Employers across America are reportedly being told to FIRE THOUSANDS of migrant workers
(twitter.com)
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Unfortunately, this reverts all the way to a justification for slavery = minimum cost labor. Labor is a cost of doing business. If your business cannot cover the costs it will fail. All sorts of businesses can stay in the market if they don't have to worry about labor costs. But the taxpayer gets to pay all the hidden costs of free medical, free schools, free this, and free that, for the sake of the illegal alien and his/her family. It is easy for business if all the hidden costs are passed on to the consumer anyway. Just as illegals have no right to welfare, neither do businesses. Plus, illegals increase the crime rate and compete for housing. I have no patience for the "poor business" sob story. The antebellum slave owners were not running "poor businesses" and enjoyed their mansions and servants because they had plenty of profit margin.
I'm not arguing in favor of any if this. Just pointing out WHY so much of it happens.
Agreed. My point is that it is a bogus argument on their part. They are all tacitly partaking of "soft slavery" since they offer wages to someone who is not legally supposed to be here to receive them, and where the offset for low wages is a highly permissive welfare system paid by the taxpayers. So, the employer, to compensate the laborer for his low wages, is indirectly mooching off public assistance, and making profit thereby. And if the employee complains about anything, they can be threatened with exposure and deportation. The WHY includes an intent to violate immigration law and cheat the public. It's not the market that is driving this; it is profiteering and fraud. It is a deliberate choice to go into business on this basis.
Other employers don't do this and they survive. Anyway, I hope you can see through that explanation to its rotten core. I didn't figure you were defending it.
What do you think about the businesses who hire workers here on visas, legally, because they're cheaper than US citizens?
The majority of illegal immigrants in the US are from people who originally came over legally on visas, and just never left when their visas expired. So the more visas we create to bring workers over, the higher the rate of potential future illegals we have.
My view is that this is economically identical to an imported service: work done by a foreign national. Just because they are present in the U.S. doesn't mean they are not a foreign national. So, I say that such work should bear a tariff just as if it were performed in another country. Maybe it would still be cheaper than U.S. citizens, but at least the economics would be fair under law. (Many of these workers are willing to live under conditions of squalor that a westerner would not even consider. How does one deal with that? Living abstemiously is not a crime.)
I don't accept that the majority of illegal immigrants came over legally. There has been far too much intrusion across the southern border for that to be credible.
As for those who overstay their visa, I am somewhat familiar with them. It is common among Africans. Their employment is fairly legal (example: home care) in occupations that are open to whites but the whites don't apply. The whites whine and put on airs, live off their parents, or go on relief. Tightening up on welfare might push them into the labor market. But back to the visa overstays: they need to go. My wife had a green card, but she was very critical of those who overstayed. They are frequently nice and hard-working people, but once a person falls into an illegal category, the barrier to further illegality goes away. And, frankly, many Africans have the mindset of "It hasn't happened yet," and glide on. But they do not think of themselves as Americans, so they should not expect to be treated as such. (My wife is so Americanized, she was for Trump before he even came on the scene, and takes deep vicarious pride in American accomplishments. The only step left is naturalization.)
What is showing up lately are illegals who may have had visas, outstayed them, and have been accepted into occupations for which they are unqualified (e.g., Indian semi-truck drivers) and are operating under bogus credentials issued by corrupt agencies. Where does one begin to point the finger? Criminality all around. It is not an economic argument when criminal activity is integral to what happens.
It is the age-old problem of standards not being met, laws not being followed, and corners being cut. Both the customer and the laborer are being cheated by the criminal enterprise, and low-lifes are the only ones who thrive. This is economic gutter trash that needs to be scooped up and thrown out. Lots of accumulation. I expect better ideas will come along in due time.
On the other side, we need to cease with the respect given to worthless college degrees. A degree in 17th-century Bulgarian literature is not anywhere close to a degree in electrical engineering in most market economies (I hope).