One in seven Mexican workers have left their country and are working in the United States, an immigration study said on Tuesday.
Up to 9.4 percent of the all persons born in Mexico were living in the United States in 2005, according to the report. In the same year, 14 percent of Mexican workers had jobs on U.S. soil, compared to 2.5 percent of Canadians.
Based on data from the Census Bureau 2006 Current Population Survey, Batalova found that Mexicans accounted for nearly one-third of the 22.6 million foreign-born workers in the United States, or almost 5 percent of the total civilian labor force.
The sad truth is that a lot of them are illegal aliens, and most of them are being exploited by Americans and being paid less than minimum wage. The real crime is that we are using these people and throwing them away, yet any attempt to change the status quo (open borders with illegat aliens crossing the border) is seen as racist or evil.
I think if we could just document all who are entering the country, and then enforce the minimum wage, all parties would be happy.
You can add another 336 Mexican workers needed to cut the lawn of Bush’s $500,000,000,000 library here in Dallas. Agreed, it will be paid for by Haliburton, Exxon, Abramof, Pat Robertson and other beneficieries of his 8 year regime.
I wonder how much funding was directed to that 41% solar efficiency project?
No, the sad truth is that the Mexican government is content to just send all of its citizens across the border to earn money anyway they can and bring it back with them, instead of reforming themselves to better allow for their own economic growth.
The Spanish did a real bang-up job with their colonization of Central and South America of creating what are now mostly basket-cases of nations. I guess the difference in our case was that the English were looking for a place to live, the Spanish were just looking for resources to exploit. And now, 300 years later, were are stuck with this mess.
There are about 25 families in Mexico that own better than 90% of the wealth of the country.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922041.html
Having worked in the IT dept of a construction company (I got to see how the money flowed) and having a wife who is a nurse at a hospital where many illegals have thier children I have gained a sort of behind the scenes perspective on this.
OK yes these people are being exploited and taken advantage of but do not fool yourself into thinking they are all saints who deserve anything we can give them. These illegal migrants (I say migrants because many of them go back to Mexico with thier money) are getting paid WAY more than they would in Mexico and they are not paying $0.01 towards any form of US government program yet they are most certainly taking advantage of those programs. That fact is most get paid in cash and they take that money back to thier families in Mexico so they don’t even spend the money here in the US.
On top of that they bring thier families over here and have thier kids on US soil so that lo and behold they get free healthcare for thier kids even though 0% of the money they make is going towards any healthcare related programs a la medicaid. Day after day my wife takes care of families who are clearly not here legally yet they are using a hospital bed that the hospital has to charge some insurance company $5,000 a day for because it is such an acute medical condition. Then social services will go out of thier way to make sure the family is taken care of by paying for thier transportation and arranging for subsidived housing in an area close to the hospital.
Some would say the answer is to document them all, make sure they get minimum wage, and I would add, make sure they are paying taxes on the money they make but that raises a problem that not a lot of people talk about. Suddenly a road that would have cost 10 million dollars to build costs 40 million. A home that would cost 250,000 would now cost 500,000 to build because all the labor costs just quadrupled.
I won’t pretend to know the answers but I can recognize some of the problems that people usually don’t like to talk about. I may just be a pissed of intolerant redneck (They took our jobs) but at least I pay to be pissed off.
Some even come to Canadian orchards every summer.
Since they don’t stay longer than six months, they don’t have to pay taxes.
#3 And now, 300 years later, were are stuck with this mess.
Comment by Mike — 12/7/2006 @ 5:52 am
Well that settles it… Let’s invade Spain and hold them accountable for this mess.
Some of you guys rattle on and on about these “illegal” migrants who just sponge off the system as they are living high on the hog and laughing at those guilible American suckers getting bilked for it… You even go so far as to say that you want them to be paid at least minimum wage and taxed on it… as if that were compassionate.
I hate this issue because its just an axcuse for Americans to be beligerant toward a defenseless class of people.
First, how many minimum wage earners do you know, and how much tax are they paying now? Mexicans getting minimum wage might fair better personally (and I think they should) but the impact on taxes would be hardly measurable and likely offset by the cost of collecting that tax.
Second, these people live a desperate poverty stricken existance with virtually no hope of ever improving their position in life. The only real hope they have is to roll the dice on the outside possibility that by having children in America that the children might (and thats a big might) have a better shot at escaping poverty in this country than in theirs…
As middle and upper class Americans it is embarrassing that our response to this tragedy is to punish the victims and resent them for wanting a shot at working for something resembling what we have and take for granted.
But hey… Whatever… Let’s pay $15 for a pint of strawberries or $8 for a potato… It’s a small price to pay to make certain that some brown kid doesn’t get a free polio vaccination.
Holy crap, this guy looks just like my uncle!!!
I kid you not, LOL.
thats a LOT of tomato pickers!! lol that a lot of tomatos!!
Taco-Bell is reaping the rewards
and #3 –
Dont blame the Spanish, has our turn at nation-building gone any better?
If these people were industrious or had even the most marginal work ethic instead of being stupid and lazy, then mexico could turn itself around – in like mebbe 50 or 75 yrs. Honestly I dont see it happening.