The “Two-Minutes Hate” in Orwell’s 1984…
A lot of the more strident folk on the left like to classify people with whom they disagree as “haters.” To disagree with them is to “hate.”
Sometimes it doesn’t take much to be called a bigot. To see a human fetus as having moral value and a claim upon our consciences, for instance, can be classified as “hating women.” Which might be great for eliciting contributions from some quarters, but not so great for increasing understanding across the gulf of disagreement.
If we’re to have civil conversations in our society, conversations with some hope of leading toward synthesis, toward solutions, “hate” is a word we need to be careful with.
But in recent days, that word has seemed more and more like precisely the right one to explain the way some of our fellow citizens regard what is going on down on our border.
What we’re seeing now, and what we’re hearing from the people who defend Trump’s actions, pretty much does seem to be… hatred.
How else to label the FURY these people direct at poor folk trying to come here for a better life?
I’ve been marveling over this for years. I guess it was the early 2000s when we started seeing this surge of anger toward people who came here to pick crops, do back-breaking construction, or work in the stench of a chicken-processing plant.
Then came the dehumanizing rhetoric — words such as “animals” and “infest” — and the jaw-dropping rationalizations: If they don’t like having their children torn from their arms, they should have thought of that before they tried to come here…
It’s the ANGER that amazes me. The folks who say those things are furious, apoplectic that these people from the South cross a line in the desert without the proper paperwork. What is it about that bureaucratic lapse, that misdemeanor committed by some migrants, that stirs such anger?
And I’m not even getting into the fact that this attitude goes beyond illegality, and has increasingly taken the form of wanting to decrease legal immigration.
I don’t know where the anger comes from. But the more I see of it, the more it seems to qualify as hatred…
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What you don’t see is what it costs this country when people who aren’t supposed to be permanently disregard laws and do as they will. I grew up on a family farm and I’ve worked construction, I haven’t worked at a chicken plant but these jobs haven’t been “back breaking” in over a hundred years. They aren’t sitting behind a desk, but they aren’t killing themselves doing these jobs either. You notice the chicken plant in West Columbia didn’t exactly shut down when the Mexican employees all got hauled off. They were replaced by employees who were US citizens or had green cards to work in this country. What you have is one worker (typically the father), he drags his wife and 3-4-5 kids with him. He can’t afford insurance so the whole family goes to the emergency room or urgent care if they need medical attention. They can’t pay the bill so the hospital or clinic eats the cost passing it on to others who have insurance or can pay. The family somehow, being here illegally, qualify for WIC, food stamps, subsidized housing, likely Obamaphones, and whatever else they can receive as handouts. When the kids get to be school age they attend schools which are already overcrowded, require the schools to hire interpreters because they’ve been raised to speak Spanish. Who do you think pays for the classroom trailers and interpreters… it isn’t the illegal immigrant children’s families.
What happens in other countries when an illegal immigrant squats in their country? There may be one or two countries that welcome them, but the majority of them will arrest and deport them.
As far as being angry, if you want to come to this country and become a legalized citizen there are proper channels for that. If you think you’re going to cut in line, disregarding the rules and laws of this country, then I don’t feel one bit sorry for you when you get hauled off and sent back to your home country. For many of these illegals, it’s rinse and repeat. Strike Two should be permanent denial of entry into this country. And we need to hit employers hard, like $10,000 per employee fines if caught hiring illegals, second offense $25,000 per employee. Before Brad goes off the deep end on an agriculture (which he knows little to nothing about) there are migrant workers who can come to this country legally and work. You can’t get a high school kid to get away from his gaming console to work anymore so you make due.
“Squats?” I haven’t noticed any of these folks squatting. They always seem pretty busy working hard.
And if construction work hasn’t been back-breaking for 100 years, nobody told the company I worked for one summer about 45 years ago — when I was in college.
I started out as a ditch-digger. Another college boy working for the summer and I dug footings for the concrete bases of apartment buildings in the merciless sun of a West Tennessee July. (We would later learn that a backhoe could do this part, but at that point there was no heavy equipment on the site.) We did this by hand, with shovels, all day long. An Indian guy in a turban — we supposed he was some kind of engineer — spent the day in an air-conditioned trailer, and every couple of hours he’d come out with a tape measure and check our work and invariably, at some point in the ditch, he’d express his disapproval by saying, “NO! 36 inches! No more, no less!” And we’d have to adjust that part of the floor of the footing to exactly that depth with our shovels. The heat was unbelievable. The whole time, I had this obscure Grand Funk Railroad song running through my head, the one that starts, “The heat of a summer day/Pounding down on my back…” I went to listen to it on YouTube just now, and to this day, I can’t associate it with anything but hard, stooped-over labor under a burning sun.
Somehow, I came through this experience without developing a deep hatred of Sikhs. If I hadn’t, maybe I’d be a Trump voter.
That same summer, after working 12 hours a day for a couple of weeks on the concrete crew (try digging out the middle of a footing for a house, by hand because the backhoe won’t reach, four or five times, trying to get to where the moisture is gone enough to pour the concrete), I landed a “soft” job as a carpenter. Which meant we framed and decked apartment houses, in that same heat, 12 hours a day. We wanted the work, and the money, but every day we’d reach the point that we’d engage in a bit of carpenter witchcraft: This involved drawing a primitive image of a turtle on a stud in the frame (it had to be a stud; and it had to be vertical, with the head pointed upward). This was a “rain turtle.” Once it was drawn, you had to drive a 16d nail into its head — no other size nail would do. Then as we worked, we kept looking over our shoulders toward the west, hoping to see rain clouds coming out of Arkansas.
Sometimes it “worked,” and we’d get some time off. We weren’t superstitious, you know, but at some point in the day, one of us would usually pause to draw a rain turtle.
One day, I fell off the second story and landed on the small of my back (I landed on a 2X6 lying across a ditch, and it acted like a diving board so I bounced when I hit it — otherwise, I probably wouldn’t be walking today). I went on working. At the end of that same day, our whole crew got layoff notices — they didn’t need that many carpenters for awhile.
But I’d gotten to be buddies with one of the supervisors, and he found something for me — spending the day busting up concrete that had been laid in the wrong place, with a sledgehammer. I didn’t quite make it through the day before leaving because of the pain in my butt where I’d fallen. The doctor said I appeared to have chipped my tailbone, and should stop working. So I did.
What if I hadn’t been a college boy trying to pick up spending money? What if I was a stranger in a strange land, and my family had needed that money in order to eat?
In any case, don’t tell me it’s not hard work. I’ve done it…
Oh, I didn’t mention what was probably the one most back-breaking day of that summer.
Someone had ordered multiple pallets of plywood — full, 4 ft. by 8 ft. sheets — for decking the apartment houses. The idiot architect, or somebody, had designed the buildings so that the sheets needed to be three or four inches narrower than they were.
Six or seven of us carpenters (apprentice carpenters, aka “nail-drivers”) were ordered to fix the problem. The routine was, one or two of us would grab these sheets and swing them to a platform consisting of a couple of makeshift sawhorses. Two other guys would quickly measure and mark the line for the cut with a chalk line, and another guy would rip it with a circular saw. (We took turns being on the chalk line/ripping crew, because that was the easiest part.) Then one or two other guys would swing the sheet onto a new pallet of “fixed” sheets.
Try doing that with hundreds of sheets, all day long, in August just outside of Memphis.
Sometimes where were two guys on the teams swinging the sheets on and off, but sometimes someone would be pulled away and you had to do it alone. Each sheet weighed about 70 pounds. Not bad if you were a strong young guy (I was 19), until you do it over and over with hundreds of them…
“Try doing that with hundreds of sheets, all day long, in August just outside of Memphis.”
Having worked construction, I know of no reason why “every sheet” would need to be ripped down. Flooring goes down before walls go up. Unless the building wasn’t built to code I fail to understand where you’d ever run into an issue like this. The only sheets I ever knew that needed to be ripped down were the last run of a floor or around an opening like a stairway.
Ever thrown hay bales onto a trailer and then into a barn all summer in the Midwest? Not to mention being 12 years old at the time. Cool part is jumping out of a driverless pickup as you start loading the trailer.
Why did the sheets have to be ripped? My understanding was that as they were, the sheets wouldn’t match up with the location of the joists under them, which were already in place. You know how it is with decking — you want the edge of the piece of plywood to line up right to the center of the joist, so you have room to nail the edge of both that sheet and the next one to the lumber underneath, with 8d nails.
Somebody had screwed up, and screwed up in a way that affected the whole project — multiple apartment buildings. I didn’t know who — that was above my pay grade — but we had some choice words for whoever it was…
The only reason the sheeting wouldn’t line up is if all the joists weren’t 12″, 16″ or 24″ on center. Which means the building wasn’t built to code. I can’t imagine being in any of the trades trying to deal with this type of framing because most of their installs require things built to certain standards. I’m not saying it didn’t happen, because a friend’s house built in the 1980’s was that way… he went to lay flooring in the attic and some of the rafters were 16″ on center, some 18″, some 14″, etc… We had to cut down nearly every sheet to put a walkway down the middle of his attic. How a building inspector signed off on that beyond me.
Well, there’s building inspections and there’s building inspections….
I mentioned above that time that we had to keep redigging that foundation before pouring the concrete….
That was the same company, but a different project. All of it was at Memphis Naval Air Station in Millington, TN, where I lived with my family. The plywood situation occurred where we were building apartment buildings for enlisted families.
The concrete situation occurred on single-family homes we were building for senior officers. In fact, my family would later live in one of the houses whose concrete foundations I helped lay.
This was on another house around the corner from that one. These were concrete-slab houses — with deep footings dug all around the edges and the center much higher, almost ground level. At this point we had full concrete crews and heavy equipment, not just the other college kid and me digging with shovels. But once you had dug all your fitting and were ready to pour, a backhoe couldn’t reach out to the center of the house.
Well, when we were about to pour, we found that the dirt in the middle of the house was wet. So we had to dig that out with shovels, and replace it with dry dirt. When we were done and it had been tamped down… it was wet again. So we had to dig it our with shovels again, and again replace it with dry dirt. Still wet.
I think we went through this process about four times. It was like Cool Hand Luke being punished by being forced to repeatedly dig that hole and fill it back in again… which, if you’ll recall, is what finally broke him.
In the end, one of the bosses decided to go ahead and lay the concrete before the building inspector could come back around and catch us laying it on damp ground.
So we did. None of us argued with him.
So, as I say, the building inspectors didn’t always assure things went according to regulations…
So what would you do the 3-4 minutes it took to cut each sheet? Stand around and watch?
Two guys stationed on each end measure simultaneously and make a little pencil mark. One guy grabs the end of the chalk line and pulls it out. Both pull to stretch it out, and the guy with the saw pops it at the center. Then he runs the saw the length of the line. Done.
If that took 3-4 minutes, it would have been great. But it didn’t. I sort of doubt it would take as much as one. It would probably take just slightly longer than it takes to read that description in the previous paragraph out loud. The actual ripping would take the longest time of the whole operation — maybe 10 seconds….
Take a circular saw out to a sheet of plywood and tell me how long it takes to make an 8 foot cut. Popping a chalk line takes about 15 seconds… but I’m assuming you couldn’t move the sheet until after it was cut.
Why didn’t they just bring in a table saw? If they were repeat widths you could rip sheets in about 10 seconds. The sheets had to be carried to location anyway.
I’m just telling you how it was. Too bad you weren’t there to tell us we were doing it all wrong. I’m sure we would have loved that…
From the sounds of it, there was a lot more wrong with the project than just what type of saw they were using.
Yep. But I learned a lot on that job. And met some really interesting people…
By the way, although the project was at the opposite end of Tennessee, the construction company was from South Carolina. That’s how I got to be buds with one of the supervisors, both of us being South Carolinians. He was from Camden, I think…
If a person crosses the border without the proper documentation (a classic word spin there), what are they entitled to?
Are you suggesting that everyone who enters illegally has a job waiting for them and will pay all taxes, acquire car insurance, and be net tax recipient neutral? That they will not receive benefits that could otherwise go to American citizens? I’d like to see data that supports that belief.
And how would you explain why people who cross illegally choose to ignore their opportunity to apply for asylum in nine different consulates or The u.s. Embassy in Mexico rather than risk having their children taken away? That’s irresponsible behavior.
The fury i see is from Democrats toward anyone who disagrees with them. It’s worse now than any point when Republicans were complaining about Obama. The level of insanity and constant outrage has been ramped up to new levels. Using phony photos of crying children is the newest low.
I’m also thinking of opening a medical clinic in my garage. I don’t have the proper documentation doctors normally require, but that’s okay. I’ll be creating jobs for my children to serve as nurses (also without documentation) and my neighbor to serve as the pharmacist handing out pain pools to whoever asked for them. He is a plumber by trade but is just missing some documentation. All we want to do is work and help out our families. Doing the Lord’s work, don’t you know.
Pain pills.
I may know of someone out in the Midwest who can supply you with inventory cheaper than the big pharmaceutical companies. He’s just missing some of the FDA documents but word on the street is his product is highly effective in pain relief. I also know someone over near Edgefield who can provide you with a mild liquid pain reliever that you can buy in large quantities and separate into smaller pint size medical bottles.
“Are you suggesting that everyone who enters illegally has a job waiting for them and will pay all taxes, acquire car insurance, and be net tax recipient neutral? That they will not receive benefits that could otherwise go to American citizens? I’d like to see data that supports that belief.”
I’d like to see the data that supports the opposite belief. (Of all the things you mention, “acquire car insurance” would probably be the one they’d have the most trouble doing. I’m not sure how they’d do that while trying to live under the radar. Of course, I see “receiving benefits” as being an equal challenge. That involves paperwork, too.)
What I’m saying is based on observation. I see these people working, and working hard.
It’s interesting that the anti-immigrant folks thinks it’s so very easy for these folks to come here legally — which implies they do so illegally just out of some sort of perversity, a desire to break the rules.
I’m thinking of a young man I know who has come here a couple of times to work, along with his older brothers. He’s back in Mexico now, which is home — he just comes here to earn money he can’t earn at home. Each time he comes, he has to pay a smuggler $5,000. Now who, I wonder, would pay $5,000 to do something he could easily do by walking into a consulate and filling out some papers? Wouldn’t anybody want to save that expense if he saw any chance to come here legally instead?
I’m curious: Why do YOU think they do this thing that angers you so much — coming here illegally rather than legally (which you seem to regard as so easy)?
And what do you mean, “word spin”? I’m describing what they’re doing — crossing the border without the proper paperwork. That describes it EXACTLY. The lack of paperwork is the one thing that distinguishes them from legal immigrants. An immigrant has the papers to show you, he’s legal. If he doesn’t, he’s illegal.
Do all of these people crossing the border run straight to jobs working in fields or chicken plants? How many run to large cities where agricultural or manufacturing (and that’s basically what a chicken plant is) don’t exist. Not speaking English what do you end up doing… working as a cook or dishwasher in restaurants, janitorial, unskilled construction laborer, etc. Not a job that will provide you with enough income to pay the rent much less food, medical, clothing, and other necessities for a family.
“Each time he comes, he has to pay a smuggler $5,000. ”
Why? Why doesn’t he come here legally? I knew Mexican families who’d come work the fields legally as migrant workers. They’d start out in Texas work their way north to North Dakota and then back down to Texas. I believe they were allowed to stay in the country for 11 months and then had to return to Mexico for a month before returning. They guy you’re talking about spends $5000 before he even crosses the border, then once he gets here he has to find someone willing to hire him illegally (which likely is at a rate below minimum wage), has to find a place to stay without any identification, and look over his back constantly. Go down to one of the flea markets on a Saturday morning, I bet 90% of the Mexicans there fit this description.
Right. And who would go through all that if he saw a workable legal avenue — saving himself $5,000 and letting him relax without constantly looking over his shoulder?
Obviously, coming here legally isn’t nearly as easy as a lot of people in this country seem to assume.
But I don’t have a clear handle on just HOW hard it is. There’s one aspect of all this that I’d like to see much more reporting on, and that is the hurdles people who want to come here legally have to get over.
Everything seems to point to it being altogether too hard to get here legally — else, why would people go through what they do to come illegally?
But I don’t really have a clear picture of it.
What I think we need is a situation in which it is MUCH easier to get here legally — or, if it’s easy already (which I sincerely doubt), we don’t do a good job of getting the word out to the poor populations in these countries. Because their behavior tells us that they believe, rightly or wrongly, that it’s pretty much impossible…
What paperwork are they lacking that they are legally able to obtain? I can’t get a pilots license without training but I don’t call myself an undocumented pilot..
I never said it was easy for anyone to enter illegally. It’s hard. And it should be harder. That’s the point of having a legal process for entry. Also please answer my question as to whether the people selling asylum could do so by going to an American consulate in Mexico or the U.S. embassy there first. Is that an option or not? If so, why would they choose a tougher option that puts their children at risk?
My Indian friends pay thousands of dollars to the government for legal status here. Why should anyone entering illegally have an easier path once they hit the border.
And I’m not angry about this… Certainly not as angry as you and others are about trying to ignore the laws and using “what about the children?” emotional wailing to try and demonize anyone who suggests finding a legal solution to the problem. Democrats and open border people have been freaking out for a week now and fall victim to every media ploy to exploit their lemming like behavior to keep them in a constant state of agitation. They offer no solutions, no compromise, nothing. Democrats in Congress aren’t interested in anything happening before November. They are equally culpable.
Also, do you think all these people working for the government on the border started 18 months ago? Why don’t you target those people who are actually taking the children away? Just following orders, right? Government drone workers without any compassion, right? Are they also immoral? Should they all be fired like Reagan did with the TSA? No, it’s all Trump. He’s built a complete kingdom from scratch in a year and a half.
“Also please answer my question as to whether the people selling asylum could do so by going to an American consulate in Mexico or the U.S. embassy there first”…
I can’t, because I don’t have enough information.
The first thing that occurs to me is that if I feel unsafe in my own country, I think I’d feel even LESS safe if it were known I’d applied for asylum, and was stuck there waiting to get word on my application. I IMAGINE, but don’t know, circumstances in which I would think it was safer to head for the border and take my chances there than go apply in my own country, then go back and wait at home.
That is, you know, if the situation where I am is truly unsafe.
This would be particularly true in a non-political situation (such as those I’ve heard of of women who are, with their children, fleeing domestic violence).
But I don’t KNOW. I don’t know what’s involved. I imagine it would vary from person to person and place to place.
So I can’t answer your question to MY satisfaction, much less to yours…
It seems Norm DOES have an answer to your question. I’m not sure it’s right, but at least it’s an answer…
Wouldn’t it be better if they seeked asylum in Mexico? It’d be a lot closer and everyone speaks your language.
This is the problem with the US being neighbors with a 3rd world country.
I am not against immigration, I am against people barging in and thinking they’re welcome. See the line, get in it or go home.
Claus and Richard:
If both of you are, as you say, not opposed to LEGAL immigration, you need to tell elected Republican representatives. Because the legislation they keep trying to pass would reduce LEGAL immigration. Which, of course, seems likely to increase the motivation for people to come here illegally…
From what I saw glancing through the article, they want to decrease the legal immigration number from 65,000 to 55,000 and eliminate dependents.
What motivation is there to come here illegally if you’re caught and immediately sent home with the threat of having your chances for asylum permanently revoked?
One solution is to penalize employers, make it more than a slap on the fingers if they are caught hiring illegal immigrants. Make it so it’s going to be a decision to risk hire illegals or file for bankruptcy if caught hiring illegals. It’ll reduce the number of illegals coming into this country illegally if there’s no work for them.
And again, why does it make you so mad that they do that?
I know a guy who routinely parks in 30-minute loading zones near restaurants when he goes to lunch downtown, knowing he’ll be there more than 30 minutes. If anybody in the car with him comments on it, he just laughs.
That’s something I would never do, not only because I know if I did it, I’d get ticketed or even towed — even though he never has. I just believe in following rules. Businesses need a place where a vendor can park to make a quick delivery. I take that space, I’m messing with someone else who needed that spot to do his job. I wouldn’t feel right about it.
It bugs me, a little, that this friend does this thing I regard as wrong. I disapprove of this behavior. But it doesn’t make me hate him, even though he has a very cavalier attitude about it. (Otherwise, this is a nice guy who doesn’t go around breaking rules — a careful, conservative guy who doesn’t take chances. I guess this is sort of his one little rebellion.)
Similarly, I don’t hate illegal immigrants for breaking the rule they break. I wouldn’t do it; I believe it’s wrong to do it. I think people should follow the rules. But it’s not something to get all bent out of shape about….
Ignoring my questions still because it doesn’t fit your narrative. Can they apply for asylum without crossing the border?
And do you hold the border patrol workers equally responsible for their immoral behavior? Since Trump is the equivalent of Hitler in the eyes of many zealots (i heard the border issue referred to as ethnic cleansing on CNN the other day) — that makes the border patrol the Gestapo, right? They are all just mindless government drones following the orders of the fascist dictator.
And you can keep saying I’m angry and I’ll keep saying I’m not. I’m looking for a solution, not freaking out like the liberals and other bleeding hearts. I don’t think children should be taken away but i also don’t think they should be allowed to stay unless the legal process is followed. I’m looking for a solution, not a reason to maintain a proper level of Trump agitation. I blame Republicans and Democrats equally for their inaction. Both sides are using children as political pawns.
To obtain asylum through the affirmative asylum process you must be physically present in the United States.
From the <a href=https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/obtaining-asylum-united-statesUSCIS website. Whether a consulate or embassy is considered “physically present” I don’t know.
Growing up in southern Arizona very close to the Mexican border (3.5 miles if you’re a crow), we occasionally encountered illegal immigrants. They would come to the door looking for work (usually by gesturing toward tools). They never asked for anything more–no food, no money, no shelter. We never feared them.
This administration’s policy of separating children from parents (and now seeking to detain immigrants indefinitely) is abhorrent and immoral, but it’s Congress that has failed on this issue, which is why there’s not a practical AND legal solution.
We are represented by cowards.
Messed up the link. Try this.
Here’s an additional link that confirms the point.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-obtain-protection-us-embassy-consulate.html
Another viewpoint. My brother lived in Phoenix and Tucson for decades. His last few years living in Arizona in Buckeye just outside Phoenix was a major contributor in his decision to move back to North Carolina. He owned a greyhound racing stable and belonged to the association and the Greyhound Rescue organization. One of his main problems involved coyotes (the human kind) and illegals crossing and camping on his property. The thefts and damage they did while illegally entering the US and crossing his private property was expensive and the threats on his life didn’t help either. If he ever had anyone knock on his door and ask for work or help, he didn’t relay to me. If they had, he would have helped.
As noted in earlier posts, my brother could be a very difficult person to get along with but he was not an uncompassionate person either. He had friends in the Hispanic community in the Phoenix area and got along very well with others who were there legally.
One of his other compassions was supporting the plight of Native Americans. He was a regular contributor to legitimate causes and took great delight when he could help. But he did not care for the illegals and the damage they did to his property and surrounding community.
In general, there is usually more than one side to every issue. You have yours, my brother had his. Each based on different viewpoints and personal experiences. Won’t disagree with you and I won’t disagree with my brother (passed away earlier this year), different exposures to the problem.
No, Doug, I am NOT ignoring your questions because they don’t fit my narrative.
I tried to explain why your question is unanswerable earlier, and for some reason it initially didn’t post. Now it’s up. Here it is…
But it seems Norm DOES have an answer to your question. I’m not sure it’s right, but at least it’s an answer…
“I know a guy who routinely parks in 30-minute loading zones near restaurants when he goes to lunch downtown, knowing he’ll be there more than 30 minutes. If anybody in the car with him comments on it, he just laughs.”
Years ago I dealt with a guy like that… I keyed his car one day. He ranted and raved but got it fixed and continued to park there. Somehow his car got rekeyed and he got it repaired and found a new place to park. Would I do it today, nope but at 20-22 years old it seemed like the reasonable solution.
I am so surprised at these responses. Yeah, not really.
The fact of life is we are all competing – every day. Why shouldn’t we compete against the best the world has to offer? The challenge raises more boats than the status quo ever does.
Even in Richard’s and Doug’s responses one can hear the life struggle. I respect that. In all people, in fact, regardless of their place of birth. Life is just too short to angst hard on this. One is an American if one wants to buy into our social experiment – the melting pot that we are. Underpinned by our constitution.
The point I have is I have no problem with immigrants if they come here legally. When one jumps the line ahead of those playing by the rules it hurts those here legally and those trying to get into the country legally. I view these people the same as I view shoplifters… taking something that isn’t theirs to own. Illegal immigrants don’t deserve to be in this country… I’m not one for an emotional sob story, tell me how you worked within the guidelines of the law to come to this country and I’ll respect you, otherwise you’re no different than any other common criminal.
Take a look at the chicken plant in West Columbia. Was employed by illegals, when INS stepped in and rounded them up, the plant didn’t shut down, it’s now employed with people who were looking for jobs and either citizens of the US or here legally.
I also feel that many of these coming here illegally aren’t here to be model citizens, that many of them are here for criminal intent.
I don’t angst hard against anyone. I compete every day in an industry that gave away hundreds of thousands of jobs to H1B Visa holders willing to do jobs at reduced pay. And I beat them every single day. I’m not worried for a second about competition.
The “zero tolerance” policy is not only hateful, it’s just plan stupid. According to an interview with a Texas A&M specialist in immigration matters that ran in Forbes:
“ICE’s ‘full service’ electronic monitoring program, which combines a GPS monitoring device (i.e. “ankle bracelet”) with case management, has a compliance rate of 99.9% for all court hearings and costs only about $8/person each day, compared to around $180/person for detention.”
It also points out that community-based case management programs also serve to raise compliance. But the current administration eliminated those programs.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/06/21/what-happens-to-the-children-now/#6cd8ae345632