Fucking seriously... We have this goddamn obsession with hating immigrants and blaming them for wage stagnation in a lot of sectors, but we NEVER talk about going after the people hiring them or putting the squeeze on us in every way imaginable...
Not to mention everyone I know bitches about "illegals" but wants to to fuck-all about solving the issue of immigration wait times... If it takes a decade to get through the process then maybe jusssssst maybe we address that?? Nahhh... That's communisocialivenezuela or something.
That's an absolutely valid point. I'm not American but in Ireland we get the same "foreigners are stealing our jobs" bullshit. I work in a meat processing plant. Most Irish new starts don't last the first week.
What jobs are they stealing? Jobs we won't do? We need immigrants, we aren't far away from a declining population. I don't understand how people thing that's an issue when our entire economy is propped up on migrant workers.
I believe stiffer penalties for employers WAS part of the bipartisan immigration bill that Trump killed, but I don't have a source for that.
I think the reason this doesn't get addressed is because Republicans actually want to keep the status quo where they can employ illegal immigrants to depress wages. They just want to use immigrants as a scapegoat to rile people up.
Let's say that it actually was illegal immigrants "stealing your job." Who is actually hiring them in the first place, hm? Even if it was true, the anger shouldn't be directed at the immigrants.
The point I've made repeatedly is that if you want to stop immigration, it's much simpler and far cheaper to go after the big companies that hire them. Arrest and throw some American business people in jail and the rest will stop hiring.
For some reason, that doesn't seem to get a lot of play in GOP circles.
So much of this sentiment comes down to ethnic alignments. People see the billionaire as a white, Christian patriarch who shares a set of cultural values and beliefs that overlap with their own. The billionaire advertises on the shows I listen to. The billionaire runs the businesses that I shop at. The billionaire sponsors the entertainment - the sporting events and the TV shows and the local festivals - that I enjoy attending.
Yeah, sure, all that money comes from my surplus labor. And maybe the Six Guns Over Grade School celebration, where eight year olds fire long rifles at biology textbooks while saying the Our Father prayer is a bit off-putting. But by God, that's our tradition!
Meanwhile, the hispanic migrants who cross the border to pick fruit doesn't celebrate Six Guns. They don't watch Border Patrol Bloopers or Rich Kids In The City or Loud Guy Radio. They don't root for the Fightin' Oil Spigots or eat Fried Cheese. They don't even speak American! Every time a new hispanic family moves into town, they make the town a little less homogeneous. And that makes me feel unsafe. If they feel about me the way that I feel about them, how long until they break into my house and murder me?
I have no idea what this Rich Kids In the City is, or Loud Guy Radio, and I am not a sports fan, but I think I'd like to try some of that fried cheese!
And the only thing that stands between the working class and the billionaire class is conservatives. Conservatives are the billionaires' personal army of mind-washed morons who would rather kill us all than to disappoint their boss.
I will not forget how Elon forced everyone but work visa immigrants (who didn't have their Green Cards yet) to stay at Twitter. As an immigrant (and now naturalized citizen) to Canada who also grew up in Dubai (where I was not a citizen either, despite being born there) I felt the pain of the precarious situation that they were. This also made me hate Elon far more than I did already.
But, what about the Bentleys? They need someone to buy them. Also, what about the private islands? Who is going to price out the indigenous people? Did you think about that? What about the private planes to visit their friend Jeffy? He'll get lonely.
That's also the key to understanding russian pre-war chauvenism against middle-eastern and asian immigrants. Construction businesses can buy and kill everyone who disagree with them abusing foreign workforce for pennies, and the problem is migrants themselves somehow, them reduced to animals living in stationary train sections and working 12h shifts only to send their income home. That's to no one's surprise they aren't well-integrated into society.
"Wants to pick apples." Come the fuck on. I agree with the point that billionaires are the true threat, but treating migrant labor like it's fulfilling their life dreams is racist and gross. They undoubtedly want many things, but they're desperate and they're being exploited. Let's not insult them further by pretending they want to be treated that way.
Sure it is. They could've said "wants to make a living" or "is willing to do hard labor", but they didn't. They framed it as just "picking apples", and that it's what the migrant "wants" to do while focusing on the problems that affect them. It might not be what they meant, but it's absolutely what they said.
…who encourages illegal workers by emphasizing the bean counter bottom line so heavily that hiring cheap migrants is reinforced in order to pad profits. Then, the billionaires with the media empires and outlets stoke prejudice and fears against migrants.