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Posts here don't make a distinction between violent criminals invading our border and cheap labor who migrate to better job markets.
You seem satisfied to simply allow unfettered access to anyone with the ability to walk across the border regardless of their intentions. The fact remains that a crime -- yes, a crime -- has been committed at the point they set the first foot over the border.
The immigration laws need an overhaul.
They were overhauled -- by the bleeding heart Liberals. Years ago, the state of California -- I'm a native CAnian so I know what I'm speaking about -- had a program called the Bracero Program. This allowed day workers to come across the border and work on the farms in the Imperial Valley and they were paid cash daily in Dollars.
Along came the bleeding hearts and started making waves about how these people were making less than minimum wage. They were making ~1.50/hr and the minimum wage was ~2.65 at the time. The
EXCHANGE RATE, a concept that is totally alien to the bleeding hearts, was about 8:1 at that time. This meant that a Bracero worker was making 12 Pesos/hr, something that was unheard of in Mexico, but that just wasn't good enough for the bleeding hearts.
They kept demanding that the migrant workers be paid minimum wage and they started getting legislators on their side. Once they were successful in their efforts, the farmers simply stopped bringing the Braceros over and their jobs dried up. The bleeding hearts, however, thumped their chests and bragged about how they had elevated these people's status in life and how they were going to be so much better off due to their efforts. The reality, however, was that they were no better off and they now had no program and no jobs.
The same thing happened in the Kathy Lee Gifford debacle. The Machiadoras (pron. Mak-
`ee-a-`do-das) of Guatemala were manufacturing her clothes. When the bleeding hearts found out, they started a campaign against her. Her husband went to Guatemala and started handing out fistfuls of cash to the "poor exploited workers" and the Machiadoras simply folded their tents and moved to another area -- Honduras as I recall. Their jobs were gone and the prices of all goods and services in the area went skyhigh as the large influx of cash from the Giffords became everyone's goal.
The bleeding hearts, however, thumped their chests and bragged about how they had elevated these people's status in life and how they were going to be so much better off due to their efforts. The reality, however, was that they were no better off and they now had no no jobs.
You sound like one of these people who, with goodness in their hearts, has been led astray with the "slave wage" rhetoric of the bleeding hearts and their constant drumbeat of how these people only make thirty cents an hour.
First, slaves don't make wages. That's what makes them slaves.
Second, there are exchange rates that have to be addressed that the bleeding hearts ignore. They know only the dollar and what it buys and expect the same to apply to all other currencys. To see what I mean, go to
http://www.oanda.com/converter/classic and see what a Real, or Quetzal, or Peso, or Lempira exchanges for against the dollar.
1 US Dollar = 7.97140 Guatemalan Quetzal
1 US Dollar = 17.55700 Honduran Lempira
1 US Dollar = 10.55500 Mexican Peso
1 US Dollar = 3.32500 Brazilian Real
The current federal minimum wage is $5.15/hr.
In other words, a Mexican Migrant worker, if the program still existed and the wage was 1/2 the federal minimum wage, would be making 27.179125 Pesos / hr. They can't do that in Mexico.
Now, most people who post on boards such as these have all the complaints, all the arguments, all the lamentations, but have absolutely no answers to the problem.
I, however, have the answer to this problem and it is very simple.
Mexico should abandon the Peso and adopt the United States Dollar.