Unskilled workers don't have a path to permanent residency

[HannahP 119]

Very few "families" rely on a minimum wage job to support themeselves. Minimum wage jobs are entry level jobs, ones that people take to gain experience and work out and up from. The illegals have knocked the base out of our work force by stealing these jobs. Try being a teen-ager looking for his first job today. The illegals have stolen them or suppressed the wages to the point where the only people willing to do the work are the illegals. When I was a kid I took a minimum wage job, worked at it for a while and then moved up to a better paying job. That is the way it is suppost to work. The illegals represent a lower caste class of people that do our dirty work and enrich greedy employers. I find it interesting that you come down on the side of greedy employers rather than poor Americans.

You're right. Most "families" rely on one or two or three minimum wage jobs to support them. The idea that "minimum wage jobs are entry level jobs, ones that people take to gain experience and work out and up from" is absolutely hysterical. It might have been the way America was "suppost" to work...60 years ago. Where do the burger flippers and ditch diggers go from here? It's not just the illegals that are taking the jobs -- it's an American economy that relies on minimum costs to make maximum profit.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I think the whole outsourcing and the weakening of the unions are the biggest factors into lowering of wages, given that most employers looking to hire for low waged jobs will tell you that they have had a difficult time finding people, at least up until the Recession. Those workers who have access to economic mobility will not stay in low wage jobs for long when the economy is healthier. I don't think we can have an honest discussion about protecting American jobs without looking at the consequences of outsourcing and the weakening of the unions, especially given the reality that we'll always need unskilled labor in this country.

How do you outsource janitorial jobs? Or most other low-wage jobs? You don't. So, outsourcing isn't the reason for the wages and working conditions in those jobs having deteriorated over the last few decades. The addition of easily exploitable labor is.

[evli1966 88]

The point I was making if you go back and read the exchange, is that low payed American workers have their income supplemented with Government welfare - from Section 8 to the EITC. The American taxpayer subsidizes poverty wages in this country. Whereas, expanding the guest worker program, making it need based and employer paid for, there wouldn't be the additional costs that are attached to working American families making near poverty wages.

No the additional costs are the poverty level Illegals aliens that are made legal or given legal staus that would now recieve more welfare.

Who pays that cost?

US government...where do they get their money...US Citizens that pay taxes.

Sorry Buscador with respect I strongly disagree with you; unskilled or skilled workers here illegally need to return home.

Those employing them need to be punished so that it is stopped.

Everyone states there are citizens that are leeching of our country as much as most illegal immigrants and I agree there are citizens that do but why add more to the trough.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

How do you outsource janitorial jobs? Or most other low-wage jobs? You don't. So, outsourcing isn't the reason for the wages and working conditions in those jobs having deteriorated over the last few decades. The addition of easily exploitable labor is.

Outsourcing indirectly effects lower wage jobs.

from Industry Week:

Outsourcing: Hedge The Low-Wage Wager

Low wage rates, particularly in such highly publicized places as China and India, continue to drive decisions about where U.S.-based manufacturers locate their production facilities. Indeed, lower wage rates in China make that Asian nation more attractive to U.S. manufacturers than Mexico and other Latin American countries, where better-developed logistics and infrastructure seemingly would provide a competitive edge, reveals a recent Lehigh University study on global sourcing. By one estimate, even after doubling between 2002 and 2005, the average manufacturing wage in China was only 60 U.S. cents an hour, compared with $2.46 an hour in Mexico. Ask companies what's the greatest pressure they're under and they "always tell us" cost reduction, states Robert Trent, an associate professor of management at Lehigh.

http://www.industryweek.com/articles/outsourcing_hedge_the_low-wage_wager_12125.aspx

[Texanadian 10]

Most Americans can't make it on minimum wage, so many of them have had their income supplemented with government welfare through programs like Section 8 and WIC.

Unfortunately programs like Section 8 give the incentive to not improve one's employment situation. Why earn more money and pay your own rent (and live anywhere you want), when you can get free rent? So now you're essentially forcing yourself to live where the government tells you to live.

If we had a need for unskilled workers you can bet that we would offer visas to applicants with no specific skills. But we have no need for this, partly because those positions are filled by illegal immigrants. I often hear that if we "deported all the illegal immigrants, there would be no one to pick the lettuce." (Sounds sort of like a stereotype to me, but this comes from those against enforcing immigration laws because it is unfair to do so.) If we needed people to pick lettuce and we couldn't find them in the US, we would find them outside of the US, have no fear. I think that is where the queue-jumping argument holds water.

I don't know where this fear of nobody to pick fruit comes from. If the wages are high enough, people will do it. Simple as that. In Alberta Canada, the fast food restaurants in the northern part of the province have starting wages of $14/hour. And Alberta was the lowest min wage province in all of Canada for a long time. It has nothing to do with unions. Nothing to do with min wage. It has everything to do with supply and demand. There is a demand for unskilled entry level workers. But the supply is small since every able bodied person can go work in the tar sands for huge money right off the bat. Why flip burgers for $5 when you can start at $30 working in the fields? Why work in a warehouse running a forklift for $10 when you can go make $30 somewhere else? Once the fast food joints raised their wages high enough, people started filling the positions......The same thing would happen with lettuce pickers, strawberry pickers etc. Heck, farming is supposed to be a well paying job. At least it used to be. And I see no reason why it shouldn't be. It's hard work and long days. And there is obviously a demand for food.

As I stated before, we effectively subsidize employers with Government welfare programs for working Americans living in poverty. If you are in favor in raising the minimum wage, that's great as that wouldn't depend on somehow making the millions of undocumented workers go away, but it would help to lift all boats.

Just the opposite! Raising the minimum wage would encourage more under the table jobs and penalize the legal workers. Take a new legal immigrant who can't speak English. Has very little in the way of networking (let's face it, a ton of jobs are found because somebody you know knows somebody with an opening). Or somebody who isn't quite there mentally. These people tend to get low paying jobs. But raising the min wage discriminates against them. It locks them out of the job market.

If you want to pay $5 to have somebody tend to your flower garden, the only way you can do it is to hire an illegal or somebody willing to work for cash. The whole thing is illegal. Now what if they raised min wage to $12/hour? Well now that locks everybody who makes $8 out of the job market. They have to compete for the same job against people who are worth $12 already.

Lower wages are the tool that allows everybody to get a job. Doesn't matter what the income level is. If you're applying for a job and asking for $70,000/year. And you're up against somebody who is asking $80,000 to be hired, you're going to get the job. The same principle applies for min wage jobs. Except that when you institute a min wage, you take away the ability to underscore the other person applying for the job.

It's interesting to see how when the USA was founded, there was free immigration. And nobody was against it. If you could get on the boat and get here, you could stay here. But we didn't have min wage, welfare, section 8, none of the sort. You had to make it on your own. And you had every reason to make it since you were depending on yourself.

Minimum wage laws are one of the keys to current illegal immigration being so popular. If we didn't have min wage laws, then illegals would have to compete against regular Americans for all jobs. But since we lock Americans out of jobs, it opens up the floodgate for illegals to come in and work "the jobs we don't wanna do."

You're right. Most "families" rely on one or two or three minimum wage jobs to support them. The idea that "minimum wage jobs are entry level jobs, ones that people take to gain experience and work out and up from" is absolutely hysterical. It might have been the way America was "suppost" to work...60 years ago. Where do the burger flippers and ditch diggers go from here? It's not just the illegals that are taking the jobs -- it's an American economy that relies on minimum costs to make maximum profit.

By your theory, nobody would ever progress from any job. Somebody has to become supervisor or assistant manager. Somebody has to be the person who teaches the new person the job. Just about every chef or cook has at one point in time flipped burgers. Construction workers, carpenters, plumbers, most of them started at the bottom of the food chain at some point in time.

As far as minimum costs to make maximum profit. That's the way the system is supposed to work and does work. It doesn't matter if you're selling designer clothes, jewelery, cars, or oranges. You want to sell them for the most money possible. And the person buying them wants to buy them for the lowest amount possible. Employees have a certain worth to the employers. Somebody working at a gas station is going to be worth less than an engineer working for Google. It's in Google's best interests to give their employees more money, better work schedules, on site daycare, free food, free transportation. Despite this, Google is still giving out the least necessary to have the best workers. It's also in the gas station's best interest to offer the least amount necessary to attract workers that fit their bill.

My advice to anybody who wants to move to any country in the world is to pick up a trade or go to school. It makes moving to another country immensely easier. Both on the immigration front as well as getting a job when you get there. My old boss immigrated to Canada from Germany. He had a Masters degree in Baking (youngest German to get a Masters in the field) and had 2 years of Food Technology on top of that. He had no problems getting a job when he came to Canada. He started the same way everybody did. Sweeping the floors. Being a helper. Cleanup duties.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

really - who cares if unskilled workers don't have a path to permanent residency? i see enough unskilled workers downtown as it is.

you heartless #######. they just want a better life!

[peejay 327]

really - who cares if unskilled workers don't have a path to permanent residency? i see enough unskilled workers downtown as it is.

Liberals don't care because they don't have dozens of illegal aliens milling about on the streets of their neighborhoods like street hookers hawking their illegal work. The city of Houston does street sweeps of open prostitution and dope dealing, but refuses to address this issue.

[Heracles 417]

I thought the point of worker immigration was to bring people who had skills that the US doesn't have or generally lacks? So why bring in workers with no skills at all?

The only reason I can think of is that it drives wages down and creates more corporate profit.

Bingo!

Some seem to forget that this is not the 1870 when the US had Canada's population. The country now has ~310 million people, with over 60,000,000 living in poverty; which is more than entire population of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore combined. Its absolute rubbish that companies cannot find workers and need to bring in more. Not only is it a cunning lie but it's an action against the American people.

[Moonandstar 6]

TOTAL nonsense:

Shikha Dalmia

For two decades, illegal-immigration bashers have stymied any attempt to regularize the status of illegal aliens in this country by employing many arguments against them, but only one of them being: They are queue-jumpers who illegally crossed the border ahead of those patiently waiting their turn, paying the requisite fees, putting in the time, effort, and honesty; and going through the proper screening.

But the argument is an fallacyobvious truth based on a complete misstatement of U.S. immigration policy. There is no such line – a legal pathway to citizenship for unskilled workers. Still, this unfair accusation has transformed "amnesty" into a dirty word, one that it has always been.

Unlike Ronald Reagan, who unabashedly adopted the term to push for permanent residency for the 2.7 million illegally in the country in the mid-1980s, every legal-immigration advocate today is disavowing it. (Former) President Bush vociferously denies that his plan for comprehensive immigration reform has any amnesty component to it.

But amnesty has a long and honorable history. It was first used in the Civil War when the victorious Unionists employed it to give Confederate forces a pass from prosecution (Given they were Americans to begin with). In the 1980s, it was a popular tool of state governments to encourage tax compliance (something that could be argued was a mistake).

Indeed, the un-need for amnesty is often a sign of the inefficacy, even injustice, of a law. It suggests that enforcing the law might prove more costly – monetarily and socially – than temporarily suspending it. The biggest reason, however, why unreasonable people don't find anything inherently wrong with amnesty is this: It restores the legal standing of its intended beneficiaries without producing any palpable harm to others(excluding the slap-in-the-face it gives to anyone trying to do things the legal way).

The queue-jumping argument powerfully suggests that amnesty for illegals means depriving others, more worthy, of entry into the country. Worse, it implies that undocumented workers actually have a choice of taking the legal road just like those waiting in line, but choose to ignore it.

These suggestions are patently false true.

Skilled, unskilled, we're all one world right? Why cant we all just hold hands and sing kumbaya in the US of A?

Current USA immigration law distinguishes between skilled and "unskilled" workers. The process for acquiring permanent residency – or a green card – for skilled workers is long, costly, and fraught with failure. But at least there is one. Not so for unskilled workers.

Skilled workers can try to get the tightly-capped H-1B visa, a temporary work visa that allows them to work in the country while applying for a green-card and eventually citizenship. The closest equivalent to an H-1B visa for non-agricultural unskilled workers – the bulk of the illegal population – is an H-2B visa. These visas have just as tight a cap as H-1Bs, but they have many additional constraints. They are meant only for seasonal jobs and are self-liquidating. This means that once a worker has installed a piece of machinery or assisted a landscape company through its peak season, the visa automatically expires (very similar to work visas in the vast MAJORITY of other countries).

Unskilled workers wishing for more permanent employment in, say, a hotel's house-cleaning department, have virtually no visa options to enter the country legally. Furthermore, unlike skilled workers who can apply for a green card while on an H-1B, H-2B visa holders are effectively barred from doing so. In fact, they risk losing their H-2B – or, worse, not even getting one – if they signal an intention of applying for a green card, or not leaving the country.

In essence, there is no queue for unskilled workers to stand in, nor should there be. Amnesty for them therefore has zero bearing on the wait time of skilled workers. And without amnesty, there is no way currently for them to become permanent residents, nor should they be.

The so-called problem of illegal immigration is purely the creation of America's restrictive immigration laws (or any other country's immigration laws for that matter. But who cares about immigration laws??!?!1). But the queue-jumping argument has allowed immigration opponents to seize the moral high ground and make the enforcement of these restrictive policies the issue, rather than their reform.

They have also managed to kill Bush's comprehensive immigration reform proposal that would have created a guest worker program for future unskilled workers while simultaneously ramping up border enforcement a little. Indeed, the most promising immigration compromise now wending its way through the Senate contains a "trigger" mechanism that would delay the implementation of a guest worker program until: effective sanctions against employers using illegals are put in place; border patrolling is bolstered; and all foreign entrants have a biometric ID. These conditions are so onerous (and just like the LEGAL immigration laws) that this "trigger" will likely eventually go off. This is not immigration reform; this is a pathway for illegal immigrants to go to legal status. Not something thats meant to happen in ANY country, mind you.

Ignorant-immigration reformers need to reject this faux compromise. And before they approach the issue again, they need to first recapture the high ground by exposing the myth of the queue – and forthrightly embracing amnesty (although i seem to have forgotten WHAT exactly that "myth" is....).

http://reason.org/ne...ow/1002839.html

Now, lets just think about this for a moment: i see a lot of the replies made have been "well, if an unskilled worker is willing to work hard to get ahead, their should be some kind of visa for that". Thats ignorant and unrealistic. In case no one has considered it, the US already is home to at least 350,000,000 people, and the world is home to 7 billion. A lot of those people are USED to working very hard. Does that mean we should just let them all in? Like we have all the space in the WORLD? Whoever's been to China or India will know, that the US is really gonna suck when the population gets THAT high. Its bad enough as is. I'm sorry, but until a country has all the space in the world, the rest of the world will have to learn to fend for itself. Thats the way its always been.

Edited June 3, 2010 by Moonandstar

[Heracles 417]

Liberals don't care because they don't have dozens of illegal aliens milling about on the streets of their neighborhoods like street hookers hawking their illegal work. The city of Houston does street sweeps of open prostitution and dope dealing, but refuses to address this issue.

Bingo #2.

These open-border advocates live in neighborhoods that have a non-existent illegal alien problem. In addition, since illegal aliens do not affect their work or career personally, they want open borders. How about opening up the skilled immigration visa too, so that they have to compete with the millions of people educated abroad? Then watch them kick and scream murder. Currently, skilled immigrants conveniently trickle in under H1 type visas. Lets allow the equivalent 20 million+ educated abroad to enter the market and compete with those all for open borders directly, with those that are paying off college loans etc etc.

Same deal with La Raza, lets truly open up the border so rather than citizens of one country hogging the unskilled Visa [or illegal aliens], that they too have to compete with the millions that are even poorer than them, from third world countries; who will do the work half of what they do it for. Money says, La Raza spokesperson will kick and scream and demand rights for their illegal workers.

[Heracles 417]

There are other jobs that are low or unskilled labor that most Americans won't do or more accurately, can't afford to do - like dishwashers, housemaids, etc. An employer should be able to sponsor such workers if they can reasonably demonstrate a need, and those workers should then be able to find work elsewhere if they are no longer needed.

Funny how there is not even a need for those in Australia, a country of 22 million and with a 5% unemployment rate. But boy is there 'a need' in a country of ~310 million, with 60 million in poverty and a 10% unemployment rate. Even a hound can sniff out this BS 3,000 miles away.

Edited June 3, 2010 by Booyah!

[Heracles 417]

Most Americans can't make it on minimum wage, so many of them have had their income supplemented with government welfare through programs like Section 8 and WIC.

You are correct. Apparently the best way to assist them, to improve their quality of life, is to ignore countries like Canada and Australia who heavily control immigration and have a negligible illegal problem [non-existent in Australia's case], but to allow more people to enter the US. After all, what better way to get someone on their feet than make them compete for a job with an illegal alien willing to do the work for 1/3 the price that an American should be paid.

You also don't get everything the unions fought for, the safety measures, the 21st century work standards and minimum wage is pointless when an employer or contractor can hire an illegal alien and pay them under the table. Evidently you believe that by making them legal, they will receive the benefits and protection. Er wrong! The same person employing them will simply fire them, as they have done to Americans and hire new illegals.

You also fail to accept why minimum wage is so low here. Rather than beating on about immigration how about paying attention to countries with a high quality of life and with hgh salaries for blue-collar workers. How about asking why would countries like Canada and Australia, that are as large as the US but with populations the US has not seen in over 160 years, heavily restrict their immigration? What affect has this restriction had on their wages? Hint: Supply and Demand.

By all means, don't take my word for it

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_19/b4177014132283.htm

• Average mining wages in AUS have risen 60% to almost $2,000 U.S. dollars a week
  
• In some cases mining wages have doubled in six years, some miners "actually only work 22 weeks a year for $100,000" ($93,000 USD).
  
• Electricians in the Western Australia mines made between $83,000 and $120,000 (USD) in 2009. In contrast, mining electricians in the U.S. made $49,000 to $59,000
  
• A boilermaker—who repairs and installs equipment—made up to $111,000 (USD) in Australia. His equivalent in the U.S. made up to $51,000.
  

Edited June 3, 2010 by Booyah!

[mawilson 2,133]

Its absolute rubbish that companies cannot find workers and need to bring in more. Not only is it a cunning lie but it's an action against the American people.

It's amazing to me that people like Buscado actually believe it.

It's basic economics: increase the supply of cheap labor and wages go down. Cut off the supply

and businesses will stop importing non-citizens and start hiring Americans again.

[Heracles 417]

It's amazing to me that people like Buscado actually believe it.

It's basic economics: increase the supply of cheap labor and wages go down. Cut off the supply

and businesses will stop importing non-citizens and start hiring Americans again.

Exactly. It's not even theory or opinion, it's reality and there are a number of real world examples of it successfully in action.

[JohnSmith2007 353]

It's amazing to me that people like Buscado actually believe it.

It's basic economics: increase the supply of cheap labor and wages go down. Cut off the supply

and businesses will stop importing non-citizens and start hiring Americans again.

What is even more amazing is Buscado's position puts him in the greedy big business camp. He is advocating the oppression of illegals for political gain.