Posted on 06/12/2007 8:18:05 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Rush Limbaugh has been expecting liberals to start "whining" about the $5000 fine undocumented immigrants will have to pay to gain citizenship under the new immigration bill, but most liberals have been too busy chortling about the immigration-induced split in the GOP to make their own case against the bill. So let a mighty whine rise over the land: Undocumented workers shouldn't be fined; they should get a hefty bonus!
All right, they committed a "crime"--the international equivalent of breaking and entry. But breaking and entry is usually a prelude to a much worse crime, like robbery or rape. What have the immigrants been doing once they get into the US? Taking up time on the elliptical trainers in our health clubs? Getting ahead of us on the wait-lists for elite private nursery schools?
In case you don't know what immigrants do in this country, the Latinos have a word for it--trabajo. They've been mowing the lawns, cleaning the offices, hammering the nails and picking the tomatoes, not to mention all that dish-washing, diaper-changing, meat-packing and poultry-plucking.
The punitive rage directed at illegal immigrants grows out of a larger blindness to the manual labor that makes our lives possible: The touching belief, in the class occupied by Rush Limbaugh among many others, that offices clean themselves at night and salad greens spring straight from the soil onto one's plate.
Native-born workers share in this invisibility, but it's far worse in the case of immigrant workers, who are often, for all practical purposes, nameless. In the recent book There's No José Here: Following the Lives of Mexican Immigrants, Gabriel Thompson cites a construction company manager who says things like, "I've got to get myself a couple of Josés for this job if we're going to have that roof patched up by Saturday." Forget the Juans, Diegos, and Eduardos - they're all interchangeable "Josés."
Hence no doubt the ease with which some prominent immigrant-bashers forget their own personal reliance on immigrant labor, like Nevada's Governor Jim Gibbons, who, it turns out, once employed an undocumented nanny. And as the Boston Globe revealed late last year, Mitt Romney's lawn in suburban Boston was maintained by illegal immigrants from Guatemala.
The only question is how much we owe our undocumented immigrant workers. First, those who do not remain to enjoy the benefits of old age in America will have to be reimbursed for their contributions to Medicare and Social Security, and here I quote the website of the San Diego ACLU:
Undocumented immigrants annually pay an estimated $7 billion more than they take out into Social Security, and $1.5 billion more into Medicare.... A study by the National Academy of Sciences also found that tax payments generated by immigrants outweighed any costs associated with services used by immigrants.
Second, someone is going to have to calculate what is owed to "illegals" for wages withheld by unscrupulous employers: The homeowner who tells his or her domestic worker that the wage is actually several hundred dollars a month less than she had been promised, and that the homeowner will be "holding" it for her. Or the landscaping service that stiffs its undocumented workers for their labor. Who's the "illegal" here?
Third, there's the massive compensation owed to undocumented immigrants for preventable injuries on the job. In her book Suburban Sweatshops: The Fight for Immigrant Rights, Jennifer Gordon reports such gruesome cases as a Honduran who died from inhaling paint while sanding yachts in Long Island and a Guatemalan worker whose boss intentionally burned him with hot pans of oil for not washing dishes fast enough. "Death rates for Latino workers," Gordon reports, "have risen over the past decade even as workplace fatality rates for non-Latinos have fallen."
When our debt to America's undocumented workers is eventually tallied, I'm confident that it will be well in excess of the $5000 fine the immigration bill proposes. There is still the issue of the original "crime." If someone breaks into my property for the purpose of trashing and looting, I would be hell-bent on restitution. But if they break in for the purpose of cleaning it--scrubbing the bathroom, mowing the lawn--then, in my way of thinking anyway, the debt goes in the other direction.
you forgot ziltch............
You gonna post the answers or what???
;)
Enough is enough.
You don't think the IRS will simply garnish our legitimately earned paychecks and property?
Good train of thought.
Would it be possible to post them (the pamphlets)? I’d like to see them and find out who’s behind it.
They will without thinking twice.
This is the same silly cow who wrote the awful socialist tract titled “Nickle and Dimed”. I expected nothing less from this intellctual lightweight.
Her book “Nickle and Dimed” is a great example. A lightweight bit of fluff that is intellectually dishonest from the first page to the last.
It tends to cut WAY down on the B&E.
I absolutely love your photo essays!
Thank you!
Well, Barbara, what if they do both?
Hello? Barbara???
Re-defeat McCain/Kennedy/Bush!!
Just say NO to Amnesty!! Keep calling!! It’s NOT OVER!!
U.S. Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121
U.S. House switchboard: (202) 225-3121
White House comments: (202) 456-1111
Find your House Rep.: http://www.house.gov/writerep
Find your US Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
They are owed a kick in the (ahem) and a one way ride on the trebuchet across the Rio Grande.
What opinion could we expect from someone like Ehrenreich? She’s a committed Marxist.
The only way dumbasses like Barbara will care about illegal immigration is when they start writing pieces for The Nation for 4 bucks an hour.
“All right, they committed a “crime”—the international equivalent of breaking and entry. “
And B and E is a real offense. You don’t give cash handouts to folks who break and enter just because they don’t continue on to do murder. What an absurd column by a oneworlder. Lets hope nobody fowards this to the President.
“”All right, they committed a “crime”—the international equivalent of breaking and entry. But breaking and entry is usually a prelude to a much worse crime, like robbery or rape. What have the immigrants been doing once they get into the US? Taking up time on the elliptical trainers in our health clubs? Getting ahead of us on the wait-lists for elite private nursery schools?”
No, they have been robbing and raping our education, health and welfare systems.
Is she that oblivious?
So, if I break into her house and move into her master bedroom, it’s OK so long as I mop the floors while I’m there?
Kennedy has a great compound. I think it would be really funny if a group of anti-illegal protestors broke onto his compound, and started doing clean-up work and sleeping in his rooms. I wish I had the freedom to do something like that, as it would be a great protest, it would get nationwide coverage, and would perfectly illustrate the absurdity of the immigration bill.
With the possible exception of Bangladesh, the purpose of this exercise is to explode the common myth that these countries are poor because they are overcrowded and America, having plenty of room, should just let them all in.
Couple this with the fact that most of them will not head for the comparable population density areas noted but straight for our cities where they can live in their little Balkanized enclaves. Although, at least in the case of the Los Angeles area, it is a huge Balkanized enclave covering most of several counties.
You're right - it's a soft bigotry - the worst kind.
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