A Working Man’s Views on Illegal Immigration (comments)
Brad8363 of CA
Fri, 10/02/2009 - 5:33pm
Everything the author mentioned is absolutely correct with some caveats.
I live in California. Construction is highly regulated, which means people flagrantly break the law and don't care, because if you did everything by the book, you won't stay competitive. The reason why the construction trades for Americans in California has been destroyed is because of the illegals.
If you have a contractor who does everything legal, from paying his employees prevailing wages to overhead to general liability insurance and worker's compensation, there is no way in hell he can compete with a crooked contractor and a crew of illegals. It is an economic impossibility.
The only thing a legal contractor can really compete on is goodwill and his reputation with a steady stream of clients willing to pay for premium work.
My brother in law is a contractor. We got in a heated discussion about this.
He told me that under labor and discrimination laws of the US, and he is absolutely right about this, a contractor can not not hire on the basis of national origin. So if an illegal wants work, he can have work, as long as he got the I9 paperwork. He said e-verify is a joke, because an illegal can get phony papers and even if he is declined, he just keeps coming back until he gets approved using multiple aliases. That is the reality on the ground.
What people need to remember is that under federal and state law you can never accuse an employee of being an illegal and tell them to take a hike. You can never refuse to hire somebody on the basis of national origin. You may be a contractor and your entire staff may be comprised of illegals and you may never know it. When people argue that we must punish the employers, it is more complicated than that, because an employer is not an agent of Homeland Security. He can only request items related to I9 and that is it.
Another problem is that many Americans have the Wal-Mart mentality: Give it to me cheap and fast. The fact is many Americans as consumers will choose the crooked contractor and his crew of illegals over a legitimate business if the price if right. Because when it comes down to it, construction is expensive if done legitimately.
I don't necessarily agree with the safety issue, because unless the construction was done without permits, the city or county code inspectors have to pass construction work, regardless of who is doing the work.
What Americans need to do is go to the guild system in Europe, where trades were passed down from generation to generation. We need to codify a system of apprenticeship to journeymen that is protected for Americans. The trade unions in the US are corrupt. They love the illegals because illegals will pay the dues, even with their phony paperwork. And the unions will help lawyer up the illegals.
It never ceases to amaze me how Americans are so stupid as to hand over their food supply and the building of their shelter to foreign criminals.
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