PT-LawMom

The Washington Post’s Sebastian Mallaby has a great op-ed today that exposes the realities behind common myths about illegal immigrants, namely that the numbers just don’t support the claims of job stealing, healthcare draining and wage lowering.

Thanks to intensive enforcement over the past year, illegal immigration from Mexico is thought to have fallen by a quarter. Suppose even more spending could cut the number of illegal entrants from 400,000 to 200,000 a year, so that 2 million arrivals could be prevented over a 10-year period. Add in an aggressive deportation program that ejected 1 million illegals, and you are still only scratching the surface. Even if immigration has driven down wages for high school dropouts by 9 percent, it’s hard to see how truly vicious counter-immigration policies could drive them up by more than about 2 percent.

That simply can’t be worth it. Border security does not come cheap: We could save money on unmanned aerial drones and use it to help high-school dropouts with a more generous earned-income tax credit. And although the concern for high-school dropouts is welcome, it must be weighed against the aspirations of migrants. Is it right to push native workers’ pay up by 2 percent if that means depriving poor Mexicans of a chance to triple their incomes?

Of course it isn’t, and given that the total economic effect of immigration on U.S. households is a wash, the big ramp-up in enforcement spending beloved by immigration hawks is an egregious waste of money. But no politician is going to say that.

Pumpkinhead is sick. Wildly, messily sick. AGAIN. I can recall maybe a handful of times that I had stomach bugs as a kid. With Pumpkinhead, it’s a regular occurrence. I don’t think it’s a stomach virus because he’s only been vomiting every 2-3 hours. He’s super congested and coughing so I think it may be an ear or sinus infection. He swears his ears aren’t hurting, though. So now I’ve spent the day alternating clean-up, Pedialyte dosing and trying to decide whether it’s worth a trip to urgent care. On the one hand, I hate to spend the time and money at urgent care if it’s just a virus they can’t do anything for. On the other hand, we have to fly next weekend for vacation so I will need to eradicate an ear infection if that’s what’s going on. To make things even more complicated, if I take him to school tomorrow and he gets sent home, he will be stuck home for TWO days due to their 24-hour fever-free policy (i.e., go home at 10 a.m. and you have to be fever-free until 10 a.m. the next day but you can’t arrive after 9 a.m. so you’re stuck home until WEDNESDAY!) Ack.

This is a major working mother’s issue. Do I suck up my weekend by spending hours at urgent care with a very cranky preschooler, take one day off to be safe and get him into the pediatrician, or risk two days home if I chance it and send him to school? I hate this, especially since he looks so horribly pale but won’t tell me how he feels. I think I’ll see how he does tonight. If I’m up at 3 a.m. changing bedsheets, we’re staying home tomorrow and paying a visit to our friendly neighborhood pediatrician. Unfortunately Chapin’s job doesn’t have paid sick leave so it’s always me at home.

I detest bugs and rodents and yet they seem to follow me no matter where I go. I’ve lived in a lot… a LOT… of places in my life. I spent a large part of my childhood in a country that, while it has no native poisonous spiders, makes up for it with seriously gross grubs and insects. I was taking a shower once and an enormous bug decided to join me. Ack! Later I moved to a mid-Atlantic state and got stung twice in weird places by bees - once when I was playing piano in the dark and two bees crawled up my pants leg to sting my inner thigh and once when I was sleeping, some bees flew in the open window, got tangled in my hair and stung my neck. During a summer fishing trip, an eel or some kind of water snake bit my leg! In DC, it was crickets and rats that plagued me. The crickets were rampant in my basement apartment whenever it rained (again, in the shower!!) and Georgetown sewer rats somehow got into the fancy house above me and were running around on top of the drop-down popcorn basement ceiling above my room. YIKES!!! That was fixed quickly, thank God, but the exterminator made me hold the garbage bag as he pulled a huge, dead rat out!! My final scary story is of the tarantula that crawled across my hand during a late-night visit to an outhouse in a third world country a few years ago.

Why am I sharing all of this? Because I just went down to my kitchen to get a snack and a cockroach the size of my fist (okay, that could be exaggerating a bit) flew out of my spice cabinet. AAHHHH!!!! Of course Chapin is not home right now so I couldn’t scream at him to save me. I just sprayed my cabinet using the closest can of super-powered bug spray and will wait for Chapin to get home tomorrow to remove the offending beast before I wash and/or dump the contents of that cabinet. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I know I’m just a big old girl wimp, but these things REALLY freak me out. Can’t wait until Pumpkinhead is big enough to tackle this type of problem!

According to a report in Hispanic Business, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is urging Congress to approve “comprehensive immigration reform”, such as that in the STRIVE Act proposed by Democrats, instead of the latest proposal from the Bush administration.

[Bishop Gerald Barnes] said that STRIVE deserved support because it promotes family reunification and contains “a realistic plan for bringing undocumented immigrants out of the shadows.”The bishop said, in contrast, that the Bush proposal is not good for immigrant families and imposes heavy fines and lengthy waits for legalization of immigration status, something that interested foreigners will not be able to fulfill.

“As we understand it, the (Bush) administration’s proposal would effectively leave many immigrants seeking to legalize their status in a permanent underclass and would encourage family breakdown in immigrant communities,” Barnes said.

Apparently Mississippi and North Dakota have both passed laws criminalizing abortion if (when?) the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Seriously. They are actually passing these laws. Who are these lawmakers in these states that actually believe it’s the will of their constituents?!?! This is complete insanity.

To all of my legal secretary colleagues out there, I hope you have a day filled with respect and accolades for all that you do for your attorneys.

If you happen have a micromanaging boss who doesn’t appreciate you (what? A micromanaging attorney? Never! ROFL!!), I suggest you read HalfEagle’s ever-insightful blog today. Oh, and wait until after lunch to read about the attacked blogger she mentions at top. That picture and her story really did make me physically ill. Men!!

Work It: A Blog for Working Mothers is giving away a Presto picture printer. It’s a printer you hook up to a phone line at your parents’/grandparents’ house that automatically prints e-mails/photos up to five times a day. Seems like a fun product, although I like this one a lot better and 5 Minutes for Mom is giving one away!

Assuming the Governer signs the approved legislation, Washington State will become the second state after California to offer paid family leave to new parents. Yay!! It’s not a lot - $250/week for five weeks, but it’s more than most people get now and could considerable defray the cost burde of maternity leave.

The AP reports:

The measure, passed Sunday to create the Family and Medical Leave Insurance Program, would:

–Beginning in 2009, pay $250 a week for up to five weeks of leave when people need to care for a new child, including adopted children. The benefit would be available to people who have worked 680 hours in a year. People who work less than 35 hours a week would receive a prorated amount.

–Create a 13-member task force to study how to administer and pay for the program.

–Require employers with more than 25 employees to hold workers’ jobs open while they are on leave. Those employees must have worked for at least one year and at least 1,250 hours to qualify for job-protected leave.

–Require a one-week waiting period before benefits begin.

Comparisons to California’s Law:

–Unlike California’s law, the Washington proposal would not allow employees to take paid leave to deal with their own health conditions or care for seriously ill relatives.

–California’s law covers up to six weeks. Washington would only cover up to five.

–Eligibility in California is for all employees after earning $300 in a year. Washington state is for all employees who have worked 680 hours in a year.

–California allows companies to opt out of the plan if their employees consent, they provide a better plan than the state plan, and it costs the employees no more than the state plan. Washington companies would not be allowed to opt out under any circumstances.

–California pays 55 percent of a worker’s pay up to $882 a week. Washington state is capped at $250 a week for full-time workers.

–California workers pay 0.6 percent of their wages to pay for the program. The funding mechanism for Washington’s plan will be determined by a task force established by the law.

——

The paid family leave bill is Senate Bill 5659.

I have blogged on the way the media seized on the VA Tech shooter’s immigration status, but I had no idea how far-reaching the “Blame the Immigrant Game” went. The blog Para Justicia y Libertad has a very detailed analysis of how the media rushed to judgment and pointed fingers at innocent immigrant students:

Even worse, one of the most unfortunate media debacles over the VA Tech shootings was the false accusations levied against Wayne Chiang, a Chinese-American who happens to collect guns and who also attends VT who also recently broke up with his girlfriend. Without waiting for the details from the local authority and going on a unfounded and stereotype-based “tip,” Fox News reporters Geraldo Rivera and Megyn Kelly (video) insisted that Wayne Chiang “might have been the perpetrator” as Fox News not only were searching for his residence but also kept broadcasting his pictures from his Facebook page all over the airwaves.

… on the Fox Network, Geraldo Rivera broadcast Chiang’s Facebook page - though not his name - stating, “people might suspect that this might have been the perpetrator.” Fox News correspondent Megyn Kelly then explained how, upon discovery of Chiang’s profile, the channel searched for him.

Sadly, Chiang was not only a victim of profiling, but also a victim of the old stereotype that “all Asians look the same.” Or, as he put it, was “five for five.” According Chiang, he was forced to go public after an Internet lynch mob targeted Chaing throughout the day with “numerous death threats, slanderous accusations, and ….. [a] barrage of [phone] calls.” By the end, his site had over 166,000 page views and on Tuesday, he had over 333,000 people visit his site. On the day of the massacre, his site was quickly filled with hate-filled comments such as: “so u are the asisan that shot up the school. i hate u and your people.” (note: comments are closed now)

In an interview with ABC, Chiang said: “Right now pretty much the internet thinks it is me … I am just interested in trying to clear my name.” One would think that once the gunman was properly identified this was an open and shut case in the court of public opinion, no debate, time to move on, unfortunately, this is not the case for Chaing. According to Chiang’s latest entry, he is still being “misidentified” as the shooter.

So now that I have been using this cool new MacBook for a while, I decided to purchase a refurbished iPod shuffle for $49! Chapin is away for work tonight so I’m sitting here with a box of old CDs loading them onto my laptop. It took me a while but I finally figured out that I don’t have to put the entire CD on — I can just uncheck the ones I don’t enjoy. I’m a pretty techno-savvy girl but some of the newer stuff like texting and MP3 players is really Gen Y territory and I’m a bit too far beyond that. I was watching a commercial today for one of the cell phone services and the daughter was talking in text-speak and her mother was like, “Huh?” and was fussing at her for the high cell bill due to texting charges. That would be me. I just don’t get it.

Anyway, I’ve been listening to everything from classic Bon Jovi to Alison Krauss to Enrique Iglesias. Now I’m queuing up Joe Diffie’s Greatest Hits because who doesn’t appreciate a little John Deere Green-style romance. And Enrique Iglesias? Have you seen the man in concert? He’s not really my type and I don’t find him all that attractive but in person he puts on a steamy turn-on of a concert. The man is pure sex. Meow!

Final selections for this evening’s playlist:
Tracy Chapman’s New Beginnings
Christian Castro’s Lo Mejor De Mi (Double Meow!)
Aerosmith’s Big Ones
Selena’s Entre a Mi Mundo
Destiny’s Child’s The Writing’s on the Wall (oops - think I stole this one from my brother!)
and
The Carpenter’s Love Songs

I’m in musical heaven.