I used to have a really wonderful job in the horse industry. I loved it and I thought it would be my lifelong career. But we American grooms were fired and our jobs were given to illegal Mexican immigrants who would work for half of our pay and who didn't make demands for safe working conditions.

Sooo, I just don't have a lot of sympathy for anyone who's knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. :-(
 

Not that I'm a proponent for anti-immigration, but on the whole building a fence thing... we build fences around our houses and we don't consider it degrading... or shameful.

Just a counterpoint to your thought ;)
 

i thought about that as i wrote the blog. but i think for most people, fences between houses are about property. i'm not afraid of my neighbors walking across my lawn. i'm afraid of planting something over our property line, though.

the separation between private property is usually to keep ourselves as well as our neighbors from encroaching on someone else's privately owned land. we're not afraid mexico is going to try to reclaim parts of the borderland. we're keeping people out of this country, period.

now, i'm not saying that anyone has the "right" to cross the border. obviously, laws are in place (hopefully) to protect the best interests of the common welfare of a country's citizens. I get that. but for a country whose government was built by people who did not receive permission to come and set up shop to then behave xenophobically and to emphatically declare that we alone have the right to consume and enjoy the spoils of the richest nation in the world (or to determine who can come join our party) sure seems like a misplaced sense of entitlement.

I am also not saying that worthy legal workers have not been displaced by illegal workers. And obviously, there is a natural amount of sympathy we all extend to anyone who lost their job due to economic factors. Which is what wage wars are - economics.

But as a nation, our industry goes into other countries to find cheap labor when it does not come to us. It's not just about cheap labor coming into our country, we build sweatshops globally. At some point, the market goes for the better bargain. A whole lot of people shop at Wal-Mart. Or Target. Or Amazon. Or Costco. Or wherever the deal is. It's no different for manufacturers or employers. If someone can get the same result by paying less, they'll do it.

But is it a working immigrant's fault because they are willing to do more for less? I have a hard time really believing they should be punished for working hard for small pay. And when I hear about men I know on work crews who see their bosses hire undocumented workers to dig trenches by hand when they can't use machinery for fear of disrupting cables or pipes, and they tell me about these men working all day in the sun for a couple of bills, I have a hard time thinking these men should be kicked out of the country.

I can see that it's hard when it hits closer to him. Your factory closes, your shop goes under, your brother or you are laid off. I'm not saying that doesn't suck. But are we thinking about where these people are coming from? All the risk they undertake to get here - look at the people who die in the back of 18 wheelers, the ones who swim up sewage pipes, etc. - is because it's still better than the work opportunities they have at home. Are we saying that because we happened to be born here, we have the right to these jobs and they don't?
 

I was going to say pretty much what you said in your answer, Bettysoo.
I am not a proponent of illegal immigration, but I think the wall is going to be about as effective as the Berlin Wall was and cost a ton of money that could be much better
used elsewhere (oh say, to provide health care for kids or families who can't afford
it). As far as people losing their jobs, not for that either, but it's happening any way--
with or without illegal immigration. Companies are either laying off or buying out experienced, higher paid people and replacing them with lower-paid, less experienced
people and giving them fewer benefits. Other workers have been replaced by automated
machines. Jobs are also going to China, India and other countries where there are no child
labor laws or safety mechanisms in place.

I think our country has done things bass ackwards during this administration
and the corporations are reaping the benefits with the almighty dollar being
the bottom line rather than people who truly need social services. Those
programs have been cut.

I think we've become a xenophobic nation, and I'm not proud of that.
If good fences make good neighbors, what the hey, let's build one up around
Canada too. Then we can really wall ourselves off from the rest of the world.
That is, until we think we have the right to bomb or declare war on some other nation.
I've always been told I'm part of the problem unless I have a solution. I really don't have
one regarding illegal immigration, but I know that there's a far better one than an fence costing millions of dollars.
 

Aren't pickels cool?!!!!
I ate a bunch one night myself - felt a little better in my stomach! (go figure!).

 

Were they good kosher dill pickles? I remember back in the day, there was a place I used to go, as a young child, where the store made their own pickles and them in huge oak barrels. They had several varieties and they were off the hook. Sadly, as progress and change does play into things, this store has since closed. I wonder if I went back to NYC or Boston and would I be able to find such a place? I wonder who still makes their own pickles from scratch? All those fabulous smells, oy! As for your other notation regarding building a fence, I will keep that to myself because we're all immigrants. May be second or third generation, but we're all naturalized citizens. Other than that, Betty Soo, I'm putting on the old duct tape and that @$% to myself.