Thread: PBS/N.O. rebuild done by illegals

thank you Lost mummy for gathering up all the info in a really through professional manner!
It will help those who didnt catch the show-especially for finding out who was underwriting it.
and as far as politcally uncorrect views- I agree with everything you said too-including deportation.
just want to add- IVe thought about it and I am for a stop to all immigration - maybe not permantedly but for say a decade.
why? cause I dont trust the government to manage immigration in a sane fair manner . Nor do I think they realize the american people are paying for thier paycheck.
here's an example of thier stupid thinking .
a Hondurean woman is filing for politcal assylum on the grounds that she is being discrimated against because of her gender because her husband is violent and beats her. now, I would let her immigrate , based on her need to escape and the culture she lives in.
but they are completely stonewalling her.
in the meantime- the portland oregon area has plenty of male hondureans who came here illegally, but if you call INS they do nothing.
It's this kind of muddled - paper pushing thinking that gives me zero faith in the government

Your welcome, thelmahopkins. You raise another good point about restricting immigration until the government shows that it's not completely incompetent.

One of the amazing statistics is that 40% of all illegal immigrants originally came to this country legally, but then became illegal when their visas expired. But the government has no idea where they are and thus can't enforce the law.

I have a millwright buddy in NO who is doing a rebuild at one of the refineries. He's from Central Valley in CA. He's being paid Bay area scale (Prevailing wage) which is about $28-32 an hour.
I used to do this kind of work. It is hard and demanding and it requires years of safety, training and skill.
BELIEVE ME! THEY DAMN WELL EARN IT! It is in America's best interest to let professional citizens to the work.

This is what it is about, taking care of our own people and making sure they are well paid to do what they do.

Illegals that are working for half as much are untrained, can't read english (especially safety postings or protocols) and are generally unsafe to work with.

Regarding the US losing track of the people who come into this country legally and overstay their visas: I spent five years in Egypt, at best a third world nation that is struggling to build a middle class in spite of the government corruption, a high percentage of Islamic fundamentalists who would overthrow all that is solid if they could. and a host of other internal problems.

In spite of those negatives, the Egyptian government knew exactly where the people there on visas, work or visitor, were at all times. People were assigned to spy on us and it was fairly easy to figure out who the spies were when we went from one city to another, when someone came to visit us, or when there were threats made against Americans because they hovered around our area like clearly identifiable flies. If you looked at faces or studied the crowd at all, you knew that it wasn't just coincidence that these same people just happened to be sitting in the same train car, sweeping the street outside your house every time you had a visitor, etc.

We were required to register at the police station and keep our addresses updated for a stay of more than two weeks in the country. People who didn't do that were subject to fines and deportation. I know of British citizens who were fined or deported under that law. Visitors on tourist visas who came to see us were dogged to make sure they didn't up and disappear. Our visa numbers were looked up at the airport upon arrival and departure.

In addition to Americans and workers from other Western Countries such as Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Poland, and the list goes on, there were people in Egypt from places like Sudan, Syria, Libya, Israel, and the list goes on and on. Some of the visa holders came there to escape places like Ethiopia, Kenya and other countries where political unrest put their lives in great jeopardy. I personally knew a woman from Ethiopia who spoke passable English and I know her personal story. I know a woman from the Phillipines who went there with her husband who was an AT&T employee (also Philipino) and who was left there with a child, no money and no ticket out!

Many took jobs as housemaids, houseboys in the Western communities or took whatever menial jobs they could to survive hoping that their circumstances would somehow change to the better before it came time to renew their visas. Often times, that didn't happen and the people didn't have enough money to renew their visas. They became illegals.

Several times a year, there would be "roundups" of these people. They were sent out of the country almost immediately. There wasn't any fiddling around about it. If they were deemed a liability in any way to the Egyptian people, they were out of there. They Egyptian government knew exactly where to find them and who was an illegal.

What I can't understand is, with all our sophisticated equipment, with all our supposed "educated" people in government jobs, why they can't keep track of the people who come here on visas or work permits and make them go home if they overstay!

I don't know that many foreign students went to Cairo University for anything other than extension courses to fill in idle hours while they were overseas but it is possible people went there from poorer countries to attend school and I just though they were Egyptian. But I never heard of any and I suspect that is because Egypt was smart enough to keep what schools it had for Egyptian students and students with lots of money to pay their own way and weren't a burden on their society. We obviously are not smart enough to see that in this country.

I can't figure out why. Apparently our government can't either.