There is something about those who died in the bridge collapse

[mrbigstuff]

They all have names with a certain commonality.

https://www.marylandmatters.org/2024/03/...ion-story/

Will this advance debate about putting people on a path to legal status? I know, but I would like to think so.

[pdq]

From Heather Cox Richardson’s piece today:

In the past days, we have learned that the six maintenance workers killed when the bridge collapsed were all immigrants, natives of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Around 39% of the workforce in the construction industry around Baltimore and Washington, D.C., about 130,000 people, are immigrants, Scott Dance and María Luisa Paúl reported in the Washington Post yesterday.

Some of the men were undocumented, and all of them were family men who sent money back to their home countries, as well. From Honduras, the nephew of one of the men killed told the Associated Press, “The kind of work he did is what people born in the U.S. won’t do. People like him travel there with a dream. They don’t want to break anything or take anything.”

[kj]

You can't just blame Republicans for this one. The attitude I see from Democrats is let people in illegally because we need people to do the work we don't want to do. These are jobs we don't want to do, and I don't see letting them do them as some sort of social justice or something. I'm not sure letting them do these jobs is all that generous of us, legal or not.

[Tiangou]

kj wrote:
You can't just blame Republicans for this one. The attitude I see from Democrats is let people in illegally because we need people to do the work we don't want to do. These are jobs we don't want to do, and I don't see letting them do them as some sort of social justice or something. I'm not sure letting them do these jobs is all that generous of us, legal or not.

Vs prison/torture/rape/murder/conscription/slavery/starving...?

[Speedy]

kj wrote:
You can't just blame Republicans for this one. The attitude I see from Democrats is let people in illegally because we need people to do the work we don't want to do. These are jobs we don't want to do, and I don't see letting them do them as some sort of social justice or something. I'm not sure letting them do these jobs is all that generous of us, legal or not.

The first generation will do what they have to, the second generation will do what they want, the sky’s the limit. Pretty much like immigrants from the past - not counting those who were enslaved and who still would be if the South had won the Civil War.

[Acer]

Took my dad's family eight generations, about 250 years, to leave the farm after arrival.

Does anyone concerned about immigrants who are working manual labor jobs actually ask these workers their opinion about their situation? Or do we Citizens just assume they hate it because we know we would?

[Speedy]

Acer wrote:
Took my dad's family eight generations, about 250 years, to leave the farm after arrival.

Does anyone concerned about immigrants who are working manual labor jobs actually ask these workers their opinion about their situation? Or do we Citizens just assume they hate it because we know we would?

My son worked on a farm in Mexico one summer. He hated it. Also, he worked only half the hours others worked.

[Lux Interior]

kj wrote:
The attitude I see from Democrats is let people in illegally because we need people to do the work we don't want to do. These are jobs we don't want to do, and I don't see letting them do them as some sort of social justice or something. I'm not sure letting them do these jobs is all that generous of us, legal or not.

I don't agree with that.

It used to be that these workers could come and go more or less freely. So they would come here to work in the season, then go home.

Then someone had the brilliant idea to lock down the border and they had to stay.

What democrats want is reform to allow the workers to work legally. Then they would have protections and not be exploited. Republicans don't want that (the protections, that is. They would love to continue to exploit them).

[Acer]

Here's a thought.
We have x amount of unfilled labor positions.
How about we allow x amount of immigrants in.

Crazy?

[Speedy]

Acer wrote:
Here's a thought.
We have x amount of unfilled labor positions.
How about we allow x amount of immigrants in.

Crazy?

Yes, completely crazy. Those few million workers would also create more jobs and those let in to fill those ‘more jobs’ would create even more jobs and those ‘even more jobs’ would create… It would never end as more workers continue to come as the economy would continue to grow and more and more taxes would be paid by all those new workers to support all us old farts. Can’t have that.