The answer to that one is no.
While I do admit that a many are here for that reason there is another side to this.
I am going to tell a story that I have told many times before so if you have heard it sorry.
There is a company about 20 miles from where I live it is a chicken farm. They pick eggs and raise chicken for human consumption.
About 5 years ago they were raided, now this has happened numerous times but what was different about this time was the results.
It came to light that 36 of the women working there had been subjected to rape and other forms of sexual harassment.
The managers and workers had gotten away with it for so long because they threatened these women with deportion.
Now I dont know about you but if being repeatedly threatened and raped was a step up from where you came from that you are willing to stay despite this then you deserve to be here. Legally.
I had the pleasure of getting to know one of these women.
She had come from Nicaragua. She had seen both her parents killed and a brother by rebel forces. One of her sisters was abducted and she is not sure what happened to her.
This lady worked hard.
Yes she committed a crime by coming and working here.
In her defense she didn't drive a car. Because she didn't have a license.
She didn't steal an identity. She worked under the table for pitiful wages because she would never hurt someone by identity theft.
She took care of her son. He was born here. She made him do his homework every night. She put a high value on education.
She learned English. Proper English. She spoke English better than I do. She didn't have the slang most Americans aquire.
The one thing she couldn't do was afford to become a citizen.
So there is a flip side to this.
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Comments: 48
I wouldn't have been able to say that on "someone" else's article.
Renee- The jobs that most undocumented workers have most of us don't want.
I still don't think that the undocumented workers who are here just to take care of their families should be rounded up like cattle and sent back. Why should we punish people because they want to put food in their children's mouth's.
I say round up the employers like cattle and ship them to Mexico. Seize their assets, give them to the workers they used and abused and start fixing things.
Inside joke.
this is one more issue in the illegal immigration debate. ICE is trying to deal with illegals and doesnt have the manpower to handle situation like this. Plus from what I understand it is rather expensive and some like her cannot afford to pay.
BTW not all employees are illegals there are just as many local people that work there doing the same jobs as the illegals.
I'd wager not much.
All I know is they are still in business and are owned by a wealthy man who also owns a church/school in a neighboring town.
From the Associated Press:
Immigration agents last week detained at least 36 illegal immigrants during a raid on egg farms in Wright County.
Bob Teig, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducted the raid June 14 at several DeCoster egg farms.
No charges have been filed and Teig declined further comment.
It was the third raid at DeCoster farms in Wright County since 2001 that has led to the detention and possible deportation of illegal immigrants, Sheriff Paul Schultz said.
Wow, the DeCosters! The gift that keeps on giving to the Jim Ross Nussle campaign!
The DeCosters were outed earlier this year after contributing $10,000 to Patty Judge's failed campaign to become governor. Ed Fallon basically called it "influence peddling."
As the above story indicates, the DeCosters have been busted before for hiring illegals. They also have a horrible record on fucking up the environment. And don't forget the $1.5 million in fines the DeCosters paid in 2003 for complaints about female sexual assault and rape by supervisors.
If the Jim Ross Nussle campaign doesn't use all this as a nuclear weapon against the Chet Culver/Patty Judge campaign, Nussle deserves to lose.
What a disaster for Democrats in Iowa. And they could have had Ed Fallon.
I hav such mixed feelings about this whole issue! I am a Legal Alien and I am bothered by those who don't go about immigrating in the approprate manner. Yet there are so many like the women you mention here that need to be here or somewhere like here for their own safety and protection. So often when people seek refuge here legally they are denied the safety of our borders solely because the regime they would like to escape from is a "friend" of our government's, even with known and docmented human rights violations!
not at that price-point, darling.
not as many of US can car (and house)-pool, what can i say, Mexicans are small...
...okay, okay.
kidding.
kinda.
if the work is grueling, why is the wage so far below the cost of living?
ask yourself.
you start to eye The Contempt, Its mask on the floor between you....
But damn it something needs to be done to help ladies and men facing obstacles like this.
How can we sit in what is supposed to be the free-est land in the world and allow this to keep happening?
When I lived in Florida I worked at Manatee Memorial Hospital's billing department. You would not believe the amount of things I saw.
Employers would send illegals in when they had an injury and they didnt want to pay for it so they would take them to the ER slow down and practically throw them out of the vehicle.
Then I saw people that would come in for things like Cocaine overdose and give the name Geraldo Rivera or Oprah Winfrey.
Another illegals who made it to Florida just in time to give birth knew about 3 english words. Yes No and Medicaid.
I also witnessed I dont know how many people come in and give SSN that belonged to maybe a 22 year old from California. A dead lady from NJ. A 6 year old from Montana. A 34 year old woman from Illinois.
I have seen it all.
How can we as a country ignore people like this?
They're working at Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Wendy's and Holiday Inn, and or all or more of them part-time.
Welcome to the New America. Our Wounderful Country and companies want to offshore and outsource jobs by the millions and then import illegal immigrants to do the jobs that are left...thus forcing the rest of Americans into the service industry in part-time jobs with no benifits.
But when we complain about this, we are labled as ' Nationalistic' or perhaps ' draping ourselves in the American Flag in a false sense of Patriotism '...gotta love it. Americans who have a problem with other Americans being American. Only in America!
Illegals are a problem and that is simple, and actually much more simpler than some want you to believe.
Do you realize the number of Mexican women that get raped and worse by Coyotes?
Do you realize most coyotes are now members of organized crime lords, and gangs?
Do you realize many of the people that come across arfe forced to "Mule" for drug cartels to earn their transport costs?
Do you realize that just coming over here illegally is a crime?
Do you realize the Mexican Government and the drug lords help terror group members come across the boarder?
all this plus the cost to the American tax payer, is way too much.
Dan...great point. It also happens to the Chinese as well as other illegals who choose our southern border as a means of entry. Just Google ' Rape Trees ' or ' Chinese Snakeheads'...then I challenge the rest of you who support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants to prove that these violations of humani dignity won't continue to happen once the current illegals who are already in this country obtain their citizenship.
An*k*, Jul 3, 2008, 2:45pm EDT
Aniko, I am not sure what all the proper avenues for Immigration are but I do know they can apply for work visas through the immigration service like I did...
I'll try and come back later to answer your question better Aniko, I am on vacation and just check in for a quick fix.
a case-by-case basis.
it would require a COMPLETE lock-down of the border, from the stratosphere to a mile underground (tunneling, anyone? -it's been done!). it would require facilities the size of a small town apiece--one on this side, for temporarily housing the Cleared; one on the other, for doing the same for the Waiting In Line.
both should have medical facilities--for pregnant women, or wounded people, or people who walked all the way from south Mexico to--you guessed it--start Waiting In Line.
this formidable border would have to be manned by patient, shrewd, bilingual individuals. on BOTH sides.
on the far side, an English course would have to be offered...because, as someone said above...it's not our task to learn THEIR tongue.
let's be real, though:
none of this is gonna happen.
money's money.
it actually costs the right/wrong people less to just...let it continue as-is, in all its filthy glory.