If we suddenly don’t have the labor to pick lettuce what will happen is that for a few weeks lettuce will be expensive. Then the markets will adjust, new sources for lettuce will be found overseas and the supply chains adjusted. Shortly after that people in far away places wiill be rich supplying lettuce to people in Wisconsin.

Long term if we insist on growing lettuce here we’ll work out more efficient methods of farming lettuce – a mechanical system to gather the crop instead of stoop labor. More wealth is created as companies gear up to produce automated lettuce pickers .

Sorry it’s not up to Bobby to decide which laws should be obeyed and which should not . Why have any laws at all, If someone does not like a law than it is ok to break it. Yes let’s have anarchy.

You asked for studies I gave you one. Why ask if you have already made up your mind to ignore them. Your question is pointless you have already formulated an opinion and seem unable or unwilling to comprehend any evidence that massive illegal immigration has some down sides.

You say you believe something should be done about immigration. You then provide no answers. What you do seem to suggest is that we are a prosperous country and should open our borders to the less fortunate.

Tell me how many millions should we allow in? Give me a fixed number10 million why not 20 million. Maybe 50 million. Give me some type of answer if you can.

Following hurricane Katrina, do you believe any parent taking food from an abandoned grocery store in order to feed their kids should be charged for shoplifting? They are, after all, breaking the law. Or what if you had to drive a loved one in need of immediate medical care to the hospital, rc21; will you still wait for the light to turn green even though you’re the only car at the intersection? “Sorry dear, but the law’s the law.” So, your question, do I consider breaking the law a problem, is naïve, one often posed to law students on their first day of school. And I’d be very concerned about the kid who answered ‘Yes’, for he obviously only sees the world in Black or White, Yes or No, or Either Your With Us or Against Us. And God help any country that’d vote for someone like that…TWICE! Wait! Ah, hell!

Do I believe something should be done about immigration? Absolutely! Every country has a right/responsibility to care for/protect her citizens. But when a citizen of the richest, most powerful country in the world starts blaming illegal immigrants for the hellish school systems, the increased cost of housing, and overall decrease in quality of life, alarm bells start going off in my head. And I’m sorry, rc21, but your June 14, 10:59 post means very little to me…unless of course you can point me to objective studies to back up your and Ann’s claim. But even if you could, I’d still be highly skeptical, and here’s why:

Last week I watched NASA’s live feed from my home in a beautiful Seattle neighborhood, surrounded by million dollar houses. (I confess I don’t have a yard…but mowed a very big one as a kid every Saturday ) And on my computer screen was live feed showing the space shuttle, an astronaut repairing that torn piece of protective fabric, and Africa and the Middle East some 200 miles below. And for a moment I thought “I’m a citizen of the United States, THE greatest country in the world, watching a fellow citizen repair his injured spaceship. How F-ing cool is THAT!!!” But then I’d shift my eyes to see Iraq (not to mention Sudan) below, and thought of what atrocities were happening in those countries. Then I thought, “How F’d UP is that!!!

My point is, I’m here in Seattle, home of Boeing, Costco, Starbucks, Microsoft, i.e. more money than God, watching a man wearing a spacesuit (which, I just looked it up, cost $22 million each), working on a $1.7 billion shuttle (how many of those do we own/have we lost? and what does it cost just to launch one? $450 million) where 200 miles below hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent on war. (which will no doubt eventually surpass a TRILLION DOLLARS) Meanwhile, we sit in our air-conditioned SUVs, driving home from the mall (spend, spend, spend) complaining about the Soprano’s anti-climactic ending, and “Oh, can you believe those illegal immigrants, they’re ruining our quality of life. Why just the other day I spent six hours in the E.R.……”

Give me a !@#$ break!!!

Once again I will ask do you consider breaking the law a problem?

As to the lawn mower.I was hoping you would take it upon your self to cut your own grass.

Not having enough hospitals (average wait time in the ER is 8-10 hours to be seen)

Even if they did have enough hospitals and/or every illegal immigrant were sent home tomorrow, may or may not have ANY effect on average ER wait times.

2. Schools becoming abysmal, crowded and violent.

What about the abysmal, crowded and violent schools in the non-border states, rc21? What’s their excuse?

3. Housing has Skyrocketed (increased unsustainable population)

HUH !?!

Decreased quality of life

“Well I’ll be damned Mrs. Smith, your lab tests show your emphysema was caused by migrant workers.”

BTW Thanks for the push mower instructions, but could you please write them in Spanish? That way I can just tack it to the garage wall alongside the other note for Jose that says he’s to blame for my kids not being able to tell the difference between a Monet and Manet.

If you don’t know how to use a lawn mower you can always get a push mower.Just grab each handle with your hands and put one foot in front of the other. By doing this you will create motion, the blades of the mower will then start to rotate and begin cutting your grass. No need to have Jose teach you.

Could you please post some links and/or direct me toward some objective – whatever that means – studies that support your claim that illegal immigrants are responsible for increased Emergency Room wait times, the skyrocketing cost of housing, and causing our schools to become abysmal, crowded and violent. That is what you’re saying, right?

Hmmmm. Perhaps the baby-boomers are to blame. They ARE getting older. And I can only assume emergency rooms are seeing more and more broken hips, respiratory infections, and all the other ailments associated with the elderly.

And because air travel is becoming such a nuisance, maybe those baby-boomers have all moved to the Border States to be closer to their timeshares in Cabo san Lucas or Cancun. And with all their disposable income, they’re obviously going to want to live in the nice part of town, which, consequently, is going to cause cost of housing to skyrocket.

And wherever you find a herd of retiring and/or near retiring baby-boomers, you’ll no doubt find plenty of gin, Scotch, and talk of “my kids are all moved out and have kids of their own, so why should I support any bill that want to take more of my hard earned money to support art classes in school.”

I don’t deny that your claims are legitimate, Ann, but I find it hard to believe illegal immigrants are the cause, or at least the primary cause. However, prove me wrong, and I will fly down tomorrow and mow your lawn…just as soon as Jose shows me how to use one.

I don’t mean to pick on you, Ann, but what does your being a “lifelong Democrat” have to do with your concerns. Hey, I salute the flag of bleeding heart liberals every morning, but I also know blaming the other party, culture, country, etc. is a cheap excuse, nothing less, nothing more.

Finally, in response to your I’d like to see a little equality in this country first when discussing Moral Obligation, I ask:

When did citizenship become a criterion when discussing morality

Now, I absolutely recognize that we have problems in this great country that need to be addressed. However, as a 6 foot, white, blue eyed, educated, heterosexual American male, i.e. I really have nothing to complain about, I’ve lived and traveled all over this ball of dirt floating in space. I’ve stood in the killing fields of Cambodia where, even after years of excavation, bones dressed in blue rags littered the ground. Now I know they didn’t die wearing hospital gowns in an overcrowded emergency room, just as I know the craters all over the country weren’t caused by 500 pound meteorites with “Made in the U.S.A.” stenciled on their side.

Again, we do have problems in the country, but as long as we continue to blame others, or see the world as “Us vs. Them” we will never truly solve anything. We need to set aside out passports, acknowledge our mistakes, fears, etc., and recognize that we share a common humanity. Only then will progress be made.

Border states are suffering from the lack of resources:

1. This means Not Enough Hospitals (average wait time in the ER is 8-10 hours to be seen)
( I don’t think New England Hospitals are operating at this level) The number of hospitals available to residents has gone down considerably in the last 10 years.

2. Schools are Abysmal (again not enough resources) ESL issues keep Art and Music out of the schools. Private School is costly and many have no real alternative but to send their kids to crowded, violent learning facilities. (30 years ago the Southland had terrific schools)

3. Housing has Skyrocketed (increased unsustainable population)

4. Quality of Life has decreased.

5. Why should the average citizen pay for BUSINESS to get cheap labor.

Moral Obligation? Can we please fix the problems in this country – then consider our border to the south. I’d like to see a little equality in this country first. Fox should be accountable to his own citizens. Bush could then follow his lead.

Sure, but look at all the employment we CREATE with drug gangs and the securiy forces to fight them as a result of all illegal drugs we import through Mexico. There was a great article in a recent Economist describing how vast that problem is for Mexico and how it is due almost entirely to the US’ insatiable demand for more and more illegal drugs.

As Jose Mori, once President of Mexico, said: “¡Pobre México! ¡Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos!” (Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States!) ”

The United States cannot wash its hand of our moral obligation to Mexico and its problems because we have been so instrumental in creating those problems.

You said the following:
and well as for more recent immigrants being more outspoken about this issue, i think its because as an asian legal immigrant i don’t have any issues with white guilt that might be keeping some towing the pc line.
If I’m reading this right, you’re an immigrant. Is that true? If so, may I ask how long you’ve been in the U.S.? And if you’re not yet a citizen, I assume you’re on your way to becoming one?

(About ten years ago I helped a Laotian friend obtain her citizenship and saw firsthand how strenuous it can be. NPR did a show on it months ago. The inconsistencies regarding test questions, rude/abrasive immigration officers, etc.)

And if you are an immigrant, then I can only wonder what happened to you when you write stuff like this:
give the bleeding heart yuppies a dose of their own medicine.
it is weird how the left basically loses the plot on this issue they are so afraid of being called racist.

there’s also the environment. the big issue for the left which somehow like the sierra club shoves its head into the sand on issues of population.
its probably hard to understand from an office bubble where no one you know really gets exploited as chattle. the foreign workers you are around are obviously not the ones that will be burdens to society, and being higher on the social scale you get all the benefits of suppressing labor wages while really suffering none of the side effects yourself.
(I had two jobs while working at MSFT. My first one is now being done by a guy living in Bangalore, India. To add insult to injury, I trained him. And though it wasn’t exactly the highlight of my life, I have to admit: (1) he was a really nice guy. He asked a lot of questions about living in the U.S. and I learned a lot about the customs/cultures of India. (2) He was !@#$ smart! And for better or worse, it made a few MSFT people take notice, e.g. a little less bragging about their Audi S4 and little more interest in keeping current with the industry)

Now, if you’re merely trying to get a rise out of people, so be it. God knows I do it all the time. Just read some of the things I’ve posted on ROS.

However, if you are sincere, how worried should we be?

I lived this life too:

“I tend to work late at the office so I’m often still at my desk when the night cleaning crew come around. They’re from Mexico and Guatemala and they seem to work hard and actually enjoy their work. Their English isn’t very good and my Spanish isn’t very good but sometimes we practice with each other. They seem like nice, hard-working people (I have no idea what their legal status is), but why should I desire to send them back to a poor, corrupt country when they can have a better life here and I can get my office cleaned?”

I was at MSFT for 5 yrs, and I often worked into the late evening while the cleaning staff (most tended to be from Eastern Europe) picked up after us slobs. I always stopped to say “thanks” when they came into my office. Occasionally I got to hear their story. Some lived through horrific times, e.g. Bosnian War, and were, therefore, appreciative for the opportunity they now had. It also put any issues I had into perspective

So what? The fact remains the even Google, rich and prestigious as they are, has to work very hard to attract top talent.

I’m telling you from personal, real-world experience, that there is a SEVERE shortage of technical talent (engineers, scientists, etc) in the US. If you look at the top technical staff at Google, Microsoft, Intel, and lots of other high tech companies (including mine) you see lots of Chinese, Indians, and others. Imported technical talent is what’s keeping a lot of US high tech companies afloat and competitive and therefore preserving a lot of US jobs. Look at the presenter list at the IEEE ASIC Conference from the US companies, or any other major technical conference.

As I said, I’ve been on the interview committees; I’ve seen the resumes; your “100,000 unemployed programmers” are either someone’s fantasy, or they are 100,000 unemployed FORTRAN or COBOL programmers who haven’t updated their skills in decades.

MORE H1B visas are the best way to ensure that I and other American high tech workers get to KEEP our jobs because they ensure the success of our companies and projects.

as opposed to your complete lack of sources? did you expect a pro illegal immigrant group to come up with such study results? just tell me whats incorrect about his study for one.

and don’t bring up google, google is rich enough basically poach a good deal of its staff from other tech companies. most companies are not like google. google isn’t so much desperate from shortage as they are able to pick from the cream of the crop and are simply casting a wider net.

Darwhin, I work for a high tech company that hires LOTS of H-1B visa workers, a huge number of whom are my co-workers, AND I have been on many interview and hiring committees over the years. So all I can say is you have no idea WHAT you’re talking about.

” In the late 1990s, the computer industry claimed a desperate labor shortage. No independent study ever confirmed that shortage,

Darwhin, come down from your ivory tower and check out the real world. I’ve been on hiring committees with a dozen open req’s for CSE, EE, and Mech-E’s, with specific skills in image and signal processing where we were offering over the average salary and benefits package and after 6 months, beating the bushes, advertising all over creation, and offering BONUSES to any employee who could give us a name, we ended up offshoring the project because we could NOT fill the positions! I SAW the resume’s! I INTERVIEWED the candidates! I don’t need a study to tell me that we have a terrible shortage.

The shortage is VERY REAL. I don’t know what “studies” you’re looking at, but I have to deal with it every day. There are nowhere near enough qualified Americans for the jobs of the 21st century.

I’m sticking to my theory that you’re a student who has no real-world knowledge or experience and you read something on the web from a source with an agenda and you believe it. Google takes out whole BILLBOARDS to attract applicants
( http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4078172 )
… if a company as successful and prestigious as Google has to resort to such measures that should tell you something.

Here’s a little expose’ of cis (Center for Immigration Studies) . . .
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1452

Darwhin, next time you try to prove a point choose a slightly more objective source for your “information”.

“http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050511-4897.html”
“The critical point here is that the balance of power in this relationship is entirely skewed toward the employer. If the employer fires the foreign worker, then the worker has to leave the country. Or, if the employer doesn’t renew the worker’s visa application after three years, then the worker has to leave the country. Finally, the worker will definitely have to leave the country after six years when the H-1B visa expires… unless the employer has been sponsoring him for a green card (i.e., an immigrant visa) and he’s now eligible for it.

The upshot of all this is that the foreign worker is basically stuck with the sponsoring employer if he or she wants to stay in the country and/or get a green card. This is a situation that’s obviously ripe for abuse, and tech companies have been the most notorious abusers. Companies give H-1B workers much lower wages and benefits than Americans doing the same jobs, because the H-1B workers can’t just up and quit. It’s a form of indentured servitude that not only exploits of H-1B workers themselves, but it harms Americans by artificially reducing American competitiveness in the labor market. Why hire an American to do a job that you can bring in an H-1B worker to do for much cheaper?

These kinds of profit-motivated considerations are behind calls by tech industry luminaries like Intel CEO Craig Barrett and Microsoft’s Bill Gates to increase the number of H-1Bs allowed into the country. Never mind the fact that there are over 100,000 unemployed American programmers out there looking for work. The tech industry perpetuates the myth of a massive IT labor shortage so that they can keep the cheap indentured servant labor coming in from overseas. ”

” In the late 1990s, the computer industry claimed a desperate labor shortage. No independent study ever confirmed that shortage, but the hidden agenda behind the shrill shortage claims was to push Congress to increase the yearly cap on the H-1B work visa program, which enabled industry to import cut-rate engineers from abroad. Government data show, for instance, that Intel, which claims that its H-1Bs have master’s degrees and Ph.D.s, pays them far less than the national medians for engineers with these degrees.

University computer science departments used the “labor shortage” claims to get more faculty, more doctoral students, and more research dollars from Congress and industry. Since research funding and Ph.D. production are key to prestige in universities, the claims of a labor shortage were manna from Heaven, and a number of prominent academics rushed to publicly support the industry’s push to expand the H-1B program to remedy the “labor shortage.”
“

perhaps you are the one that needs an economic lesson if you think raising salaries would mean doubling of lettuce prices. wages are a small percentage of agricultural costs.
don’t offer a false choice of illegals or nothing. there are plenty that would work in legal migrant worker programs.

but you are right, the costs might go up a little in general. but well its a small price to pay for those that actually have to face sending their kids to schools over burdened by illegals and the run down overcrowded neighborhoods they move into. people like you get to commute to their own upper middle class suburban bubbles with your nice schools where you can take all the benefits of cheap labor without actually having to face the results yourself.

On a side note the Govt can not even deport 2 murderes and a rapist due to immigration lawyers appealing to the 2nd circuit. They won and now we have 3 more crimminals residing here. Law suits from immigration lawyers will screw up any compromise you or I may favor.

I’m with you in principle I just think in practice we will see disaster. What can you expect when the govt tries to run any program?

You paint a rosey picture. I’m just not sure how long it will take for the rose to wilt.

But the immigration bill addresses all these issues. It secures the border to keep new illegals from coming in, and requires all existing illegals tio register and has actual teeth to enforce laws against hiring illegals. It’s a pretty good compromise that addresses all the major issues. The people who don’t like have not proposed anything better or more realistic.

Looking at Calif, the state with the largest population of illegals we are seeing big trouble. The cost to the taxpayer is estimated at 10 billion a year most of this comes from having to pay for schooling of children, medical costs ,and the incarceration of illegals who are commiting crimes.

The avg citizen has seen his tax bill go up by 1500 dollars to take care of the costs.

You paint a rosey picture. I’m just not sure how long it will take for the rose to wilt.

Darwhin thinks if send all the Mexicans away then all we have to do replace them is raise wages and they’ll come streaming out of the woodwork where they’ve been lying around watching TV and collecting welfare just waiting for that great lettuce-picking job to fall into their laps.

OK, so let’s say we raise agricultural wages from $7/hr to $12/hr. Dwarwhin thinks it’ll be just like before except a head of lettuce will go from $1.25 to $1.31 in the supermarket. (anyone who doesn’t think the math adds up doesn’t understand the cost of food).

But the reality is that there ISN’T anyone waiting around to take those jobs. So instead of a shortage of labor, the real problem will be a shortage of LETTUCE (because it will all be rotting in the fields). So the price of a head of lettuce will actually go from $1.25 to maybe 2 or 3 dollars.

And that sort of thing will be happening straight across the economy. Bottom line: We NEED the Mexicans so we better figure out a way to deal with it.

Wrong again. When high tech companies can’t get enough skilled workers locally for some project they want to do, they just move the whole project offshore. I strongly support having MORE h1b visas and I’m pretty sure I speak for most of my colleagues on this.

As I said above, you sound like a student who just doesn’t have much real-world understanding of these issues.

as for the supposed shortages of workers, sure there are not enough workers..at the price you want to pay.
You have presented no evidence for this thesis. You seem to have a theory that there are all these people just laying around subsisting on welfare or something and if you raise wages high enough they’ll suddenly come crawling out of the woodwork. Where’s your data to support this?

Anyway I already mentioned NAIRU. (please crack an economics textbook!) What happens when you “raise wages” is that someone has to PAY those wages. Restaurant workers wages go up; agricultural workers wages go up, so the cost of eating has to go up. Everybody has to eat so they all pay more for the privelege – this is called INFLATION (the “I” in NAIRU). If an agricultural worker’s wages go up, so the cost of food goes up, then effectively YOUR wages and MY wages and everybody else’s wages (who has to buy food) have gone DOWN. The ONLY way you can increase wages without it being a zero-(or less!) sum game is to increase productivity.

This is Economics 101. Next semester at least audit the class!! That’s why artificially inducing a labor shortage is inflationary.

Anyway, what’s really going to happen is that the work won’t get done because contrary to your fantasies, we don’t HAVE 12 million workers laying around doing nothing, to replace the illegals. So businesses will close, economic activity will shrink and the whole economy will suffer.

as for the supposed shortages of workers, sure there are not enough workers..at the price you want to pay. its probably hard to understand from an office bubble where no one you know really gets exploited as chattle. the foreign workers you are around are obviously not the ones that will be burdens to society, and being higher on the social scale you get all the benefits of suppressing labor wages while really suffering none of the side effects yourself.

Au contraire. I worked very hard and saved diligently so today I have a nice house, lots of savings and investment, and virtually no debt, and I have no doubt that I deserve it.

Which is why I’m happy to welcome anyone who wants to work hard.

I work for a large foreign-owned multinational and at least half my co-workers are foreign-born. I’ve seen first-hand the benefits of taking the risk of coming to a new country and working hard to make something of oneself. And I’ve seen the benefits to ME and my company and my community and our economy from all my foreign co-workers.

All your downsides are theoretical; all my upsides are real and concrete and readily demonstrable.

fine, but you realize that the left shouldn’t be supporting unlimited supply of imported workers to shove down wages. maybe the left should also switch positions on things like the minimum wage to be consistent.
What’s your evidence that they shove wages down?

I’ll tell you what shoves wages down – not being able to get ENOUGH workers. During the last dot-com boom the Northeastern University center for Labor Market Studies found that the labor shortage in Massachusetts shaved over a full percentage point off our gross state product. My own company has shipped jobs to India because we cannot get enough skilled workers in the US.

and of course its easy for you to not begrudge someone else the chance at something when they aren’t competing with your job, they aren’t suppressing your wages. i mean really..how big of you! i’d have more faith in the whole idea if immigration impacts were evenly spread, whats good for low wages should be just as good for the high earners.

I’m an engineer. You don’t think I have LOTS of competition for my job from Indians and Chinese and Russians, etc? And unlike roofers and dishwashers and apple-pickers, my job can disappear overseas at the click of a mouse! And the engineers in those countries are just as skilled and hard-working as I am and they have just as much a right to those jobs as I do. But do you hear me whining? No. This is the 21st century. Deal with it. I deal with with it and I’m doing OK.

basically you give up the right to any rational judgment because you feel guilty as an american is basically it. and thats the problem with much of the conversation, you feel you’ve had a go at the riches so you cant’ stop anyone else regardless of the consequences because you don’t feel deserving to begin with. and really, open your home to a homeless person, they deserve whats yours, who are you to say no. they are poor after all.

and the graph does make my point, it goes VERY low, and takes decades to climb back up. that makes a huge difference, its not yearly spikes which would make no difference, its spikes over long periods of time. and frankly by that chart it would seem we should be due for another downturn if we want to match the success of previous waves.

“conservative should recognize that passing laws that restrict the size of the labor force flies in the face of basic conservative values.”

fine, but you realize that the left shouldn’t be supporting unlimited supply of imported workers to shove down wages. maybe the left should also switch positions on things like the minimum wage to be consistent.

“I would argue that yes, it is. This planet is round and what goes around comes around.”

you are not being serious. why do we have national parks and other protected lands if everything is global? surely there would be no point in protecting a patch of land if basically people living in other countries have as much impact on that patch as people who would log it down would:P excluding the obvious global warming much pollution effects and enviromental strain are localized. its simply a fact. and a damning one for leftist organizations like the sierra club which refuse to open their eyes.

and of course its easy for you to not begrudge someone else the chance at something when they aren’t competing with your job, they aren’t suppressing your wages. i mean really..how big of you! i’d have more faith in the whole idea if immigration impacts were evenly spread, whats good for low wages should be just as good for the high earners. i mean really there are countless medical workers around the world making a fraction of a us salary that would probably gladly come in on a rotating schedule to make some cash to bring home.

“Let’s start dealing with overpopulation (a global not just national problem) with good fact based sex education in the schools, make birth control easily available and legal and keep abortion safe and legal before we put a fence around ourselves.”

theres really no need to do t in that order, its just as well to keep reasonable controls on our growth first. just as we should control our c02 emissions first before dealing with other countries. effectiveness with dealing with the rest of the world is questionable to begin with, we can’t even deal with sudan. let alone rwanda which in large part became the mess it was due to overpopulation.

anyways, how many of those 12 million are actually farmworkers? and really, it is not a problem that cannot be solved. look at our grain harvests, it is almost completely mechanized today.

”

After immigration reform: If we can’t have them do the work for illegal pay we’ll have to pay them more to do it. ”

mostly unless theres a severe crackdown it will simply price them out of the jobs they were in slowly and more illegals will come and fill their places. the revolving door of converting illegal to legal then bring more illegals in.