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  1. #1
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    Bear Market for Immigrants

    The pickings will always be better in the US!



    Bear market for immigrants

    By Mariel Garza, Editorial Page Writer
    Article Last Updated: 04/12/2008 08:18:38 PM PDT


    `WE are in the throes of a recession," former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said on a CNBC business-news show Tuesday. The next day, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said it is "overwhelmingly likely" that the U.S. economy is in recession, according to news reports.

    This was significant, because depending on which economist is talking, we're either in, or near, or far from a recession.

    I'm going with Greenspan, because labels aside, working people know the U.S. economy is tanking - and taking a good chunk of their personal wealth with it. House prices are dropping (an estimated 10percent of Americans owe more on their mortgage than their houses are worth). But the price of goods is not. Companies across the country are laying off workers, tens of thousands every month. But Visa still wants its pound of flesh every month. Who can afford Hawaiian vacations anymore, let alone a family car trip to Yosemite with gas at about $4 a gallon?

    Yet, as the clich goes, even this dark cloud has a silver lining. All this financial doom might finally deflate some of the ugly anti-immigrant rhetoric that has stymied immigration reform.

    How? Migrant workers go where the jobs are. Fewer jobs equals fewer migrants. Fewer migrants equals fewer black-market businesses that serve migrants. All that means fewer things for anti-immigrant forces to grouse about.

    Legal American residents may be losing their jobs - not to mention their 401(k) profits, houses and cars - but illegal immigrants won't be any better off. Worse actually.
    Historically, tough economic times have been harder for immigrants, both legal and not. Remember the forced repatriation of a half-million, the majority of whom were legal Mexican immigrants or born in the U.S., during the Great Depression of the 1930s? But more to the point of today's reality, less disposable income means less money to pay for non-necessities. In Los Angeles, that means personal staffers - legions of under-the-table workers who may or may not be legal and the bacon-wrapped-hot-dog vendors who serve them.

    When times are tough, I cut my nonmandatory expenses, and one of the first to go is the man who tends my messy yard once a week. (He's a legal immigrant from El Salvador, by the way.) If it's a choice between gas to get to work and an unsightly yard, it's no question.

    There's evidence to support that this is already occurring to some degree. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that "apprehensions" by the Border Patrol have dropped sharply - an indication that fewer people are slipping across the border. It also found that money transfers from the U.S. to Mexico and Central America are growing at much lower rates than in recent years.

    And, closer to home, the Daily News' sister paper, the San Bernardino Sun, reports that immigrants in that county are having a hard time finding work, particularly those employed in housing construction. Hispanic illegal immigrants were already having a harder time finding employment as attention on immigration reform increased, according to the Pew Hispanic Center in a 2007 study.

    Why risk your life, and spend thousands of dollars to cross a border, for nonexistent jobs? It's easier to be poor and jobless in a country that doesn't hate you.

    Besides, it might even be easier to find a job in Mexico in the future. While the U.S. is moving inexorably into a recession, Mexico isn't hurting quite so much. In fact, earlier this month the head of Mexico's central bank said that despite inflation, the economy seems to be OK so far. (Hmm. I wonder what Mexican newspapers pay ...)

    Ironically, by the time the controversial border fence is finally finished, having demolished dozens of laws and blazed through $1.2billion in tax dollars, the U.S. might not need it so much. At least not to keep them out. Though someday Mexico might put it to good use - keeping Americans from sneaking across to find jobs in all the factories that relocated to Mexico for cheaper labor.

    So things may be crappy at home. But at least there won't be many immigrants competing for that one counter job at Loco Taco Burger Hut. That's something to be happy about.

    Mariel Garza is a columnist and editorial writer for the Los Angeles Daily News. She blogs at www.insidesocal.com/friendlyfire.

    Write to her by e-mail at mariel.garza@dailynews.com.






    http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_8902867

  2. #2
    Senior Member Captainron's Avatar
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    (He's a legal immigrant from El Salvador, by the way.)
    Probably an asylum refugee from the civil war?
    "Men of low degree are vanity, Men of high degree are a lie. " David
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  3. #3
    Senior Member SicNTiredInSoCal's Avatar
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    Well, this was the silver lining I was hoping for in this recession...
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  4. #4
    Senior Member SOSADFORUS's Avatar
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    What ever it takes!!!
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  5. #5
    Senior Member Populist's Avatar
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    How about the 20-30 + million illegal aliens who have "demolished" our laws and continue to do so.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  6. #6
    Senior Member legalatina's Avatar
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    I call it divine intervention......they should go home ....now there is no excuse not to do so....!

  7. #7
    peanut's Avatar
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    SicNTiredInSoCal
    Well, this was the silver lining I was hoping for in this recession...

    I Have been praying for this and I hope it's a long one, the longer the better, more will leave, and more Americans will wake up to the sham the goverment has been pulling, and start cutting all freebies they will leave,companies will have to raise pay and hire Americans, but we have to stay after these monkeys in washington who want to up HB1 visas, we have to be LOUD and CLEAR!!!

  8. #8
    Senior Member SicNTiredInSoCal's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by peanut
    SicNTiredInSoCal
    Well, this was the silver lining I was hoping for in this recession...

    I Have been praying for this and I hope it's a long one, the longer the better, more will leave, and more Americans will wake up to the sham the goverment has been pulling, and start cutting all freebies they will leave,companies will have to raise pay and hire Americans, but we have to stay after these monkeys in washington who want to up HB1 visas, we have to be LOUD and CLEAR!!!
    My sentiments also. Call me a hard nose, but if this is what it takes-then so be it. I am ready to face the consequences, what ever it takes, even if it means being hit harder in the wallet...
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  9. #9
    Senior Member Bowman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Captainron
    (He's a legal immigrant from El Salvador, by the way.)
    Probably an asylum refugee from the civil war?
    Yes, they have the NACARA amnesty for all illegals from Nicaragua and El Salvador, including the Communist ones!
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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