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Thomas Sowell has an interesting read up at Real Clear Politics titled Guests or Gate Crahsers.

I agree with most of the post, but wanted to quickly comment on part of it:

Do American citizens go around carrying documents with them when they work or apply for work? Most Americans are undocumented workers but they are not illegal immigrants. There is a difference.

I disagree with Mr. Sowell on one — perhaps semantic — point: most American workers in fact are documented workers. Our documents include US birth certificates, State-issued drivers licenses, and Social Security Cards, to name the most important and necessary.

***
I especially agree with this point:

None of the rhetoric and sophistry that we hear about immigration deals with the plain and ugly reality: Politicians are afraid of losing the Hispanic vote and businesses want cheap labor.

Emphasis mine. And that’s really the big elephant in the middle of the room, isn’t it?

6 Responses to “More on Undocumented Workers”

Before the 2004 election, Malkin wrote some articles about the power of the Hispanic vote being overrated. It’s just too small and they don’t vote in lockstep. Still, politicians will use it as an excuse.

The politicians are falling all over themselves in preparation for the Hispanic vote. Well, let me tell ya as I see it, the Republicans better reassess their thinking. Bush has long supported a guest worker program and path to citizenship. And, the illegals like this, of course. Bush has pretty good support among hispanics.

Enter 2006/2007/2008. Now that we’ve got legal status, we want benefits that legal citizens have…we want the earned income credit. We want national health care…we want welfare…we want we want we want. And, who is standing with their hands out???

Who is always standing with their hands out to take from the haves and give to the have nots…well three guesses and the first two don’t count….it’s the Democrats people.

If I’m wrong on this, I’ll buy every person on this blog a steak dinner in Kansas after the election in 2008…that is if I can still afford it.

Dianne- if that is Alternative A and Pete Wilson’s California example is Alternative B what have you got left?

Hey, they just announced on the radio that approx. 50% of those in prison in California are illegal aliens.

It’s not just the illegal immigrants with their hand out … the FILTHY rich were there FIRST paving the way for them . They are attempting what amounts to, legalizing slavery …first by using these criminals for unlivable wages and changing the language to “guest workers” who will work for slave wages and be compensated for their needs by American tax payers while the illegals send their chump change south. And the FILTHY, self righteous rich don’t even think that it’s fair that they have to pay taxes because they are doing such wonderful things for the economy. While their slaves send $15billion south of the border every year , it costs over $2.1 billion to lock some of them up here …over $2.5 billion in medicaid , over $2.2 billion in uninsured medical costs , over $1.4 billion in federal aid to schools ,$over $1.9 in food stamps , wic and free lunches… and the list goes on like the energizer bunny.

I still can’t figure out what “Jobs that Americans won’t do.” Think it has anything to do with drugs ?

One of the biggest myths of illegal workers is that they are being exploited for “slave wages”. Are they being exploited for lower wages than a legal citizen would expect for the same work? Yes. But they are almost always pretty good wages.

House cleaners here in Austin (ones who work for themselves, not the ones working for companies like Maids R Us) command ~$15/hour for house cleaning. Merry Maids wanted $135 for each regularly scheduled cleaning. We found an independant contractor* who would do it for $75 (for about 5 hours work each time she comes over). That’s $15 an hour.

Day laborers (lawn maintenance, landscaping, construction, and moving) can’t be found for less than $10 hour. We hired two guys from the Austin Day Labor site to lay sod in our backyard — they got $110 each for about 9 hours of labor. That’s $12.22/hour for each man. A fair days pay for a fair days labor, I’d say.

Hardly “slave labor” wages.

* To the best of our knowledge, the people we hired to work for us are in this country legally.

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