This article in the Deseret News/Associated Press states Utah's immigrant population has grown significantly in the past five years, up 21.6 per cent. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates Utah's undocumented population between 75,000 and 100,000.
Because of the frustration and the apparent deadlock in Washington DC, states like Colorado have moved to fill the void with their own form of damage control. Rumor has it the extremists in the Utah Legislature are preparing bills to control, punish and persecute the undocumented among us. We and they love to send their sons and ours to Spanish speaking countries seeking converts to the predominant religion of this state and yet we do not want them to settle among us it seems.
A quick tour through our community or any with open eyes discloses how dependent we have become on this work force and vital minority in our society. Let me ask the questions: Who is it that mows the grass and tends our lawns? Who builds our houses? Who cooks our french fries? Who cleans the floors of the hospitals, empties the bed-pans, wipes our back sides and changes the linen when we cannot do it ourselves?
Senator Hatch and others suggest we must return them to their home countries. Has anyone tried a bus, train or airplane
recently?
Let's end this hold over from our American tradition of exploitation and slavery. Emancipate the undocumented. Allow them work permits and a path toward citizenship. Let's pay them reasonable wages, allow them health benefits and retirement. They will become even more valuable to our society and economy.
I hear the shouts and clamor for upholding the law. Does that mean if the minutemen and their fellow travelers lived in the days of the real minutemen of the colonial era, would they be shouting to uphold King George and British rule over the colonies?
From a Catholic web site I found something touching upon immigration. After the infant Jesus was no more than a few days old, he, his mother Mary and her husband Joseph had to flee to Egypt. They were immigrants and King Herod's version of Homeland Security was searching for them. Jesus proved to be very uncomfortable for the ruling party later in life, a very polarizing influence in his society.
In the final analysis his message is still the same today for all of us. "Blessed are the poor and the meek and hungry..." Let us bless and not curse them, realize we are all beggars and we depend on him for all we have.
6 comments:
Yeah illegals might do shitty jobs but guess what? If they get their law-breaking, illegally entering asses sent back to where they came from until they return LEGALLY, then someone else will do them, the world isn't going to end if people have to do their own gardening or housework or have to wait 2 more minutes to get their Big Mac.
And if it would, guess what happens: Employers have to pay higher salaries to attract their employees! When they do, people will do the work. Everyone wins, employers pay reasonable wages as determined by our capitalistic economy, and employees make better wages.
Step 1) Close the borders NOW
Step 2) Figure out what to do next
More than 10% of Mexico lives here. No they are not "all hardworking" despite the mantra. Many of them are criminals or become criminals when they come here. It's a real problem and needs an actual solution.
WP, the comments of the apparently cognitively deficient individual who took the time to share his "thoughts" here are not protected by the first amendment because your blog is not a state entity or place of public accommodation, and furthermore fighting words and obscenity are not protected speech. Just delete him, no doubt he can find numerous fora in which to make his offensive and ignorant remarks.
I can see the headlines now...
"Fuel, Prescritions or Hamburgers"
"...with the loss of so much of the Utah workforce, the price of fast food has skyrocketed. Many residents must choose between paying for their junk food habit or fuel for their car and their medicines. Rumor has it that more citizens are turning to canadian pharmacies..."
Senor Cheeseburger, I don't really go for statistics that are basing major problems on the phrase "many of them are...".
I found a research paper that talks about crime and immigration, I found the following interesting: there
is little empirical evidence that immigrants—legal or undocumented—commit more crime than
natives (apart from immigration-related offenses which we are not considering here). Hence, the
latter two reasons are the basis for the correlation we expect to find between undocumented
immigration and crime in this paper. It is widely known that immigrants are both more likely to
be victimized by crime and less likely to report crime. The former suggests that immigrants are
more vulnerable, while the latter suggests why that might be the case.
Here is a link to the paper. The main source sited for it is the former INS (now ICE).
I find it interesting that not only are undocumented workers not any more likely to commit crimes than the average citizen, but they are more likely to be the victims of crime. It looks to me like something needs to be done to help these people who are REAL people (it's easy to classify them so that you can forget that they are just as human as the rest of us) and who are struggling to survive.
P.S. While I dream of being able to do my own gardening, I'm not so keen on going to work on someone else's farm to produce the fixings for someone else's cheeseburgers, even if I were getting paid luxurious California minimum wage of $6.25 / hr, which would constitute a big raise for most farmworkers. But that's just me; maybe there are thousands of bonafide citizens who can hardly wait to be stooped over in the blazing sun day after day if only Mr. Agribusiness would offer them decent pay to do so.
Thank you for your insights Senor C. Respectfully I must disagree with you but that is what America is all about is it not?
You really might look into Photoshop though, after having visited your blog. It might mean you would need a Macintosh though. Photoshop is not native for PC's.
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