I am a 69 y.o. woman, retired from my landscape business, but still serving a few clients and doing habitat design. Yesterday, I was working with another good local contractor (hard to find these days, as grass cutters are not landscapers) to whom I want to turn over to care for a beloved client and I worked with his three Hispanic workers who I was training to recognize and be aware of the various emerging plantings. These three guys not only absorbed what I demonstrated to them, but worked circles around me, and were polite, thorough, and an absolute delight to work with. Over the years, I have met and worked with people from Mexico, Peru, and various parts of South and Central America. These folks have been human benchmarks in my life, demonstrating kindness, love of family, a work ethic not seen much in the US these days, and their good cheer, amidst all the humiliating treatment doled out to them by supposedly Christian Americans.
Immigrants feed America. Almost everything we eat is planted, picked, or processed by immigrants.
Americans have forgotten where they came from, and are fools for treating these primarily good folks like criminals.
From the Boston Globe, March 19th, reporting on the public reactions at town meetings to the dramatic influx in “newcomers” crossing the southern border:
“(The) state’s emergency shelter system ….is expected to spend about $1 billion this fiscal year to shelter roughly 7,500 families.”
Do the math. If I got the zeros right, that’s $133,000 per family. How does that work?
It could be the Globe’s facts are wrong, or it could be the state’s shelter system is extremely inefficient. But assuming the Globe’s numbers are correct how do you think spending $133,000 per migrant family goes down in a very blue state where the median family income is just shy of $90,000 and the average is ~ $65,000?
It may not be MAGA republicans who are raising the temperature in town meetings.
Claire's most important point: "Create simple, legal pathways..." That's what conservatives don't seem to understand. We can't just declare something legal or illegal. First, a correct way to do things must be established and all the apparatuses for doing things correctly must be put into place.
Over 40 years ago, I spent 2 years giving visas to people in Ireland heading for the US. A part of the routine on a fairly regular schedule was processing a batch of special visas for newly graduated nurses from schools in Ireland who were heading for jobs in the US (rather than perhaps working for the National Health System in the UK or working in Ireland?). Their appearance at my office reflected the academic calendar and each batch were heading collectively to a specific US area though always different from the area previously named. My mother and several school friends were working as nurses and I personally knew that they were needed, though the final say was never mine but the Department of Labor in the US. Ironically, musicians were supposed to use the same visas and application system but routinely traveled and then performed on regular tourist visas - and apparently no one objected except just possibly an extremely alert immigration officer at the port of entry.
The possible malevolent view of "All the economic growth is coming from immigrants" is "Lower-skilled native-born Americans are not getting these jobs for one reason or another including location and ability to demand higher quality jobs"
"Create simple, legal pathways for people without criminal records to work." the devil is always in the details and in this case the methodologies and applications of the state's role in helping to provide for the common good. It "ain't happening right now" and if Drezner thinks it is, he's delusional.
Immigrants are progress. Once again, the price of progress falls heavily on the working class, who now must share housing, schools, jobs. The immigrant isn't moving into affluent neighborhoods.
The census had an interesting graphic projecting US population under various immigration policies. From open to closed. If the moat is filled and the drawbridge is raised on fortress America the population would fall by 100million in 2100. Solves the housing crisis.
I am a 69 y.o. woman, retired from my landscape business, but still serving a few clients and doing habitat design. Yesterday, I was working with another good local contractor (hard to find these days, as grass cutters are not landscapers) to whom I want to turn over to care for a beloved client and I worked with his three Hispanic workers who I was training to recognize and be aware of the various emerging plantings. These three guys not only absorbed what I demonstrated to them, but worked circles around me, and were polite, thorough, and an absolute delight to work with. Over the years, I have met and worked with people from Mexico, Peru, and various parts of South and Central America. These folks have been human benchmarks in my life, demonstrating kindness, love of family, a work ethic not seen much in the US these days, and their good cheer, amidst all the humiliating treatment doled out to them by supposedly Christian Americans.
Immigrants feed America. Almost everything we eat is planted, picked, or processed by immigrants.
Americans have forgotten where they came from, and are fools for treating these primarily good folks like criminals.
Reality only matters to those of us who live in it or when it catches up with those who don't.
Claire,
From the Boston Globe, March 19th, reporting on the public reactions at town meetings to the dramatic influx in “newcomers” crossing the southern border:
“(The) state’s emergency shelter system ….is expected to spend about $1 billion this fiscal year to shelter roughly 7,500 families.”
Do the math. If I got the zeros right, that’s $133,000 per family. How does that work?
It could be the Globe’s facts are wrong, or it could be the state’s shelter system is extremely inefficient. But assuming the Globe’s numbers are correct how do you think spending $133,000 per migrant family goes down in a very blue state where the median family income is just shy of $90,000 and the average is ~ $65,000?
It may not be MAGA republicans who are raising the temperature in town meetings.
Claire's most important point: "Create simple, legal pathways..." That's what conservatives don't seem to understand. We can't just declare something legal or illegal. First, a correct way to do things must be established and all the apparatuses for doing things correctly must be put into place.
Over 40 years ago, I spent 2 years giving visas to people in Ireland heading for the US. A part of the routine on a fairly regular schedule was processing a batch of special visas for newly graduated nurses from schools in Ireland who were heading for jobs in the US (rather than perhaps working for the National Health System in the UK or working in Ireland?). Their appearance at my office reflected the academic calendar and each batch were heading collectively to a specific US area though always different from the area previously named. My mother and several school friends were working as nurses and I personally knew that they were needed, though the final say was never mine but the Department of Labor in the US. Ironically, musicians were supposed to use the same visas and application system but routinely traveled and then performed on regular tourist visas - and apparently no one objected except just possibly an extremely alert immigration officer at the port of entry.
The possible malevolent view of "All the economic growth is coming from immigrants" is "Lower-skilled native-born Americans are not getting these jobs for one reason or another including location and ability to demand higher quality jobs"
"Create simple, legal pathways for people without criminal records to work." the devil is always in the details and in this case the methodologies and applications of the state's role in helping to provide for the common good. It "ain't happening right now" and if Drezner thinks it is, he's delusional.
Immigrants are progress. Once again, the price of progress falls heavily on the working class, who now must share housing, schools, jobs. The immigrant isn't moving into affluent neighborhoods.
The census had an interesting graphic projecting US population under various immigration policies. From open to closed. If the moat is filled and the drawbridge is raised on fortress America the population would fall by 100million in 2100. Solves the housing crisis.