Posted on 07/27/2005 10:22:47 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
"Farmers in northwestern Michigan's fruit belt say that fears of a federal crackdown on illegal immigrants are leaving them desperately short of labor this harvest season."
Either pay locals a reasonable wage or let the food rot in the fields. Tough choice.
Not.
I believe $89,000 is the average for all first generation immigrants of both the legal and illegal varieties. It is one of those numbers where they like publishing the average because it does a good job of deceiving the public.
We are quite selective about who we allow to immigrate legally and the result is that many legal immigrants are highly successful. We bring in lots of Doctors and engineers from India for example. These people are net contributors to taxes and they don't cost the taxpayer a thing after their first few years in America if then. They also bring the overall average cost way down.
If you just look at illegals the average cost is MUCH higher. They are driving our population growth and are having large families (some of whom are anchor babies and some of whom are brought in illegally as children) that average about 4 kids. A year in elementary school costs about $8000 so educating these 4 kids from kindergarten through high school costs the taxpayers (4 x $8000 x 13) = $416,000 and that is before you consider the cost of free health care, food stamps, public housing, prison, etc,
The WPA was run to military discipline. Good luck forming a union under that.
The disabled can work in offices (those that are able to), just like they did in the first WPA. We'd need more office workers to process the paperwork for the people in the field.
It'd reduce the amount of people on "welfare" and at the same time fix our crumbling infrastructure.
Your points that you are angry about, although valid, are too simple.
It is not a nutshell that you packaged it into.
There are too many things that need to be fixed that happen before your focused results.
The USDA and local PTB need to fix the restrictions that get imposed on the small to medium farms first.
They make it almost impossible for a small to medium farm to do business. Once those restrictions are gone or modified, THAN, go after the abusers that we subsidize to exist.
>>>then some inventive entrepreneur would find a way to mechanically harvest all produce
I still can't visual this.
How can a machine tell if something is ripe?
Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!
Be Ever Vigilant!
Minutemen Patriots ~ Bump!
Burbank, Ca, Best buy, handicap man in wheel chair is employed to work at the GEEK center.
Burbank, Ca, Petco, handicap man in wheel chair is employed at the store helped me and my kids pick out parakeets to take home.
These guys are employable. Sure would help them feel better about themselves and give a purpose to their life. I have seen others, these are the most recent.
I was told many stories about the WPA from my father. He participated in WPA for a couple of years before going the Marines at the age of 17. Yes, there was "military discipline"
back in those days, but today, even military discipline in the military simply isn't the same.
People that participated in WPA were happy to be working...you know, doing "jobs Americans don't want to do" these days. There was a sense of not only individual pride but national pride also...something missing in much of the citizenary. Remember, you can't hurt anyone's feelings these days without the resulting law suit.
Correction noted with a smile :^)
When I think back over the years to the days when I didn't want to go to work, was really sick, really hurting, and just dragged my tired butt back out the door anyway, it makes it unlikely that I will feel sorry for deadbeats.
This is an extortion scam, either we pay them off, or they go out and steal it. My take is "come on, try to take more from me".
I don't know if there is a relative type thing, but I do know that they are and have been working at those stores for a while. It is kind of nice to see that.
I despise illegal immigration but if Michigan cherries don't get picked do we outsource that to???
They can't grow cherries in Mexico thank God. Florida tomatoes grower were driven under by Mexican winter tomatoes growers....That chump trade deal NAFTA did them in.
Trust me, you aren't going to get too many Poles who want to pick berries. Chances are you will wind up getting Nigerians.
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