Posted on 03/22/2007 6:04:14 PM PDT by bkwells
Kirsten Stewart is not the kind of American that President Bush and the Democratic congressional leadership is likely to bring up as they renew their push for so-called comprehensive immigration reform.
Stewart is not the personification of any of the cliches that Bush and the Democratic leadership enjoy tossing about; she is not an impoverished illegal immigrant “living in the shadows.” Nor is she a businesswoman who can't seem to find an American willing to work hard for a fair wage.
To the contrary, she is an example of the steep price America pays in integrity when its government refuses to enforce its laws, allowing many of its citizens to violate it with absolute impunity.
Stewart is a landscape professional trying to do the right thing by refusing to hire illegal immigrants – a decision that's effectively putting her out of business.
As a 40-year-old, college-educated woman living in Santa Monica, Stewart has pursued her dream of running a landscape design business for four years, the last two of them on her own.
Even in the highly competitive market for well-heeled clients in Los Angeles' Westside neighborhoods and along the glittering Hollywood foothills, Stewart was confident that her design talents and strong word-of-mouth referrals would guarantee her a solid customer base for her business.
It almost certainly would have, except for one thing: she won't hire illegal immigrants for her work crews.
When she submits a bid to a prospective client, Stewart calculates her labor rate at $15-an-hour or more depending on the job; it's a decent wage with which she knows she can hire American citizens. Paying a living wage to her workers is also at the core of the progressive political identity she forged while living in San Francisco.
But she has watched that egalitarian vision end up in the garbage bin as competing designers submit bids with radically lower labor costs – a strong sign they are using illegal immigrants for their work crews.
When she first moved to Santa Monica in 2002, Stewart says she was oblivious to the problem and consequently hired illegal immigrants as well.
Yet it wasn't long before she began to feel that there was something inherently wrong with her hiring illegal immigrants. She says it became clear that it hurt her community more than it helped her bottom line.
“I realized that my foreman, who has been in the country a long time, doesn't have any desire to be a citizen. He has such a strong allegiance to Mexico,” she says.
But it was Stewart's pregnant nanny from Brazil, also without papers, that pushed her to make a dramatic change.
“She told me that she was so happy that she was having her baby here because (her child) would get a real Social Security number. She told me how surprised she was at all the 'free' neonatal care she was getting and all the other 'free' health services,” Stewart says. “That's when the light bulb went off.”
Stewart fired her nanny, stopped hiring her foreman and vowed she would only use workers legally in the country.
Almost immediately, she started losing bids.
In a bitter irony, Stewart says many of her prospective clients are dyed-in-the-wool leftists who embrace living-wage ordinances and stronger worker's rights laws.
“They will invariably ask me why my labor costs are so high,” Stewart says. “I tell them point-blank it is because I only use legal workers, either citizens or legal residents. I've had a few prospects just stare at me silently after I have told them that, like I have done something wrong. Others have just said 'OK, well thanks for the bid.' ”
The experience of trying to do the right thing has left her feeling helpless and embittered.
“I can't compete by playing honestly in an industry where most everyone else is breaking the rules,” Stewart says. “And they aren't breaking the rules because Americans won't do these jobs. They are breaking the rules because they don't want to pay a decent wage.”
Stewart is bracing herself as the cliche-riddled debate over illegal immigration kicks back into high gear, knowing that she is likely to hear politicians rail about a broken system.
“The system isn't really broken at all,” she sighs. “The system would work just fine if the people had the honesty to play by the rules of the system and if the government had the guts to enforce the rules on those who choose to break them.”
Cromer is a writer for Californians for Population Stabilization. He can be reached via e-mail at Mrcromer@aol.com.
ping
That says it all!
Here is a perfectly decent gal just trying to make a living. But cant due to illegal immigration
How many people can live in and around Santa Monica earning even $15.00 an hour?
Untaxed? Twenty to a house, no problem.
That's beside the point. You could make it anything, but it won't compare to what an illegal gets.
She is a good role model. It's too bad we have such corruption here and discrimination. I would hire her in a minute one of the reasons being she is obeying the law and doesn't seem to be cheating anyone.
Also, I have had some of that low pay care and it sucks. You should see what a roofer did to our neighbors roof. I am not sure they even put a new one on. The tiles are curled at the end, etc. It was done by low paying people and it stinks.
Another conservative in the making. Waking up from the teenage dreamworld of college and learning the real world of entrepreneurship and business. And learning that "friends" are often phony hypocrites who talk a good game but won't dare put their money where their mouth is, unless it's somebody else's money. And finally learning (I guess she already learned this lesson), that the "poor downtrodden need-a-break little people" don't give a damn about this nation which has provided all of the "freebies" they take. They just want to take more, and keep blaming us for all of the ills of the world. Like a person who forever is dependent on you for their existence, but they keep putting you down for no good reason. At some point, you HAVE to cut them loose and let them face harsh reality, for your sake and theirs.
If the quota on the temp H1B visa was higher than 66,000, she and the rest of the landscape industry wouldn't be in that situation.
Sorry, I thought your point was "How many people can live in and around Santa Monica earning even $15.00 an hour?".
I live in the area and believe me there are a lot of poor people here working for less than $15./ hr. Legal and illegal.
How many guest workers do we have now?
Anybody?
Politicians can't tell you. The White House won't tell you.
So, how many foreign national 'guest workers' should be in this country at one time?
The figure of a million gets batted around a lot. Today someone told me we need 2 million. What do you think?
Now, keep in mind, if the illegal aliens get their amnesty as promised by Pres. Bush and congress, we're talking around 20 million people, but only about half of those will be working. The other half will be on welfare, going to school, disability, pushing drugs, or part of the criminal class or incarcerated.
So, there's 10 million foreign 'guest workers' right off the bat here illegally, soon to be legal. When legal, they will be able to bring their relatives as well.
And here is what we're allowing in legally NOW. The author of the house bill being introduced, REP. LUIS GUTIERREZ, has NO idea how many legal 'guest workers' we have allowed in, but he's writing a bill with no figures in mind to get more. Sounds more like gambling to me.
Lou Dobbs Tonight/Broken Borders aired 3/22/07
Lou Dobbs: Let me just show you something, if I may. Because I get kind of curious about this. If we could, let's take a look at the number of people that come into this country legally every year. Can we do that? We'll look at full screen so the congressman can see this.
There's a lot of distortion here. I think it's important to get these facts out.
Two million people legally admitted to the United States each year. In addition - 14 percent of those, by the way, those people given permanent residency are from Mexico. Two million people legally admitted to the United States.
Four hundred thousand skilled foreign workers and their families receive H-1 visas each year.
Nearly 900,000 other legal foreign workers are admitted on some type of employment visa.
Six-hundred sixty thousand student visas are issued every year.
And 455,000 people given temporary employment transfers.
Help me out. What are we trying to do here? I mean, we have a lawful immigration system that brings in 2 million people a year, plus all of these other workers that overwhelms any other immigration system in the world. All of Russia, all of the European Union combined can't even come close to matching our immigration levels. And that's a population 40 percent higher than our own. Help me out.
GUTIERREZ: Well, I can help you out. I will look at those figures. I hope you -- It's a lot. I can't see them up on the screen. I can only ...
DOBBS: I was hoping you could see them?
GUTIERREZ: I can't. I can only look into the camera. I can't see them. I would love to evaluate them, Lou. Come back, talk to you some more about that. But my initial ...But kind of my initial reaction, is a lot of those people overstay their visas. We've got to stop that. And they are compounding the problem of undocumented workers. That's probably why a lot of them cross the border, they come here legally, overstay their visa.
We have got to deal with that, Lou. I want to deal with that in a very serious manner, that's why we need the biometric system. So you can't just jump from job to job. You need a system that you say, you know, this card, you can't alter it, you can't fake it, you can't counterfeit it.
DUH!!!!!
http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2007/03/so-how-many-foreign-guest-workers-do.html
If immigration leftists Pelosi and Bush can succeed in merging the USA and Mexico, then no more pesky "illegal" concept to get in the way of endless cheap labor.
No, but the IT industry (amongst others) would be paying $15 an hour.
Thanks for the truth, AuntB
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