From the New York Times:
A Republican Platform Line Friendly to Immigrants
By JULIA PRESTON
It was no surprise that the Republicans declared their intention to strictly crack down on illegal immigration in their platform, which was released last week.
But one line was added to the text that went counter to the calls for strict employee verification and expanded action by states: It called for “a legal and reliable source of foreign labor where needed through a new guest worker program.”
And Brad Bailey, a Texas Republican who owns two seafood restaurants in suburbs of Houston, was satisfied to see it there.
Obviously, bringing in new guestworkers to hammer down the dishwashing wages of the current set of immigrants washing dishes in this guy's Houston restaurants isn't very friendly to immigrants now in the U.S., but who cares about them? The point of being "Friendly to Immigrants" is:
- To line the pockets of the Brad Bailey Republicans in the short run;
- To demographically transform the United States for the benefit of Democrats in the long run.
It's a win-win proposition!
Also, the old bracero program that was shut down in the early 1960s after Edward R. Murrow's "Harvest of Shame" documentary was at least close to all-male. Modern coed guest worker programs and the anchor baby interpretation of the 14th Amendment don't mix, to say the least. But nobody ever thinks about the possibility that guest workers might have sex, which, according to science, has been known to sometimes lead to babies.
- To line the pockets of the Brad Bailey Republicans in the short run;
- To demographically transform the United States for the benefit of Democrats in the long run.
It's a win-win proposition!
Also, the old bracero program that was shut down in the early 1960s after Edward R. Murrow's "Harvest of Shame" documentary was at least close to all-male. Modern coed guest worker programs and the anchor baby interpretation of the 14th Amendment don't mix, to say the least. But nobody ever thinks about the possibility that guest workers might have sex, which, according to science, has been known to sometimes lead to babies.
No sex, please, we're the New York Times and the GOP Platform Committee.
Posts
57 comments:
If the coed immigrant dishwashers use birth control as scrupulously as Sandra Fluke (who's speaking at the DNC), then no worries.
Well, I don't like it but with the Republicans the only way the business groups will except e-verify is the Utah or Texas guest worker. I read about the rise of the underground garment industry in La and the electric parts industry that employed thousands of illegal immigrants. At one time La had 114,000. There started being a crackdown on the industries but a lot of these industries went overseas also, it might have lead to the severe downturn of the LA economy since it was based on these industries that employed them not that i'm against getting rid of illegal immigrants but it might also be a factor in why SO Calif has a bad economic based since all 5 counties were involved with this.
Also, guest worker programs do have visa overstays and mention they can have kids in the us.
Republicans complain about a noodle factory job being shipped to Texas. Well, food processing in the La/Orange area is also dominated by legal and illegal immigrants. They complain about Democratic regulations but the company was leaving for cheaper labor cost and land. Similar to the above question on the dishwasher.
Third world immigration is destroying the USA. And the rest of the western world too.
That cheap labor costs a lot. But try telling that to the platform committee.
Steve -- a lot of this is just a refusal to push back against elite dogma. ALL the elites EVERYWHERE believe this as a matter of faith: in the law, the media, infotainment, publishing, government, both parties, etc. They all believe in the diversity/pc dogma. The word "racist" actually has power over them. Because as a social slur its as effective as "Albigensian" was in the 1100s or so.
Most of modern elite life is an attempt to avoid being labeled "Cathar" in the modern usage.
Yes, but they could eat the food left on the plates...oder?
It was sewing not farm work that lead to a lot of illegal immigration.
Steve,
The robotics revolution (which will really kick into high gear in the next 10-15 years) is really going to shake things up. I've been borderline obsessed with driverless car technology lately. Within the next 15 years, literally hundreds of thousands of lower to middle wage jobs (native and immigrant alike) will be lost. Cab drivers, black car drivers, delivery trucks, etc. will all be automated. It's going to be a wonderful technology but have huge labor consequences.
Honestly, the only solution I can think of is some sort of soft eugenics program. Seriously, what else can be done? I rather dislike having these thoughts but I'm all out of ideas. Interesting times....
A technocratic-totalitarian guest worker program is a good idea but it is impossible to achieve because business interests and cultural marxism will not allow it.
Here's what I would do:
1. The hiring firm must exhaustively document (at their expense) that no American workers can be found, even by raising the wage offer by x percent.
2. The hiring firm must provide a foreign worker compound to house the foreign workers. All foreign workers will have a curfew, x hours before their next work shift begins. If they wish to leave the compound they must wear a GPS tag.
3. All foreign workers must submit to chemical de-lousing and extensive medical examination upon arrival. Contagious or chronic illnesses will be grounds for deportation.
4. All female foreign workers must be on Depo-Provera or similar "foolproof" birth control.
5. All foreign workers are explicitly banned from all political activity, defined as broadly as possible, under penalty of immediate deportation (as are all foreigners in Mexico).
6. Some percentage of foreign workers wages will be held in escrow paid to them only after their return to their home country, unless they are deported in which case the funds obviously will be confiscated.
7. No more than one foreign worker from a given family shall be housed at a given workers' compound.
8. Foreign workers have a maximum residency of x years and are totally banned from entering the citizenship application process while in the US.
You are not seeing the whole forest for the trees there, Steve-o.
Yes, dishwashers and meat packers is one side of the coin, but on the other are the H1B visas of hordes of Indians who replace American native computer work force.
Taking a walk during lunch time from my office building (surrounded by other like buildings), I see a horde of Indians enjoying the fresh air (the ratio of Indians to Americans outside is about 9:1).
Shorter Republican message:
We got ours; screw you Working class Americans.
The cheap labor Republicans have always supported open borders and unlimited immigration. That is why Reagan supported amensty back in the eighties and why Reagan lied about border enforcement.
Look at how an idiot like Jeb Bush is willing to do the bidding of the cheap labor Republicans even though it means that the Bush family will have no future in politics.
"Look at how an idiot like Jeb Bush is willing to do the bidding of the cheap labor Republicans even though it means that the Bush family will have no future in politics."
The Bush dynasty has that taken care of.
I read about the rise of the underground garment industry in La and the electric parts industry that employed thousands of illegal immigrants. At one time La had 114,000. There started being a crackdown on the industries but a lot of these industries went overseas
Since they did not employ Americans, why on Earth should Americans care if they "went overseas"? In fact from what I can see most Americas would be delighted if all businesses employing illegals "went overseas".
As a side benefit, these businesses going overseas would actually be free market capitalism in action.
This is why I don't vote.
WTF is it about Texans and their illegal imm fetish?
My brother paid for college with summer earnings. Summer jobs are now permanent jobs for NAMS and kids are saddled with huge loans. The rich get cheap labor and the rich profit on the loans. Top and bottom against the middle. Et tu Republicans?
Will Texas remain Republican in the next decade?
I can't help but be reminded of the pre-Civil War American South in their desire for cheap labor. "Cotton picking is uneconomical without slave labor" sounds a lot like the current "jobs Americans just won't do" refrain. Then as now, this race to the bottom turns the country into something less livable.
Thank goodness for small mercies. What if the immigrant dishwashers were to be paid MORE not LESS, out of a misguided sense of liberal fairness?
Since they did not employ Americans, why on Earth should Americans care if they "went overseas"? In fact from what I can see most Americas would be delighted if all businesses employing illegals "went overseas".
As a side benefit, these businesses going overseas would actually be free market capitalism in action.
You might also ask why they started out in America in the first place and not in some cheap-labour Third World country. I think the answer might be that it's the easiest country to start in, as you've got the benefit of Third World labour which you don't have to pay for in full, as the immigrants can avail themselves of health care, housing, etc. at American taxpayers' expense. Also you've got the benefit of a business-friendly economic infrastructure. That is also something that was built up over generations by the American people.
Well, the Republicans are beating a death horse since the protest of Occupy to legalized illegal immigrants only had 200 people and the hardcore hispanic groups like Mecha and LA Raza didn't show up that much. Some of the illegals left or were deported and those that are remaining are not interested in being legalized that much except for some of their offspring want the dream act. Most illegal immigrants want to make a few dollars not vote.
I agree with you there about jobs that mainly employed illegal immigrants going to Mexico or China or other places. Just explaining how the LA garment industry that once was 114,00o finally lost the jobs that the illegal immigrants had.
While Obama is bad on immigration, his instincts appear to be against the guest worker concept. Both Romney and Ryan are strong supporters of the guest worker concept. For this reason I think Romney/Ryan are actually worse than Obama on immigration. As a Republican, I will be voting third party in this Presidential election.
Actually, I've heard ex-Republicans Californians go to Texas and say they don't have to go to a school with Spanish. Texas has some suburban counties like Collins which are only about 12 percent Hispanic. In California even in let's say Mission Viejo your kid is more likely to have some kids that speak Spanish. In Texas whites can afford to move out with less Hispanics but eventually that is catching up. While houses are not expense Texas home ownership is 64 percent and the US average is 66. There are other states that have better home ownership but maybe the winter is too cold. Its probably the importing of low skilled and some high skilled immigrants in the major Texas metro ares like Travis at 52, or Houston at 57 that is making housing more expensive in the large city counties.
Only slave wages could keep 140,000 in sweatshops, instead of mechanizing the work. Each step of the process could be taken out of human hands every year or two. Instead we give the work to other countries' slaves.
i don't see the problem with a guest worker program in teh USA if it's limited to agriculture sector or if somebody from mexico wants to work as a nanny or maid.
but a guest worker program will NOT work unless you make 2 changes:
1) no automatic citizenship to children born in the USA to non-american parents.
2) no free K-12 public education for the undocumented and foreigners.
"But nobody ever thinks about the possibility that guest workers might have sex, which, according to science, has been known to sometimes lead to babies."
Easy-peasy: just make it legal to rape female guestworkers, then they'll never get pregnant.
"Here's what I would do: 1. The hiring firm must exhaustively document (at their expense) that no American workers can be found, even by raising the wage offer by x percent..."
Oh, why the hell bother? Bottom line is this: we have shitloads of unskilled labor in this country. There is no shortage of dishwashers. So if you can't find a guy to wash your dishes for $X an hour, then offer 10% more, then 20% more. And if you keep raising the price and still can't find your guy, then then do the damn dishes yourself. Or don't do them at all. Or shut down the damn restaurant.
The government and citizens of this country are not obliged to validate your business plan.
No matter what Mitt wants to do, no matter what Mitt's financial backers want him to do, the fact is this: if he wants to reduce unemployment and reduce the deficit over the next 4 years, and get re-elected - and even if he doesn't, the Republican congress does - then he must get immigration under control and start deporting vast numbers of illegal aliens.
The economy is not going to grow much over the next 4 years. It can't, because the government is going to have to reduce spending. A $160 billion reduction in spending is equal to 1% of GDP, so that reduces GDP growth by 1% in a given year. In all likelihood we will have a double dip recession on Romney's watch. That's going to happen if he cuts government spending, and will probably happen even if he doesn't.
Job growth isn't there. It isn't even keeping pace with population growth. Deport the 7-8 million illegal workers and let unskilled, unemployed Americans take their jobs. That cuts unemployment (theoretically) by almost half. Give lower-wage workers a boost from the effect of supply and demand. And, as a result of reduced unemployment and higher wages, cut use of government benefits.
Mass deportations won't solve everything, but it's the closest thing we have to a painless solution to multiple serious problems.
Now does Mitt Romney want to solve America's problems in a way that reduces the number of illegal immigrants, puts upward pressure on wages for the unskilled, and helps to reduce the ballooning income gap? I have no idea, but we'll soon find out.
Well, i had a friend of mine her uncle who is black and she is also worked at a dishwasher job in Glendale Az what this was around 1997 just before a lot of illegal immigrants headed to the Phoenix area. Texas ans California probably not had a white man do this job in 40 years.
more information on the garment industry: Whites were into marketing the clothing to retail stores, Asians were the middlemen ran the factories and Hispanics and some lower class Asians were the workers. This explains how the immigration legal and illegal was mainly Hispanic and then Asian.
And when the babies grow up, dish-washing wages will be hammered down even further.
--Risto
I can't help but be reminded of the pre-Civil War American South in their desire for cheap labor. "Cotton picking is uneconomical without slave labor" sounds a lot like the current "jobs Americans just won't do" refrain. Then as now, this race to the bottom turns the country into something less livable.
If only they had come up with a catchier phrase, like "cotton rotting in the fields", think how the different the course of history might have been.
I think it is possible that these immigrants really are doing the jobs that American's don't want to do. However, it is not the content of the job but the people you have to work with. I don't think I could stand being around some of these political cheer leaders for five minutes. The immigrants can't understand what these nuts are saying so it might be easier for them to tolerate the insanity.
Well, I think with the Bushes it goes beyond cheap labor with Reagan it was cheap labor.The housing boom had the right Bush and the left acorn pushing home ownership. A lot of construcation jobs for the men. The Bushes support Nafa and favored status for China that shipped the low skilled factory work that the Hispanic women and men were doing overseas, so the job openings outside of service and pushcart sells would be construction/ The Bushes wanted to keep them here and expand but the based was mad so a few deportions and raids at the end of his presidency.
Yes.
The fact that an enormous proportion of births in Texas and elsewhere are 'anchor babies' born to Hispanic parents solely to guarantee permanent settlement seems to escape them.
Also the fact that a vast prportion of first, second and third generation Hispanics are out of work also eludes them.
"To dumb to live, to stupid die" - aptly describes the Republicants.
Actually unless the women work as nurses or nurses' aides, I cannot see the point of mass unskilled female immigration (from any source).
At least brawny men can work in construction and do useful things like build houses, dig ditches, mine coal, build bridges etc.
What can unskilled women do except sweep JAP floors or go 'on the game'?
Rob said:
If only they had come up with a catchier phrase, like "cotton rotting in the fields", think how the different the course of history might have been.
LOL!
sweep JAP floors
Uhh, paging Komment Kontrol, uhh, isn't, uhh, isn't that an acronym for, uhh, maybe, uhh, like, uhh, "Scots-Irish American Princess"?
As in, "What does a SIAP make for dinner? [A: Reservations.]
Or: "What does a SIAP do during coitus?" [A: Her nails.]
I can't help but be reminded of the pre-Civil War American South in their desire for cheap labor. "Cotton picking is uneconomical without slave labor" sounds a lot like the current "jobs Americans just won't do" refrain.
Interesting observation.
Reagan was a total incompetent as a liar, according to his son. You knew, and he knew you knew, when he was pulling a fast one. It makes more sense that Tip suckered Ron on enforcement, the way Ron suckered Misha on SDI.
Reagan was a rope in a tug-of-war. The Main St-Wall St tug that's defined the GOP since 1854. Wall St won that round.
In California as mention above they sew in the garment industry and work assembly work in factory jobs that pay about 8 to 10 dollars per hr in food processing, electrics parts, and forth. In one Orange County factory where I did a temp assignment all the workers were Mexican this was back in 1987. They do lot of various service jobs ad well, maid, watching the kids, home care.
Will Texas remain Republican in the next decade?
The next decade? Possibly. The decade after that? Not a chance in hell.
That's the problem with businessmen - their notion of "thinking long-term" never involves thinking further ahead than the next two years. Texas will turn into the next California. That's inevitable at this point. But before that happens certain businesmen hope to get rich. Or richer.
Well, we hear from conservatives that Texans don't use welfare here's the study from the Center for immigration studies based opon one welfare program usage at least. foreign born 61.1 percent and native born 42.4, medicaid Immirgants 41.9 and native born 32.9. Maricopia County Arizona- home of Phoneix foreign born 59.2 and 30.4 and medicaid foreign born 46.1 and native born 25.3. Arizona 62.0 foreign born and 38.7 native born. and medicaid 48.2 foreign born and 33.4 native born. Orange county ca where Chuck Devore use to live and he as saying welfare is lower in Texas foreign 54.7 and native born 19.0 and medicaid foreign born 43.7 and native born 17.3
While Obama is bad on immigration, his instincts appear to be against the guest worker concept. Both Romney and Ryan are strong supporters of the guest worker concept. For this reason I think Romney/Ryan are actually worse than Obama on immigration.
Please explain how a guest worker program, where the guest workers are sponsored by an employer and screened for skills, diseases, criminal background, etc, is "worse" than Obama's policy of simply granting amnesty to anyone who can manage to sneak into the country.
Not that I'm a fan of guest worker programs. But anyone who thinks Obama is "better" than Romney on immigration is either a Democratic troll or an utter imbecile.
How do you hammer down the wages of workers making the federal minimum?
Well, Mr Conservative Libertarian Barry Goldwater wanted a big guest worker program instead of legalizing them if they would have lead to 7 million today instead of 11 million, some think up to 20 million but that sounds kind of high, then maybe it should been done. Goldwater thought the e-verify was against the constitutional rights of employee or employer similar to Ron Paul. Unfortunately its too late because the IRCA was done years ago. Buckley was ad admire of Goldwater probably with National Review has been against tough measures with the exception of support also for big business.
"I can't help but be reminded of the pre-Civil War American South in their desire for cheap labor. "Cotton picking is uneconomical without slave labor" sounds a lot like the current "jobs Americans just won't do" refrain. Then as now, this race to the bottom turns the country into something less livable." - The south supported bans on importing new slaves. They did not want to be flooded under millions of cheap foreign workers since they had a monopoly, on both the land and labor necessary for production of various products the western world demanded in huge quantities at the time. Likewise the social costs of slavery were largely internalized, atleast until emancipation so the rest of the country didn't have to care for the slaves. Slavery doesn't quite fit the current cheap labor mold, though it is a good example in some instances.
"How do you hammer down the wages of workers making the federal minimum? " - Drive them out of the labor market entirely obviously. Youth employment is at all time lows thanks to migrant labor, and that has long term implications in and of itself.
Goldwater thought the e-verify was against the constitutional rights of employee or employer similar to Ron Paul.
I'm sure that Goldwater, being a libertarian nutjob, felt that Social Security was against the constitutional rights of the employer and employee.
That's the trouble with libertarians - they spend far too much time living in their own private fantasy world where the rules of human conduct are dramatically different from those in the real world.
'cause I did what I had ta did for the do-ough uh oh uh oh uh oh
Well, the Republicans had too many Hispanic speakers, the Democratic have one the Republicans say the Hispanics in Texas are tamer and don't complain. But San Ant did some Azlan art and Mayor Castro will speak at the Dem convention swing state for 2020. I think that some of the Texas Republicans are arrogant like the Republicans of 1980's Orange County that didn't think that illegal immigration would effect them.
'Anonymous said...
I think it is possible that these immigrants really are doing the jobs that American's don't want to do."
No, it's not true. In places like rural Illinois and Wisconsin, Americans are the ones doing those jobs (waiter, busboy, fast-food clerk, chamber-maid, etc.).
"Severn said...
I'm sure that Goldwater, being a libertarian nutjob, felt that Social Security was against the constitutional rights of the employer and employee."
Social Security may not be unconstitutional, but it's certainly a bad idea. One does not have to be a libertarian to think that.
Social Security may not be unconstitutional, but it's certainly a bad idea.
Employment verification is certainly a good idea, if you want to make "good idea" the new touchstone.
Employers already fill out a lot of paperwork on new employees. Expecting them to look-up an online database and see if the wannabe employee is allowed to work here is hardly some staggering imposition.
The ONLY reason why employers oppose e-verify is because they want to hire illegals.
That's true, when I left California I was shocked to see a non-Hispanic be a shorter order cook at a Denny's. In Ill outside of cook county I image you even see white maids. Its the Bushes in the Republican Party that have an attraction too much to Hispanics,anyone in California or Texas in Particular where whites and Hispanics have bigger wage gaps can tell you that the school districts with the most free and reduce lunch programs are those with Hispanics. But Republican politicians never learn.
Why are there so many uncoherent and rambling posts in this comment thread?
Post a Comment