anotherlimey

Perhaps you and your friend need to pay more..... which will be the result if illegal immigration is eradicated.

Leslie

I was referring in particular to the Au Pair example. I think "slave wages" was not really much of an exaggeration if you look at it this way..... An illegal nanny will work for room and board and $100.00-$150.00 cash under the table per week (mind you they are usually cleaning the house and taking care of 1 or more children 24/7 so we're talking about a little more than $1 per hour if you exclude sleep). A professional nanny would cost more money, expect days off occasionally, and most likely require some sort of benefit package.

You do the math.

I agree with the other remarks you've made with regard to the work ethic of many (legal or illegal) Mexican immigrants.

scrubbedexpat099

Interesting how you used Mexican with the context of illegal.

I have 2 friends who I also assume are Mexican illegal (EWI), would be rude to ask.

And several from the UK at least one of whom I know works here illegally (B) and another couple I have doubts about.

Illegal labour can be seen as the US replacement for Slave labour, in a modern context I can see that economically it has a lot going for it in comparison, never mind socially. No medical coverage required etc etc.

No border would be water tight, but it is a numbers games, if security reduced the numbers to tens of thousands a year instead of millions then it would have done its job.

I doubt if anything will happen, business wants its $11 labourers, and business pays for Congress and Senate.

ironporer

So if I pay more to the lazy sob's who don't give a toss about working now...they will begin to work hard?

anotherlimey

Perhaps; what I mean is if illegal immigration stopped you'd end up paying more - whatever service you get.

ironporer

Yeah... here we go back to the $4 Big Mac argument.

snowbunny

Everyone pays for forced free emergency care for illegal and legal workers without medical insurance. Perhaps if someone is illegal they will just crawl off and die rather than risk deportation if they are somehow reported to law enforcement at the hospital? Damn, I'd hate to be an "illegal" rape victim who was badly injured.

If business wants its $11 labourers then it seems very petty to deny citizenship (which would mean a constitutional change, which is supposed to be extremely rare!) to the children of said labourers.

scrubbedexpat099

I had friends who came to visit whose daughter had a small issue but a large emergency care bill. They had travel insurance.

I have a US friend who is/was a carpenter, heard first hand about the difficulty in getting work that pays what it did 10 years ago. Much cheaper to employ illegals, no benefits issues, WC issues, employment regulation issues etc etc. Modern day version of slavery, just strikes me as being totally immoral.

If I had been born in the US whilst my parents had been visiting as I have said I would not expect to be a US Citizen.

Wonder if it would be looked on the same way if most illegals were Black rather than Mexican?

Anyway, we can rant all day, my solution:

1) Make payments to those without work authorisation not tax deductible.

2) Some form of Border control to cut out all but the most determined.

3) Logic suggests that a Guest Worker Programme will be subject to massive abuse and will fail, but a limited trial might be a necessary option.

4) US concentrate like Canada etc on attracting skilled rather than unskilled migration.

anotherlimey

You don't let them go to the toilet? Disgusting!

Dually

As I'm sure most of you know - in 2003, those of us born outside of the UK to British mothers prior to 1983 but not British fathers had to lobby the UK government to get our dual nationality. Michael Turberville had started a lobbyist group called CAMPAIGNS and with the help of MP Lord Eric Avebury we had to take on the government to gain our birthright citizenship - or else we were going before the EU Court.

Years and years and years of waiting and fighting and going before the UK government to get our birthright citizenship - in my case I was 3 months shy of being born in the UK when my mom came to the US because my dad had been reassigned back to the US while he was in the Navy during Vietnam. But obviously we successfully got the law changed in 2003.

So - I fully understand how horrible it can be for a child to suffer the "choices" of the parents. I also grew up in the Appalachian south where poverty is very much alive and kickin' - and where $11 /hour is considered a very good wage (it's way more than my Scottish mother NOW makes and she's a Certified Nursing Assistant). The highest paying job I ever found down South was $25,000 - and that was after I graduated college - and that was in the legal field. I worked full time to pay my way through. It's insulting to hear people say that Americans don't work hard and are lazy - especially when they immigrate to this country to do better for themselves.

At the same time, we rightly understand that people want to come here to do better for themselves. I want to go to the UK to do better for myself - and to be near my family. It angers me to think that people are promoting illegal immigrants by hiring them - especially if they're only hiring them as day labor and not providing them benefits. It's already difficult in this country to get a decent job that provides good benefits. You're an immigrant taking advantage of the country that took you in and now you're taking advantage of other immigrants, yet patting yourself on the back for hiring folks who are "better than Americans. "

It angers me because I had to fight the UK government for my own birthright citizenship - and so I also know how d*** hard it is to successfully change a law -yet it can be done in a positive way- and because I think you really do need to do things the LEGAL way. It makes me sick to think about other people getting away with it illegally

But at the same time, as poor as we were as a family, I also understand why people do come here illegally, why they have children here and then leave so as to have a child with US citizenship - because of needing a better life, or of being near their families. Honest to God, unless you've been in the situation, stripped of your rights and really having to fight for them, I'd say you can't fully understand.