Ibon wrote:
You have to separate the fear mongering from what is really the crisis. Just talked to an old friend in the Ag sector who told me immigration is a crisis for farmers because of the lack of immigrant labor.
That's a crisis of payment, not labor. Pay decent wages and you get your workers.
Why should an american take a cheap job if he can in many cases get almost as much with the help of social programs?
We discussed this before but there really is a disconnect between the stoking of fear on one side and the actual needs of immigrant labor on the other.
The fear of out of control immigration goes well beyond a few farm workers. It touches sensitive topics, such as loss of identity, rapid cultural change and values, loss of control. It can disenfranchise communities and marginalize weaker natives. Would you enjoy sending one of your kids into a 90% muslim school in an immigrant community in europe?
Assuming you had a guest worker program to make the current illegals legal, there would be a huge demand for their labor. I look at this from the perspective of our own operation in Panama. For $ 400 a month you have a super motivated worker willing to do hard physical labor working 6 days a week.
In Panama $400 is a lot of money. In the US it's not. In the US there's law regarding minimum payment. And for good reason. How does making an illegal farm worker legal changes anything? It's importing labor and depresses wages. Practically any farm from California to Maine uses illegal workers already. How does making them legal change anything, with the exception of giving them more RIGHTS which then increases cost, opening a door for cheaper illegals once again.
You simply wont find a US citizen willing to work for those wages or do the menial work at any wage actually.
No. And why should they? Plenty of social programs make it possible to sneeze at menial work at minimum wage. Or do you think South american workers take menial low paying jobs out of their good heart? They take them because that's the best they can do in their given circumstances.
There is a demand. There is a supply. Why do we complicate this issue?
Pay decent wages and you won't have a worker problem.
Back to politics, the political left would cry slave labor if you would pay those wages. The political right would stoke the fear with racism. But the simple truth is that there is a demand and there is a supply.
There is ALWAYS demand for any labor if the price is kept artificially low. And it's kept artificially low by importing illegals unskilled workers with hardly any rights.
Frankly, this whole issue is pure hysteria and not rational.
No. This is a matter of much more than a few farm workers. Heck, maybe there are even people who are opposed to have their small town turn into a Mexican town? Maybe they enjoy living a life embedded in their traditional culture? How should I now? Anybody opposing mass immigration is an evil racist, right?