The only topic on which I’ll ever agree with Bush
President Bush has proposed a six-year temporary worker visa for blue collar workers, an idea I fully support. There are so many undocumented workers out there who come here and work their tails off just to support their struggling families back at home (holding down two full-time jobs, living in a room with four other people to economize). Contrary to popular belief, most of them do have taxes and social security drawn out of their checks and they never see that money again. Many of them actually come with the plan to work hard here for a few years and then return home to a slower pace and a happier life. With this temporary visa, they could work long enough to save the money they need to provide years of assistance to their families back home and then return to live the rest of their lives in their country.
Ruben Navarette’s February 4 column addresses the myth that there is a class of Americans who are just waiting to take over the blue collar positions now filled by undocumented immigrants. An excerpt:
It’s the big lie of the immigration debate: Namely, that Americans would eagerly and gladly do the jobs being done by illegal immigrants if only wages were higher.
It started out as a rebuttal to President Bush’s insistence that illegal immigrants “do jobs that Americans won’t do.” Anti-illegal immigrant crusaders responded that these are actually “jobs that Americans won’t do . . .
for the wages offered.”
There are actually people out there who like to believe that there’s some magical hourly or daily wage that an employer could offer at which a slew of Americans would leave their desk jobs and line up for a chance to do some of the hardest, dirtiest and crummiest jobs our society has to offer. In many cases, there is no such wage.Still, someone has to do these types of jobs. And when employers try to fill them with illegal immigrants, they get crossways with native-born workers who are suddenly eager to do the very jobs that they and their families have shunned for a generation.
….
One employer told me that, when she hired the native-born, she got a barrage of questions: “How much does this job pay? What are the benefits? How much vacation time do I get?” But when she hired immigrants, some of whom may have been illegal, she got only one question: “How much work can you give me?” Now, which one would you rather have working for you?
