WPHT's Dom Giordano Just Doesn't Get It - We Just Can't Kick Illegal Immigrants Out of the U.S.A
Wednesday April 12, 2006
Sometimes talk radio hosts get me so mad. I was listening to Dom Giordano last night on The Big Talker 1210 AM, WPHT. Giordano is a conservative which is fine. In the generally liberal Philadelphia media environment, a local conservative talk show host is good for the airwaves.
Last night the hot button topic was the Illegal Immigrant debate which is not only a local issue, but a national one. Giordano's solution appears to be to expel all of the illegal immigrants, estimated to be at least 11 million. How he intends to have this done is unclear. On a simply "ideal" level I agree with him. They came here illegally and should be sent home. The reality of the situation and the potential impact of such an action on the U.S. economy is something which Giordano simply doesn't grasp. We have our fair share of illegals here in the Greater Philadelphia / South Jersey area. From the mushroom farms in Kennett Square to the vegetable farms of South Jersey to your local landscaper, we have plenty of illegals working here. Even if we could find and catch them all and figure out a way to kick them out of the country, who would do the work they do?
Right now the U.S. has pretty close to a full employment economy. Unemployment is 4.5% in Pennsylvania and 4.7% in New Jersey. The nation's low is in Hawaii with 2.5% unemployment. If you want a job today, you can find one. Those who don't work either can't work for one reason or another or simply don't want to work. Just look at the help wanted signs at almost every fast food restaurant in the area. At $5.15 an hour, the current minimum wage, a sizeable number of people would rather sit home than work for about $10,000 a year.
Who will work for those type of wages? Illegal immigrants will. Why? For the most part they don't pay taxes. They live in pretty poor conditions or in large family groups. Compared to what they would make back in Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America, $10,000 is a lot of money.
If we were suddenly able to figure a way to make them all go home (and I still think that's not only unrealistic, but impossible) who would pick the mushrooms, the corn and the tomatoes? Who would work the landscape crews that we see all over the area? Initially, probably no one. We'd have crops rot in the fields. Sure, farmers could, perhaps, find people to do the job for more money but then they'd have to pass that expense along to us, the consumers. The small farmers would disappear first as the big corporate farms could better bear the cost. Either way, we'd see higher prices at the grocery store, the fast food restaurant, and who knows where else.
The illegal immigrant situation is a serious one. An answer has to be found. The first step has to be to secure the borders and stop further illegal immigration. It does little to expel illegals you know about when their replacements are currently on the way. It bothers me a lot to think about giving amnesty to all of these people who came here illegally. It would bother me more to pay $20 or $30 more a week at the grocery store.
Before we consider expelling all of these illegal immigrants. someone really needs to study and explain to the American people who would pick up the slack and do those jobs that no U.S. citizen seems willing to do.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Norwegian Cruise Lines got an exemption from the Jones Act to allow it to sail its ships throughout the Hawaiian Islands and not have to make port outside the U.S. as is required of all other foreign flagged ships. Part of the deal was that they had to hire an all U.S. crew. No problem, they thought. They hired lots of locals from the Hawaiian Islands to do the jobs that normally foreigners from the Philippines or Latin America would handle. Within weeks they were faced with people quitting, unhappy customers who weren't getting good service and a problem finding replacements once the word spread about the job requirements. U.S. citizens didn't want to do housekeeping work that required them to work odd hours, live on a ship and rarely get to leave the crew decks, and all for low wages. No solution has been found. Guests remain very unsatisfied by the service onboard these ships. It's interesting that there is no issue of "illegals" here. They could legally hire foreigners to do these jobs, except that U.S. law requires them to hire an all U.S. crew.
When these same types of situations occur in a U.S. hotel what choice does the employer have? Either they lose business or hire people to do the jobs who are willing to do the work. In many cases those are illegal immigrants.
So is there any solution? I'm not sure. First, as I said, we need to seal the borders. Then, perhaps, we need to figure a way to make "legal" those illegal immigrants who are actually working those jobs that no U.S. citizen will do. Then and only then can we look to rid the country of illegals who make no contribution to society.
I'm still wondering how a nation that can't find a 6'4" terrorist for almost 5 years or which can't control an insurgency in Iraq led by a few thousand terrorists is now going to find and expel millions of illegal immigrants who are pretty good at blending in to society. I'd love to hear Dom Giordano address those issues.
How do you feel? Click on comments and let me have your opinion.
Last night the hot button topic was the Illegal Immigrant debate which is not only a local issue, but a national one. Giordano's solution appears to be to expel all of the illegal immigrants, estimated to be at least 11 million. How he intends to have this done is unclear. On a simply "ideal" level I agree with him. They came here illegally and should be sent home. The reality of the situation and the potential impact of such an action on the U.S. economy is something which Giordano simply doesn't grasp. We have our fair share of illegals here in the Greater Philadelphia / South Jersey area. From the mushroom farms in Kennett Square to the vegetable farms of South Jersey to your local landscaper, we have plenty of illegals working here. Even if we could find and catch them all and figure out a way to kick them out of the country, who would do the work they do?
Right now the U.S. has pretty close to a full employment economy. Unemployment is 4.5% in Pennsylvania and 4.7% in New Jersey. The nation's low is in Hawaii with 2.5% unemployment. If you want a job today, you can find one. Those who don't work either can't work for one reason or another or simply don't want to work. Just look at the help wanted signs at almost every fast food restaurant in the area. At $5.15 an hour, the current minimum wage, a sizeable number of people would rather sit home than work for about $10,000 a year.
Who will work for those type of wages? Illegal immigrants will. Why? For the most part they don't pay taxes. They live in pretty poor conditions or in large family groups. Compared to what they would make back in Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America, $10,000 is a lot of money.
If we were suddenly able to figure a way to make them all go home (and I still think that's not only unrealistic, but impossible) who would pick the mushrooms, the corn and the tomatoes? Who would work the landscape crews that we see all over the area? Initially, probably no one. We'd have crops rot in the fields. Sure, farmers could, perhaps, find people to do the job for more money but then they'd have to pass that expense along to us, the consumers. The small farmers would disappear first as the big corporate farms could better bear the cost. Either way, we'd see higher prices at the grocery store, the fast food restaurant, and who knows where else.
The illegal immigrant situation is a serious one. An answer has to be found. The first step has to be to secure the borders and stop further illegal immigration. It does little to expel illegals you know about when their replacements are currently on the way. It bothers me a lot to think about giving amnesty to all of these people who came here illegally. It would bother me more to pay $20 or $30 more a week at the grocery store.
Before we consider expelling all of these illegal immigrants. someone really needs to study and explain to the American people who would pick up the slack and do those jobs that no U.S. citizen seems willing to do.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Norwegian Cruise Lines got an exemption from the Jones Act to allow it to sail its ships throughout the Hawaiian Islands and not have to make port outside the U.S. as is required of all other foreign flagged ships. Part of the deal was that they had to hire an all U.S. crew. No problem, they thought. They hired lots of locals from the Hawaiian Islands to do the jobs that normally foreigners from the Philippines or Latin America would handle. Within weeks they were faced with people quitting, unhappy customers who weren't getting good service and a problem finding replacements once the word spread about the job requirements. U.S. citizens didn't want to do housekeeping work that required them to work odd hours, live on a ship and rarely get to leave the crew decks, and all for low wages. No solution has been found. Guests remain very unsatisfied by the service onboard these ships. It's interesting that there is no issue of "illegals" here. They could legally hire foreigners to do these jobs, except that U.S. law requires them to hire an all U.S. crew.
When these same types of situations occur in a U.S. hotel what choice does the employer have? Either they lose business or hire people to do the jobs who are willing to do the work. In many cases those are illegal immigrants.
So is there any solution? I'm not sure. First, as I said, we need to seal the borders. Then, perhaps, we need to figure a way to make "legal" those illegal immigrants who are actually working those jobs that no U.S. citizen will do. Then and only then can we look to rid the country of illegals who make no contribution to society.
I'm still wondering how a nation that can't find a 6'4" terrorist for almost 5 years or which can't control an insurgency in Iraq led by a few thousand terrorists is now going to find and expel millions of illegal immigrants who are pretty good at blending in to society. I'd love to hear Dom Giordano address those issues.
How do you feel? Click on comments and let me have your opinion.
Comments
Kill the demand by making it a felony to employee illegals. Fines high enough to break the companies and seizure of assets like drug dealers of companies that hire illegals. Dry up the demand for illegals and they will go home. Shut off all social services to illegals and lower our taxes and bills for medical care.
Your comments to expel illegal immigrants and / or seal the American borders from outsiders is ridiculous and absurd. What are we becoming? Is it the NEW SOVIET UNION with its IRON CURTAIN only ours will be called the DEMOCRACY CURTAIN and we will now be shooting women, children, babies and fathers who cross the 700 ft. barrier the way the Soviets killed people who wanted to leave Russia? There is a complete absurdity to all of this that is easily rectified simply by compelling employers to certify their employees are legal immigrants and to fine them if they are not. We do that with the smoking situation in NJ when owners of restaurants don’t enforce the no smoking ban coming up on the 15th of the month.
The only reason why the Bush administration is not going after the corporations large and small on illegal immigrants, is that they get donations as they are called, from business for Republican candidates. The Bush Administration does not want to jeopardize that relationship, so instead of making them responsible for hiring illegal immigrants, they go after the people themselves and create an untenable situation. Are we to house in jail at $40,000 per year each and every illegal immigrant we capture coming over our 700 ft. fence? Where are we getting the money to pay for all these extra security officers to guard this fence? Who are we going to shoot to kill or otherwise main as they cross this fence? Does the government or any honest thinking person genuinely believe a fence is going to keep people out? Do we wire the fence for electrical charges and eloctrocute people trying to get into the USA?
We take very easy solutions and make them very complicated. It has been proven that when the government cracks down on illegal employment in various companies, that the companies are forced to fire them, the company owners complain to their elected reprsentatives and the Chamber of Commerce which then exerts their pressure and the attack on illegal immigrants goes away, and they come back to work so the companies can remain in business.
If the USA were serious about employment, there are various ways to train and teach people to get jobs. The employees of the elected representatives who write these regulations simply need to do so without allowing so many schools to operate under scam-line circumstances, taking money for services never rendered and still leaving blacks and under educated people without the skills they need to get jobs.
It is not the illegal immigrants causing the problem. It is the failure of government to put into play ways to train those who need jobs, to getting them and not the silly $5.15 an hour jobs that won’t pay tiddle-taddle for rent, food, clothes, heat, car insurance, utilities and other necessities of life. Treating people like garbage is not the answer, even if some people can manage being treated like garbage. Slavery was never right either, even though some tolerated and lived with it.
We have poverty during President Lyndon Johnson’s term and millions squandered due to regulations written that allowed for fraud. 20-30 years later, the problem of poverty is still here. Illegal immigrants did not cause it and they are not keeping it that way either.
“Love your neighbor as yourself.” Isn’t that Jesus’s most important teaching? So why do some good, church-going people want to condemn others to lives of poverty and desperation because they were born outside the borders of the U.S.A.?
Illegal immigrants are people first and foremost. Can we blame them for wanting to ensure their children will have a better life? Instead of pouring money and effort into building walls, wouldn’t it be better to put our nation’s resources into providing education, job training and medical care for these newcomers to help them assimilate into American life?
You know, in a nation of immigrants (I said that the other day in my blog (http://my.opera.com/bluesvues/) and someone responded that they were an American, not an immigrant. Wow. Some folks just don’t get it. do the research. See how your parents or grandparents were treated when they came here - legally or illegally - most were treated poorly or worse by the preceding group of immigrants!!! What is it in us that needs to have someone or some group below us? Are we so afraid to be equal that we can only spout stuff but not live it? I’d like to thank Mr. Nicolosi for his comment. Blessings, Sir. Jesus - a radical in his day & even now, really - did NOT talk about Abortion & Gays - he spoke of loving your neighbor as yourself…even to loving your enemies…judge not, for as you judge, you will be judged…inasmuch as you do this to the least of these, you do it to me.
And so much more.
Let’s be realistic. Let’s cut the rhetoric. I listened to a radio fellow out of Texas today talking about how Al Qaeda could get in across the Mexican border. This guy needs to listen to Carlos Mencia! Does he even know that the U.S. helped most of the folks like Bin Laden early on? Most of our enemies now that we can’t find are people we either put into power, gave guns to, or helped!
But I digress. Ok, the system is in bad shape. You know what you do when it’s really broken? YOU START OVER. Is it such a terrible thing to grant Amnesty to those already in the U.S. AT THE SAME TIME you are shoring up the borders? Do all the stuff you’re going to do to seal it, fence it, whatever. To criminalize every single person in the U.S. now, most working and simply trying to live, is a crime in itself. It will also cost us more than simply granting amnesty and giving them a path to citizenship.
Are our hearts so hardened in this alleged Christian nation that we preach with one side of our mouths and spit hatred and separation and violence from the other?
At the end of the day, virtually all people in the world simply want to be able to get up in the morning and go to a decent job, make a decent wage, go home, eat decent food (now there’s a topic - what’s being done to our food! check out http://ogcafe.blogspot.com - ), love their loved ones, have decent shelter, sleep safely and well - and get up and do it again.
We are ALL human beings. When did the conversative religious folks in this country decide that a/they had the market on God; b/they are better than those “others”; c/and that they really only want to be by themselves and have the rest of us just sit down & shut up, yes?
Do your research - don’t just believe what someone tells you - start thinking, for God’s Sake…for God’s sake…
In reference to the part about how crops would rot in fields, we didn’t always have such a catastrophic amount of illegals, who picked the crops then? I don’t ever remember $15 ears of corn at my local grocery store or $23 cans of beans. You should not be trying to scare American Citizens with this nonsense.
Dom is right on the money. He gets it. Those who are pro-illegal alien are those that are either beneficiaries or profiteers of illegal immigration. The majority of Americans (of all racial, ethnic groups) want our borders secured and oppose amnesty and any rewards for those who have not played by the rules. Illegal aliens are a drain to our society - I’d rather pay more for produce, and have less overcrowded schools, hospitals, less crime, lesss blight, etc. because the illegals have gone home. Cut off the job magnet and public benefit access and they’ll start to give up and go home. MExico needs to recall its own people back and do the right thing - take care of its own.
I agree completely with comment #1. Its the only way to legitimize these people. Let them find their way back to their home country, get a foolproof I> D>,return go to work,pay taxes and when their stay is completed go home and start the process all over again. My Great Grandparents came here legally from Irelandestablished their own business[livery stable} and prospered. No one is against Hispanics, its illegalality they are against and it must be stopped.
Yes we are a nation of “legal” immagrants and we should keep it that way. This is the only way to respect all those who came to this country, learned the language, became citizens, and melted in with this country and its ideals.
Crops rot in the fields because of greed. Business does not want to pay fair market wages. Their gains are selfish and are not in the interest of this country.
Over 200 years ago and against all odds, our forefathers fought and won their independence out of suppression giving birth to this great country. Apparently, these illegals would rather run away from their problems rather than confront them. If they can’t make in their oun country, what makes you think they will make it here? Just the type of people the USA country needs as they take US dollars and sent it back home. Geez! That would spur the economy.!
Illegal immagration is not good for the USA or Mexico or any other nation. I welcome any immagrant who learns the language, becomes a citizen, and who will fight for our ideals and liberties.
Oh yea! Press 1 for English (you second rate American citizen)!!!!!!