"The problem is not how this law will effect illegals, it's how it will effect Americans and legal immigrants."
Exactly. And don't forget all the Canadians who will have to start carrying their birth certificates everywhere they go ;-)
Furor grows over Arizona's illegal immigration law
by Sam Whiskey 213 Replies latest jw friends
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beksbks
Damn Canucks!
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beksbks
Here's an interesting article from three years ago. This issue just is not as simple as it is made out to be, and no administration seems to want to tackle it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/washington/26unions.html
Labor Coalitions Divided on Immigration Overhaul
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE</form>Published: June 26, 2007
Now that President Bush has rallied Republicans to try again to reshape the immigration laws, supporters of the effort have a new worry. When the bill returns to the Senate floor, probably next week, opposition from labor unions could doom the bill’s prospects by putting pressure on many Democrats to vote against it.
The threat that labor poses to the bill has gone largely unrecognized in part because three prominent unions — the service employees, the farm workers, and the hotel, restaurant and apparel workers — have backed the legislation. But that support, advocates say, has been outweighed by opposition from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and virtually all other unions, including auto workers, Teamsters, food and commercial workers, and construction unions.
“The labor opposition on this bill is extremely important,” said Tamar Jacoby, an immigration expert at the conservative Manhattan Institute. “For this bill to pass, we probably need 80 percent of the Democrats, if not more, to support it, and if unions are what pull them off the bill or make their support soft, that is a serious threat to the bill.”
The split between the three unions and the rest of labor reflects fundamentally different views of what is best for the future of the labor movement.
Supporters of the bill say that the A.F.L.-C.I.O., in opposing the legislation, is focused on protecting the gains that its mostly middle-class members have made in pay and benefits over the decades. To the labor federation, the big worry is that the bill’s guest worker provision will pull down wages, take away jobs from Americans and exploit immigrants.
The three unions that favor the bill also dislike the guest worker program but are willing to support the bill to pursue a larger goal: a path to legalization for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in this country. The three unions, which represent many janitors, farm laborers and hotel housekeepers, have high percentages of members who are immigrants. They also recognize that it will be far easier to unionize immigrants — perhaps the most fertile ground for labor’s growth — when illegal immigrants are given legal status.
The three unions argue that the best strategy to help the nation’s immigrants is to push forward with the bill, however flawed, in the hope that it will be improved by the House. “We think burying the issue and ignoring it would be a terrible mistake for the country and the economy,” said John W. Wilhelm, president of the hospitality division of Unite Here, which represents hotel, restaurant and apparel workers. “We don’t support the bill in its present form, but we think that the process is best served if the bill passes out of the Senate and the legislative process continues.”
But the A.F.L.-C.I.O. asserts that the bill is so flawed that it should be killed.
“We really have major concerns, and the concerns increase each day because the bill is getting worse instead of better,” said John J. Sweeney, the labor federation’s president, who called the bill overly punitive. “The bill’s guest worker provisions pit workers against other workers. It creates a new underclass of workers.”
The federation continues to battle the bill despite amendments proposed to address labor’s objections. The Senate voted to halve the guest worker program, to 200,000 workers a year, and to phase it out after five years.
“The A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s hostility surprises me,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a liberal group that supports the bill. The service workers’ union and Unite Here, Mr. Sharry said, “are forward looking, they’re trying to figure out how do you improve workers’ rights in an era of globalization and do more than protect aging members.”
Labor’s split over the bill reflects tensions between the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the breakaway Change to Win labor federation; the three unions backing the bill belong to the rival federation.
Eliseo Medina, an executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, said the bill would help not only immigrants, but also labor unions.
“We have thousands of members who are undocumented who would have legal status,” said Mr. Medina, the son of a bracero worker from Mexico. “Second, it will allow workers who want to organize to do so without the fear of deportation, and that helps unionization drives. It’s not just a question of helping us as labor; it helps all workers because if you have a significant number of workers without any rights, that suppresses wages for everybody.”
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purplesofa
Maybe because my son is in the construction business and I see how he has had to take a cut in income not only because of the housing crash but also to compete with the lower wages illegals will take, I tend to agree with Burns and the others that don't think this is such a bad thing.
I am usually a bleeding heart liberal (as I am called around my house) and my thoughts on this issue don't coincide with liberal thinking.
I know how it feels to be "profiled" not racially and it sucks.
I don't find having to show proof you are an American citizen to be degrading. And I wish people would not feel so offended by it.
I would hate to be the person that would have to show over and over again that I was legal. I think that would be frustrating and maddening. Some people may never be stopped and others could have to show legality possibly several times a day!
I lived in McAllen, a border town in Texas, and we had many people from Mexico come and work for us. They had day passes to work and weekly passes ..all legal.
I am not callous to people wanting to come to America to have a better life. There are legal ways to do it.
In my home, I would welcome and help anyone that needed it. But I cannot do it when I do not have the resources to do so. America does not have the resources to keep taking people in right now.
When I can not afford to hire someone to do work that I don't want to do, I have to do it myself, and I think that is where Americans need to be now. Are we above or too good to plant and pick our own food?!?!?
Just try to get a teenager to do some of the work, a humble grateful illegal will do........Just the other day a young boy came to my sons to offer his services of mowing for a very low fee. I told my son I wish we could afford to hire him, just for his eagerness to work and for a small price. I remember growing up and having kids come to my parents house frequently to mow or do any kind of odd jobs for money. I hardly see that at all anymore.
I have been in tears at the airport when asked to step aside not once, not twice, but three times, while almost naked from being scanned to having my backpack swabbed for dust particles looking for who knows what. I don't know why they picked me, perhaps because when I am tanned I look foreign and I was travelling with someone from another country? Somehow we raised suspicion. Or maybe the people on duty were just being jerks that day.
Some people are going to get treated this way in AZ if this happens. But there is a bigger picture.
If nothing else, this surely should make someone somewhere DO SOMETHING about this immigration problem, this has been kept simmering on the back burner far too long.
My question is, when they find that someone is illegal then what will they do with them. Is Arizona equipped to handle this big "round up"?
My rant for the day.
purps
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Robdar
Well said, Purps!
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out4good3
This law is doomed. Under cover of being rationalized as an answer in small part to illegal immigration, it stinks of just being a vehicle for extreme right wing knuckleheads to self-aggrandize and pat themselves on the back for legislating the legal cover they want to harass out of the country those who don't fit into their american ideal.
How does one "look" like an illegal alien? When did looking for work and being willing to take it at a lower wage, even if it costs one bourgeous american ideal his job, become an immigration issue?
Texas,with it's secessionist governor is facing a 17billion dollar shortfall in the next couple of years that has the education industry I work in shaking in its boots. I can ony imagine the shape Arizona is in. For all their bluster about "doing something" about immigration in the face of lapses by the federal government, they can't afford this..........and they know it. Their politicians are just pandering.
It is only a matter of time before tourist dollars dry up and blow away, just as they did over their MLK fiasco.
Hitting the elite in their pockets eventually brings them to their senses.
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blondie
Exactly. And don't forget all the Canadians who will have to start carrying their birth certificates everywhere they go ;-)
Citizens in the US USED to have to carry their birth certificate only to enter Canada and Mexico, now they have to have a valid passport to enter Canada or Mexico (as well as the rest of the world outside the US).
When we were in AZ and NM we were stopped and we are as Anglo looking as you can get. But it's not the stopping that is the situation, it would be always having to carrying documents proving we are citizens of the US, something I don't have to carry in the other 49 states of the US. Imagine, carrying your passport to enter AZ?
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JWoods
Imagine, carrying your passport to enter AZ?
Or some valid form of ID. You have to do this to drive a car, after all. You are supposed to have an SS# to get a job...
There is going to be some inconvenience - but this is a serious problem and it needs to be resolved.
BTW - what I am reading about this bill is not so much random card checks as it is investigation in combination with traffic stops or other criminal investigation.
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blondie
So you are suggesting, JWoods, that we weren't being stopped in regard to criminal activity???? That's exactly why we were stopped and everyone, everyone, on that highway. I have lived in my state for over 30 years and not once been stopped and had my vehicle checked for drugs.....
I have also worked in law enforcement for 10 years, and I can see already how this can be abused.
What is the definition of "reasonable suspicion"? So if you are stopped and it isn't "reasonable" do you think that I will be able to have an opinion about that or will have to go along and have another authority decide?
What does "any ID" mean? More than DL or personal ID card? Why not spell it out?
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beksbks
Maybe because my son is in the construction business and I see how he has had to take a cut in income not only because of the housing crash but also to compete with the lower wages illegals will take, I tend to agree with Burns and the others that don't think this is such a bad thing.
I am usually a bleeding heart liberal (as I am called around my house) and my thoughts on this issue don't coincide with liberal thinking.
I know how it feels to be "profiled" not racially and it sucks.
I don't find having to show proof you are an American citizen to be degrading. And I wish people would not feel so offended by it.
I would hate to be the person that would have to show over and over again that I was legal. I think that would be frustrating and maddening. Some people may never be stopped and others could have to show legality possibly several times a day!
Purps in your first paragraph, you mention what illegals do to the wages of Americans. I agree completely, that is why I am so against illegal immigration. Many liberals are for this very reason. Read some of my article about Union opinion on the subject.
In your next paragraph you say you don't see why people should be so offended by having to show proof of citizenship. But you go on to point out exactly why it would be frustrating and maddening.
What if you happen to be driving the wrong kind of car, wearing the wrong clothing or shoes, and be dark skinned. What if all you want to do is get to work. You could potentially be pulled over multiple times in one trip. You, an American citizen born and raised. Here's the Governor who signed in the law