The benefits of immigration

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1242808455252120.xml&coll=2

No shit, Sherlock. Twenty, even ten, years ago parts of Nicollet Avenue South (north of 40th street to the rim of Downtown) and most of Lake Street east of Nicollet here in Minneapolis were strictly no-go zones with boarded up storefronts, trash, winos and the usual decaying urban ills. Now they are jam packed with neat-as-a-pin small/family businesses: restaurants, markets, clothing shops, cel phone shops, video stores, everything imaginable under the sun. The signage is almost always duplicated in Spanish or Vietnamese. These folks are creating jobs, not taking them.

[RB TexLa]

1. Immigration always has created jobs, economic development and wealth.

[imdjh]

2. There are many different components lumped into "immigrant"

When you say "These folks are creating jobs, not taking them." , do you mean these particular folks? That might be true, but it's also true that there are immigrants, legal and illegal, who are taking American jobs.

Around here you don't see the day labor lines found at Home Depot around the country. We do have day labor, but it's somehow run out of offices. I say "somehow", because only a fool would believe that all the people you see coming out of there are legal immigrants. When you look up on the roofs of new construction, you see Latin American workers. Twenty years ago, many of those doing roofing and other construction scut work would have been Vietnamese, but they were legal resident aliens, mostly with sponsors. They also weren't at the saturation point you see with today's immigrant laborers. Roofs and buildings were worked on before immigrant labor. I have personal knowledge of the use of illegal labor in tile setting and home repair. You also can't say that Americans won't do landscape work, they do. Around here most of the crews are Americans, but the same cannot be said of the crews of larger landscape companies which go by in pick up trucks looking like smaller versions of the busses of migrant workers.

As for the Vietnamese- they come in classes. Taking three stores for example in this area; one is owned by upper class North Vietnamese who got out early, but then had to get out again. Another is a decidedly lower class but upwardly mobile group. The third own a store I wouldn't eat anything that came out of. Of those three, the middle one actually generates direct employment for the most people, because they also own a restaurant. But looks are deceiving, these businesses are not free standing. The first couple hold paper on the second. I have no idea who holds the paper on the third, maybe no one and that's why it's such a hole. As for the industriousness of these folks being a pure driving engine- I'm not so sure about that either. Store #1 has some pretty shady stuff going on. They pay me no mind, and I have seen them handling large amount of cash that is sent through a Vietnamese version of Western Union. They also get visits now and then from two guys who look like a cliché from an Asian gangster movie, complete with New Jersey license plates.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

3. I'm not making any generalizations, I'm

Only observing what i have seen in my home town. What was once a neighborhood filled with crack dealers, sex workers and winos has become a thriving business community, as far as I can see. What was once dogshit is now a thriving, vital community that anyone can feel safe in. I won't pretend that I know what, if anything, is going on behind the scenes as I am a white guy raised in inner ring suburbs. The city has benefited hugely from the change, though. Good food, good markets, and much more.

Family businesses are a hell of a lot better for everyone than the whores and dope dealers those areas had before.

[Jim Sagle]

4. Those of us in IT have a much more negative view.

[imdjh]

6. Adding insult to injury.

When Chase Bank brought in HiB Indian workers to replace their American workers, they actually had the gall to have the American workers train the Indian workers. Theoretically, those Indian workers were going to go back to India to take these Americans' jobs- how many would you guess made it back to India? I don't know the answer, but I'm thinking not many.

Moreover, I hear reports from friends in high tech companies, that the "insourced" (Am I coining a term for jobs outsourced to H1B workers in the US?) labor is virtually as worthless as the outsourced labor. It doesn't matter if you call tech support in Punjab or Fargo if the person on the other end reads from a script and has no ability to actually help you.

[vadawg]

5. dude, for every area that profits theres areas that suffer

i could show you a neighbourhood that went the opposite way from the neighbourhood you mentioned, i guess theres good and bad in all circumstances we just have to weigh the changes.