here's a picture of our "border". See that torn fence? That's it.
Posted on 12/14/2004 6:02:37 AM PST by OESY
...Think about the Kerik example: The man and his wife have two small kids.... A nanny offers that help, and she seems both nice enough and gets along with kids. Whether or not she's "legal" seems less important to most American parents than whether she's trustworthy and hard-working.
As for the nanny, she's traveled hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from home to make some money and get ahead. Her primary concern isn't running some Immigration Service gantlet but is to find a good family that pays decently and treats her well. Are we really supposed to believe that this kind of transaction between consenting adults jeopardizes our national security?
...Congress made some progress on the so-called nanny tax issue back in 1994, raising the threshold for complying and simplifying the process by which employers file taxes for their domestic help.
...Most Americans calculate the costs -- in time, legal advice and hassle -- of filling out all the forms, and they simply pay cash instead. The wage threshold should long ago have been raised far higher.
As for immigration law, the Bush Administration is headed down the right path with its guest-worker program. That proposal acknowledges that immigrants fill vital jobs, that movement across borders is inevitable as long as there is the lure of opportunity, and that merely adding more border guards won't stop migrants in any case.
The Bush plan would provide a legal means -- a three-year work visa -- for new immigrants to enter the country and take jobs Americans don't want. Some of them could even be nannies. That system would make it easier to track all foreigners, freeing up our homeland security forces to concentrate on terror threats, rather than rounding up the usual nanny suspects....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Wrong.
Our circle of friends, co-workers and aquaitences probably number 120. *NONE* have illegal alien maids working in their homes.
You'd have to be an *idiot* to have people that have entered our country illegally, gaining access to your children and private residence.
Especially if that oligarch is a Republican.
LOL. Be thankful the Cheap Labor Lobby on FR is out of the closet now & is no longer dropping the R bomb on anyone who objects to the illegal immigration situation.
here's a picture of our "border". See that torn fence? That's it.
No. They have access to the social safety net that their taxes provide legally: medicaid, unemployment, disability etc.
But the wages paid don't constitute slave labor.
Without the social safety net provided by taxes, it's not by any reasonable definition a living wage. It's taking advantage of illegals' inability to qualify for decent wages and benefits due to an American citizen. What do you call it?
So a voluntary work-for-hire arrangement is "slavery"?
Careful. Your hyperbole is showing...
So says the Wall Street elite. They are the problem.
We are being led to the path of destruction.
Kerik was a high profile law enforcement officer. People in these positions have *lots* of enemies.
The President of the United States was going to put this guy in charge of HOMELAND SECURITY!
Good grief! He has people running around inside of his private residence that have entered our country ILLEGALLY.
You don't have to be a senior investigator to understand how this could have not only compromised Kerik, but security of the *entire* country. Kerik could have been set up, targeted, his residence bugged, blackmailed, children/wife kidnapped, you name it.
The White House has the best available investigative tools available! How is it possible, that a high profile law enforcement officer, that fails to take his own common sense protective precautions, is picked to head such a critical nation security position, and everyone, from the White House down fails to even conduct a proper background investigation on someone that is going to have our national security in his hands!
This is outrageous and really beyond belief!
Fine. Let's revoke your U.S. citizenry and sign you up as my "employee" for 10$ an hour. Good luck.
Then who is hiring all these illegals?
I've seen a lot here at Free Republic, but I think this is the first time I've seen an argument over a tilde!
For the record.
Dear Innisfree,
"No. They have access to the social safety net that their taxes provide legally: medicaid, unemployment, disability etc."
Speaking strictly about health benefits, anyone, illegal alien or not, who shows up with an acute emergency medical problem at a hospital will be treated. Uninsured people in the US, legal and illegal, often receive medial care superior to that available in much of the world.
As for unemployment insurance and disability insurance, the absence of these hardly constitutes reducing the worker to the level of slave labor. Unless you're supposing that wage earners generally were all slaves before the institution of unemployment insurance and Social Security disability coverage.
"...it's not by any reasonable definition a living wage."
Whether $10 per hour with or without these benefits is your definition of a living wage or not, if one does not pay a living wage, one has nevertheless not reduced the worker to "slave labor."
Or are folks at McDonalds, working at under $6 per hour, reduced to "slave labor"? Since the 13th Amendment forbids slavery, but the federal government countenances a wage of less than $6 per hour, it seems reasonable that the payment of wages of a little less than $6 per hour doesn't constitute reducing someone to "slave labor." There are those who would disagree, but I believe that they would be found at Democrat Underground, not here.
Thus, the question is then whether these marginal benefits are worth much more than $4 per hour.
Certainly, the monetary value of unemployment insurance doesn't amount to more than $4 per hour.
Since to qualify for unemployment benefits, one must work for the employer for six months, the individual would be able to save $4+ per hour for roughly 1000 hours. That would amount to more than $4,000. In the state of Maryland, the maximum unemployment benefit is usually $280 per week for up to 13 weeks. That works out to $3640. Thus, even in the worst case, the individual paid $10 per hour could provide self-insurance for unemployment as well as the state unemployment insurance system provides here in Maryland (where I know folks who have hired illegal aliens as nannies for $10 per hour).
Thus, at $10 per hour, the employer is paying the worker enough to actually self-insure against loss of income due to unemployment.
As to disability, access to disability is determined by eligibility to participate in the Social Security system. That is governed, in cases like these, by immigration status, not by whether the employer pays over the table and pays taxes, or under the table, and pays none. Even if the worker were to provide a false Social Security number, and faked identification, to fool the employer into thinking he was hiring someone legally, and even if the employer then paid the requisite taxes, should the illegal worker become disabled, she would have no access to disability benefits.
Lack of disability coverage is not tied to the employer's practice, but to the worker's legal status. Thus, even if you wish to make the stretch that lack of disability benefits constitutes being reduced to "slave labor," that is not by the action of the employer, but the worker.
"It's taking advantage of illegals' inability to qualify for decent wages and benefits due to an American citizen. What do you call it?"
I agree, though, that knowingly hiring illegal aliens,and paying them under the table, is taking advantage of them. But I don't call it slavery. Slavery was and is a bit more serious than this.
sitetest
Are you holding a gun to my head to make sure I do the work?.
This girl wasn't dragged across a continent in chains to raise the children of Bernard Kerik. Whether or not she was a citizen has no relevance to the question of whether or not she was a slave. The transaction was voluntary for both parties. Categorizing the arragement as "slavery" destroys any credibility your argument may have.
If you can prove Kerik was forcing the nanny to care for his children, then you had better post substantiation before using the term "slavery."
Mostly the wealthy Republicans and Democrats, and greedy business owners that sit in their back offices counting their profits on the backs of the tax payers while we watch our schools, jails, social services and hospitals become choked off, while those in power force us to pay for this epic disaster.
Look at the hardwood floor industry. Americans can't compete with the illegals.
Dear Joe Hadenuf,
"Mostly the wealthy Republicans and Democrats,..."
I suspect that the truly wealthy go through the trouble of getting their help legal, at least when you're talking about household help.
When I've seen this sort of thing, it's been among the well-to-do, the folks with high, but not really high incomes, and not necessarily a lot of accumulated wealth.
My own friend who did this isn't really wealthy. Her and her husband do well, they have a low six-figure household income. They've been investing in real estate for some number of years, so they figure in about another 10 years, they'll have the new house totally paid off, and they'll have enough rental property that they can more or less retire and live well.
But we ain't talking Teresa Heinz-type of money.
Or do you remember Kimba Wood? The judge that Mr. Clinton wanted to appoint AG? As a judge, I guess she was making around $100K per year. I forgot what her husband did, but he was making some bucks, too. I think I remember they were making well over $200K per year. They were quite well-to-do.
But absent those six-figure salaries, they wouldn't have been able to pay the mortgage, and even with those six-figure salaries, it wasn't like they could have half a dozen pied de terres around the country.
No, I think the really rich can afford to hire the lawyers and accountants to take care of the paperwork.
sitetest
"How do you reason with someone like this?
You can't. It's impossible.
*****
http://www.immigrationshumancost.org/text/crimevictims.html
http://www.predatoryaliens.com/
Bump!!
All the while waxing indignant that American labor isn't willing to accept third world cesspool wages.
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