You want to do something about immigration?

[Horse with no Name]

Here you go.
http://www.apac.com/divisions.asp?div=5

This company builds roads and bridges. I KNOW for a fact that they hire illegal immigrants for the bridge crews.

Follow the money.

President - R. Scott Sarine

http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?city=Brashear&st=TX&last=Sarine
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?city=SULPHUR+SPRINGS&st=TX&last=Sarine

Take it to the people who make illegal immigration possible and leave the undocumented workers alone. After all, they wouldn't risk their lives to come here for nothing.
Fine this company $25k per day/per worker and I GUARANTEE that you can be sloshing hot asphalt during the hottest part of the day in Texas.
Take the jobs back! Fine the employer!

[Horse with no Name]

1. Oh, and by the way

Anyone care to guess how many federal and state contracts this company gets?
The roads these people pave aren't private roads.
So in essence, we, as citizens, fund the hiring of illegal immigrants--at least in the sector.

[KAT119]

38. After outsourcing the middle class jobs-this is step 2=hire low wage

Mexican workers in *'s plan to eliminate the USA's middle class = easier to then dictate/control the '2' American classes= the poor and *'s friends - the CEO'S. BFEE is on track for Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Close the banks - issue a new currency & if you wish food & water work for the Commander in Chief=GWB!

[OnionPatch]

2. I'm trying to make sense

of all these proposed illegal immigrant bills and it does occur to me that they are targeting the wrong people. (Isn't this the white-bread, Republican way: blame the helpless and downtrodden little guy.)

As long as there are employers here in America who are willing to hire them "under the table" there will be illegal immigrants and the downward trend of American wages.

Fine the employer!! You are totally right. Crack down on those employers who are so cheap they won't pay a legitimate worker. Funny how they want to send the immigrants to prison, but they give a wink and a nod at the employers who hire them.

[TomInTib]

3. So who's gonna slosh the asphalt?

Members of the Texas Department of Corrections Country Club?

[Horse with no Name]

4. All these people who are complaining

That the "illegals" are stealing their jobs. The people who are "insisting" there isn't any job that is "beneath them".
Seems like quite a few candidates for these prize jobs.:eyes:

[TomInTib]

6. We live in a small town that is one of the most exclusve and

expensive in the US.
Many of our municipal employees are local white guys, but guess who does every bit of the grunt work?

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. I like the way you are thinking

:hi:

[sandnsea]

27. At $25 hr???

Yeah, there'd be plenty of people to do that work. Just like there is to do mining and other unpleasant work, when the pay is right. You aren't helping to define the real issue any more than the immigrant haters are. This is a fair labor, workers' rights issue. Any pitting of worker against worker only diverts attention from the real issue.

[Horse with no Name]

29. IF there are plenty of people to do this work

Then they need to take it to the streets to get to the root of the problem which is the employer.
That is precisely my point. That is why I posted ONE company that hires MANY illegal workers. Now, if I know they do this, then the powers that be know as well. Yet they do nothing. How many companies could you list?
I could probably sit down and list about 20 companies that employ illegal workers. Problem is, the only thing immigration does is haul these people off and separate them from their families. They do nothing to the employers. I'm not going to punish someone for feeding their kids.
But the only way to do it is to make it illegal with MAJOR financial loss to the employers to hire them.
I'm not pitting worker against worker. The workers are just cogs. It doesn't matter who is there, the job is going to get done.
I believe that if someone is going to do a job--regardless of their color or nationality--they should be paid fairly and given appropriate benefits.
I just don't believe that saddling the illegal workers with the brunt of blame is the answer.
I believe I have perfectly defined the issue.
I just don't hate brown people because they are trying to feed their families because I'd do the same thing if I were in their situation.

[sandnsea]

31. I pretty much agree

I just don't think these are jobs no one else will do and I think it divides workers and enables the exploitation of immigrants when we say that. We could say you can't live in this country and buy your own health insurance and save for retirment (all those things Republicans say we're supposed to do) on the wages paid to undocument workers. We could say undocumented workers paid a fair wage wouldn't be a burden to local social services. We could fight for better living standards for ALL low-income workers. Because this is not an immigrant problem, it's a human rights and exploitation of labor problem. Documented or not.

[Horse with no Name]

32. I think we are saying the same thing

AND I think you misunderstand the main point of why I listed this.
There needs to be an uprising of people to DEMAND that the EMPLOYERS be held accountable.
I mean truly, if you were unemployed and such laws were in effect, wouldn't you find the employers who were breaking the laws and turn them in so that they would be forced to hire American workers?
I guarantee that there would be an entire work force outside this companies gates demanding that they hire legal workers.
Employers wouldn't be able to hide. People need jobs at fair wages and fair benefits.

[sandnsea]

34. I think we do agree

I can explain why there aren't protests outside the company gates. People don't know who is legal and who is illegal. I worked for a potato processing plant, I did payroll. I never knew who was legal and illegal, they all came in with the documents they were supposed to have. My son was a wildland firefighter, he said half of them are Latino and many can't speak English. He didn't know whether they were legal or illegal. It's not easy. But I do agree the employers should be the target.

The only thing I disagree with is saying these are jobs Americans won't do. Like I said, Americans do these jobs, if they're paid a fair wage. And it doesn't have to be $25 an hour, my son was paid around $9.00 an hour. My daughter was a state park worker for around $9.00, she cleaned toilets and picked up poop off the shower floors. Can you believe people do that? ugh. It's not an issue of Americans not doing the jobs, it's just that Americans expect a fair wage, safety regulations, that sort of thing. Illegals can't complain, they're ripe for exploitation. That's what I wish we'd focus on in the debate.

[Horse with no Name]

35. Hey I'm a nurse

I believe people do anything...;)

[sam sarrha]

5. this migration is sponsored by the Mexican Government to export poverty to

the united states so they will send 10's of Billions of $$$$$$$$ to their starving families in Mexico.. this is the largest moneymaking business in Mexico, even bigger than the 26,000,000 american jobs they stoled and pay $4.64 a day -the patrons cut of course..to desperate peasants...

because of the CORRUPTION of the Mexican Government

if we wanted to invade a country to start a Democracy we should have invaded Mexico again...!!! the UN has declared the Mexican Government... '

Morally Bankrupt and Democratically Irretrievable

http://www.globalexchante.org/countries/americas/mexico/slope/section3.html

http://www.newsmax.org/articles/archives/2004/2/26/164611.shtml

Google: mexico exporting poverty

[Horse with no Name]

7. And...in the end...it isn't the "government" that suffers

It is the people on either side of the border who are the recipients of mismanaged government and corruption.
Just ask the people along the Gulf Coast. They have a lot more in common with the citizens of Mexico than they ever could have imagined.

[kurth]

8. Americans should always take care of our own first

By "our own" I mean American citizens, regardless of race, creed or color.
Excess Mexicans are Mexico's problem.

[Horse with no Name]

10. The WHAT THE FUCK are we doing in Iraq?

:shrug:
I'm sorry, I don't agree with you at all.
ESPECIALLY living in Texas--duh!
This was THEIR land before we stole it from them.
You live in the friggin capitol city and you probably believe the myths about the Alamo.
>>>snip
The Alamo didn't become a cultural icon until about 60 years after the battle, around the same time that a portrayal of the Mexican soldiers as brutal tyrants and the Texians as inspired heroes began to be emphasized, writes Richard Flores in "Remembering the Alamo: Memory, Modernity, and the Master Symbol." This one-dimensional view of the Alamo served to both echo and bolster the economic and social displacement of Hispanics that was hitting full stride in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Hispanics were being shoved off their land, forced into menial jobs and treated as second-class citizens, even though some Hispanics fought on the Texas side at the Alamo.

http://www.statesman.com/specialreports/content/specialreports/forgottenplaces/15alamo_rs.html

Gee, something about that doesn't seem quite right does it? Now WHOSE land did you say it was?

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. "Excess Mexicans"??

Do you know how that sounds? I guess you would recommend throwing them out with the trash, eh?

[sam sarrha]

14. i disagree, they are our problem even the suffering in Mexico is our

is our problem.. our corrupt Fascist government i cahoots with their Corrupt Fascist Government is both our countries problems...

i am not faulting the migrants.. but we need to take do something about it.soon.

and i know you are being a flippant asshole.. this a serious problem for both our countries.. i am seriously seeking a solution.. i am not bashing Mexicans

[Horse with no Name]

19. You are assuming that these two bastions of corruption want the problem

"solved". They do not.
As pointed out, it is a way to send American money to Mexico improving their economy while supplying a cheap labor force for corporate America.
One of the biggest complaints that I hear is that "they" are killing our medical system (as if we haven't done a good enough job destroying it ourselves). By legalizing these workers, then the employers would be REQUIRED to furnish medical care for guest workers as they do their other employees. There should be a caveat that the employer can't charge them any MORE than the other employees, and must offer it for part-time employees also. The other caveat would have to be that the guest worker would NOT be able to refuse purchasing medical coverage through their employer.
The solution is a very simple two pronged approach that doesn't include fences.
Heavy fines to the businesses/corporations that utilize undocumented workers. THEN institute a guest worker program at a fair and equal wage.
The employers could choose Mexican guests or American workers--everyone would be on an equal footing.
My guess is that the majority will choose American workers if for no other reason than because they speak English.
However--in the jobs that TRULY nobody wants to do, the guest workers could get those at a fair rate of exchange with benefits.
The exploitation would stop. The problem would stop.
But again--that is assuming that both governments want it to. They do not. They make too much money on the back of the illegal workers.

[Karenina]

20. You GO, HwnN!!!

:bounce: Middle class America has begun to REALLY FEEL the pinch fron outsourcing. Enter the "Boogiebeaner" stage RIGHT to play to all their ingrained prejudices and ignorance of the real issues which you have so clearly delineated. Kotexman is simply spearheading the next phase of the "divide and conquer" duplicity.

The prison industry is HUGH111 big bidness... Ever see this? It's an oldy-moldy but may help connect a dot or two.

The Gatekeeper: Watch on the INS
by Alisa Solomon
Detainees Equal Dollars
The Rise in Immigrant Incarcerations drives a prison boom
August 14 - 20, 2002

t was a shaky spring for the correctional workers of Hastings, Nebraska (pop. 24,064), as the stagnation in the nation's prison population and the increasingly high costs of incarceration jostled the sleepy town, some two hours' drive from Lincoln. On April 9, the 84 employees of the Hastings Correctional Center were told that the 186-bed facility would be closing at the end of June. State funds were scraping bottom, and the $2.5 million annual price tag for the prison was too big a burden to carry. "We really didn't know what we would do," says Jim Morgan, who had been working at HCC for 15 years and lives to this day in the house where he was born. "There aren't a lot of job opportunities out here, and most of us have homes and kids and couldn't even think about moving somewhere else." For two months, the workers scrambled, filling out applications at nearby meatpacking and cardboard-container plants and anticipating long hours in the unemployment office.

Then salvation came from, of all places, the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Days after HCC closed as a state prison in June, it reopened as an INS detention center.

"It's a win-win," says Morgan. The INS is desperate for more beds for its ever expanding detainee population. And the state of Nebraska, collecting $65 per detainee per day from the INS, rakes in more than $1 million a year over and above the cost of running the place.

County jailers have long known that housing INS detainees pumps easy income into the coffers. Nearly 900 facilities around the country provide beds for the INS, and in interviews over the years, several county sheriffs and wardens have described such detainees as a "cash crop."

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0233/solomon.php

[Horse with no Name]

21. I absolutely do not understand the mentality

When prisons and jails became privatized, all of the sudden Texas was importing prisoners from all over the country. Towns and communities were FIGHTING to put the prison facilities in their backyard.
I remember living in Arizona when Bruce Babbitt was Governor. He wanted to build a penitentiary near where we lived. It is the Perryville Prison now.
Residents were ANGRY that they were considering putting this in their area.
They didn't want it. In fact, there was a sign on the construction site that said something along the lines of "Babbitt Country Club".
My take is that the prisons were meant to house potheads and everyone knows they aren't a threat. It was a good source of income and made the War on Drugs easier to sell. "Put a pothead in jail, keep your job, keep your home". Gives people a financial stake in hating druggies.
Same with illegal immigrants "Put an 'illegal' in jail, keep your job, keep your home". Gives people a financial stake in hating illegal immigrants.
Once you give personal justification to anyone for persecuting a particular population, it just gets easier the next time.
So when they start filling up the Halliburton detention centers with activists and dissenters, all it becomes is a justified "Put a liberal in jail, keep your job, keep your house".
It turns your neighbors into mercenaries.

[Karenina]

28. I see you "got it"

or rather, already "had it in your grasp!" :hug:

[Horse with no Name]

30. Yep.

I'm glad to see a few friends around these days.:hug:

[RagingInMiami]

18. The migration is encouraged by the Mexican government

To prevent a huge uprising.

It doesn't make it right. Doesn't make the Mexican government any less corrupt. But what are we going to do, invade and liberate them?

I'd rather focus on my own corrupt government.

[KharmaTrain]

9. Let The Repugnicans Beat Themselves Silly With This

Yes, there's a serious immigration problem in this country and a labor problem...but neither are being addressed by the backers of this regressive Sennsenkotex bill. It's appeasing to the racists in the Repugnican party...nothing more, nothing less. It criminalizes people whose only sin is trying to feed their family and do a little better in life...rather than going after those who truely profit from the labor of these people...the large growers, construction companies, packing houses and so on. They're the ones who encourage the immigration for the cheap labor and to avoid unions and paying taxes and benefits. These are the criminals, not the poor souls trying to do what my grandparents and many others tried to do...get a better life.

There's a definite need for some kind of temporary worker system and Democrats have long backed approaches where the "so-called" labor shortages can be addressed but by making the employer more responsible and requiring them to provide health care and pay taxes on the workers who put that new Bently in their driveway or enabled them to become a "boosh pioneer".

The battle going on about this bill is strictly racism. It's not the work or even tax of services that's the problem here. There are many other groups that operate illegal smuggling rings...bringing in undocumented workers (including the slave trade) into this country and you won't hear a peep out of the Repugnicans about this problem. It's definitely not a problem if it's a Cuban who hates Castro trying to sneak into the country. This is about southern white anglos and racists being catered to by the party that makes big money by preying on things that divide, not unite. Let's not help them. Support the hispanics and those who want a better life for these people and we've created a powerful new alliance in the Southwest and West that will reap dividends for Democrats for decades to come. Just like the New Deal and other pro-immigrant and pro-union programs made my grandparents into loyal and proud Democrats, the same can happen for the growing number of Hispanics now providing a lot of culture, color and much needed labor in this country.

[kineneb]

13. follow the $

If this bill passes and is signed...
1. no fines on employers for hiring illegal workers= continued downward pressure on wages for US citizens (cheap labor "conservatives")
2. more prisoners and more prisons = more cheap (free) prison labor, more money to prison builders (Haliburton/KBR?), more downward pressure on wages

a win-win for the greedhead corps, lose-lose for the rest of us

I suppose in the long run, the bill might cut illegal workers coming here, but I doubt it. And I think the sponsors know that. Someone will make money off this purposal, and the public will get screwed, again.

[sam sarrha]

15. the cost of food wouldn't go up much at all if you doubled the wages of

workers.. that is a bullshit excuse from the running yellow dog capitalist robber barons

[Cleita]

24. That's true.

See my post here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=763820&mesg_id=765259

[blondeatlast]

39. Exactly. Nothing the criminals in the WH do is an accident.

And thank you for a terrific argument to use against those defending this horrible legislation.

Duly memorized.

[converted_democrat]

16. It's a great idea, but it will never happen..

Big business is in control of this country, and their bottom line depends on illegals being available to work for cheap rates.. Big business would never slash their own throat..

[Bad Thoughts]

17. Where's Tom Joad?

Who are all these Americans who are uprooting, driving half way across the country to find that illegal immigrants have taken jobs that they should have? If this was really a major problem, than citizens who lost out to illegal immigrants would be visible in the places where construction and agricultural day laborers are hired.

[yurbud]

22. kick & rec

[Cleita]

23. That and unionizing the workers, including the undocumented

ones, would make this problem go away. The thing is it won't make the brown people go away, which I think is the hidden intent of this scapegoating.

[Horse with no Name]

25. It's getting to where it isn't very hidden anymore

At least to me.:shrug:

[Cleita]

26. The prejudice is boiling to the surface more and more,

isn't it?

[Horse with no Name]

33. Yep.

And the fear. Just as intended.

[tjwash]

36. I know. It's akin to arresting the dime bag drug dealers...

...and just ignoring the rich white bankers that launder the billions each year in illegal drug money.

They could stop illegal immigration tomorrow if they wanted to. It would be disastrous for farms, restaurants, hotels, construction companies, and all the other places that depend on a pool of slave labor to do the dirty work.

[in_cog_ni_to]

37. I agree! Go after the companies that hire them!

If they wouldn't hire them, they would immigrate, RIGHT? Why is that so damn difficult for people to understand?