Gster wrote that construction used to be considered a profession — I myself used to work construction labor. Construction was at that time almost all US born people, even in California. It was a great job for a guy who wasn’t ‘book learning’ smart but was good with his hands. Unfortunately, those American guys these day are working for commissions at Circuit City (as an exxample) rather than having a productive, well paid, career.

Ian Santiago wrote that enforcing immigration law would be waste of money. However, in California we are wasting literally billions ‘educating’ the children of illegals (notoriously poor scorers on standardized tests). There is no doubt that deporting illegals and their offspring would have a positive fiscal impact in California. I leave aside the other benefits (less traffic, less crime etc.)

I was completely blown away by this post. This is the most relevant post in this entire thread. Good job Doug! That’s a first by the way.

What kind of jobs are those predominately? Lawn work, manual agricultural labor, restaurant work, cleaning and janitoral services. Very few illegals get skilled-labor jobs and fewer still get non-manual jobs. How many engineers at Boeing or Cessna are illegal immigrants? How many people in Wichita making over $40,000 do you think are illegals (unless they are working 2 or 3 jobs)?

Speaking strictly from a work productivity standpoint, I really have no problem with illegals taking jobs from high schoolers and minorities. Overall, the immigrants value those jobs much more and work harder at them.

The overall economic impact of illegals is minimal, despite the statistics you cited. The unemployment rate, which shows the number of people that want work but are unable to find it, is better than it was before the increase in illegal immigrants. Further more, those type of jobs should not necessarily be protected and reserved for Americans. Wouldn’t you rather we educate and train those high schoolers and American minority males to do better jobs? I don’t want to tell my kid that I kicked out a illegal so they could always have job security slaughering cows at IBP. Do you want the people whom the illegals are “taking” jobs from to aspire to have better jobs than that anyway?

Do you know how hard it would be and how much money would be wasted trying to keep every illegal out of the country and patrolling every employer to ensure that they do not hire illegals? You may not mind the government wasting your tax dollars, but I think there are much better ways to spend the taxes that you and I pay.

Your idea to stop imports of goods is simply ridiculous. Do you understand the ramifications of that? The problems that would be caused by doing something like make immigration seem insignificant.

Andrew Sum:

Between 2000 and 2005, 4.1 million immigrant workers arrived from abroad, accounting for 86 percent of the net increase in the total number of employed persons (16 and older), the highest share ever recorded in the United States.

Of the 4.1 million new immigrant workers, between 1.4 and 2.7 million are estimated to be illegal immigrants. This means that illegal immigrants accounted for up to 56 percent of the net increase in civilian employment in the United States over the past five years.

Between 2000 and 2005, the number of young (16 to 34) native-born men who were employed declined by 1.7 million; at the same time, the number of new male immigrant workers increased by 1.9 million.

Multivariate statistical analyses show that the probability of teens and young adults (20-24) being employed was negatively affected by the number of new immigrant workers (legal and illegal) in their state.

The negative impacts tended to be larger for younger workers, for in-school youth compared to out-of-school youth, and for native-born black and Hispanic males compared to their white counterparts.

It appears that employers are substituting new immigrant workers for young native-born workers. The estimated sizes of these displacement effects were frequently quite large.

The increased hiring of new immigrant workers also has been accompanied by important changes in the structure of labor markets and employer-employee relationships. Fewer new workers, especially private-sector wage and salary workers, are ending up on the formal payrolls of employers, where they would be covered by unemployment insurance, health insurance, and worker protections.

How much does illegal immigration save in labor costs?

Bad news for American students, workers – massive H-1b Increases rise from dead in “SKIL Bill”http://moderntribalist.blogspot.com/

V.L.R.B!!

Close the border. Assess very heavy fines on those that hire the illegals that stay.

Close the ports. That or assess heavy tarriffs on imported goods. The idea should be that if it aint made here it aint sold here.

Do that and the employers can “demand” cheap labor all they like. “Demand” is irellevant if there is no supply.

Jed?

How many is enough?

Why just Mexicans? Let’s let ANYONE who wants to come on over here and displace American workers do so?

There are sensible limits to compassion.

As long as the employer worker relationship is as heavily weighted to the employer as it is now, we do not have room for anymore people.

The same arguements they are making were made about their ancestors. It is kind of sad though, since they just do not see it or understand the similarity.

Really, the only people in America that should have the right to complain about immigration are the Native Americans. And even they emigrated here.

That usually gets her and anyone else who uses this, They are humans, they deserve a better life.”Do you mean that because your ancestors emigrated to America and mistreated the original inhabitants then took the land from them that immigrants should not be able to come to America today without doing it legally? I do not see how the two are related. Could you explain more about your analogy?Thanks

Does Huckabee employ any illegal immigrants as a nanny, housekeeper, gardener, etc?

Does he not know there are American companies that offer their services in these areas?

I’m just wondering if he practices what he preaches.

Than I remind her. My Ancestors came here, raped, killed, pillaged and stole the land we live on today…

That usually gets her and anyone else who uses this, They are humans, they deserve a better life.

They do, but let them do it legally. If i have to obey the speed limit than they should obey the immigration laws.

If there are jobs that American’s wont do and Mexicans will do, than fine, let the companies take a buss down to the border, pick a few dozen up, DOCUMENT them, HOUSE them, TEACH them, keep track of them and let them come to work in their factories on temporary work permits. If they work successfully for X # of years and THEY LEARN TO READ AND WRITE ENGLISH, let them stay.

I’m not begrudging them the right to make their lives better, just do it within the confines of the law.

Now, i’m not even going to get started on the governments problems…

Ummmmm, JM.I think that’s exactly what the gov said.

“Huckabee argues, most of the jobs that illegal immigrants are doing in the United States are jobs that Americans don’t want.”

Exactly, you and the gov agree thatAmericans do not want the three dollar an hour job.Get a brain before you say get a brain.

Have you really actually met one?

Because I haven’t . . .

They’re in jail, vato.