Summary
Since Donald Trump’s return to office, ICE and DEA agents have intensified immigration enforcement, conducting door-to-door sweeps in Colorado.
Initially targeting suspected criminals, recent operations now question all residents, regardless of warrants. A Denver apartment complex saw widespread searches, sparking protests and fear among undocumented families.
Activists and attorneys are mobilizing to inform residents of their rights. Schools report growing student anxiety.
Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, confirmed a broad crackdown, declaring, “If you’re in the country illegally, you’re on the table.”
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.
Agree 100% on all.
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 point of the Department of Labor. Nobody wants to work for less pay and no benefits. Corporations can force migrants to work for less than minimum wage, no benefits, and live in overcrowded housing on site because if the migrants complain too much then the corporation just calls ICE.
And at the end of the day if corporations are too powerful and keeping wages down then we can pass a higher minimum wage. But imagine if all those ICE agents were doing spot checks on employers for pay and safety issues. Where we put our resources matters and chasing metaphorical gophers has very quick diminishing returns.
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.
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).
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.
Your problem isn’t with the migrant. It’s with the government tolerating low wages and union breaking. It’s with corporations that take advantage of people. We can change that though because this is still our country.
At the end of the day it’s not a story of two groups, it’s a story of what we’re willing to tolerate. Because there’s only 11 million undocumented immigrants in a country of about 200 million working adults. That fraction of the working age population isn’t depressing anything. Then, about promotion, migrants want to get promoted too. But the reality is a large minority will work in minimum wage their entire lives. That’s why we need regulations to make that better. And why it shouldn’t matter that immigrants are there too. The minimum standard of living shouldn’t be something people get threatened with.
Calling me an ivory tower person is also just a way to dismiss facts.
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.
Your entire premise is that they are happy taking shit pay and no benefits. And that’s just not true. They’re forced to do that because they have no negotiating power when their employer can just have them deported.
And expecting the government to do it’s job is only unrealistic if we stop working at it.
I just want to point out that $10 an hour, even at 60 hours a week, is absolutely not “lower-middle-class”. It’s poverty.
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.