they were workers, hard workers even as kids. They did not get any public assistance, just an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. Unfortunately grandpa worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania when he was just over 20 for just 6 months before he got out and bought a farm. He died of black lung 35 years later from that.
My point is that I descended from an illegal as likely many of the rest of you did. No I do not like illegals but my reaction are tempered by my ancestry.

[Warren]

Well... I'll jump in.  I'm sure I'll make some folks mad.  But, here's my thoughts:

1) We need to be clear that all hispanic individuals are not MEXICAN.  There are Panamanians, Nicaraguans, El Salvadorans, Hondurans, Guatamalans, and on and on.   Fixing the problem with Mexico wont fix all of the other countries...

2) We got a whole bunch of these folks in our communities already.  Around here (Central KY), most are good hard workers who are contributing to our economy, even if they are not contributing to our tax base.  If it weren't for migrant labor, a pack of cigarettes would cost more than a tank of gas...  I understand the folks on the southwest border may have a whole different breed trouble maker running around their neck of the woods.

3) If we are going to "DO SOMETHING" about illegal residents, lets "DO SOMETHING" about "ALL" illegal residents.  I haven't heard any big outrage about Asians, or Middle Eastern, or African students who come to the U.S. on student visas and quietly "blend in" after their visas expire.  We have names and address for these folks and we still don't take any action to follow up and deport them...

4) Personally I would prefer that we find a way to accommodate the people who are already here.  But if we decide as a country on mass deportations, we should mass deport ALL illegal residents, not just the hispanics.

Just my $0.02

Warren

[Furby]

GRAND RAPIDS -An 18 year old Latin Kings gang member and a 30-year-old Chinese native ordered out of the country in 1993 were among the 133 people arrested in Grand Rapids in a five-day federal immigration sweep called "Operation Return to Sender."

Fugitive teams from the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement, or ICE, division of Homeland Security hit West Michigan last week, looking for immigration status violators and criminal and fugitive aliens, said enforcement spokesman Greg Palmore.

Those arrested have had their day in court and were ordered deported by an immigration judge, said Adrian Macias, field office director of the ICE detention and removal office in Detroit.

"Each alien was ordered to leave the U.S. on the judge's terms. Now they face deportation on ICE's," Macias said

He said 15 of the 133 arrested had criminal records, with crimes ranging from arson to kidnapping.

Two of those arrested were street gang members for the Latin Kings and Sur 13, and 38 were fugitive aliens who had been issued final removal orders by a judge but failed to comply.

Those arrested came from China, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Iraq, India, Mexico and Peru.

[Ron Wenrich]

Mass deportations?  I just can't see how that is even remotely possible.  We have some of those Chinese that were found in a container ship several years ago, still sitting in a jail in Pennsylvania.  What would you do with the 11 million + that are supposedly out  there?

I see there hasn't been anything said about those that hire illegals.  I'm hoping that's an oversight.  Take away the reward, and the "illegal invasion" will cease.

We had a Mexican stop in an wanted a job.  We told him to move a RR tie from one spot to the next.  He actually was going to try it before we stopped him (liabilities).  We hired him and he was one of the best workers we had, until he had green card problems.  There was also some domestic problems involved.  They can do the work.

It kind of reflects back on the time when southern Europeans were looked upon to do factory work and eastern Europeans were looked upon to work the mines.  I just want to see as a legal system for it all to work.

[DWM II]

OK, more fuel for the fire, but where would New Orleans and other gulf coast communities affected by 2005 hurricanes be without the labor of the illegals? Anyone whos been there since the reconstruction began knows that New Orleans in particular would still be just a mud hole without these laborers. My largest concern over this trend is that the latin gangs are taking over where the native gangs have left, when the city is finally rebuilt it will be no better off crime-wise.


This issue of immigrant labor just plainly sucks. There is no easy way to deal with it that wont adversly affect human lives. We are dealing with a majority of migrants who are trying to provide for their families the best way possible. We as a society are willing to look the other way for a period of time to allow them to reach our goals and then start looking for ways to remove them from our country. I'm just as guilty of this mentality as the next guy. The work has to get done, but I nor my neighbors are heading down there on our off-days from our regular jobs to help rebuild.

Do I have an excuse? I suppose so. I've got two teenage daughters that do keep me kinda busy, I've got five acres of work waiting for me while I sit here and type (I dont type 105 wpm :-\) I've got a sawmill that I hustle as much work for as I have time to do.


If there were a simple solution to this problem, there wouldnt be a problem at all I suppose.

Thanks for the opportunity to express my opinion, isnt this a great country!

[Tom]

".........New Orleans in particular would still be just a mud hole without these laborers."

Why?

Didn't New Orleans have a labor force before the hurricane?  Were the occupants just letting the place fall down around their ears anyway?  Don't folks still own property there?

I bought my place in '84 as a 'wilderness' project.  We started with machetes and shovels to open it up with the culmination being a single wide trailer, power and septic tank.  I've hired jobs to be done only twice.  I got a little help with my pole barn from a young fellow who moved here from Tennessee.  I hired the metal building, turnkey, except for power.

Where are the people of New Orleans?  Why do they need illegal alien labor?

[DWM II]

Quite frankly, they are sitting on the steps of their FEMA travel trailers waiting for social security checks. I go do mission work in these parks with our church and see it first hand. At first it bends your heart to see them, then 18 months later seeing the same folks kinda raises your temperature a bit knowing whats going on during the rebuild. Now with that said, dont confuse these people with the previous work force.

The people who work, left the state to start new lives in other states and have not returned and its not looking as if they will. Before the storm NO. had approx. 800,000 residents. Last report I heard it was somewhere in 150,000 range including the illegals.

Another thing you can use as a comparison would be the Mississippi rebuild effort. They are years ahead rebuilding because I believe their residents arent sitting around singing woe is me. Like you have done, as well I'm sure of many members here including my self, carving out our homesteads from raw land was as much chore as it was pleasure, the old residents of NO dont share this quality of intestinal fortitude.

Tom, your questions are so valid and are asked by everyone who lives in this state. I personaly dont believe we need an illegal work force, I would much rather see the trailer parks moved to New Orleans. Maybe this would jump start the old community that hasnt gone back to get involved in the rebuilding thus killing the need for illegals and letting them have the opportunity to earn a wage.

I'll quit now before we get off into a different subject.

[farmerdoug]

There are two currents that keep illegal immigration a problem.

The first is here in our country.  We like cheap food and products.  We let our jobs go overseas for a few pennies savings on a products at times.  The farmimg industry is a low wage industry because the farmers are price takers not price setters.  You have to pay low wages for good labor to compete.  Very few Americans will do the work so you need immigrant laborers.  There is not even close to enough work visas like was mentioned earlier so in comes the illegals.  With the choice between picking your crop or letting it rot means you may loose your farm you bet the farmers will hire illegals.  Now I am not for hiring illegals but I can see why it happens.  Now back when I started as carpenter building houses you saw few Mexicans, but 9 years later they were bricking, landscaping, concrete laying, etc.  The business owners could not find any Americans that wanted to labor so they started hiring Mexicans.   The labors whether illegal or legal make money that can support them good when they go back home.  So the labors take our jobs and money because we want cheap food prices is the way I see it.

The second is in their country.  The wages there are really low.  I read an article on the apple industry in Mexico.  They have labor problems too.  All of the locals go to the USA to work so they have to bus workers up from south of Mexico City and their neighbors to the south.  They pay their labors $65.00 per week for 12 hrs/six days/week.  That is one reason why the labors come to our country to work.  Now our companies go down there to make use of the cheap labor to keep the price down and make more profit here. 

Until the wages and standards of living are raised there we will always have immigrant labors here.  We will also loose our jobs as long as we keep demanding the lowest prices too.  Did you know that companies makes the most profit by importing products from the third world and then marking it up to just a little lower than our USA products?  I do not put all the blame on the President, Congress, or the Judicuary.  I think the public and companies are just as much to blame for the problem.

Farmerdoug

[PineNut]

The decent people that left New Orleans and established themselves somewhere else will be asset wherever they are. The welfare collectors that sit around and say, "Give me" are the problems. Some of them left and are contributing to the crime problems elsewhere. We have seen some of that here in a rather rural area and Houston, TX has seen a lot of it.

A solution would be to take that "give away" money that comes from our TAXES and use it to pay the people to work. No work, no eat. Many of the people left probably don't have many skills but a wheelbarrow and shovel and go work on the levy is not very efficient. But it is better than what they are doing now. Also badly needed is LEGAL protection for the law enforcement personnel. 

Until these people are responsible for their own actions or inaction, nothing is going to improve. And I for one am tired of paying for it.

[Cedarman]

Yesterday I read about the tobacco harvester that has been in the works since 1980. Very expensive.  360,000 bucks.  But, it can harvest 8 acres of tobacco a day with 3 people.  They have sold 2 or 3 to big farmers.  Reason it wasn't out before is because of cheap labor. Dry up the labor, then machines like these become economic. Makes my point. We have the ingenuity to figure out ways to get the job done when the cheap labor is not available.  We do not have to have people cutting tobacco with tobacco knives when a machine can do it.    Machine can cut 180 stalks per minute, humans can cut about 10 per minute.  I could cut about 6 per minute on average.

[farmerdoug]

The lack of labor that is encouraging these machines is not from the labor pool shrinking.  The cheap labor is just going to the higher paying jobs like construction.  Businesses have seen how hard some of these laborers will work and are offering a little more per hour to attract them from the farms.  They do the jobs that our people do not want to do cheaper and better but I beleive there will come a day when they will be doing the jobs that we do want to do.  Because they will work harder for less pay than we will.

Farmerdoug

[DanG]

I know a guy that runs a little sawmill up in the edge of Georgia.  The crew consists of him, his Dad, and 14 Mexicans.  He pays them a buck above minimum wage and they are happy as clams.  He says they love doing anything that ain't picking tomatoes.

[Tom]

I think it's a misnomer that Illegal  aliens will work harder than U.S. Citizens.  It makes good press but the attractive part is that they work for less. "everybody needs one of them Mexicans", is the talk in the coffee shop around here.

Personally, I had them work on my mill as employees of my customers and have gotten very frustrated.  Just as many "homeless" will do, they learn quickly which end of the mill the work is on and will almost always be just a step or two farther away from it than someone who is depending on piece work for a salary.  The first day they jump right in there.  The second day, they are looking for breaks and their pidgin English is forgotten.  By the end of the 2nd day, they will be looking for what they want to do.   If they don't want to off-bear boards, they will shovel sawdust or  polish something on the mill or very hurridly run to the other side or other end of the mill as if they need to urgently "save" something just befor the blade clears the cant.

Don't believe everything you hear about the good work ethics.  Like some of the other laborers I've worked, there are good ones and bad ones.   Those with an excuse of language, tend to use it when they need to.

One of the best labor pools this country has ever had was High School and College students looking for income to get them through the next semester.   I've had High School students outwork two grown men and I'd rather have them, if they were really workers, than an Illegal alien anyday.  Our great society has fixed it so that young folks can't work, even if they wanted.

It is against the law for a person under 18 to work on a sawmill .......period.  Even though the farms use their children, it's not always legal and a child labor advocate could cause a lot of trouble if he wanted.  I'm in favor of child labor laws, but, some of our rules prohibits them from working when they want.  They also prevent the training of young individuals as to the ways of the world and the relationship between the creation of product and a dollar.

[DanG]

They seem to excell at piece work.  If their paycheck depends on production, they can run flat out, all day long.