• TheCrispyDud
    link
    fedilink
    1911 months ago

    Man I’ve said this over and over again. If illegal immigration is such a problem take a damn look at your system. My dad just thinks I’m some crazy liberal though for suggesting it. I live in a border state and I’ve been hearing the same empty talking points since I was a child.

      • @Kiernian@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        111 months ago

        I’m not following what you’re saying.

        So, when TheCrispyDud mentions:

        If illegal immigration is such a problem take a damn look at your system.

        I assume that the mention of the “system” is a reference to how many industries in the United States would suffer, falter, or outright collapse without undocumented workers laboring for less money or at higher productivity rates than we get from legal residents at minimum wage.

        We could outright stop all instances of undocumented workers functioning in this country’s workforce if we simply properly enforced all of the existing penalties. Every time this has been seriously approached as a solution in small doses, it’s eventually been rolled back because of the economic impact.

        Fruit, Retail Trade, Dairy, Construction, heck, most of our Agriculture, etc, are estimated to be somewhere between 10% and 20% staffed by undocumented workers, typically performing the functions they can’t get citizens to work in for bottom level wages. Depending on the area of the country you’re in, the numbers are sometimes higher than that. California’s picking, Wisconsin’s Dairy, Midwest Residential Roofing, etc.

        If you have to prove you’re legally allowed to work for every job, there are no jobs for undocumented immigrants. Problem (the one that conservatives complain about anyway) “solved”.

        It just creates a slough of NEW problems that we don’t have solutions for in our current system.

        One ostensibly feasible solution should be to ease the path to immigration or work visas for people who are willing to do the jobs that American Citizens don’t seem to want.