Diary of a Wolfeman

George had this to say in response to Graumagus’ posting on Immigration:

I agree with most of what Grau says, but “moonbat” that I am, who IS gonna pick your veggies, mow your lawn, reroof your house, etc. if we block the illegals? Like it or not, these folks are here to WORK, not sign up for welfare, unlike WAY too damn many native-born Americans. Frankly, I’d rather have a illegal alien Mexican touch my food than a former welfare queen-crack addict. Tennessee Bud, do you really think ending welfare would result in a lot of new roofers and crop workers? They’d just stay unemployed and steal. And get ready for prices on everything to double when you start paying real wages, rather than what we pay the illegals. The illegals are willing to take slave wages for fear of being deported. You can’t deport native Americans who refuse to take shitty jobs at low pay.

Also, our newspaper ran a story saying illegals’ employers pay into Social Security, and the illegals have no hope of ever collecting. So apparently Social Security would be much worse off without them. And maybe that can begin to make up for what they collect in other social services. (Has anyone seen an unbiased cost-benefits study on this? How much do they take vs. what they contribute?)

My biggest bitch with illegals is the fairness issue and language. Folks who obey the laws and follow the system may have to wait years to enter this country. But anyone who can pay a smuggler with a boat gets in free. And like Grau, I think they should speak my language when they decide to move to my country. I live in South Florida, where immigrants (illegal or not) who’ve been here for generations still don’t speak English. Native Americans can’t get jobs unless they speak Spanish. That’s obscene.

It’s a very simple matter: you must obey the laws. It isn’t all that hard to go through channels and become a citizen legally.

As for the burden, you also have to factor in that the money they earn doesn’t stay here – they ship it back to the rest of their family in Mexico. ‘Vegas is awash with illegals, and I’ve seen the way they operate first-hand: 8-10 guys living in a three-bedroom apt., living minimally and sending cash over the border.

Here in Oregon, you see them in places where you used to see teenagers – it’s damn hard for an American kid to get hired at McD’s nowdays. Then there’s the mobs of them that just hang out at certain intersections waiting for the contractors to come pick them up for unskilled labor. I know the contractors are paying them under the table, so that bit about the SS in-payments is hogwash. The contractors use them to keep labor costs down and make the lowest bid. (My dad is currently building a new house in Florida and told me how the whole thing works. Trying to impress me with how much money he’s saving, he didn’t realize how much it would piss me off.)

Don’t even get me started on the language issue. When I went through the System last year due to unemployment, I was usually the only native-born English speaking person in the room – and that includes the social workers. It galls me to think how much money the government could save on printing alone by only publishing documents in English instead of 7 or more languages.

To answer the “who would do the work” bit, I’d say teenage kids. My son and I live in an apartment in the city with no yard, so I have very few things to assign to him in the way of chores to earn spending money. (Garbage and dishes hardly qualify in my book, that’s just pitching in.) His mom, however, lives farther out in the country, and he often spends weekends out there doing yardwork, feeding horses, hauling hay, chopping firewood, etc. When he does, he comes home with a feeling of accomplishment and a boost to his self-confidence that he can’t get around here.

He’s also been trying to get an after-school job, and is having no luck because the ones where you would normally find kids his age are all taken up by immigrants (status unknown but guessable) of hispanic descent. I couldn’t tell you the lst time I went through a drive-through and heard an American accent on the speaker anywhere other than Popeye’s Chicken. (That one is located in a black neighborhood.)

Harvey asked:

Seriously, why don’t we have an open border with Mexico? I’m sure there are good reasons, but I can’t think of them off the top of my head.

Here’s why we have a (mostly) open border with Canada: Canucks are law-abidin’ folk for the most part, coming from a modern and industrialized society. Canadians coming over the border are trained and educated, and willingly pay the taxes on their wages. Northern Mexico is a third-world nation, and the people coming in illegally are uneducated, have no training, and are desperate for something better. Since they have come in illegally, they don’t pay taxes anywhere, and the children they have here almost immediately go into public assistance. The Gov’t KNOWS this, and has set up laws to keep them from flooding the unskilled labor market, but has failed to adequately fund those laws’ enforcers.