Thread: Layoffs stoke anger toward immigrants

Layoffs stoke anger toward immigrants
Jim Stratton
February 17, 2009
The voicemail came from a Korean War veteran, a man who claimed to know why Americans were losing jobs.

"It's this illegal-immigration thing," he said in a message left for a Sentinel reporter. "It seems like our laws have gone out the window."

The OrlandoSentinel.com post from "Winner" of Fort Myers was more caustic: "Kick [out] all the Mexicans, Cubans and all the other aliens that do not belong here and real Americans could have real jobs!"

With layoffs becoming a weekly event, the debate over immigration is erupting again in Florida and across the nation. Activists say foreign workers -- legal and otherwise -- are taking American jobs at the worst possible time.



"The government is importing people to keep you out of a job," said Roy Beck, director of NumbersUSA, a Washington, D.C.-based group that seeks to curb immigration. "With 11 million Americans out of work, that can't make any sense."

Beck's organization and a coalition of partners launched a national ad campaign this month highlighting the practice of hiring foreign workers. It features an elevator crowded with men and women who have been laid off. Each holds a box containing personal items from his or her desk.

"Another American has lost his job," a voice says. "Another breadwinner going home with the bad news."

Yet the government, the announcer says, allows 1.5 million foreign workers a year to enter the country "to take American jobs. Could your job be next?"

The Federation for American Immigration Reform is pressing the same issue. In a recent column, President Dan Stein says 2.5 million Americans lost their jobs in 2008 and concludes, "It is time to put the interests of U.S. workers first."

Beck calls that math -- 2.5 million lost jobs, 1.5 million foreign workers -- "explosive," but it needs some explanation. The 1.5 million figure represents about 850,000 people who obtained working papers and another 745,000 who got a green card. But many of those green-card recipients may have been living and working legally in the United States for years.


'It is scary'

Jose Luis Cruz, 46, of Apopka has been in the United States since 1979, doing construction and field work. Cruz, who has a green card, said he has come to expect sideways looks and comments about how he's taking American jobs. It always ratchets up, he said, when times are tough.

"At times," he said, "it is scary."

Florida lost more than 21,000 jobs in December alone, pushing the state's unemployment rate to 8.1 percent, the highest in 16 years. The national rate stands at 7.6 percent, and more than 163,000 jobs have been cut since the first of the year.

In that climate, it's little wonder that border-security groups have an audience.

"In hard economic times, there's going to be some blame going on," said Terri Fine, a University of Central Florida political-science professor. "That's not new."

In the mid-1800s, Americans focused on the Irish immigrants. In the early 20th century, it was Italians and eastern European Jews. No less an American than Benjamin Franklin worried that Germans would never assimilate.

Those who would stop the flow of foreigners insist today is different because of the sheer number of people involved. There are now about 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

That's a "huge issue" with so many people out of work, said David Caulkett, vice president of Floridians for Immigration Enforcement. Caulkett said his organization and others should use it to push for new border-security legislation.

They lobbied for that in 2006 when lawmakers last considered immigration reform. But Congress was unable to craft a deal, and the issue was soon overshadowed by the 2008 presidential race. Caulkett said the time is right to revisit it.

Focus: 'Hire Americans'

His Pompano-based Web site for reporting illegal workers, he said, has seen an uptick in activity as jobs have dwindled. Meanwhile, Bill Landes, Florida director of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said people contact him every day asking how to get involved. They're particularly interested, he said, in making sure that stimulus-package money goes only to companies who guarantee "they'll hire Americans." And Congress voted last week to restrict the hiring of foreign workers by banks getting bailout money.

Landes is part of a group urging local governments to adopt E-Verify, a federal system that helps employers determine whether a new employee is authorized to work in the U.S.

"We've got too much cheap labor out there knocking Americans out of jobs," said Landes, who sometimes heads west to patrol the border with other Minutemen. "People are mad."



Bishop Thomas Wenski of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orlando said that anger is misplaced. Foreign workers, he said, are crucial to the nation's economy and will be needed for any rebound. For now, he said, "anti-immigrant forces" have taken a "time out," but he expects them to re-emerge when Congress considers immigration reform.

Wenski, an outspoken immigration advocate, said, "I just hope that there's a bit more intestinal fortitude in this Congress not to be swayed by their histrionics."

So does Sister Ann Kendrick.

For more than 35 years, she has worked with migrants at the Office for Farmworker Ministry in Apopka. She has seen them blamed for many problems in America, but the past few years, she said, have been particularly "vitriolic."

Kendrick worries the rising unemployment rate will only make matters worse.

"There's a climate of fear," she said. "And we show our worst face when we're afraid, when we're threatened."


Jim Stratton can be reached at jstratton@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5379.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business ... ory?page=2

It is obvious that the majority of our government no longer cares about the American people. The majority government has an agenda and it is arrogant, bold, and has no accountability, and as Comrade Obama's administration continues it's only going to get worse. Unless of course, some dramatic intervention occurs.

Obama and his dirty administration are in the process of taking away most of our freedom (in violation of our Constitution) and putting into place a restrictive barbaric regime designed to accommodate the business and political elite. The Democrats aka Communists are salivating over enforcing the "Fairness Doctrine" so that the American people will not be allowed to express any opinion that does not follow "party lines". And the Communists that have been posing as Democrats are also working on taking away our “Right to Bear Armsâ€

"In hard economic times, there's going to be some blame going on," said Terri Fine, a University of Central Florida political-science professor. "That's not new."

This is nowhere the same as years before in economic hard times. There were presidents before that stopped illegal immigration and in fact deported them. Why are these people continually remarking that it is only hard times that the American people want things clened up and laws enforced!
Need to pull their head out of their bun!

Jose Luis Cruz, 46, of Apopka has been in the United States since 1979, doing construction and field work. Cruz, who has a green card, said he has come to expect sideways looks and comments about how he's taking American jobs. It always ratchets up, he said, when times are tough.

Been here all those years but never got his citzenship here in the USA?? That is lame!

In the mid-1800s, Americans focused on the Irish immigrants. In the early 20th century, it was Italians and eastern European Jews. No less an American than Benjamin Franklin worried that Germans would never assimilate.

Those who would stop the flow of foreigners insist today is different because of the sheer number of people involved. There are now about 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

They never had the numbers we have nowadays with legal immigration and then the millions of illegals as we do today. And then on top of that corporations getting laying off American citizens and hiring foreign cheap labor. Or hiring foreign workers when there is an opening at a plant or some other work area.

IMHO all HB1 visas should be discontinued until such time we can get our economy turned around and Americans put back to work.