With ICE agents going door-to-door in Colorado, residents are on edge: Reporter's notebook
SirEDCaLot @ SirEDCaLot @lemmy.today Posts 0Comments 538Joined 2 yr. ago
SirEDCaLot @ SirEDCaLot @lemmy.today
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Depends on where you live. Not necessarily poverty but if both parents work at that rate you could hit lower middle class in some areas. But you are right in most urban or suburb places it wouldn't cut it.
Because the man you don't like got elected we should shred the 1st Amendment right of free expression? Or do I misunderstand you?
I say this with respect- but that's a bit of an 'ivory tower intellectual' position that doesn't consider how things work in the real world.
I'm not just talking about ABUSE, which DoL should prevent. I'm talking about personal drive and demand of upward mobility.
For example- let's say you have a company committed to following the rules, who will pay what the market demands and treats workers with respect. You have two candidates for a job. One is an immigrant- lives in a lower end neighborhood, but is thrilled he can feed his family 'only' working 60 hours a week and his daughter can walk to school without being abducted and raped. He'll do the job as long as it's offered for $10/hr and be thrilled at that. The other is an American who wants upward mobility, they want to do this job for 1-3 years max before being promoted to something bigger, and if he doesn't get promotion he will leave.
There's no abuse and nothing illegal happening here. Just supply and demand.
If you're the corporation, which person do you hire?
Almost every company I know would hire the immigrant, because he'll work hard, he's thankful to have the job, his lower-middle-class lifestyle is better than what he had before so he has no need to demand more.
But if the immigrant isn't there, they'll have to hire the other guy, have to pay him more, have to provide promotion opportunities or train new workers when he finds something better.
There's nothing for department of labor to do there, because there's no violations happening. This isn't a legal problem. It's a socioeconomic one. No government agency can force the immigrant to demand higher wages, or force the company to pay above minimum wage.
(Minimum wage should probably be $10-$15 today, but that's a separate issue).
And that’s all without the macro economic point of view that points out having more consumers in your country means more economic activity which means more jobs.
That only holds if those consumers have disposable income. And those consumers only have disposable income if they're demanding wages high enough to afford luxuries.
If you have workers who will settle for very low wages, that depresses wages across the board. That means less disposable income for everyone, and can mean overall LESS economic activity because wages will decrease, consumer spending will drop, and money will accumulate as profits for large companies that reap higher profits from overall depressed wages (sound familiar?). I'm not blaming immigrants for that (I blame Congress and the absurdly low minimum wage) but the point stands.
Bottom line- if you have two groups of people, one says 'I'm happy with what I get' the other says 'I want more', more of the first group means less wages for both groups. Supply and demand.
You're very likely right. I'm certainly not going to stand up and claim Trump is pure as driven snow. Or at the very least, that's a part of it, for many of the people who push such a policy.
I think we'd all agree whoever gave the order to have ICE agents dress up in SWAT gear and go door to door wasn't thinking about humanity.
hahaha I can see the appeal of a free ticket to Dublin and $250 to spend when you get there...
But no you wouldn't qualify as you're a citizen (born in the USA).
Still care about MP3- it's the bog standard, the thing EVERYthing supports. Like the shitty SBC codec on Bluetooth. I've still got tons of MP3s and they aren't going away anytime soon.
Everything I get new though is high-res FLAC.
Then you are serving the needs of people like Trump, Murdoch, and other billionaires / CEOs / shareholders who'd rather have us fighting each other than working together to restore the American dream.
For many, I agree. That's also the problem with this sort of policy, it makes no distinction between a migrant poor worker who picks tomatoes or whatever for barely minimum wage and someone who settles in, starts a business, etc.
Deport immigrants with DUIs and violent or financial felony convictions. Beef up the department of labor and go after companies paying people less than minimum wage.
Agree 100% on all.
Then it’s not a matter of jobs or services or crime.
I'm not 100% sure. There's an element of legitimacy to the policy against 'economic migrants', I don't know how big but there's an element.
Let's say you have a difficult and strenuous job. And let's say you have two candidates- a born and raised American, and a Latin American immigrant. If the immigrant has better quality of life here on a minimum wage job than in their home country, they're less likely to demand higher wages or better working conditions because from their POV they've already got 'better'. And that DOES affect the American- if the immigrant will do the job for $8/hr flat and be happy living in a poor neighborhood (because at least there's no cartels like south of the border), but the American wants $12/hr and health benefits, merely having the immigrant there as an option affects the salary the American can get. Because if you remove the immigrant the company will HAVE to raise the wage to $12/hr and offer health benefits. Otherwise the company will hire only immigrants and will keep the wage low.
I recognize this is a generalization and you can't paint all of ANY people with the same brush. You can also flip it around and say forcing the company to hire Americans at the higher wages will increase costs and decrease quality-- say what you want about Latin American immigrants but in most cases I've seen they're pretty much the hardest working mofos around. Thus, having some competition provides incentive for the Americans to work harder.
The problem is, it's VERY hard to have any sort of real discussion on the subject without it being derailed either by accusations of xenophobia or actual xenophobia / racism.
That's the problem- I'm pretty sure you're right. Either that or whoever got the instructions to get rid of undocumented immigrants has no cleverness at all and pushed the only button they can think of (send in jack booted thugs).
Trump may or may not be ignorant but his words fan the flames of racism and xenophobia. And while I think it's possible he's just ignorant, for someone in his position ignorance is no excuse. As President, as a commander, like any other commander he's responsible for the actions of his subordinates when they are following his orders. He doesn't get the luxury of not knowing, not understanding, not being aware of what his orders end up doing.
Well there's a lot of information and different positions, most of which doesn't fit into a single post. Can you explain what specifically you think I've missed?
Funny thing is this could be done way more cheaply and humanely.
Have an amnesty. If you're in the country illegally, turn yourself in. You get $250 cash and a free ticket to wherever you came from.
Promise that'll cost less than arresting everyone and jailing them.
You are mixing up your 'they's. There are multiple theys each with their own motivations. Frequently their interests align. Not always.
I don't expect anybody with money and power to play by THE rules, but everybody plays by SOME rules. Understand the rules each player is playing by, and you understand the game a lot better.
I don't for a second think Trump's motivation behind deporting people is pure as the driven snow. I'm sure for many people behind that policy, perhaps including Trump himself, there is a lot of thinly veiled racism or not so thinly veiled racism and a bunch of xenophobia too.
That doesn't mean it's impossible that it will work, and bring about some sort of positive result.
For me, the big problem with illegal immigration is it creates an easily exploitable underclass. A group of people who will work themselves to the fucking bone for peanuts, who can be exploited at will because they can't call the government to enforce labor regs. That creates a situation for employers that they can hire these people by the thousands, treat them like dirt, pay them barely anything, have them work in horrible conditions, and then basically toss them on the street. That situation is bad for everybody. It's certainly bad for Americans because if those exploitable people are available as labor why wouldn't an employer hire them rather than an American who will demand higher wages and better working conditions?
Ending that system of exploitation will suck, it will be a painful process that will destabilize food and labor markets. And knowing Trump, I'm quite sure there will be a lot of civil rights abuses, which I am strongly against. Everybody deserves to be treated with humanity and respect, including undocumented people who are being deported. But I also think that before we dive 100% into saying the whole thing is a bad idea, we should consider potential long-term effects. And if the result over the entire American labor market is there is no longer a cheap exploitable under-class, I think that's a good thing for everybody.
100% this.
I'm not a fan of the hamfisted way Trump and Musk are going about all this.
But at the same time, I look at this and have to wonder the outcome...
If agricultural corporations can't hire cheap undocumented Latin American people to work the farms, they will have to pay more to hire Americans to do the same job. Yes that will drive up grocery prices, but on some level, if that means more Americans are able to afford those groceries isn't that sort of maybe a good thing?
Every time I see a company complain of labor shortage, it is obvious to me that the problem isn't labor the problem is the company doesn't want to pay what the labor market demands. You tell me you can't find anybody to hire, so I ask if you offered $100/hr for this job would your inbox be overflowing with applicants? If the answer is yes, then the problem isn't that you can't find anybody, it is the supply and demand of the labor market and your only problem is you don't want to pay the market rate for labor. That's not the market's problem.
My thoughts exactly. I have absolutely no sympathy for Nazis, or anyone else who thinks mass murder and genocide were good policy. But one of the things that makes a free society different from Nazi Germany, is free expression. If we limit free expression to only things the people in charge want expressed, no matter how noble the intent that starts us down a very dark path very quickly.
The way we fight Nazis and racism is not by beating them up or jailing them. It's by teaching each other and our children why they are wrong, by learning and understanding what it is like to have racism directed against you. And thus, we defeat racism not with force but with empathy.
As far as I'm concerned, this is the sort of policy that would make Hitler proud. It's the sort of policy that would be enacted in Nazi Germany, or Soviet Russia.
There are a lot of moneyed interests who want us all fighting each other. They want that so they can continue to extract the wealth of the nation for themselves. So while you explain why you've no need to listen to anybody, you are helping them.
Ever see a magic show? The magician sets up the trick and the cute bikini clad assistant jumps around and flashes her hands to capture your attention so you don't notice the magician has just palmed your card instead of shuffling it. Elon is the assistant here. Everybody is focused on him and his stupid salute and all of the crazy things people like him say and do, and people are not focused on the real question of how to stop the fact that Americacs people are being bled dry.
I would encourage you to read the story of Daryl Davis, he is a black musician, most famous for becoming friends with a number of KKK members. Those people were used to being hated by black people and vice versa. All Daryl did was talk to them, listen to them, find elements of commonality. I think like 40 or 50 KKK members have left the organization because of him.
I realize the American educational system has gone downhill, but surely at some point somebody taught you the concept of nuance? That not everything is black or white, good or evil? That sometimes things are shades of gray? Sometimes good people do bad things, bad people do good things, etc? And that not everything is as it first appears at face value, you have to look deeper to understand?
I for one am very much a student of nuance.
I think we would both agree that of late, Elon has somewhat gone off the rails. But that doesn't mean everything he has ever done or ever will do is automatically bad. I can dislike his current politics and the way he is approaching this efficiency project, without having to shit on everything he's ever done.
Thus, I remain a fan of SpaceX and Tesla, for the simple reason that they both lead their respective fields technology-wise. As someone who has owned a Tesla for years (going back to the days when everybody loved Elon), I can confidently say from personal first-hand experience that it is a fantastic car. The fact that I now disagree with many of its founder's politics doesn't change the car in my driveway. It was a fantastic car when I bought it and it's an even more fantastic car now as FSD gets further refined.
I ask, for the good of our nation, please avoid black and white thinking. A population unable to grasp nuance and uninterested in looking deeper for motivations and questions below the surface is easily manipulated with range bait news. Republicans have been doing this for decades. Democrats have just started in the last 4 or 5 years.
Tesla fan here, this is kind of accurate. I wouldn't call it terrible, but the aluminum chassis means it has towing limitations, the small battery doesn't have nearly as much range as most other Tesla's and it gets worse if you're towing, plus not everybody wants to drive the Halo truck. Double the range or cut the price by 30% and you have an interesting car, as it is now I look at it as a first generation attempt.
Pilot here. I fly little airplanes for fun.
Much of the ATC system is already understaffed by a good amount. Becoming a controller is not super easy, nor is it for everyone. You have to pass a fairly stringent medical test, background check etc, and then you go to their academy for a while. After that, they will assign you wherever they need you, which may be nowhere near where you actually wanted to live. What you make depends on where you are and what you do. So for example, if you man a small airport in the middle of Idaho, you make less than if you are an approach controller near JFK. Each position that you might work requires its own training and certification, and I don't just mean each physical location I mean like each chair, each working position. That's because each sector of the airspace has its own quirks, where traffic usually comes from and usually goes to, defined airways and GPS points and procedures and that sort of thing.
My point with all this, is that hiring and training new controllers is significantly harder than most other jobs. To use the earlier example, and approach controller near JFK is doing one of the most difficult and stressful jobs in aviation, and is easily making six figures. But to get that guy there, getting him trained and certified on everything took years and hundreds of thousands of dollars. If he resigns, whatever salary you save on him is a drop in the bucket compared to what it will cost to replace him.
Private sector controllers are a thing. Many small airports contract out their tower operations, but this is generally done at small regional airports.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of places where fat needs to be trimmed in the federal government. I don't believe ATC is one of them. And is certainly not a place where I want fat aggressively trimmed, because when you lose experience you reduce safety.
Quite true. Especially since we don't seem to study history anymore. Forget world history, we barely seem to remember our own history past 6 months ago.
I have no problem with the migrant, and I've no intent to dismiss facts. I did NOT mean that as an ad hominem attack (attack the person rather than the idea). I only meant to point out that your ideas sound nice but run into trouble in the real world.
Expecting government to stand up for people who won't stand up for themselves (because even marginalized they're still light years better off and they don't want to risk that) isn't a solution, it doesn't work.
And that's exactly my point. An awful lot more immigrants will tolerate working minimum wage their whole lives. That's not a dig at the migrant- I have great respect for them. But there's a culture thing at work. That's not a dig at any of their culture either, it's a recognition of the fact that there's differences. And the simple fact that the migrant who comes here and can let his daughter walk to school without her getting raped on the way isn't likely to rock the boat too hard. He won't say 'pay me $30/hr or I quit' knowing that if he gets fired that could mean having to go back home where his daughter will get raped on the way to school. I don't blame the migrant for that- if I was in that situation I'd feel the exact same way. I'd keep my head down and I'd work hard and I'd try to make sure my kid gets good grades so they can have a chance at better. I think most decent parents would.
If it was spread out equally among all industries, it'd make zero difference. It's not. For the most part, you don't see undocumented migrants becoming doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, computer engineers, etc. The effect is concentrated in blue collar jobs.
As you say, it's a story of what we're each willing to tolerate. And if you have a nation where the laws of supply and demand govern prevailing wages and working conditions, a large group of people who will tolerate an awful lot DOES make an impact.
Where we agree- I 100% agree that we need labor regs to make things better for everybody. Companies should not be allowed to mistreat workers and that IS a legal problem not an immigration problem.
I also believe (and I suspect you would agree) that for someone who wants to become an American- not just come to the country and work, but adopt an American way of life and become a citizen- there should be a clear, obvious, accessible path to citizenship.
Those 11 million people, like I said above those are some of the hardest working mofos on American soil, citizen or not. My problem with them isn't that they're here, it's that they're not being paid more. If they competed in the labor market on an EQUAL footing, as CITIZENS who fully understand and will stand up for their rights, most of them could easily command a high hourly wage due to high work ethic. I would LOVE to make that happen. I'm open to any way to do it. But if you just give someone a green card or a citizenship and say 'congrats you're an American', you aren't changing the culture, the mindset, the understanding of their rights and determination to stand up for those rights, And thus nothing will change.
That's why I say I want an accessible process for such a person to become an American. If they want to truly learn about the country, and that means learning about their rights, take a place on equal footing with other Americans, if they choose us and they're willing to follow the laws and pay their taxes then I don't believe it's the American way to slam the door in their face.
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." That's carved in stone beneath the Statue of Liberty. Those words aren't lost on me (although I suspect they are lost on a lot of modern day 'patriots').
But part of that means actually choosing to be American. I think learning English should be a big part of that-- not because I have a problem with 'press one for English, para espanol marque dos' on the phone menu. But because if you don't speak the native language, then you can't compete in any sort of negotiation on the same footing as an American native.
If you CAN do that (and for many, I'm not sure you can) the result is the immigrant now has the security of citizenship, knows that getting fired doesn't mean his daughter gets raped, and hopefully you can instill in him the kind of attitude and culture to DEMAND better of his employer. As far as I'm concerned that's just as effective as deporting him, because either way the underclass is removed from the labor pool. And a few million more Freedom-loving Americans won't make much difference either way.
I just don't know how to make that happen.
I'm open to any thoughts you may have.