Illegal Aliens Arrested Locally

Every time the topic of immigration comes up, I always wonder what happened to the sentiment in this country that prompted a foreign power to present us with a wonderful gift endowed the the following inscription:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

My how times have changed.

Every time the topic of immigration comes up, I always wonder what happened to the sentiment in this country that prompted a foreign power to present us with a wonderful gift endowed the the following inscription:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

My how times have changed.

amen brother.

I'm not for exporting 12 million working people. I'm just unsympathetic to those who enter illegally and then have legal entanglements.

The situation deserves a resolution so we can have "guest workers", temporary worker visas, or what ever the economy demands in terms of labor. IMO this has nothing to do with one's ethnicity or heritage....other than aboriginal Americans, we all come from someplace else. This has little to do terrerism actually...we need sensible immigration reform not scare tactics.

To ignore the current mess is ultimately a diservice to those who have no legal standing and an insult to those who go through the proper channels.

[Robin Garr]

My how times have changed.

Another amen, but sadly, times haven't changed as much as we like to think. U.S. immigration policy has always been imbalanced and unfair, and particularly in the past, borderline racist. We're better at stating the ideals than we are at following them.

And of course, everything that's being said about Latino immigrants today was said about our own German, Italian, Irish, Jewish, etc., forebears a century ago. And the notion that there were no "illegals" back in those days is just laughable.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

My how times have changed.

And the notion that there were no "illegals" back in those days is just laughable.

what's laughable is how quickly we forget that we are only here because they were before us.

I used to think that people that were anti undocumented workers were just thinly veiled racists. After taking a deeper look into the burden that is placed on social services, hospitals and communties I cannot overlook the problem. In my experience most of the money I paid out went straight over the border, very little spent here.

I read an article recently about a town and surrounding county that had enough and really cracked down on illegal immigrants. It worked. They managed to get rid of almost all of them. Within a year, many of the downtown businesses started going under. Turned out that the downtown economy was largely supported by the immigrant community. Yes, they may send money back home, but they still have to pay rent, buy food, etc.

There is also the myth that these people are a financial burden on our public services. Just the opposite is true. They are a windfall. They are supplied with fake social security numbers, so the money withheld from their paychecks gets paid into social security, but they never receive any of it. They help fund SSI, Medicare and Medicaid, but they get none of the benefits.

I don't want to condone illegal activity, but I really can't figure out how this issue impacts my life in any way. These people don't scare me.

Ron you have stated very clearly the belief I have been trying and failing to verbalize for some time now. Thank You.
Throughout the years I have had the pleasure to work with hard working Mexicans, Dominicans, Colombians, Bengladeshis, Poles, Irish etc. Many of them were not legal, but all of them payed our taxes and into soc sec knowing that they would not enjoy the benefits. They did this to better themselves and help their families.
In my opinion they helped our economy at least as much as we helped them. The support system they provide is invaluable, not only in the restaurant industry but in many other industries where historically low pay and hard work deter native born Americans from participating.
I am a relatively smart guy but I do not pretend to understand the intricacies of immigration law, but surely there must be a place in this vast country, and in our mid-sized metropolis, for these fine people.

Anthony Bourdain writes a wonderful chapter on this in The Nasty Bits.... From the chapter, "Viva Mexico! Viva Ecuador!" pp. 42-46.

"Let's be honest. Let's be really, painfully honest: Who is cooking?

Who is the backbone of the American restaurant business? Whose sudden departure could shut down nearly every major city in the country? Whose sweat and toil allows annoyingly well-known white-boy chefs like me to go around the country flogging books, appearing on TV, writing obnoxious magazine articles, and baiting their peers? Who, pound for pound, are the best French and Italian cooks in New York?

If you're a chef, manager, or owner, you know the answer: Mexicans. Ecuadorans. Salvadoran guys (and women) from south of the border, many of them with green cards they bought on Queens Boulevard for thirty dollars. Ex-dishwashers with no formal training, minimal education; people who have often never eaten in restaurants as good as the ones they cook in.
....

The Mexican ex-dishwashers usually come from a culture where cooking and family are important. They have, more often than not, a family to provide for, and are used to being responsible for others. They are, more than likely, inured to regimes despotic, ludicrous, and hostile. They've known hardship -- real hardship. The incongruities, contradictions, and petty injustices of kitchen life are nothing new compared to la mordida, wherein every policeman is a potential extortionist, and what was, until recently, a one-party system. You see an expression on the faces of veteran American cooks who've been around the block a few times, had their butts kicked, a look that says, "I expect the worst -- and I'm ready for it." The Mexican ex-dishwasher has that look from the get-go.

As I've said many times, I can teach people to cook. I can't teach character. And my comrades from Mexico and Ecuador have been some of the finest characters I've known in twenty-eight years as a cook and as a chef. I am privileged, made better, by having known and worked with many of them. I am honored by their hard work, their toil, and their loyalty. I am enriched by their sense of humor, their music, their kindness, and their strength. They have shown me what real character is. They have made this business -- the "Hospitality Industry" -- what it is, and they keep its wheels grinding forward.

....

It was once said that this is the land of the free. There is, I believe, a statue out there in the harbor, with something written on it about "Give me your hungry... your oppressed... give me pretty much everybody" -- that's the way I remember it, anyway.

....

What's the number-one complaint from chefs and managers in our industry? I can tell you what I hear in every major city I visit, and I've been visiting a lot of them lately: "I'm having a hard time finding good help!"

Solution? Simple: I suggest immediately opening up our borders to unrestricted immigration for all Central and South American countries. If the CIA grads don't want to squat in a cellar prep kitchen for the first couple of years of their career, or are too odelicate or high-strung or too locked into a self-image that preculdes the real work of kitchens and restaurants, then they should just stand back and watch their competition from south of the border take those jobs away for good. Everyone will end up getting what they deserve. It'll be a wake-up call for the home-team cooks and a boon to our industry -- and the right thing to do. Perhaps the CIA should start a farm team in Mexico or Panama, like the Yankee organization. And every Mexican and Ecuadoran line cook in New York should get an immediate raise, amnesty from any immigration charges, a real green card -- and the thanks of a grateful nation."

I guess I came off looking like a jerk here. I did not mean to say that the people are the problem, it's the system that sucks. I have been reading about the "burdens" I mentioned and have not come up with anything conclusive as to yes it is a problem or no it is not. I know without immigrant labor the whole agriculture industry would be burdened, more like our business. I agree with Bourdain whole heartedly as he makes the point for the food industry same goes for ag operations. As to the taxes, I have worked out west with friut pickers and it was cash payment, same goes here with tobacco, and most ag operations. One other problem I see is alot of immigrants getting screwed by being paid incredibly low wages. I dont know how much this can be changed, but if we take out the illegal aspect maybe things would. If someone is here illegally they are probably not as willing to stand up for civil and financial rights. I am also sick of paying for this stupid fence/wall that is going up that does nothing but force people farther out into the desert to die of thirst. Also let's not forget it is not only latin americans getting the shit end of the stick. When we lived in Chicago most of our neighbors were Croats, Serbs, Masadonians some legal some not. They got screwed working in bogus manufacturing jobs that ended up paying just a few bucks an hour after their work representatives took care of things. When you can't speak the language it is easy to get screwed. So please accept my apology. The last thing I would want anybody to think is that I am against the people. I think I will go listen to some Woody Guthrie right now, there's a guy who knows how to talk politics.

John: That was a great post.

Wow!...This Anthony Bourdain guy really tells it like it is even though it may be a little Politically Incorrect...Here is something else to consider in this crackdown on immigrant labor...Who's gonna watch and provide quality care for "Britney's Boys" when she is out and about?...Little Sean and Jayden have suffered enough already...Let's not make the situation worse for them...

Recently we had some construction work done around the bakery, a whole team of Mexicans from a company I won't name. Don't have a clue whether they were legal or not. They were young, got here early, worked like dogs all day, did beautiful, careful, thoughtful work, and sang and worked til it was time to quit. I think they took a couple of short breaks and a short lunch. I'd go out to the barn a few times to do chores and they were polite and beautifully mannered, and I'd hang around a bit out of sight just to hear them sing.

It reminded me of the barns and stables around Chicago that were full of Mexican workers, and at the barn where I stabled my own horses, the guys were clearly illegal, and they worked in exactly the same way. Long hours, dirty work, miserable wages, unfailingly polite, and they sang to the horses (and sometimes to me), and after awhile I started to do the same thing -- Cole Porter to my mare. It was infectious. When I finally moved my horses to my own place, it was one of the things I missed the most. That place was lousy with romance. The sort of romance of the horse you don't find as much as you think you will in other places.

While no one disputes the work ethic of many illegal aliens, I can't help but notice that the dishes got washed before we had large numbers of Latinos in the region. Americans can and will do a lot of these jobs. They certainly won't do them for below legal market pay, with cash under the table and no taxes withheld, no insurance, etc. The large influx of third world labor into the US should be seen in the exact same context as offshoring. If for some reason you can't send the factory to the third world, bring the third world labor to the factory.

Any position that has been subject to relentless offshoring, third world labor, and cost cutting has become denigrated in the minds of the American elite. There are all sorts of jobs Americans used to do with pride that are now looked down on as McJobs. I was very struck by a commercial one time - I can't even remember what it was for - that showed Larry Bird working in the paint department of a hardware store. He would throw paper wads into the waste basket while mixing paint, hitting every time. The thrust of this ad was something about wasted talent. The point seemed to be not just that Larry Bird missed his true calling, but that working in a hardware store was a worthless job. Yet in the past no one would have thought that.

There's a chapter in Democracy in America called something like "Why in America All Honest Professions are Considered Honorable" and it went on about how someone could work as a servant in the US, but it didn't necessarily mean that person was of an inferior social class. I'm not sure Tocqueville would write that today. Even in my lifetime people considered jobs like cashier in a grocery store as a decent job. But not anymore. Admittedly, jobs like that have suffered enormous salary compression, partially as the result of the entry of many low wage workers. But we seem to have lost the concept in America of an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. If you aren't in some "creative class" or professional job it is as if you are some poor exploited, downtrodden soul to be pitied.

Lots of Americans go proudly to work every day at unglamorous positions. My mother delivers trays of food in a hospital. I have a cousin who drives a forklift in a warehouse. Lots of Americans do jobs like highway maintenance worker, truck driver, waiter, parking ticket enforcement, customer service representative, hair stylist, etc. They go to work every day, do their job, feed their families, and so on. But they are told this isn't work worthy of an American, or is the type of second tier job that is the only thing you can get if you didn't do what you should have done by getting a college degree.

Wendell Cox, a transportation consultant and gadfly on transit - made an observation one time that the real genius of America is not that we have rich people. All nations have rich people with fabulous homes and the businesses that cater to them. It's that we don't have poor people, at least not comparatively. We don't have anything like the the shantytowns of Brazilian cities that sit not to far from gleaming modern office blocks. Yet America seems to be taking on more of the cast of a Latin American country. A well-off white elite has become hooked on extremely cheap labor, largely from a different ethnic group, as a sort of servant class, sometimes literally. 15 years ago how many people who weren't rich had a housekeeper? Now practically every upper middle class family I know has a cleaning service, usually with some barely English-speaking workers pimped out by their boss who pockets most of the cash.

I don't know what all this has to do with immigration per se, but I'm troubled by the general decline in status of so many traditional American occupations of the middle class. I do have to believe that this is related somehow to the offshoring/inshoring trend. I've watched, for example, as my own profession - information technology - has suffered a tremendous decline in statusin parallel with the rise of offshore development in places like India. The willingness of Americans to take these jobs has to be related to their general decline in pay and status.

I believe we have got to recapture that sense of valuing anyone who puts in an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. I admire anyone who does right, works hard, and takes care of his family. We shouldn't admire the Mexican who cuts our grass while wondering what's wrong with the white guy who does the same thing that he doesn't have something better. That seems to be what our society has come to, however. Americans might well be much more willing to do these jobs if they didn't end up getting looked down on as losers by society at large.

I don't think the country is quite where I've described it yet, but the trend line is in that direction. Immigration may indeed be a net positive to our country - and I'm a big immigration supporter, incidentally - but it is naive in the extreme to think that you can import millions of third world workers and not have fundamental and unexpected shifts in the culture of a nation as a result.

To bring this back on topic, there are possibly more benign impacts as well. For example, we now have had an explosion of higher quality restaurants, stores, etc. While Louisville always punched above its weight in the culinary department, I don't think there is any question that you can eat a lot better today than you used to be able to. Correlation doesn't imply causation, but we've seen a number of positive trends running concurrently with high Latino immigration as well. We sure didn't have Whole Foods when I was growing up. I'm particularly sensitive to this as a Southern Indiana guy, where the difference is significant. Could the relative decline in labor prices for restaurant workers have made this possible, at least partially? That certainly can't be discounted.

Wow...what a great post.

While no one disputes the work ethic of many illegal aliens, I can't help but notice that the dishes got washed before we had large numbers of Latinos in the region. Americans can and will do a lot of these jobs.

No they won't. Illegal immigrants aren't taking these jobs for less than minimum wage. They are being paid more than that. It's just that these employers can't find "americans" willing to muck stalls, clean factories, and put on roofs. I agree that these jobs are wrongly looked down on as beneath most Americans. I say raise wages and make people proud of the work they do, but the bottom line is corporate american is hiring illegals for one reason: no one else will do the job.

While no one disputes the work ethic of many illegal aliens, I can't help but notice that the dishes got washed before we had large numbers of Latinos in the region. Americans can and will do a lot of these jobs.

No they won't. Illegal immigrants aren't taking these jobs for less than minimum wage. They are being paid more than that. It's just that these employers can't find "americans" willing to muck stalls, clean factories, and put on roofs. I agree that these jobs are wrongly looked down on as beneath most Americans. I say raise wages and make people proud of the work they do, but the bottom line is corporate american is hiring illegals for one reason: no one else will do the job.

What Ron said....