Illegals Working In New Fields (Part 5 of 6)

Printable View

05-26-2005, 06:32 AM
butterbean

Illegals Working In New Fields (Part 5 of 6)

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ ... 60418/1004

Published Thursday, May 26, 2005
WORKING IN NEW FIELDS

Illegal Immigrants Seek Job Opportunities Away From the Farm
Fifth of Six Parts

By Eric Pera
The Ledger

LAKELAND
For immigrant workers, picking crops isn't the only option. Many are snapping up low-paying jobs doing construction, housekeeping and more.

Of the 2.5 million new jobs created nationally last year, nearly 1 million were filled by Hispanic immigrants new to this country. Of those, an estimated 700,000 are here illegally, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

Locally, the three hurricanes that crossed Polk County last year brought even more opportunity for Hispanics in construction -- essentially pulling migrants from the groves and putting them on the roofs of damaged buildings.

Anyone who has had home repair work done since the storms has likely dealt with workers who speak Spanish, not English.

It's illegal to hire undocumented workers, but many get hired using bogus identification cards, authorities say. Recently, The Associated Press reported that 66 illegal immigrants who used fake Social Security cards to get jobs were arrested while working at a new federal courthouse site in Orlando.

With industries such as hospitality, construction and agriculture in Central Florida, we have "an awful lot of jobs that are being filled by people here illegally that are allowing our economy to continue to boom," said U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow.

"In many cases they are taking jobs that Americans don't want. You could advertise for a month for tomato harvesters and not have a single domestic worker show up. Who wants that job?" Putnam asked. "It's a real problem."

Or more to the point, it's a dilemma of national scale.

Illegal Mexicans and other Hispanics are largely responsible for getting America's economy out of the doldrums, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, an arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

While the demand for immigrant labor remains high, these new workers are primarily filling low-skill, low-wage jobs. Nationwide, more foreign-born Hispanics are working as maids or truck drivers than there are in fields and groves, according to Pew Hispanic Center statistics.

The construction industry relies heavily on these new foreigners, according to a Pew analysis of recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau.

Without this influx of illegal immigrants, Central Florida's construction boom of recent years might have gone bust, said Joel Adams, president of the Polk County Builders Association.

"It was a godsend. We were struggling to find reliable help," he said. "They've stepped up, and I've seen them fill a pretty good void."

Hispanics have been instrumental in meeting builders' demands for framers, masons and drywall installers, said Adams, a builder who co-owns Highland Homes, a family business.

Such trades pay better, on average, than farm labor -- as much as $15 an hour or more, which is twice what an experienced laborer can make picking citrus.

Adams said he understands the dilemma facing politicians because of mounting public pressure to clamp down on illegal border crossings.

But there are no easy answers, he said, because Mexicans and other Hispanics are fundamental to the economy.

"It's a little bit of the free market (at work)," Adams said. "I think they seize an opportunity, and they're not afraid to work hard."

That view is shared by Mexico's President Vicente Fox, who recently criticized U.S. immigration reforms, including the decision to extend walls along the border and make it harder for illegal migrants to get driver licenses.

"There's no doubt that the Mexican men and women -- full of dignity, willpower and a capacity for work -- are doing the work that not even blacks want to do in the United States," Fox said earlier this month

The Rev. Jesse Jackson responded by saying that Fox's comments were "unwitting, unnecessary and inappropriate."

He said Fox "should not confuse the need for sound legal immigration policy between the two countries, which is important, and the border disputes between the two countries, with a spurious comparison."

In response to Jackson's comments, Mexico's foreign relations secretary, Luis Derbez, said Fox was not motivated by racism but was emphasizing that "Mexican migrants are making great contributions in the United States and that their role is a positive role."

Eric Pera can be reached at eric.per@theledger.com or 863-802-7528. The Associated Press contributed to this article.
05-26-2005, 06:49 AM
2ndamendsis

Quote:

Of the 2.5 million new jobs created nationally last year, nearly 1 million were filled by Hispanic immigrants new to this country. Of those, an estimated 700,000 are here illegally, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

THIS is very powerful information! AMERICANS WERE NOT GOING BACK TO WORK as has been douted on a repetitive basis.

Quote:

"In many cases they are taking jobs that Americans don't want. You could advertise for a month for tomato harvesters and not have a single domestic worker show up. Who wants that job?" Putnam asked. "It's a real problem."

NO.......NO...........NO..........Americans don't want MEX WAGES!!

Quote:

Illegal Mexicans and other Hispanics are largely responsible for getting America's economy out of the doldrums, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, an arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

I find this a very disturbing statement. If WAGES were appropriate for AMERICANS...........the work would have gotten done. ALSO, if WELFARE subsidies weren't so attractive, more AMERICANS would be working out of necessity! We have a large group of people who don't have to work!
We've created a class of "welfare people" who know how to game the system and realize that they make more money NOT working.
05-26-2005, 11:56 AM
Mr_Magoo

Quote:

Hispanics have been instrumental in meeting builders' demands for framers, masons and drywall installers, said Adams, a builder who co-owns Highland Homes, a family business.

Such trades pay better, on average, than farm labor -- as much as $15 an hour or more, which is twice what an experienced laborer can make picking citrus.

And my brother, born and raised in the US, is a Union Drywall Taper who was out of work for 10 months in 2004.
05-26-2005, 01:20 PM
BlueHills

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2ndamendsis

Quote:

Illegal Mexicans and other Hispanics are largely responsible for getting America's economy out of the doldrums, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, an arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

I find this a very disturbing statement. If WAGES were appropriate for AMERICANS...........the work would have gotten done. ALSO, if WELFARE subsidies weren't so attractive, more AMERICANS would be working out of necessity! We have a large group of people who don't have to work!
We've created a class of "welfare people" who know how to game the system and realize that they make more money NOT working.

I agree about both the wages and welfare -- and would add that there are too many, often fat and lazy, Americans who think that honest manual labor work is beneath their dignity and that the government owes them a totally free living or at least a $50,000/year easy office job. We do need to somehow restore both the work and personal responsibility ethics. But, I imagine that someone other than the Pew Hispanic Center could do a study and convincingly conclude that "illegal Mexicans and other Hispanics" had little or nothing to do with getting America's economy out of the doldrums -- they may have even hurt it due to depressing wages, increased government social service costs, and the additional money sent out of the country, etc. Who knows what criteria the Pew Hispanic Center used and/or ignored to come to their conclusion. Even if the illegals did or do provide some sort of short-term economic stimulus, often short term benefits are long term detriments. We need to look beyond the profits of the few today to the impact on the many tomorrow.

I can see some rationale in bringing in additional workers to help clean up and rebuild after large scale disasters such as hurricanes; but those workers should be both legal and temporary -- not a massive free for all overwhelming everlasting invasion from one particular country. That is something that Congress could easily take care of.

Sort of along these lines, something that is starting to disturb me more and more is that I'm seeing everywhere an almost rabid quest for massive immediate economic and population growth, massive development, and greedy personal gain at any cost. I'm old enough to remember the 1970s-80s and during that time sure most people wanted a good economy producing jobs and opportunities for our citizens, but that was tempered with a realization that you can't have exponential economic and population growth indefinitely without running out of the very resources needed to sustain both that economy and population in any sort of quality of life way. Heck, back then even CEOs realized they shouldn't wreck the company, get multiple millions of dollars for doing that, and leave the workers without a dime. Seems to me that we need to realize that "It's not just the economy, stupid" and "It's not all just about me getting more superfluous and ostentatious stuff by any means possible". Maybe a lot of this illegal immigration is being driven by our own laziness, short sightedness, and greed -- but legal/illegal immigration in turn feeds those things as well. At least as far as I'm concerned it kind of seems that 1970s or so were the best of times and I get this eerie feeling that we are heading into the worst of times unless there are dramatic changes -- sort of like Rome, I guess, and most of the politicians are already fiddling.

Anyway, this turned out to be my quarterly rant and not having an illegal to mow the yard and do the landscaping it's time to go out and actually do something useful.