America's new slaves?

Originally posted by Will Everitt
"voluntarily breaks across barriers" I am thankful to not be put in that situation but if I were I think I might break across the barriers in the hope of 'the American dream'. If I thought that by breaking across the barrier I could live a better life and send more money home to ensure my child got a better education and life then I think I might.

"v ...[text shortened]... school, have a worse healthcare there are different chains but they are still there.

we are all slaves to something - mostly our desires. i find exploitation of people anywhere - whether forced prostituion in cambodia or organ harvesting in the first world - shameful. yet, i don't think that all of the mexicans that come up here for jobs have it so bad. i certainly wouldn't want have to pick produce as my job, but working in the restaurant industry i've seen a lot of mexican labor come and go. we have an employee who just got back from spending 8 months with his family in mexico - on money that he made here. it is sad that he has to leave his young daugther and family for months at a time, but he is potentially providing a future for them that would have been impossible without his job as a food prep here in the states. the mexicans that work at my place are treated unusually well, we even have a program to help them learn english, but even so employment up here is worth the risk. if there were a country that i could go to and work a menial job for an income that would put me in the top 40% income earners in my country (that's just a guess) i would probably not be finishing college and i would be in that country, living in an apartment with several others, and sending lots of mony back home. sure i would be treated poorly and would be discriminated against somewhat, but that is going to happen given the small-minded nature of humans - at least i'm providing for my family. besides, the mexicans that i know have a whole network up here, and can get whatever they want to make the time more enjoyable.

Originally posted by jareyes
Friend, it's not a conclusive issue and it's definitely heated -extremely important for both countries.

Although I concur with many of the reasoning you provide, I think getting the mexicans locked would prove to be a really high cost measure, impacting the American tax payer, don't you think?

My whole point is that trying to target the mexican is at the wrong end of the "problem". what US citizen would work for the wages in the industries now dominated by illegal immigrants? If the cost structures in those industries now are such that there would never be an incentive or possibility that US producers could offer american wages to americans to do the work instead, then the vast amount of work opportunity that needs to be done sets up a threshold potential, much like a vacuum that nature(which abhors vacuums) fills with air. Air in this case is the itinerant illegal worker who gets drafted into the system having been slipstreamed there by the turbulence of american economic activity.

this is not to blame americans, as that would personalize a basically anonymous process which has more in common with flow dynamics than any plan or conspiricay to 'enslave' mexicans.

However the failure by american legislators to acknowledge that their economic activity is a powerful force that will draft others in its orbit to jump its borders is an act abrogated responsibility. The Bureau of statistics surely would have been able to analyse trends over the past 20 years to know that the dependence of americans on this form of labour is real, embedded and unlikely to dissapear in the foreseeable future.

That being the case, to walk away from ligitimising the labour provided by the US's southern neighbours is to enslave those workers into a twilight zone of being non persons. They are robbed of any rights and to suggest that they came here by their own volition, noone forced them to come is a facile construct that makes a mockery of the reality that americans are bolstering their economic position on the backs of poorly paid labour. None should be able to deny that quite a few state economies would collapse if that labour were removed tommorrow. If that labour was removed over a period of say 18 mnths,(time enough to replace that labour with higher paid US workers) those state economies would steadily spiral out flatline and die.

That is the reality. To somehow pretend it is not and live behind a fantasy that makes the 'engine' responsible for the continued economic prowess of those US states a furtive element in society, is to promote a grossly immoral act of selfish arrogance that undermines the very principles of democratic rights and freedoms that the US holds dear.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
From BBC News website.

[b]Day without Mexicans

Expect the next battle in which George is left to fend for himself in the jungle to focus on immigration reform. This is a pet project of the former governor from Texas.

He understands that the mountainous desert border is porous but that the United States cannot do without millions of illegal ...[text shortened]... nd eye, taking advantage of desperate people.

So, is this America's new slave labour?[/b]

The BBC never gets it correct. They are here illegally breaking the law therefore they are by defination criminals. I'm sure Merry Ole England also has immigration laws and deport illegal aliens everyday. They can't be slaves because they are getting paid for their labors however little that it may be it is far more than what they get in Mexico. If the US would cut off welfare benefits received by people who are nothing but too lazy to work then we would have the friut pickers and such.

Originally posted by slimjim
I'm sure Merry Ole England also has immigration laws and deport illegal aliens everyday.

about 1 in every million

Originally posted by slimjim
The BBC never gets it correct. They are here illegally breaking the law therefore they are by defination criminals. I'm sure Merry Ole England also has immigration laws and deport illegal aliens everyday. They can't be slaves because they are getting paid for their labors however little that it may be it is far more than what they get in Mexico. If the US wo ...[text shortened]... by people who are nothing but too lazy to work then we would have the friut pickers and such.

While the illegal immigrants are indeed criminals, so too are the owners of businesses
which employ them. Under current legal definitions, significant underpaying constitutes
slave labor.

Do you believe in super-stiff penalties to businesses that employ illegal immigrants?
(You'll note that current legislation basically gives businesses slaps on the wrists.)

Nemesio

Originally posted by Nemesio
While the illegal immigrants are indeed criminals, so too are the owners of businesses
which employ them. Under current legal definitions, significant underpaying constitutes
slave labor.

Do you believe in super-stiff penalties to businesses that employ illegal immigrants?
(You'll note that current legislation basically gives businesses slaps on the wrists.)

Nemesio

Yes. I think crooked contractors who hire illegals to build houses and pay them pennies to the dollar should slam be dunked and their licenses taken away. Major corporations should be fined 1,000,000 a head if they hire illegal aliens. I don't believe in taking advantage of some poor illegal paying them crap because they don't want to rock the boat and have immigration finding them.

Originally posted by slimjim
Yes. I think crooked contractors who hire illegals to build houses and pay them pennies to the dollar should slam be dunked and their licenses taken away. Major corporations should be fined 1,000,000 a head if they hire illegal aliens. I don't believe in taking advantage of some poor illegal paying them crap because they don't want to rock the boat and have immigration finding them.

It's a red-letter day! We agree!