You're missing part of the equation. How desperate are the people to get into your specific property, and only yours. If you have a business with a barbed wire fence, and criminals don't care which property they target, they are likely to choose a similar property with no fence. But if your business is the specific target, tick the fence will actually stop anyone? If a person is desperate enough, they will find a way to over, under, or through any obstacle. Including a 30 foot high wall that's stopped how many people from coming? And caused how many injuries and deaths from people climbing it?
LMAO! Perfect wall vs no wall is not false dichotomy, but open borders vs closed borders is not... Irony much?
The 30-foot fences have been around a long time (at least in some areas). I remember seeing some when we went to Mexico prior to the 41-14 national championship game. I also remember seeing some clever rigs and some empty ropes that indicated some folks had no problem getting beyond the fence. I agree with @AzCatFan that there's a better way to make this work, but I can't get behind the idea that any of these injuries are legitimately caused by the fence itself. We can speak to ways that we can try to help the affected communities (where these people come from); we can speak to ways that we can try to find a compromise to allow people in; we just can't blame a final obstacle as actually causing their pain. One thing I think it's important to remember...especially for those who say there is a demand for their employment. That demand is directly proportional to the ability to pay them below normal wage laws. So we can't at the same time argue that illegal immigrants deserve better wages while at the same time saying there is a demand for their employment. *If* we are going to acknowledge that the demand for their employment is real, then we must also acknowledge that it is because of the lower price tag. *If* we are going to acknowledge that they deserver protection under American wage laws, then we must also acknowledge that the demand for said labor is not there (or at least not nearly as significantly). I think if people on the left would allow for recognizing the market for illegal immigrant labor, the right would be more accepting of working out a deal to allow them in legally. The right is all over illegal immigrant labor whether it's through investments or personal jobs that they can get at discounted rates. The left is all over letting them in. Be honest about it, and work out a solution. Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
this. treat the disease, not the symptoms. nearshore all that asian production with the cheap labor we have here. they can learn and will work, they need capital, legal structure, and security and they will gladly stay home
raising their wages at the manual labor jobs msot of them do isn't going to decrease demand for labor. The US worker simply doesn't want those jobs at the meatpacking plants and the farm fields and the landscape and the roofing and ....Raising the wages will raise the cost of some products though. a real guest worker program would allow for decreased wages in return for providing housing, medical, transport to and from their home countries and that would allow a worker to come here, work for a set period 6,9,12, 18 months, and then return home. Their family stays home, they send money home to help build their economy there. They are documented and taken care of while here. Gang of 8 set one up, dust it off, implement it.
This is intriguing for sure. I'm not sure how incentivizing outsourcing of jobs would fly in a political climate. And outside of corporate profits and probably cheaper goods I'm not sure the benefits because the average American isn't overtly "harmed" by immigration. But for the long game you definitely need to treat the cause of the immigration problem.
It already is happening in agriculture. It's called H2A. All of what you said is provided. What I understand the biggest deterrent from it growing in more numbers is not limits from the US government, it is not enough workers wanting to participate. Why come here and work this way when you can just show up at border, claim asylum, get flown to NYC where you get housing and meals and do not have to work.
I didn't mean to express or imply that the US worker was looking to do the jobs that you mention. It does stand to reason that as the wages rise to legal levels including benefits, that fewer Americans would rule out such jobs as a viable option. However, the second bolded comment is the larger point. Raising the wages affects the bottom line; sure you can raise the cost, but you are going to lose investors and customers. There are consequences to raising the wages. If companies have to shut down because it's no longer a fruitful business model, who wins? Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
It’s a multi-pronged approach. You have to raise the living standards of those markets to buy more American company products and services for export activities. LatAm is at our door step and is important to develop to keep balance in our region. China and Russia are moving in. To do so, the US govt has to develop a stronger trade / treaty based network in LatAm. The exportation of US jobs will happen regardless or be replaced by robots and AI. The human capital answer is to accept the inevitability and redeploy American jobs into different areas on pace with technology changes. Things will get worse before they get better. Natural resource development is physical and Americans will need to get more creative or become professional garbage pickers (not pejorative), miners, tree planters, house builders, water irrigation constructors, H2 pipeline layers, and oil and gas developers.
H2A only applies to seasonal work though. If you have a need for year round employment, a meat packing plant for example. The H2A program doesn't help them. Seasonal work would be harvesting oranges for example.
I've thought about some of this before but haven't dug into it. I used to think, for example, that at least many agricultural jobs are exempted from the Federal minimum wage? Not sure if that was true or still true or how state law factors in with those jobs?
Jobs are plentiful right now. It’s economically irrational to be virulently anti-immigrant where the new immigrants can come and immediately participate in the economy. If anything we should be vastly expanding work visas. For all the denials of racism you see from some message board posters, a lot of the rhetoric out there sure is racist and hate based (replacement theory, “they’re sending their rapists”, and all that nonsense). Obviously in a different economic climate it isn’t necessarily true that jobs are plentiful. It’s also true that if you make it TOO easy, you might get millions more people than the labor force actually needs. Although for the most part the # of immigrants does ebb and flow with the demand for labor. You know… market based capitalism. I ‘member when Republicans at least pretended to be for limited govt, free trade, and capitalism. Now they are for protectionism and govt central planning around social issues. That’s sure to end well!
All very good points. I think many Republicans might be okay with more guest workers hypothetically. Of course, many on the right believe that migrants, refugees, and/or illegal residents have been voting in large numbers in our elections. Those conspiracies don't help. Some are also very worried non citizens having babies in the United States. That's why Ramaswamy and others want to end birthright citizenship.
Immigrants aren’t entitled to welfare. So I’m pretty sure this isn’t happening over the long term. Maybe the short term, especially where they are getting “dumped” in big cities by bad/evil actors in certain southern states. It would be preferable for them to get paperwork, then go live with extended family and start a job than to have the govt “misdirect” them for political stunt purposes. Then there would be no moral obligation for any govt to “support” them. F%*?-ing with these people creates the moral obligation. I know the feds have programs for bonafide refugees/asylum seekers to get them sorted out. According to this they get 8 months. Not sure if this applies to anyone crossing the southern border though, or if it’s for a different type of refugee/asylum. Refugee Cash Assistance | DSHS.
Yes and no. I have several farmers that use H2A workers and they end up getting an overwhelming percentage of the same workers year after year. If you a meat packing facility I would assume that you could run concurrent seasons. Keep this group for 6 months then replace with the next group then bring the first group back. Not exactly that would work but I would think it would be worth an effort to try. Every farmer I have, fought this program when first started because of the increased cost. The increase in productivity by having a better-quality worker, that doesn't want to lose their spot in program, has about erased the increase cost.
Do you have evidence that immigrants by and large work for wages that are not legal at places like meat packing plants? Companies that hire them, especially larger companies, have an incentive to provide legal wages already: to help avoid detection or to provide plausible deniability that they knew their workers were not legally allowed to work in the US. Best analysis of this question that I can find is that the gap is about 4% when observable characteristics are controlled for in the analysis. The wage penalty to undocumented immigration. Also, you are leaving out the benefits of hiring legal workers if they are available such as greater stability of employment and lower risk to the employers. This would be worth some increase in wages to an employer. Especially if the gap is something like 4%.
Just as the rules for foreign work visas are supposed to be “not replacing a U.S. worker” (something tech companies are known to violate all the time, for example) - on the bottom end they should also get minimum wage or market based pay. I’m sure in alot of those “paid in cash” environments they are lot living up to that. Nor are they paying payroll taxes. I’m sure part of the incentive for hiring illegals is to cheat, and keep labor prices low. You will never completely eradicate cheaters, but you can make the bar higher. That’s just another reason to expand the LEGAL workforce. It narrows the field for the bad actors. As it stands now, what immigrant is going to complain where they are taken advantage of? Can’t exactly file a complaint with OSHA or the department of labor…if millions more of them had a work visa granting legal status there would be more adherence by employers.
Yes you can get the same workers back year after year but they are limited to 6 months of work before they have to leave. And no, you can't have two groups that work 6 months and then the other group comes, the H2A law doesn't allow for that. That is why dairy farmers can't use them.
