Portland's Mayor supports Illegal immigration

[billcoe]

I don't know why Tom Potter feels this is acceptable practice. Its not acceptable for people who are trying to apply for legal immigration status to get shunted to the back of the line all the time by people who don't want to fill out the paperwork and wait.

 

It's bullshit.

 

link here

 

"165 Arrested In Immigration Sting

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165 Workers Arrested In Sting

 

PORTLAND - Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials arrested 165 people Tuesday after raiding three locations looking for undocumented workers.

 

raidAmerican Staffing Resources is a contract company that provides staffing service for fruit and vegetable processing plant, Fresh Del Monte.

 

ICE officials raided the ASR office on North Lombard, their satellite office inside Fresh Del Monte and Fresh Del Monte itself. It was at these locations where officials arrested three managers for knowingly hiring undocumented workers and supplying them with false documentation.

 

The investigation began six months ago after officials received tips. Investigators then sent in an undercover informant posing as someone looking for employment at Fresh Del Monte.

 

He was told by an ASR representative that a fake social security card would be O.K., as long as it looked like an official government document.

 

Officials say up to 90 employees had fraudulent or forged social security cards, some of which displayed the real social security of juveniles, the elderly or people who have died. Fake green cards were issued as well.

 

All but 30 of the 165 people taken into custody will be transported to a federal facility in Tacoma, Wash. Those 30 were released for health reasons or to care for dependents, but they too face a federal immigration judge.

 

Portland Mayor Tom Potter says he's unhappy with how the raids were carried out.

 

He released this statement: "I am angered by this morning's arrest by federal officers of approximately 150 Portland residents who were working at a local produce company. I certainly understand why federal officials executed criminal warrants against three individuals who stole and sold Social Security numbers. But to go after local workers who are here to support their families while filling the demands of local businesses for their labor is bad policy."

 

6/12/2007"

 

[ashw_justin]

Who does he think forms his constituency? Illegal workers who (rightly) can't even vote? Complicity is guilt.

 

"officials arrested three managers for knowingly hiring undocumented workers and supplying them with false documentation."

And that is how to stop illegal immigration, folks. No little fences will ever stem the tidal pull of dirty money.

 

(edit: removed profanity)

[Dannible]

What a fucking tool. Who does he think forms his constituency? Illegal workers who (rightly) can't even vote? Complicity is guilt.

 

"officials arrested three managers for knowingly hiring undocumented workers and supplying them with false documentation."

And that is how to stop illegal immigration, folks. No little fences will ever stem the tidal pull of dirty money.

 

I agree that punishing those who hire illegal immigrants is the way to solve the problem, but the simple fact is that the illegal immigrants who were arrested had no malicious intent. In most cases they are trying to make a better lives for themselves and for their families. Sure they could have gone through the necessary hoops to get the legal documents, but I would imagine that when your family is starving, patients wears thin, and you are going to do whatever it takes to support them.

[Couloir]

No need for more fences is right. Every employer is able to deduct employees wages. Simply make the employer prove they are legal or don't let those wages be deducted. No need for more fences or more bureaucracy. Let the IRS handle it.

[Couloir]

 

I agree that punishing those who hire illegal immigrants is the way to solve the problem, but the simple fact is that the illegal immigrants who were arrested had no malicious intent. In most cases they are trying to make a better lives for themselves and for their families. Sure they could have gone through the necessary hoops to get the legal documents, but I would imagine that when your family is starving, patients wears thin, and you are going to do whatever it takes to support them.

 

Same as if someone steals from a grocery store to feed their family? What if it's your store? Still ok?

[Dannible]

Well, I would rather have them steal than starve to death I guess, but that is not the issue here. They are working. Stealing and working are two different things.

[Couloir]

Well, I would rather have them steal than starve to death I guess, but that is not the issue here. They are working. Stealing and working are two different things.

Possibly. I wonder what the DOCUMENTED worker in line this morning for a job at Del Monte might think about that.

[rob]

I, for one, am glad that they finally kicked out the migrant workers from the Del Monte plant. I have been trying to get a job there for months, and they have not had any openings.

 

I'm sick of illegal immigrants taking all the good jobs!

 

Clearly, the Mayor of Portland is a communist. He's probably an atheist, too.

 

Go back to San Fransisco, hippie!

Edited June 13, 2007 by robmcdan

[Couloir]

I, for one, am glad that they finally kicked out the migrant workers from the Del Monte plant. I have been trying to get a job there for months, and they have not had any openings.

 

I'm sick of illegal immigrants taking all the good jobs!

 

Clearly, the Mayor of Portland is a communist. He's probably an atheist, too.

 

Go back to San Fransisco, hippie!

 

[Dannible]

I'm not saying that it's fair, I'm just saying that I understand why the undocumented worker might put the needs of his family and himself before others.

[JosephH]

It's basically all about 'illegal employers', not 'illegal immigrants'. The Republicans would much prefer you focus your anger on the latter. 'Illegal employers' shift the true costs of employment on to taxpayers - it's the ultimate free lunch for people who care more about money than their country. A $1000 dollar per day fine per worker employed illegally and criminal charges against HR, plant, and division managers would shutdown the problem in the corporate space. For home, small and medium businesses it more comes down to a matter of patriotism - do you put your wallet or your country first.

 

Given the preponderance of business owners and corporate executives are Republican it's an ironic bit of a contrast between their words and wallets.

[ashw_justin]

They are working. Stealing and working are two different things.

If the situation seems unjust it is the law itself we should consider, not its proper enforcement. What are the consequences of a system under which all labor standards are dissolved?

 

But realistically now--how do you feasibly deal with the workers once you put a stop to their illegal employment? How (let's forget about the 'why' for second) should we take care of them? Would there still be a demand for their labor once it is no longer illegally cheap? Do you punish the offending companies by forcing them to hire the workers on as legal employees? Would that be fair to more competitive legal workers?

[JayB]

If the businesses under discussion have the capacity to pass on higher labor costs to consumers via higher prices, then they'll do so. Otherwise you'll either see increased capital investment driving innovation and mechanization in the sectors that they work-in, or the the production that they are engaged in will cease in the US and occur where the total production costs are lower. That's fine with me.

 

Interesting Case Study:

 

"The WWII Bracero program expired in 1947, but Mexican workers continued to migrate north, and U.S. farmers continued to employ them outside legal channels. In 1950, a presidential commission was asked to review the need for additional Mexican Braceros and, citing distortion and dependence, it recommended that none be admitted. But the Korean War was used in July 1951 to justify approval of a new Mexican Farm Labor Program, PL-78. PL-78 was deliberately limited to six months — at the request of the Mexican government — to put pressure on Congress to approve employer sanctions so that Mexicans would be encouraged to enter the United States under the program instead of illegally.

 

Congress did not approve employer sanctions, i.e. penalties for employing illegal aliens, and the Bracero program grew in size and lasted longer than anticipated — legal admissions of Braceros peaked at 445,000 in 1956. The most important effects of the Bracero program were indirect, and they set the stage for Mexico-U.S. migration in the 1970s and 1980s:

 

U.S. farmers had to pay round-trip transportation from the Mexican workers’ homes to the United States place of employment, so farmers encouraged workers to move to the border area to limit transportation charges. The result was the growth of Mexican cities on the border, even though there were few jobs there.

 

 

Mexican workers often had to pay fees and bribes in Mexico to be selected as Braceros, so many went north illegally. Illegal workers could be hired without penalty by U.S. farmers. If an unauthorized Mexican worker was apprehended, he was made legal in a process referred to, even in U.S. government publications, as "drying out the wetbacks" — illegal workers were taken to the Mexican border, issued work permits, and returned to the farm on which they were working.

 

 

The availability of Braceros permitted the southwestern states to become the garden states. California fruit and nut production rose 15 percent during the 1950s, and vegetable production rose 50 percent. Average farm worker earnings, however, rose much slower than factory wages: farm workers’ wages rose from $0.85 an hour in 1950 to $1.20 in 1960, while factory workers’ wages rose from $1.60 to $2.60 an hour, i.e., farm wages fell from 53 to 46 percent of factory wages. Braceros in the fields and a booming non-farm economy encouraged Mexican-Americans to change from a predominantly rural to a mostly urban population.

 

One of the most important lessons of the Bracero program occurred at its end, and showed that those closest to agriculture were most wrong about what would happen without Braceros. As Congress debated whether to end the Bracero program in the early 1960s, farmers argued that Americans would not do farm work and that, without Braceros, crops would rot in the fields and food prices would rise. The California Farmer, on July 6, 1963, said that growers and canners "agree the state will never reach the 100,000 to 175,000 acres planted when there was a guaranteed supplemental labor force in the form of the bracero." (Don Razee, "Without Braceros, Tomato Growers will Slash Acreage in ’64," California Farmer, July 6, 1963, p. 5).

 

These predictions were wrong. Take the case of processing tomatoes. In 1960, 80 percent of the 45,000 peak harvest workers used to pick 2.2 million tons of the tomatoes used to make catsup in California were Braceros, and growers testified that "the use of Braceros is absolutely essential to the survival of the tomato industry." In 1999, about 5,000 workers were employed to ride machines to sort 12 million tons of tomatoes harvested by machine on 300,000 acres. In the tomato case, the end of the Bracero program led to the mechanization of the tomato harvest, expanding production, and a reduction in the price of processed tomato products...."

 

Cut off the pressure-relief valve that the mass exodus of the poorest and most desperate Mexicans has provided for the monumentally inept, corrupt, and innefficient political class that's run the country into the ground ever since the advent of the PRI, and you'd probably see some interesting political developments South of the border.

 

 

[G-spotter]

If exporting its poorest has kept Mexico backwards and corrupt, then has importing those poor peons made America more honest, progressive and democratic?

[Dannible]

Well, I was going to say that we should start burning foreigners in the streets to set an example, but I think G-spotter is on to something. This is our chance to make the world think that we are sympathetic, peaceful people who just want what's best for everyone. Once we have regained their trust, WE STRIKE!

[JayB]

If exporting its poorest has kept Mexico backwards and corrupt, then has importing those poor peons made America more honest, progressive and democratic?

 

Pretty much everything about the manner in which Mexico is administered and governed has kept it poor, backwards, and corrupt in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Exporting the most desperate reduces some of the political costs and consequences of maintaining the status quo.

 

I'd say the net effect of Mexican immigration has been quite positive, and I'm glad that the country affords the opportunity for some of them to avoid squandering their talents and their lives in a country that doesn't enable them to make the most of either.