Immigration (Legal & Non)

[Mr. Tea]

altho states prefer illegals as they are less costly on welfare/benefits, and can be exploited much better to ensure our cherished cheap veg and chicken reaches the shelves of sainsbury tesco etc...

I've heard this argument before but I'm not sure I buy it - at least, as far as this country is concerned. Given the huge amount of resources the Govt dedicates both to trying to stop illegals arriving in the country, or to sending them back once they've been picked up or locking them up in those big detention centres while they're being 'processed', I mean. And businesses can face massive penalties for employing illegal labour, can't they? I'd have thought the big supermarkets especially would steer clear of this as much as possible for fear of legal consequences.

 

[crackerjack]

And businesses can face massive penalties for employing illegal labour, can't they? I'd have thought the big supermarkets especially would steer clear of this as much as possible for fear of legal consequences.

The supermarkets don't need to steer clear - it's not them doing the employing. They buy from farms/processing centres, who use employment agencies, who do the underpaying and naked exploitation. The worst that happens to the supermarkets is a story in one of the papers linking them - and they have plausible deniability.

This is good for a catalogue of personal experience, some firsthand, some second or third, which shows how the agencies love using Chinese workers because they're illegal, have little comprehension of English and are too afraid of deportation (and often too indebted to snakeheads) to kick up a fuss.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

altho states prefer illegals as they are less costly on welfare/benefits...border controls filter the migrants so that only the fittest make it thru, mostly strong, educated young blokes who are ready to work and havent been a burden on the state for their upbringing & education

this is largely, if not totally true, & a good point that is not often raised. the border controls/militarization aren't a conscious effort to filter out the less able - that's too cynical, even for me - more like an unintended consequence. so much policy, in the U.S. at least, is political & not practical, apt to produce all kinds of unintended results. have to dispute "educated" - the great majority of illegals I've met/worked with were the exact opposite, poor kids from rural villages or urban slums who'd barely had any school; the educated are far more likely to have decent job prospects at home, to have the resources to immigrate legally, etc. I don't want to say the ignorant make better workers but I reckon many employers - especially the kind that hire illegals - favor them, easier to exploit & so on. plus one more thing - surplus of rootless, desperate young males is a recipe for violence. thinking here mainly of the gang warfare of places like L.A., Chicago, etc.

also good look on that FT article, exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for. re: "environmental refugees", one wonders at how such a term would be (adequately) defined, how it would be determined if someone was/wasn't, etc. a legal clusterf**k waiting to happen, clearly.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

w/standard disclaimer re: U.S./UK differences

And businesses can face massive penalties for employing illegal labour, can't they? I'd have thought the big supermarkets especially would steer clear of this as much as possible for fear of legal consequences.

crackerjack nailed it but to elaborate - in my experience illegals tend to be employed in 2 ways:

large employers requiring a high # of bodies but little skill; agribusiness (i.e. San Joaquin Valley or the tomato pickers of Florida), meatpacking/processing plants (i.e. the huge influx of Hispanics into poultry towns in the SE), big construction jobs as unskilled labor

usually abysmal pay, shit conditions, etc. always that plausible deniability for corporate concerns. there is also a studied, persistent reluctance to do sweeps for illegals in exactly these kinds of businesses. not that they don't happen, cos they do, there is very much a kind of wink-wink thing going on. all those double standards.

smaller employers - smaller-scale construction, landscaping, restaurants, etc.

most dudes I've talked to prefer these. you know your employer personally, (s)he's more likely to treat you better, etc. tho OTOH they can be even worse, depends entirely on the ethics of the employer.

 

[Mr. Tea]

The supermarkets don't need to steer clear - it's not them doing the employing. They buy from farms/processing centres, who use employment agencies, who do the underpaying and naked exploitation. The worst that happens to the supermarkets is a story in one of the papers linking them - and they have plausible deniability.

OK, very good point, they can always play the ignorant/innocent card. But all the same, sufi said "states prefer illegals" - now obviously Tesco, Sainsbury et al are massive companies and as such are bound to have a not insignificant degree of clout in Parliament, legit or otherwise...but all the same, they don't run the country. Is it plausible that the Government tacitly permits a lot of illegal immigration just to keep the supermarkets happy, despite all the social problems it exacerbates (overcrowding, ghettoisation, racial tensions), to say nothing of the conditions of illegal workers themselves? I mean, maybe it is, but that just seems to attribute a colossal amount of power to supermarkets.

Re. Woolas and the pie - I started a thread about this a while ago but it didn't really go anywhere. Anyway, the questions I asked were: Is it necessarily either 'racist' or 'right-wing' to think a country ought to have the right to limit the number of people settling in it? And if it is, does that imply that anyone (and therefore, theoretically, everyone) in the world should be allowed to settle in Britain if they want to? I can only assume from their name that No Borders thinks this is the case.

Note that the issue on refugees from war, oppression and disaster is a separate thing from immigration per se - AFAIK most people entering the UK, legally or otherwise, are not refugees according to the Geneva Convention. And if this Woolas guy thinks the Convention needs to be 'revised', well, that's very worrying. Though there are lots of different ways it could be 'revised', of course.

 

[nomadthethird]

this is not equivalent to "welfare".

Who said it was? When I said "welfare" I was talking about medicaid and housing/housing subsidies.

 

[nomadthethird]

I've heard this argument before but I'm not sure I buy it - at least, as far as this country is concerned. Given the huge amount of resources the Govt dedicates both to trying to stop illegals arriving in the country, or to sending them back once they've been picked up or locking them up in those big detention centres while they're being 'processed', I mean. And businesses can face massive penalties for employing illegal labour, can't they? I'd have thought the big supermarkets especially would steer clear of this as much as possible for fear of legal consequences.

The U.S. doesn't enforce shit when it comes to cheap labor, usually unless violent crime is involved.

A bus used to come by at 4:30 every morning when I lived in the industrial park in Bushwick and drop off a bunch of Koreans at a factory across the street that made fortune cookies and chinese food products. I'm guessing they were illegal, otherwise they would've been able to get a bank account and buy metro cards and such. They'd bus in the next shift later in the day and so on.

I've never heard complaints about it. The illegals who worked at Boar's Head tried to unionize, I remember that pretty well...

 

[nomadthethird]

clearly immigration is one in a web of complex issues. I am in fact more interested in teasing out more specific ways in it is related to politics/economics/environmental degradation - rather than just saying it does & leaving it that.


nothing in particular, no. it's not supposed to be a "topical" thread. one for ideas, not for haggling about how bad it is/isn't.

So, let's hear em...

What are these ideas?

 

[nomadthethird]

I'd like to stay well away from "human rights" cause frankly it doesn't have the juice to get anything done. it's nice PR but it also gives people an out - to sympathize & thus assuage their guilt w/o doing anything. guilt is a terrible motivator. OTOH self-interest, including that of the State, is still the best motivator going..

Well, usually I'd agree, that it's mostly rhetorical when people talk about human rights, or when governments do--but how else do we enforce more "humane" practices??

 

[Mr. Tea]

The U.S. doesn't enforce shit when it comes to cheap labor, usually unless violent crime is involved.

Well yes, I'm aware it's a lot different in the US.

 

[nomadthethird]

Well yes, I'm aware it's a lot different in the US.

I think we could just safely wrap up the thread with a "there's no possible way we could bring any of this under control" but that's too cynical.

Wait, do you even have illegals over there? I mean, a sizeable pop. of them? Because my bf's sister lived in London for about 5 years and good lord the hoops she had to jump through to get a temporary visa...I can't even imagine how hard it is to actually emigrate.

 

[crackerjack]

OK, very good point, they can always play the ignorant/innocent card. But all the same, sufi said "states prefer illegals" - now obviously Tesco, Sainsbury et al are massive companies and as such are bound to have a not insignificant degree of clout in Parliament, legit or otherwise...but all the same, they don't run the country. Is it plausible that the Government tacitly permits a lot of illegal immigration just to keep the supermarkets happy, despite all the social problems it exacerbates (overcrowding, ghettoisation, racial tensions), to say nothing of the conditions of illegal workers themselves?

No, of course not. But govts certainly benefit from supermarkets stocking their shelves with cheap food, subsidised by a workforce earning substantially less than minimum wage.

I don't subscribe to the implication that govt is in the pocket of any business, or group of businesses. But there are compelling reasons why it doesn't pursue the issue anywhere near as vigorously as its rhetoric would suggest.

 

[crackerjack]

I think we could just safely wrap up the thread with a "there's no possible way we could bring any of this under control" but that's too cynical.

Wait, do you even have illegals over there? I mean, a sizeable pop. of them?

About 500,000 estimated, in a pop of 60m

 

[hucks]

The mayor of London has signed up, in principle, for an earned amnesty for irregular migrants. The Greater London Authority commissioned this report, which suggests that around half a million undocumented migrants are in London. I might sound incredibly naive here, but, in a population of 7.5m, that seems very, very high to me.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

When I said "welfare" I was talking about medicaid and housing/housing subsidies.

point holds. I think that is largely a right-wing myth (which, again, I'm duly surprised to hear you spouting) like, yunno, Reagan's welfare queens. I doubt you're speaking from more than anecdotal evidence - same as me, tho I've got quite a lot of anecdotal experience w/the topic - so let's have a look at what a search throws up.

Illegal Immigrants On Welfare: Fact or Fiction?

A 2007 analysis of welfare data by researchers at the Urban Institute reveals that less than 1 percent of households headed by undocumented immigrants receive cash assistance for needy families, compared to 5 percent of households headed by native-born U.S. citizens.

in the comments there's a copy & paste of a very dodgy chain e-mail which claimed that illegal immigration costs "$383 billion a year" & accuses illegals of the usual crime, violence, etc.. it is refuted point by point here.


Illegal Immigrants Are Paying a Lot More Taxes

The fact that illegal immigrants pay taxes at all will come as news to many Americans. A stunning two-thirds of illegal immigrants pay Medicare, Social Security and personal income taxes. Yet, nativists like Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., have popularized the notion that illegal aliens are a colossal drain on the nation's hospitals, schools and welfare programs — consuming services that they don't pay for.

In reality, the 1996 welfare reform bill disqualified illegal immigrants from nearly all means-tested government programs including food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid and Medicare-funded hospitalization. The only services that illegals can still get are emergency medical care and K-12 education.

Debunking the Nativist Myths

& so on.

keep in mind their are conflicting reports from usual suspects like CIS, FAIR, etc. & others. I'm not going to link to them but they're not hard to find. It turns out - surprise, surprise - that's you have to be wary of data b/c people find #s that fit their political agendas.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

What are these ideas?

oh FFS? really?

not to make fucking policy. I'm not saying we're going to solve all the world's ills on a bloody message board. it's yunno, what we usually do - a bunch of reasonably clever, fairly well-read people tossing around comments. yunno, a thread (too bad Vim & Josef aren't around, btw). a discussion. but you're not dense, exactly the opposite, so surely you know what I meant.

but you seem to determined to argue 1) immigration has always been a tough go & 2) as a problem it's part of a greater whole that is unsolvable so why talk it about anyway cos it will never be solved until we dismantle Kapitalism blah blah blah (& I'll just ignore all the weird right-wing crap). both points conceded. can we move on?

 

[nomadthethird]

I don't think it's a problem if illegals get benefits, I think it's GOOD. It's a GOOD thing if they do, when they do. And I'm sorry to break this to you, but sometimes (not ALWAYS, and not OFTEN) they do.

In my neighborhood, which is the place I was referring to, immigrants are split between Puerto Rican, Dominicans, Mexicans, and scattered South Americans. Since Puerto Ricans have American citizenship, they can legally qualify for welfare benefits. One of the main scams going is to fake birthcertificates/papers from the PR, so you can get medicaid and housing. Medicaid fraud is massive--one really simple and easy form I know of is this: if you look hispanic at all, you can borrow or pay to anybody's card who's name sounds hispanic and go to a hospital/pharmacy. Forty bucks for a fake license on Times Square and voila. The projects are full of illegals who through "cohabitation" end up with apartments and such. It's really not as hard as you may think to scam the gov. There are white people who make a good living off it, too.

Like I said before, it's usually through loopholes. It's not easy, or upfront, or "above board". But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I don't think we should kick them out because of this. I don't particularly care if thousands and millions more people come into the U.S. from wherever. The economy is global at this point anyway, we're all going to pay for poverty and "development" one way or another, right?

As far as I'm concerned, I think they should find new and better ways of scamming the shit out of the system. I won't stop them. Or ask anyone else to try.

Jeeezzzz. I didn't figure I'd have to explain all of this.

 

[nomadthethird]

point holds. I think that is largely a right-wing myth (which, again, I'm duly surprised to hear you spouting) like, yunno, Reagan's welfare queens. I doubt you're speaking from more than anecdotal evidence - same as me, tho I've got quite a lot of anecdotal experience w/the topic - so let's have a look at what a search throws up.

Illegal Immigrants On Welfare: Fact or Fiction?



in the comments there's a copy & paste of a very dodgy chain e-mail which claimed that illegal immigration costs "$383 billion a year" & accuses illegals of the usual crime, violence, etc.. it is refuted point by point here.


Illegal Immigrants Are Paying a Lot More Taxes




Debunking the Nativist Myths

& so on.

keep in mind their are conflicting reports from usual suspects like CIS, FAIR, etc. & others. I'm not going to link to them but they're not hard to find. It turns out - surprise, surprise - that's you have to be wary of data b/c people find #s that fit their political agendas.

When the hell does someone saying that the illegals in their neighborhood have found loopholes become them saying that "illegals cost $383 billions a year"?

I happen to think social programs are a good thing, so why you're trying to accuse me of pointing this out due to some kind of right wing agenda is beyond me. More welfare benefits for illegals = good. That's what I happen to think. But, of course, you could always just fill in the blanks in my posts with utter nonsense that I've never once in my life entertained for a second.

 

[sufi]

Anyone been watching "UK Border Force" on SKY?

vastly entertaining, and could only really be improved by getting grant from stenders in, or that undercover investigative journo bloke macyntyre...

wholesomely debunked here:

... Some of the immigration officers shown on the programme evidently enjoyed their work. An immigration officer interviewed by The Metro last year explained quite simply that she 'liked the idea of going out and using our power of arrest' and that 'raids are fun'.[20] Others openly displayed sympathy for those whom they removed from the country, but removed them anyway. The point is that whether administered enthusiastically or sympathetically the end result, often, was the same. UK Border Force shows, but never questions that through the edicts of immigration and asylum law and policy global inequalities are maintained at a cost of human misery. Instead, ultimately, such workings of the state are on television as a macabre form of human entertainment.

At the time of writing, UK Border Force is currently re-running on Sky (Freeview), and a second series is in production.

http://www.irr.org.uk/2009/may/ha000045.html

 

[droid]

I particularly like Australia's fascist 'Nothing to declare':


This is the only video I can find on youtube, but they are ridiculously strict... I guess they've learnt from experience what happens when you let the wrong people in.