Immigration rats nest

Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

¡Hola, amigos mexconnectianos!
Maybe after a bottle and a half of Bohemia, I am a little feisty(?), but how many ever watch TVE(Televisión Española) which shows specials concerning their "immigration" problem that Spain has from Africa. And what about all the "race riots" that happened fairly recently in France? And the "Gastarbeiter" in Germany?
What I am asking is, how different is the "problem" of immigration for the USA than it is for anywhere else in the world? We have a lot of "centro americanos"(salvadoreños, nicaraguences, etc.) here in Xalapa working on the sly while headed North.
Bubba...let her rip!
¡Su amigo, sea como sea!
Roy B. Dudley "El Gringo Jalapeño" See more about Xalapa at www.xalaparoy.com

jerezano

Jul 24, 2006, 4:16 PM

Post #2 of 29 (3738 views)

Re: ["El Gringo Jalapeño"] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

Hello El Gringo Jalapeno,

Good to have you back on the forum.

Spain and France and Germany are having just as bad problems with immigration as we in the USA are having. Remember the riots in France a few weeks past?

And if anything should discouraage the USA from building a fence it should be the video clips of the Morracanos swarming across the double fences into Spanish Morroco.

And the culmination of it all. A few weeks back the Spanish Government was being sued by a Morrocan family because a family member had been injured while climbing those double fences. Not a hand laid on him by any Spanish forces. But they didn't aid him either. I don't know how that turned out.

Adios. jerezano.

Gringal

Jul 24, 2006, 4:52 PM

Post #3 of 29 (3728 views)

Re: ["El Gringo Jalapeño"] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

The immigration problem will exist as long as desperately poor people see jobs on the other side of the border, anywhere in the world. The U.S. just whines more and louder. I haven't heard a solution yet that will make everybody happy, anywhere.

Just to have a little Doomsday rant: If and when the economy NOB collapses into depression and people are selling pencils on street corners a la 1930's, we will no longer have an immigration problem. Our own citizens will be scratching and clawing for any work around.

Jul 24, 2006, 4:59 PM

Post #4 of 29 (3724 views)

Re: ["El Gringo Jalapeño"] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

I couldn´t agree with your observations more Roy. Like jerezano, I welcome you back. What, pray tell, is the difference between some podunk town in Arkansas where Mexicans and Guatemalans pluck chickens and live in crammed dormitories and Austria in 1966 when I arrived in Leoben and befriended Turkish workers living and working in that industrial town and keeping the wheels of industry turning and inviting me to their walk-up tenement for a Turkish rice dish and expressing their amazement that I found it succulent when the Austrians had considered it swine food and inquiring of me as to why the Austrians despised them and thought them lower than common gutter dogs and the Algerian immigrant to Paris expressing his thanks in 1975 for my not treating him like a worm as the French did because he ran his tiny grocery store in the 12th arrondissement and was treated as a maggot because he worked his grocery store 12 hours a day seven days a week instead of taking half the days off as did his French competitors or Tom Joad who only wanted to feed his dust bowl family in California or my black and white borthers and sisters who left the swamps of South Alabama for industrial slavery in Cleveland and Chicago and were crowded together in filthy tenements and exploited by corrupt landlords and industrialists and the Irish and Polish and Chinese (who died by the thousands building our railroads) and the East Indian indentured slaves who not only built the East Indian Railway from Mombasa to Kampala but had to contend with being lion food or the poor white dirt farmers in my home town in South Alabama who sent their wives into that sweat shop to make hats for the Merrimac Hat Factory, which had moved their hat factory down from New England in 1950 because New Englanders wanted a decent wage so these women could bring some beans to the table while their husbands sharecropped , drank white lightening and prayed for rain.

These were yesterday´s heroes and they are today´s heroes.

On the other hand, without the industrial revolution all of these people and Bubba might be feasting on rats.

Life is so complex.

Otherwise, I have no opinion.

(This post was edited by Bubba on Jul 24, 2006, 5:21 PM)

Bloviator

Jul 24, 2006, 5:38 PM

Post #5 of 29 (3704 views)

Re: [Gringal] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

That has already been the case in times past. I read an interesting article last week in either a right wing opinion magazine or a left wing one, I can't remember which. The article went back to the turn of the century and chronicled the ebb and flow of Mexican immigration into the US. Basically, when we need them, we encourage them as either illegals or through bracero programs or such. Then when the economy goes south and there is no longer a need for their help we chase them out, either through deportation, changes in the law, or law enforcement crackdowns.

This has been going on since at least the 20s. The sad thing is that every time we decide we don't need the labor of Mexicans, they get the short end of the stick. A number of Mexicans who went north under the bracero program, which included money sent back for them to have later, discovered on their return to Mexico that the money had disappeared - probably helping Mexican officials lead the high life.

Another nice thing is that during the round ups after World War II (I think. I'm doing this from memory refreshed by my daily tequila) a number of US born children were rounded up and shipped "back" to Mexico with their parents. Some were then considered non Mexican when the got here and did not have citizenship privileges such as attending school. They were stuck in a horrible limbo.

I'm not sure the 14th Amendment really requires the children of Mexican citizens born in the US to be automatically considered US citizens, but that is the interpretation that we have been using. It really does present a quandry. The parents have no right to be in the US and the children are US citizens. The logical solutions are to make laws clarifying that the children are not US citizens or if that is not done pass laws that the parents can remain NoB.

Jul 24, 2006, 7:08 PM

Post #6 of 29 (3685 views)

Re: ["El Gringo Jalapeño"] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

European (Spain's, France's, Britain's, Sweden's etc) immigration problem differs considerably from US immigration problem in that Europe is socially a lot more (pardon the expression, please treat it only as a "thought shortcut") CIVILIZED than the rest of the world. Any LEGAL immigrant there has a right to the living conditions basically similar to a native industrial worker whether he is a hardworking immigrant, doing gladly- as an employee - the jobs than the natives don't want to touch ( ex. janitorial, dishwashing in restaurants, dangerous industrial etc. etc.), or doing gladly - as a selfemployed entrepreneur -the semi skilled and skilled ( plumbers, electricians) and professional (drafters, computer programmers, graphic artists) jobs, for which the locals charge a lot more, thus - with increased competition from immigrants - pricing themselves out from once captive markets... or whether he gets on a dole without ever working an hour of his/her life in his/her new country (another "thought shortcut", since rights of citizens and immigrants to be supported by the taxpayers vary to some extend from one EU country to the other, but the basis is that: everybody, who can't (and sometime's won't) support him or herself has a right to be supported by taxpayers at a level, that American poor won't ever be able to even dream about).

That's one side of the coin. Another side of the coin is that with high unemployment in Europe ( averaging more than twice of that in the USA) immigrants - especially 2nd generation immigrants, and especially those who differ ethnically from Europeans, have a very hard time to get out from the ghetto's of no prospects at social mobility. Not many in the 2nd generation of immigrants, born and raised in Europe, opt for gladly being janitors all of their lifes, if they feel they are discriminated against at a job market, AND can have the same standard of living doing nothing at all. Yet, sometimes instead of gladly doing nothing at all, they do riot to get jobs, and burn cars. Go figure ;-)

Yes, there is illegal immigration from Africa in Spain, Italy, France from Turkey and other countries of the Middle East, and from Russia and other countries of the formet Soviet empire in Germany and elsewhere, but this is not an immigration anywhere on the scale of Mexican immigration to the USA. Here (USA) the sheer volume of recent immigrant causes their dramatically lowered opportunities for economic success: they cause a dramatic decrease of the economic value of their own - and in the next steps also everybody else's labor.
Vivere non est necesse, navigare necesse est!

Rolly

Jul 24, 2006, 8:11 PM

Post #7 of 29 (3664 views)

Re: [MariaLund] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

"...Europe is socially a lot more ... CIVILIZED..."

I agree.

Rolly Pirate

nfabq

Jul 24, 2006, 10:00 PM

Post #8 of 29 (3626 views)

Re: [Rolly] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

Is there anyone here besides me who experienced Europe during WW2? Do any of you who were there think Europe is more civilized than the US? I sure as hell DON'T!! Are your memories that bad or your cynicsm so great? Do you know that legal Turkish immigrants in Germany can NEVER become citizens of that country and the children of those immigrants are NOT citizens even when they are born in Germany? Do you know that during WW2 Jews who escaped to Switzerland were put into concentration camps and then returned to Germany to be incinerated? Is it really necessary to speak of France and their Vichy government, or do you all know about that disgusting example of morality?

I am as distressed as anyone about how the US treats immigrants,but is this the best way to confirm you made the right decision to move to Mexico?

Norm

Jul 25, 2006, 6:40 AM

Post #9 of 29 (3582 views)

Re: [nfabq] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

nabq:

Well, I certainly agree with you nabq . To say Europe is more civilized than the rest of the world is absurd to the point it is necessary for me to believe that the poster was jesting. And I´m not just talking about WW11. Hell that place was always so horribly violent and corrupted, some Europeans had to come to the Americas, Africa and Asia to find new people to kill.

(This post was edited by Bubba on Jul 25, 2006, 7:38 AM)

Jul 25, 2006, 8:57 AM

Post #10 of 29 (3529 views)

Re: [nfabq] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

Well, I got - to some extend - used to it that in social conversations the rules of logical reasoning are often put aside and emotions take over, but I still would like to insist that apples and oranges are two different things and may go well together in a fruit salad, but not mixed in a discussion.

So, YES, Norm, I have experienced some of Europe during WWII: as a Polish-German baby of two Polish-German anti-Nazi partizans, born a year before the end of the war in a Gestapo prison. So?

What I was referring to, is the CURRENT legislation (= current European government's behavior) and CURRENT prejudices (= current European populations behavior), whether we call them racism, or - as it is "fashionable" and politically correct in Europe: xenophobia: the two sides of the European immigration coin I was talking about.

And whether it is true that children of immigrants in Europe do not automatically become citizens of the country in which they are born (because all European countries base citizenship on ius sanguini /blood=parentage decides citizenship/ while USA, a country DESIGNED to be an immigration country, bases its on ius soli /the place of birth, not the parentage, decides citizenship), this rule affects all children of immigrants, not just those of Turkish workers in Germany. And yes, again, it is also true that Germany does not grant its citizenship easily to immigrants who can't prove partial German parentage, the immigrants in Germany and elsewhere in Europe are by GOVERNMENTS/LEGISLATIONS (though not necessarily by people: this infamous "xenophobia" that Americenas also know so well) SOCIALLY treated WAAY better than the disadvantaged US citizens are by US Government/US laws - not to mention immigrants.

Yes again Norm, denying historical roots to current legislations, whether they lie in WW II or before it (colonialist past was and is a contributor to ethnically impopular but perfectly legal immigration from Africa and Asia), would be utterly silly, but saying that Europe's current legislation is not socially civilized, because over half a century ago there was a WWII appears to me pretty illogical, sorry.

Sadly, this "xenophobia" is once again influencing the European legislators to enact less immigrant friendly laws: Danmark, Holland, so may be we are heading straight up into a new dark age in Europe, as we are already way on our way there in the USA. But so far Europe is still a lot more SOCIALLY civilized than USA is: both in regards to its citizens and in regards to its immigrants, both legal and illegal.
Vivere non est necesse, navigare necesse est!

(This post was edited by MariaLund on Jul 25, 2006, 9:11 AM)

donemry

Jul 25, 2006, 9:34 AM

Post #11 of 29 (3513 views)

Re: [MariaLund] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

In Reply To

Here (USA) the sheer volume of recent immigrant causes their dramatically lowered opportunities for economic success: they cause a dramatic decrease of the economic value of their own - and in the next steps also everybody else's labor.

That is a gross assumption, lacking any supporting evidence. Please check your unemployment statisitics and average wage growth. By the way, immigrants did not cause the "dot.com bubble burst"

Jul 25, 2006, 9:51 AM

Post #12 of 29 (3504 views)

Re: [donemry] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

Aah, apples and oranges again: the law of supply and demand and the unemployment statistics. Yes, I read the latest unemployment statistics: they show, for Texas, stubborn persistence at 5.1% and for South Texas, even more stubborn persistence at 5.9%. Still, how do unemployment statistics account for illegal immigrants? Unregistered anywhere, keeping extremely low profile recent illegal immigrants? You tell me.
Mixing freely data from Pew and data from Labor department, without an in depth comparison of WHAT they measure and HOW they measure it, is, to me, a prime example of "How to lie with statistics" - a standard course in every propaganda school.
Vivere non est necesse, navigare necesse est!

Gringal

Jul 25, 2006, 10:07 AM

Post #13 of 29 (3498 views)

Re: [MariaLund] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

I agree that logic is often trampled by emotion. Logic loves the company of clarity and brevity, however.

Are you trying to say that having the dole currently more available in Europe is the essence of European law operating at a higher level of "civilization" ?

Economists have said that the European countries will not be able to afford this system on a permanent basis. When and if that happens, will Europe be "less civilized"? Does civilization require prosperity translated into charity as an essential ingredient, or is it about something entirely different?

Jul 25, 2006, 10:09 AM

Post #14 of 29 (3496 views)

Re: [MariaLund] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

Maria Lund states:

immigrants in Germany and elsewhere in Europe are by GOVERNMENTS/LEGISLATIONS (though not necessarily by people: this infamous "xenophobia" that Americenas also know so well) SOCIALLY treated WAAY better than the disadvantaged US citizens are by US Government/US laws - not to mention immigrants.

saying that Europe's current legislation is not socially civilized, because over half a century ago there was a WWII appears to me pretty illogical, sorry.

But so far Europe is still a lot more SOCIALLY civilized than USA is: both in regards to its citizens and in regards to its immigrants, both legal and illegal.

Now I don´t want to put words in Ms. Lund´s mouth but I think I know where this comes from:

In case you do not understand what is being said by comprehending what is not being said I will say it:

There is a great deal of bitterness in today´s Europeans born on the native sod over traditional privileges extended to immigrants, primarily from the old colonies (European angst over that is pervasive so people from, say, Ivory Coast or Algeria, were allowed to come to France and pretend to be French to assuage local guilt). This sort of underlying bitterness which has often manifest itself in open and violent racism, has been around measurably at least since the 1960s when this in-migration really got going. It has gotten worse as these "privileged" North Africans and Africans were herded into death trap tenements and excluded from the job market because of their ethnicity . When that happened for long enough, these disenfranchised people, openly treated like lepers while being encouraged not to work but take handouts, reacted violently and with great hostility to their "benefactors" who simply moved out of the core cities and left them to them. Think black southerners herded into Gary or East St. Louis or indigenous Americans herded into reservations and given free food and beer and told not to worry about working.

There was a rock song many of you may remember:

TAKING IT TO THE STREETS
Hey you, telling me the things you´ll do for me
Well, I ain´t blind and I don´t like what I think I see

The most insidious thing about this is that Europeans of a certain political bent think that they are socially progressive and civilised by giving these people handouts and third floor walkups in dangerous and dilapidated apartment buildings built in ghettos so they don´t have to look them in the eye or even acknowledge their existence. They have built this social frankenstein monster right in their own back yard and have concluded two things:
- They did the right thing and
- these people must be beasts not to appreciate the way they have tried to seduce them into acquiescence with free ghettos and police brutality.

If this were some right wing xenophobe redneck living in the heartland of the U.S., espousing these values the language would be different but the idea the same. Bubba grew up around folks like that and understands the nuances of their political positions. In Alabama in the 1950s we called them country club kluxers.

Europe more socially civilized? Hell, Europeans have just gotten a tiy glimpse of what James Baldwin called The Fire Next Time.

(This post was edited by Bubba on Jul 25, 2006, 10:17 AM)

donemry

Jul 25, 2006, 10:24 AM

Post #15 of 29 (3486 views)

Re: [MariaLund] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

In Reply To

Those numbers have been in that general range for years. But, if you so choose, you may continue to shoot messengers of data that contravene your beliefs. Research may well trump conviction and belief. Try it.

Jul 25, 2006, 10:26 AM

Post #16 of 29 (3482 views)

Re: [Gringal] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

Bubba, Gringal, NOW, we have a discussion, lol. Does civilization require indoor plumbing? What does civilization sensu largo vs social civilization mean. And the requirement for brevity... Gringal, brevity is a virtue for Anglosaxons. Germans (and French to some extend) go for elaborate as a virtue, while they consider brevity "uneducated". Convincing German sentences need to be at least half a page long. I guess, I have to work on my communications with Anglosaxons. I'll think about it and be back, but right now I have to go to lunch. ;-)
Vivere non est necesse, navigare necesse est!

Jul 25, 2006, 10:31 AM

Post #17 of 29 (3476 views)

Re: [donemry] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

Bravo, donemry, I love a good verbal duel - providing its is tongue in cheek! It beats the heck out of the need to pack and worse, sort before packing, before a move due in less than six weeks.

P.S. My assumptions might be incorrect, however, your use of statistics definitively is. But let's continue having fun with it, by all means, just after lunch. A friend, who is a great cook is doing lunch today, and a way to this woman's mind goes through her stomach, may be? ;-)
Vivere non est necesse, navigare necesse est!

donemry

Jul 25, 2006, 10:37 AM

Post #18 of 29 (3469 views)

Re: [MariaLund] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

In Reply To

I qouted no statistics, I merely challanged you to back up your claims with some evidience.

Jul 25, 2006, 10:40 AM

Post #19 of 29 (3469 views)

Re: ["El Gringo Jalapeño"] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

Why is the infamous lock always there except when we need it.

bournemouth

Jul 25, 2006, 10:56 AM

Post #20 of 29 (3463 views)

Re: [Bubba] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

Now can we get back to Mexico please?

Gringal

Jul 25, 2006, 10:59 AM

Post #21 of 29 (3461 views)

Re: [Bubba] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

And for this, we should be Prousted. Our biggest problem in this accursed forum is the lack of convoluted expression. I really must grab a Faulkner and learn.

But this IS about Mexico, or immigration, or something or other.

(This post was edited by Gringal on Jul 25, 2006, 11:04 AM)

arbon

Jul 25, 2006, 11:12 AM

Post #22 of 29 (3452 views)

Re: [bournemouth] Immigration rats nest

Mexico's official unemployment rate was 1%, a few years ago but the method of calculation was changed.

MEXICO CITY, Thu Jul 20, 2006 4:02pm ET (Reuters) - Mexico's unemployment rate rose to 3.32 percent in June from 2.88 percent in May as an economic recovery picked up pace, the government said on Thursday.
The government said 96.68 percent of the economically active population was employed during the month. Of that total, 40 percent were employed in services, 19 percent were employed in commerce and 16.4 percent worked in manufacturing.

If you worked for one hour in that month you are considered employed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(This post was edited by arbon on Jul 25, 2006, 11:21 AM)

Jul 25, 2006, 11:13 AM

Post #23 of 29 (3451 views)

Re: [Gringal] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

That was supposed to be a private message to Gringal. That´s happened to me twice today. Careless fingers I guess.

(This post was edited by Bubba on Jul 25, 2006, 11:17 AM)

Jul 25, 2006, 4:36 PM

Post #24 of 29 (3382 views)

Re: [donemry] Immigration rats nest

| Private Reply

I am sorry, donemry, you are right: you haven't quoted any statistics in this thread on immigration: you quoted them in another thread on the subject on immigration on the same forum, exactly in the way I mentioned you doing however, and thus my - misguided in this context - reply. As for your challenge: a recent article, backed by both statistics and anegdotal evidence ( sorry, don't remember where ) pointed out stagnation in some areas and in others considerable decline of pay in construction jobs, which, according to the author of this article, were once a ticket to the middle class incomes for the uneducated Americans. The author attributed this stagnation and decline to sharply increased immigration from Mexico. It made - logically - sense to me, based on the law of supply and demand, that if the supply of construction labor increased, the pay stagnated and dropped. However, even if there was a current sharp increase in immigration (which might or might not be true, since any data here could be unreliable) this might not have been the only factor contributing to drop in pay. But I would still consider it a logical hypothesis. Mind you, I am not anti-immigrant: I believe that the whole current "immigration hysteria" in the USA is politically motivated to draw away attention from political failures of the Bush administration and neocons. But if increased immigration is coupled with economic slowdown, it usually leads to oversupply and underdemand.
Vivere non est necesse, navigare necesse est!

Jul 25, 2006, 5:07 PM

Post #25 of 29 (3372 views)