POSTVILLE, Iowa — When federal immigration agents raided the kosher meatpacking plant here in May and rounded up 389 illegal immigrants, they found more than 20 under-age workers, some as young as 13.
16 year olds working 17 hour shifts do not have time to join gangs. You suppose that was the motivation of the management of this plant? Keep the streets safe from Hispanic gangs? Or maybe the management liked the feeling of having slaves?
One, a Guatemalan named Elmer L. who said he was 16 when he started working on the plant’s killing floors, said he worked 17-hour shifts, six days a week. In an affidavit, he said he was constantly tired and did not have time to do anything but work and sleep. “I was very sad,” he said, “and I felt like I was a slave.”
Federal prosecutors might bring charges of violations of labor laws.
While federal prosecutors are primarily focusing on immigration charges, they may also be looking into labor violations. Search warrant documents filed in court before the raid, which was May 12, cited a report by an anonymous immigrant who was sent to work in the plant by immigration authorities as an undercover informant. The immigrant saw “a rabbi who was calling employees derogatory names and throwing meat at employees.” Jewish managers oversee the slaughtering and processing of meat at Agriprocessors to ensure kosher standards.
So why do the bad rabbis throw meat at the poor, young, low-skilled illegal aliens? The rabbis belong to the clannish separatist Lubavitcher sect who run the slaughterhouse. They look down upon those who are not chosen by God. So the locals of Postville get replaced from jobs by cheaper foreigners and the Lubavitchers look down on both local whites and Central Americans.
Immigration law enforcement actions and new state laws against illegal aliens are provoking the creation of more organized opposition by the cheap labor lobby. Cheap imported labor really amounts to privatized profits and socialized costs. But that ethical consideration doesn't seem to restrain those who want those privatized profits. Cheap labor business interests are organizing and funding an attack against immigration restriction.
Under pressure from the toughest crackdown on illegal immigration in two decades, employers across the country are fighting back in state legislatures, the federal courts and city halls.
The businesses are basically fighting back against a Republican base that tougher immigration law enforcement. Will the businesses use their money to buy influence and neutralize the immigration restrictionists?
Though the pushback is coming from both Democrats and Republicans, in many places it is reopening the rift over immigration that troubled the Republican Party last year. Businesses, generally Republican stalwarts, are standing up to others within the party who accuse them of undercutting border enforcement and jeopardizing American jobs by hiring illegal immigrants as cheap labor.
Tamar Jacoby is leading a new national organization that represents the interests of the cheap labor lobby. If we can manage to cut down the supply of cheap foreign labor then machines can replace the laborers if the labor supply becomes restricted enough.
The poultry processing industry wants more immigrant labor to lower its labor costs.
Now, poultry processors in Virginia and across the country are taking their case to Congress. Last week, several hundred industry leaders met in Washington to lobby for immigration changes and an improved document-checking system as well as relief from environmental rules that have doubled the price of the feed corn they buy for their birds.
If the poultry processors aren't hiring immigrants (legal and illegal) to lower costs what other possible reason could they be doing this?
"We depend on immigrants. If they all went away today, people like us couldn't operate," said Jim Mason, president of the cooperative, who visited a half-dozen congressional offices. "People think we hire Hispanics because we can get them cheaper, but it is absolutely false. We do everything the government asks and more to make sure our workers are legal, and we turn a lot of people away. But if an ID is stolen, there is nothing we can do."
What kind of suckers does he think we are?
Americans will do this work. Take away the Mexicans and Guatemalans and the work will still get done - albeit at higher hourly rates. Plenty of people would like to move up from minimum wage fast food jobs to slightly better paying jobs in factories and agricultural products processing plants.
Immigrants are pushing natives out of the British labor market.
In 1996, the last full year of Conservative government, the official projection for net immigration was 65,000 a year.
This September, the Office of National Statistics revised its projection from 145,000 a year to 190,000.
Gross immigration since 1997 has been 4.4 million, net immigration 1.6 million.
Most new jobs now go to immigrants.
It also admitted that 52 per cent of the new jobs in this period have gone to immigrants and that the number of British citizens in work is falling.
I can understand the free market capitalist motive to wage work on native workers. But when did the British Labour Party become the tool of class warfare against the working class?
The capitalists want open borders for technical workers.
As employers and professional groups ask Congress to speed up immigration reform for high-skilled workers, U.S. tech workers are fighting back.
The latest clash erupted after the U.S. chapter of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Semiconductor Industry Assn. (SIA) sent a letter to congressional leaders Oct. 11 calling for any foreign student with at least a bachelor's degree in technology or science to be granted permanent residency if they get a job offer. The letter outraged U.S. tech workers who feel displaced both by immigration programs and outsourcing (BusinessWeek.com, 10/10/07). In response, the Programmers Guild, which represents 1,500 technical and professional workers, has drafted its own letter to congressional leaders, warning that such a policy would further disadvantage American workers.
The Semiconductor Industry Association represents capital. Capital wants cheap labor. So the SIA's position makes perfect sense. They are arguing for a position that will boost short term profits of their members. But isn't the IEEE supposed to represent practicing engineers? Is it captive to companies that employ large numbers of engineers? How does that work?
Both the House and Senate have passed by overwhelming margins legislation that would kill a Transportation Department trial granting access to up to 100 Mexican trucking companies. (Canadian trucks have enjoyed the run of the country since 1982.) The 75-23 Senate vote, on an amendment to a transportation funding bill by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., came late Tuesday night. The House passed a similar measure 411-3 in May.
Ever since Bush and his allies in Congress tried to pass a huge immigration amnesty back in May and June 2007 the backlash has scared Congress critters. This lopsided vote is yet another sign that Congress was scared by the overwhelming opposition to elite desires to import a replacement population.
The excuse for opposing the program was safety but everyone knows it was about class warfare.
Only a few Mexican trucks ever made it through Texas ports of entry before Congress nixed the program, according to Tom Wade, president of the Logistics and Manufacturing Association — Port Laredo.
Teamsters and other truck drivers oppose the Mexican trucker program, saying safety concerns and competition from lower paid drivers in Mexico will hurt economy.
“It’s all a big smokescreen to protect Teamsters,” Wade said about this week’s decision to nix the program. “This was a test to go through and check safety. These guys were going to be under the microscope.”
The supporters of Mexican truckers are forgetting to mention that they want cheaper labor and hence they support bringing in Mexican truckers to displace American truckers from jobs. This battle is about labor costs and sovereignty. Does citizenship in the US provide privileges? Should citizens have property rights in their citizenship? Or should elites be able to strip any economic value out of citizenship in order to achieve short term advantages in the form of greater profits? They certainly want to do that.
Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies has a new report out showing native less skilled workers in Georgia are getting driven out of the labor market by immigrants.
- Between 2000 and 2006 the share of less-educated native-born adults (ages 18 to 64) in Georgia holding a job declined from 71 percent to 66 percent. (Less-educated is defined as having no education beyond high school.)
- Had employment rates for natives been the same in 2006 as they were in 2000, then 186,000 more less-educated native-born adults and teenagers would have been working. The number of less-educated immigrants holding a job increased by 218,000.
- Less-educated blacks in Georgia have seen a somewhat larger decline in employment, from 66 percent holding a job in 2000 to just 60 percent in 2006.
- There are nearly 800,000 less-educated native-born adults in Georgia not working. There are likely between 250,000 and 350,000 less-educated illegal aliens holding jobs in the state.
Remember when market advocates used to argue that a rising tide lifts all boats? They can't pretend to make that argument any more. Fewer natives are working and while living standards for the upper classes rose rapidly the wages for those at the bottom stopped rising.
- Wages and salary for less-educated adults in Georgia have stagnated. Over the entire six-year time period of the study, real annual wages for less-educated adults grew by just 1 percent. If there was a labor shortage, wages should be rising fast.
Think about what that means. Fewer work. Those who work do not get paid any more. So the total number of dollars flowing to lower skilled blacks has declined. A rising tide of Hispanic immigrants sinks black boats.
- Native-born teenagers (15 to 17 years of age) have also seen a dramatic decline in employment. Between 2000 and 2006 the share of native-born teenagers holding a job declined from 22 percent to 11 percent in the state.
- There are about 300,000 native-born teenagers not working in Georgia.
- Immigrants (legal and illegal) increased their share of all less-educated workers in Georgia, from 7 percent in 2000 to 19 percent by 2006. Other research indicates that at least half of this growth was from illegal immigrants.
These results demonstrate just how unfair and foolish our elites are to let in so many lower IQ immigrants who will do manual labor for cheap. The predominately black workers who are getting out-competed by Mexicans and El Salvadorans do not have some other place to run to. The Hispanic illegal alien deluge is speading across the Old South. Blacks are already pouring out of California back to the Old South. Where are the blacks supposed to go next?
Also, as my grandmother used to say "Idle hands are the devil's workshop". Our foolish immigration policy is producing a growing legion of idle hands.
The people in Georgia had best start approving bonds to build more prisons. The Hispanics (especially starting in the second generation) commit crimes at 2 to 3 times the white crime rate. Plus, idle blacks will commit more crimes. You people in Georgia need to protect yourselves from at least some of the problems that our traitorous elites have inflicted upon us.
What else you should do and rather more quickly: Contact your Senators and tell them you are opposed to immigration amnesty.
The New York Times reports what ParaPundit readers have known for years: Hispanics took most of the jobs in construction over the last few years.
According to the analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center, based on census data, Hispanic immigrants took 60 percent of the million new construction jobs created from 2004 to 2006. Those recently arrived took nearly half.
In spite of a huge bust in the housing market the US Labor Department reports only a small decrease in employment. This probably demonstrates the huge size of the poorly measured illegal alien work force.
The nation’s great housing bust has not shown up so far in official employment data. According to the Labor Department, employment in residential construction has declined by only 28,000 jobs — or some 3 percent — since its peak last fall.
“It is sort of surprising that construction employment numbers haven’t gone down more already,” said David F. Seiders, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders. “I’m not sure about the quality of the data.”
The statistics seem to belie the debacle that has overwhelmed home building. In February, there were 15 percent fewer homes under construction and 27 percent fewer homes started than in the corresponding month of 2006. In California, 42 percent fewer building permits for new residential units were issued in February than a year earlier.
Real employment can't fall only 3% when homes under construction have dipped by several times that amount.
The article reports that many illegals formerly employed in housing are heading back into agriculture and are travelling north to Oregon and beyond looking for work. What I want to know: when will Mexican and Central American illegal aliens become a significant problem in British Columbia?
Also, how much has demand for food stamps, Medicaid, WIC, and other social programs gone up due to illegals with American-born children who have lost their jobs in construction?