14 years and counting...

Halifax2TheMax

Be prepared for a spike in crime. You know, just because. Sorry I didn’t quote anyone and hope everyone can follow.

The legislation would increase funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to support about 42,000 beds in detention facilities, and it would fund 22,000 Border Patrol agents. It would also cut U.S. contributions by 20 percent to nongovernmental organizations that provide services for new arrivals to the country. Lawmakers who want to restrict immigration argue that the nonprofit groups incentivize illegal crossings.

mace1229

Halifax2TheMax said:

Don’t forget to use the quote feature so everyone can follow along. Or not.

It’s not necessary if you are responding within several days, or if you don’t just randomly throw out “but but emails….” as a typical response, then it’s obvious that you’re actually participating in a discussion.

mace1229

Halifax2TheMax said:

Be prepared for a spike in crime. You know, just because. Sorry I didn’t quote anyone and hope everyone can follow.

The legislation would increase funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to support about 42,000 beds in detention facilities, and it would fund 22,000 Border Patrol agents. It would also cut U.S. contributions by 20 percent to nongovernmental organizations that provide services for new arrivals to the country. Lawmakers who want to restrict immigration argue that the nonprofit groups incentivize illegal crossings.

Just admit you brought up crime already and move on. You clearly brought the topic back up after the conversation was over and done, no one was discussing it, then accused people of being racist for talking about it. Sorry I called you out. Time to move on. 

If you call me racist I’m going to call you on your BS.

nicknyr15

mace1229 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

Be prepared for a spike in crime. You know, just because. Sorry I didn’t quote anyone and hope everyone can follow.

The legislation would increase funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to support about 42,000 beds in detention facilities, and it would fund 22,000 Border Patrol agents. It would also cut U.S. contributions by 20 percent to nongovernmental organizations that provide services for new arrivals to the country. Lawmakers who want to restrict immigration argue that the nonprofit groups incentivize illegal crossings.

Just admit you brought up crime already and move on. You clearly brought the topic back up after the conversation was over and done, then accused people of being racist. Sorry I called you out for it. Time to move on.

Have you ever seen this person apologize or admit when they were wrong? 

Halifax2TheMax

I think what I think. Thread integrity and context.

Crime

As Biden recently recalled: “In 2020, before I took office, the prior administration oversaw the largest increase in murders ever recorded.” By contrast, an FBI data report last week shows, as NBC News noted, “the new fourth-quarter numbers showed a 13% decline in murder in 2023 from 2022, a 6% decline in reported violent crime and a 4% decline in reported property crime.” Analysts suspect that “the biggest factor behind the drop in crime,” the NBC report said, “may simply be the resumption of anti-crime initiatives by local governments and courts that had stopped during the pandemic.” In large part, the American Rescue Plan made that possible with a massive $15 billion infusion to keep police on payroll and to fund a raft of safety initiatives.

“In May 2021, the Justice Department launched our violent crime reduction strategy aimed at addressing the spike in violent crime that occurred during the pandemic,” Attorney General Merrick Garland pointed out in a statement last week. He argued that the department worked “in close partnership with police departments and communities across the country to go after the recidivists and gangs that are responsible for the greatest violence; to seize illegal guns and deadly drugs; to make critical investments in hiring more law enforcement officers; and to fund evidence-based, community violence intervention initiatives.”

Trump’s “migrant crime” claim has been debunked repeatedly. In New York, for example, “police data indicate that there has been no surge in crime since April 2022, when Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas started sending buses of migrants to New York to protest the federal government’s border policy,” the New York Times reported last month. And “many major categories of crime — including rape, murder and shootings — have decreased, according to an analysis of the New York Police Department’s month-by-month statistics since April 2022.”

Nationwide, “the most common finding across all these different kinds of studies is that immigration to an area is either not associated with crime in that area, or is negatively associated with crime in that area,” criminologist Charis Kubrin told CNN last month. “Meaning more immigration equals less crime.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/24/trump-biden-2024-better-off-four-years-ago/

tempo_n_groove

nicknyr15 said:

mace1229 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

Be prepared for a spike in crime. You know, just because. Sorry I didn’t quote anyone and hope everyone can follow.

The legislation would increase funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to support about 42,000 beds in detention facilities, and it would fund 22,000 Border Patrol agents. It would also cut U.S. contributions by 20 percent to nongovernmental organizations that provide services for new arrivals to the country. Lawmakers who want to restrict immigration argue that the nonprofit groups incentivize illegal crossings.

Just admit you brought up crime already and move on. You clearly brought the topic back up after the conversation was over and done, then accused people of being racist. Sorry I called you out for it. Time to move on.

Have you ever seen this person apologize or admit when they were wrong? 

lol hahahahahahahahah!!!

mickeyrat

nicknyr15 said:

mace1229 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

Be prepared for a spike in crime. You know, just because. Sorry I didn’t quote anyone and hope everyone can follow.

The legislation would increase funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to support about 42,000 beds in detention facilities, and it would fund 22,000 Border Patrol agents. It would also cut U.S. contributions by 20 percent to nongovernmental organizations that provide services for new arrivals to the country. Lawmakers who want to restrict immigration argue that the nonprofit groups incentivize illegal crossings.

Just admit you brought up crime already and move on. You clearly brought the topic back up after the conversation was over and done, then accused people of being racist. Sorry I called you out for it. Time to move on.

Have you ever seen this person apologize or admit when they were wrong? 

once

tempo_n_groove

mickeyrat said:

nicknyr15 said:

mace1229 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

Be prepared for a spike in crime. You know, just because. Sorry I didn’t quote anyone and hope everyone can follow.

The legislation would increase funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to support about 42,000 beds in detention facilities, and it would fund 22,000 Border Patrol agents. It would also cut U.S. contributions by 20 percent to nongovernmental organizations that provide services for new arrivals to the country. Lawmakers who want to restrict immigration argue that the nonprofit groups incentivize illegal crossings.

Just admit you brought up crime already and move on. You clearly brought the topic back up after the conversation was over and done, then accused people of being racist. Sorry I called you out for it. Time to move on.

Have you ever seen this person apologize or admit when they were wrong? 

once

Lies.  all lies, lol.

Halifax2TheMax

Yuk, yuk, yuk, hey moe! Hey moe! Wise guy, eh? Why I oughta…

Records confirm Trump’s mother-in-law came to U.S. through process he derided

Melania Trump sponsored her mother to immigrate to the United States through a family-based process that former president Donald Trump aggressively sought to end, according to federal immigration records released Monday.

The records detail for the first time the full path that the former first lady’s mother, Amalija Knavs, followed from Slovenia to the United States — and how the Trump administration’s policies would have made that far more difficult for others. Knavs died inJanuary at age 78.

Trump is the likely Republican candidate for president in the 2024 race against President Biden, a Democrat. The Trump campaign declined to comment through a spokeswoman.

Melania Trump used a legal pathway that her husband and his top advisers had repeatedly disparaged as “chain migration,”the right of U.S. citizens to bring their parents to the United States.

Federal law since 1965 has said U.S. citizens may apply to bring minor children and parents to join them in the United States without having to wait a long time for a visa. Citizens may sponsor siblings and adult children, but they typically wait longer for visas.

During his presidency, Trump endorsed a bill called the RAISE Actthat would have limited priority sponsorship to the spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens, taking parents off the fast-track list.

“The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc.,” Trump tweeted on Dec. 29, 2017. “We must protect our Country at all cost!”

Trump favored implementing a Canadian-style point-based merit system to prioritize skilled workers, which also could have affected Knavs.

On her 2009 immigrant visa application, Knavs said she graduated from high school in 1964 and attended the College for Fashion Design in Slovenia until 1966, though it did not say if she obtained a diploma. She married in 1967.

By the time Knavs applied for an immigrant visa, records show she was fluent in Slovenian but “learning English.” Her citizenship application says she retired in 1998.

Michael Wildes, Knavs’s immigration lawyer, declined to comment on her immigration file in a telephone interview Monday, saying such records are typically confidential. The Washington Post requested the records from the Department of Homeland Security after Knavs’s death, when privacy protections are diminished.

The 165-page immigration file released Monday is heavily redacted in some parts, but it confirms that Knavs was sponsored by an adult child for a green card, and it lists the financial sponsor of the parent as “Melania Trump.”

Wildes, a Democrat, praised family-based immigration as part of a long tradition in the United States and called Trump’s criticism of that system “some of the silly politics of the day.”

He said the Knavses “reveled in becoming citizens in this country,” and that Melania Trump wanted to ensure that her parents were “taken care of” and that they could travel freely to the United States to care for the Trumps’ son, Barron.

Wildes has said that Melania Trump arrived in the United States from Slovenia in 1996 for modeling work and obtained a green card around 2001 based on her “extraordinary ability” as a model.

Records show that Knavs was a regular visitor to the United States after her daughter moved to this country and became a permanent resident.

Melania Trump married Donald Trump in 2005 and had their son the following year. She said she also became a citizen in 2006.

She applied to sponsor her mother for legal permanent residency, known as a green card, in 2008, the records show, and signed an affidavit the following year pledging to support her mother financially.

Knavs became a legal permanent resident, one step before U.S. citizenship, on March 16, 2010.

Green-card holders may apply for U.S. citizenship after five years. But records show Knavs waited longer.

She applied in August 2017, a few months after Trump took office and as he was criticizing “chain migration.”

In May 2018, Knavs appeared in New York for an interview and citizenship test, which involves questions in English and a test on U.S. civics. She correctly answered questions such as the name of the U.S. national anthem (“The Star-Spangled Banner”) and the ocean on the west coast of the United States (Pacific).

Asked “What is the ‘rule of law?’” she gave no answer.

Wildes has said the family received no special treatment. Records show Knavs filled out a citizenship application, answering questions about whether she was associated with the Communist Party (no) and whether she would bear arms to defend the United States (yes). She paid the $725 application fee and said she was living at the time in Trump Tower in New York.

Knavs took the oath of citizenship with her husband Viktor — whose immigration records are not public — on Aug. 9, 2018, in New York, shortly after one of the worst debacles of Trump’s presidency, when his administration separated migrant parents from their children at the southern border without a plan to reunite them.

Melania Trump garnered attention in June 2018 for visiting a children’s shelter on the borderwearing a green jacket with the words on the back, “I really don’t care, do u?”

Wildes had earlier confirmed that Viktor and Amalija Knavs, as well as their other daughter, Ines, who is Barron’s godmother, came to the United States legally with Melania Trump’s help, according to “The Art of Her Deal,” a biography of Melania Trump by Post reporter Mary Jordan.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2024/03/25/trump-melania-parents-chain-migration/

Halifax2TheMax

And Brandon is the senile one?

“Unlike the Democrats, who are KILLING SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE by allowing the INVASION OF THE MIGRANTS, I will NOT, under any circumstance, allow either of these two precious GEMS to be even touched under a Trump Administration. Biden is killing them both with the INVASION, while at the same time destroying our Country!”

— Donald Trump, in a social media post, March 21

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/26/no-donald-trump-migrants-arent-killing-social-security-medicare/

Halifax2TheMax

Who are the people presumed dead in the Baltimore bridge collapse?

The victims are six construction workers who were on the Key Bridge when it collapsed; it’s unclear whether others were killed

The six construction workers who were on the Key Bridge in Baltimore when it collapsed are presumed dead, authorities said Tuesday evening, ending a day-long rescue mission in cold and murky waters.

Officials said Tuesday that the six victims, all employees of Brawner Builders, a general contractor, were repairing masonry and potholes on the bridge when the 985-foot freighter lost power and crashed into the structure, which rose 185 feet above the Patapsco River at its peak height. Among those presumed deceased are Miguel Luna, who has worked for the construction company for about 15 years, his family said; and a 26-year-old and a 35-year-old from Guatemala, the country’s Foreign Ministry said.

Gustavo Torres, the executive director of the Latino and immigrant organization Casa, said Luna was a father of three from El Salvador and “a longtime member of our Casa family, adding an even deeper layer of sorrow to this already grievous situation.”

Marvin Luna, son of Miguel Luna, said he knew his father was on the Key Bridge overnight but did not know it had collapsed until friends called him and said, “The bridge is … gone.”

Marvin Luna then called his father, but no one answered the phone. On Tuesday evening, he was at home in Glen Burnie, Md., desperate for news about his dad.

We’re okay right now because we don’t know yet, nothing about my dad,” Marvin Luna said. “But we still wait.”

Around him, relatives wailed.

As the hours passed Tuesday, with the ship still lodged between pieces of the disintegrated bridge, community members and officials alike grew increasingly anxious for news of victims or survivors. Guatemalan and Salvadoran consulates publicized emergency hotlines on Facebook. Politicians, including President Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, pledged support for families still waiting on news.

Meanwhile, in a Royal Farms convenience store parking lot near Fort Armistead Park, Jesus Campos, an employee at Brawner Builders, paced, waiting for news about his colleagues.

Campos said in Spanish that working on the bridge is harrowing. Construction crews are continually worried about speeding motorists, and the bridge “moves a lot” because of its design and engineering. Last year, six road construction workers were killedwhen a motorist barreled into them along a busy highway in Baltimore County.

“This catastrophe has already disproportionately impacted our city’s immigrant community, one that often toils in demanding and dangerous jobs to the benefit of all who call Baltimore home,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, a Baltimore-based immigrant services nonprofit, said in a statement.

Campos said his colleagues had been on a meal break, sitting in or near their vehicles, when the Dali slammed into the bridge.

Campos said he was not working Monday night but was roused from bed about 5 a.m. Tuesday by a colleague. The co-worker told him two people had been rescued from the water but that six others were missing.

“I’m very sad right now,” Campos said. “These are my co-workers and friends.”

As the sun set Tuesday, officials and residents gathered to pray inside a church in Turner Station, a neighborhood near the foot of where the Key Bridge once stood.

Throughout the hour-long service, clergy and elected officials tried to stay upbeat, discussing the power of community in times of tragedy. But with hope running dry that anyone else might be rescued from the waters, the Rev. Ako Walker of Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Baltimore offered prayers in Spanish, honoring the missing workers, who are said to be immigrants from Latin America.

“Te pedimos por las victimas de este tragedia. Te pedimos por sus familias.”

“We pray for the victims of this tragedy. We pray for their families.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/26/victims-baltimore-key-bridge-collapse/

Halifax2TheMax

Some of us get it. From Letter From An American:

In the past days, we have learned that the six maintenance workers killed when the bridge collapsed were all immigrants, natives of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Around 39% of the workforce in the construction industry around Baltimore and Washington, D.C., about 130,000 people, are immigrants, Scott Dance and María Luisa Paúl reported in the Washington Post yesterday. 

Some of the men were undocumented, and all of them were family men who sent money back to their home countries, as well. From Honduras, the nephew of one of the men killed told the Associated Press, “The kind of work he did is what people born in the U.S. won’t do. People like him travel there with a dream. They don’t want to break anything or take anything.”  
 
In the Philadelphia Inquirer today, journalist Will Bunch castigated the right-wing lawmakers and pundits who have whipped up native-born Americans over immigration, calling immigrants sex traffickers and fentanyl dealers, and even “animals.” Bunch illustrated that the reality of what was happening on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed creates an opportunity to reframe the immigration debate in the United States.

Last month, Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post noted that immigration is a key reason that the United States experienced greater economic growth than any other nation In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The surge of immigration that began in 2022 brought to the U.S. working-age people who, Director Phill Swagel of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office wrote, are expected to make the U.S. gross domestic product about $7 trillion larger over the ten years from 2023 to 2034 than it would have been otherwise. Those workers will account for about $1 trillion dollars in revenues.

The workers who died in the bridge collapse on Tuesday “were not ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’” Will Bunch wrote, quoting Trump; “they were replenishing it…. They may have been born all over the continent, but when these men plunged into our waters on Tuesday, they died as Americans.”

LBCeddie

Please step away from the internet, sir.  

lindamarie73

LBCeddie said:

Please step away from the internet, sir.  

Come on man…it’s like AIR to some of these people.   Can’t exist w/o it!! 

For a laugh check out what Peter Buttigieg had to say about some bridges….no wonder that goof is so adored around these parts.  

brianlux

Halifax2TheMax said:

Some of us get it. From Letter From An American:

In the past days, we have learned that the six maintenance workers killed when the bridge collapsed were all immigrants, natives of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Around 39% of the workforce in the construction industry around Baltimore and Washington, D.C., about 130,000 people, are immigrants, Scott Dance and María Luisa Paúl reported in the Washington Post yesterday. 

Some of the men were undocumented, and all of them were family men who sent money back to their home countries, as well. From Honduras, the nephew of one of the men killed told the Associated Press, “The kind of work he did is what people born in the U.S. won’t do. People like him travel there with a dream. They don’t want to break anything or take anything.”  
 
In the Philadelphia Inquirer today, journalist Will Bunch castigated the right-wing lawmakers and pundits who have whipped up native-born Americans over immigration, calling immigrants sex traffickers and fentanyl dealers, and even “animals.” Bunch illustrated that the reality of what was happening on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed creates an opportunity to reframe the immigration debate in the United States.

Last month, Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post noted that immigration is a key reason that the United States experienced greater economic growth than any other nation In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The surge of immigration that began in 2022 brought to the U.S. working-age people who, Director Phill Swagel of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office wrote, are expected to make the U.S. gross domestic product about $7 trillion larger over the ten years from 2023 to 2034 than it would have been otherwise. Those workers will account for about $1 trillion dollars in revenues.

The workers who died in the bridge collapse on Tuesday “were not ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’” Will Bunch wrote, quoting Trump; “they were replenishing it…. They may have been born all over the continent, but when these men plunged into our waters on Tuesday, they died as Americans.”

Huge amounts of work in this country would not get done if it were not for immigrants, particularly those from Mexico, Central, and South America.  There is a simple reason for this- too many Americans believe it is beneath them to do hard, physical, manual labor.  If every young person took their turn at doing this kind of work, there would not be the need for so many migrant workers.  But the need is there and these people are willing to do it and we would do well to respect, compensate, and thank them for that work.
And if anyone is wondering, yes, I've done my time at manual labor.  I eventually did do professional work as an educator (elementary school and later college), but at various times in my life, I worked as a picker on a farm, cleaned animal kennels, did grunt work at a sign company, worked in a cannery, and worked in a sweat shop folding aprons.  Like I said, everyone who is physically able should do their time at this kind of work. 

Halifax2TheMax

brianlux said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

Some of us get it. From Letter From An American:

In the past days, we have learned that the six maintenance workers killed when the bridge collapsed were all immigrants, natives of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Around 39% of the workforce in the construction industry around Baltimore and Washington, D.C., about 130,000 people, are immigrants, Scott Dance and María Luisa Paúl reported in the Washington Post yesterday. 

Some of the men were undocumented, and all of them were family men who sent money back to their home countries, as well. From Honduras, the nephew of one of the men killed told the Associated Press, “The kind of work he did is what people born in the U.S. won’t do. People like him travel there with a dream. They don’t want to break anything or take anything.”  
 
In the Philadelphia Inquirer today, journalist Will Bunch castigated the right-wing lawmakers and pundits who have whipped up native-born Americans over immigration, calling immigrants sex traffickers and fentanyl dealers, and even “animals.” Bunch illustrated that the reality of what was happening on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed creates an opportunity to reframe the immigration debate in the United States.

Last month, Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post noted that immigration is a key reason that the United States experienced greater economic growth than any other nation In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The surge of immigration that began in 2022 brought to the U.S. working-age people who, Director Phill Swagel of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office wrote, are expected to make the U.S. gross domestic product about $7 trillion larger over the ten years from 2023 to 2034 than it would have been otherwise. Those workers will account for about $1 trillion dollars in revenues.

The workers who died in the bridge collapse on Tuesday “were not ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’” Will Bunch wrote, quoting Trump; “they were replenishing it…. They may have been born all over the continent, but when these men plunged into our waters on Tuesday, they died as Americans.”

Huge amounts of work in this country would not get done if it were not for immigrants, particularly those from Mexico, Central, and South America.  There is a simple reason for this- too many Americans believe it is beneath them to do hard, physical, manual labor.  If every young person took their turn at doing this kind of work, there would not be the need for so many migrant workers.  But the need is there and these people are willing to do it and we would do well to respect, compensate, and thank them for that work.
And if anyone is wondering, yes, I've done my time at manual labor.  I eventually did do professional work as an educator (elementary school and later college), but at various times in my life, I worked as a picker on a farm, cleaned animal kennels, did grunt work at a sign company, worked in a cannery, and worked in a sweat shop folding aprons.  Like I said, everyone who is physically able should do their time at this kind of work. 

Repubs want 12 and 14 year old kids doing that kind of work so we won’t need the “other.” Welcome back to the Jungle and Triangle Shirt Waist Factory.

brianlux

Halifax2TheMax said:

brianlux said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

Some of us get it. From Letter From An American:

In the past days, we have learned that the six maintenance workers killed when the bridge collapsed were all immigrants, natives of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Around 39% of the workforce in the construction industry around Baltimore and Washington, D.C., about 130,000 people, are immigrants, Scott Dance and María Luisa Paúl reported in the Washington Post yesterday. 

Some of the men were undocumented, and all of them were family men who sent money back to their home countries, as well. From Honduras, the nephew of one of the men killed told the Associated Press, “The kind of work he did is what people born in the U.S. won’t do. People like him travel there with a dream. They don’t want to break anything or take anything.”  
 
In the Philadelphia Inquirer today, journalist Will Bunch castigated the right-wing lawmakers and pundits who have whipped up native-born Americans over immigration, calling immigrants sex traffickers and fentanyl dealers, and even “animals.” Bunch illustrated that the reality of what was happening on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed creates an opportunity to reframe the immigration debate in the United States.

Last month, Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post noted that immigration is a key reason that the United States experienced greater economic growth than any other nation In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The surge of immigration that began in 2022 brought to the U.S. working-age people who, Director Phill Swagel of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office wrote, are expected to make the U.S. gross domestic product about $7 trillion larger over the ten years from 2023 to 2034 than it would have been otherwise. Those workers will account for about $1 trillion dollars in revenues.

The workers who died in the bridge collapse on Tuesday “were not ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’” Will Bunch wrote, quoting Trump; “they were replenishing it…. They may have been born all over the continent, but when these men plunged into our waters on Tuesday, they died as Americans.”

Huge amounts of work in this country would not get done if it were not for immigrants, particularly those from Mexico, Central, and South America.  There is a simple reason for this- too many Americans believe it is beneath them to do hard, physical, manual labor.  If every young person took their turn at doing this kind of work, there would not be the need for so many migrant workers.  But the need is there and these people are willing to do it and we would do well to respect, compensate, and thank them for that work.
And if anyone is wondering, yes, I've done my time at manual labor.  I eventually did do professional work as an educator (elementary school and later college), but at various times in my life, I worked as a picker on a farm, cleaned animal kennels, did grunt work at a sign company, worked in a cannery, and worked in a sweat shop folding aprons.  Like I said, everyone who is physically able should do their time at this kind of work. 

Repubs want 12 and 14 year old kids doing that kind of work so we won’t need the “other.” Welcome back to the Jungle and Triangle Shirt Waist Factory.

I occasionally worked with my 12 and 14 year old nephews picking peas at a small farm in western Washington (state), but that's because they wanted to to do it and make a little money over the summer.  But at that age, no kid should be forced into labor.  On the other hand, I have no problem with parents expecting kids to do chores.  Does that even happen any more?  I don't think so.

I visited a private school once that had a complete integrated curriculum.  The kids only spent half of the school day doing desk work.  The rest of the school day was spent doing constructive things like gardening, making things, home economics (for both boys and girls), crafts, etc., and those hands-on activities were tied in with subjects like math and English.  Those kids were happy, well adjusted, cooperative, and had a later-life career success rate that far excelled that of the average public school.  Given the right motivation and encouragement, kids like working and they like the sense of pride and accomplishment that comes from doing a good job.  I've seen it first hand.  But no, I'm not talking about forced child labor.  No way.

tempo_n_groove

brianlux said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

Some of us get it. From Letter From An American:

In the past days, we have learned that the six maintenance workers killed when the bridge collapsed were all immigrants, natives of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Around 39% of the workforce in the construction industry around Baltimore and Washington, D.C., about 130,000 people, are immigrants, Scott Dance and María Luisa Paúl reported in the Washington Post yesterday. 

Some of the men were undocumented, and all of them were family men who sent money back to their home countries, as well. From Honduras, the nephew of one of the men killed told the Associated Press, “The kind of work he did is what people born in the U.S. won’t do. People like him travel there with a dream. They don’t want to break anything or take anything.”  
 
In the Philadelphia Inquirer today, journalist Will Bunch castigated the right-wing lawmakers and pundits who have whipped up native-born Americans over immigration, calling immigrants sex traffickers and fentanyl dealers, and even “animals.” Bunch illustrated that the reality of what was happening on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed creates an opportunity to reframe the immigration debate in the United States.

Last month, Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post noted that immigration is a key reason that the United States experienced greater economic growth than any other nation In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The surge of immigration that began in 2022 brought to the U.S. working-age people who, Director Phill Swagel of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office wrote, are expected to make the U.S. gross domestic product about $7 trillion larger over the ten years from 2023 to 2034 than it would have been otherwise. Those workers will account for about $1 trillion dollars in revenues.

The workers who died in the bridge collapse on Tuesday “were not ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’” Will Bunch wrote, quoting Trump; “they were replenishing it…. They may have been born all over the continent, but when these men plunged into our waters on Tuesday, they died as Americans.”

Huge amounts of work in this country would not get done if it were not for immigrants, particularly those from Mexico, Central, and South America.  There is a simple reason for this- too many Americans believe it is beneath them to do hard, physical, manual labor.  If every young person took their turn at doing this kind of work, there would not be the need for so many migrant workers.  But the need is there and these people are willing to do it and we would do well to respect, compensate, and thank them for that work.
And if anyone is wondering, yes, I've done my time at manual labor.  I eventually did do professional work as an educator (elementary school and later college), but at various times in my life, I worked as a picker on a farm, cleaned animal kennels, did grunt work at a sign company, worked in a cannery, and worked in a sweat shop folding aprons.  Like I said, everyone who is physically able should do their time at this kind of work. 

Landscaping which I did in school is unheard of for kids to do now.  All the companies are Hispanic now here in my area.  They all undercut prices so it is fairly cheap.  I have no idea what the going rate is now for a daily wage.  Professionals would make 100 a day in the early 90's so no idea what they are supposed to be making.

Deli's and fast food places also have no kids working in them.  I see the occasional teen working in one and marvel at it.  We discussed this in another thread where these positions have become permanent jobs for some folks where they used to be a stepping stone.

Construction throughout the states is all over the place.  I was approached by other companies to get hired but after hearing the pay they offered I could see why they didn't have people that wanted to stay with them.

Alaska was the only place I can think of where the work was brutal but the pay was worth it.

brianlux

tempo_n_groove said:

brianlux said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

Some of us get it. From Letter From An American:

In the past days, we have learned that the six maintenance workers killed when the bridge collapsed were all immigrants, natives of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Around 39% of the workforce in the construction industry around Baltimore and Washington, D.C., about 130,000 people, are immigrants, Scott Dance and María Luisa Paúl reported in the Washington Post yesterday. 

Some of the men were undocumented, and all of them were family men who sent money back to their home countries, as well. From Honduras, the nephew of one of the men killed told the Associated Press, “The kind of work he did is what people born in the U.S. won’t do. People like him travel there with a dream. They don’t want to break anything or take anything.”  
 
In the Philadelphia Inquirer today, journalist Will Bunch castigated the right-wing lawmakers and pundits who have whipped up native-born Americans over immigration, calling immigrants sex traffickers and fentanyl dealers, and even “animals.” Bunch illustrated that the reality of what was happening on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed creates an opportunity to reframe the immigration debate in the United States.

Last month, Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post noted that immigration is a key reason that the United States experienced greater economic growth than any other nation In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The surge of immigration that began in 2022 brought to the U.S. working-age people who, Director Phill Swagel of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office wrote, are expected to make the U.S. gross domestic product about $7 trillion larger over the ten years from 2023 to 2034 than it would have been otherwise. Those workers will account for about $1 trillion dollars in revenues.

The workers who died in the bridge collapse on Tuesday “were not ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’” Will Bunch wrote, quoting Trump; “they were replenishing it…. They may have been born all over the continent, but when these men plunged into our waters on Tuesday, they died as Americans.”

Huge amounts of work in this country would not get done if it were not for immigrants, particularly those from Mexico, Central, and South America.  There is a simple reason for this- too many Americans believe it is beneath them to do hard, physical, manual labor.  If every young person took their turn at doing this kind of work, there would not be the need for so many migrant workers.  But the need is there and these people are willing to do it and we would do well to respect, compensate, and thank them for that work.
And if anyone is wondering, yes, I've done my time at manual labor.  I eventually did do professional work as an educator (elementary school and later college), but at various times in my life, I worked as a picker on a farm, cleaned animal kennels, did grunt work at a sign company, worked in a cannery, and worked in a sweat shop folding aprons.  Like I said, everyone who is physically able should do their time at this kind of work. 

Landscaping which I did in school is unheard of for kids to do now.  All the companies are Hispanic now here in my area.  They all undercut prices so it is fairly cheap.  I have no idea what the going rate is now for a daily wage.  Professionals would make 100 a day in the early 90's so no idea what they are supposed to be making.

Deli's and fast food places also have no kids working in them.  I see the occasional teen working in one and marvel at it.  We discussed this in another thread where these positions have become permanent jobs for some folks where they used to be a stepping stone.

Construction throughout the states is all over the place.  I was approached by other companies to get hired but after hearing the pay they offered I could see why they didn't have people that wanted to stay with them.

Alaska was the only place I can think of where the work was brutal but the pay was worth it.

You were fishing up in AK as I recall, right?  My step daughter lives in Alaska now.  She easily found work up there when she first went there a number of years ago, and even though it was just retail, it paid fairly well.  (She's now working as a paralegal.  The kid's so damn smart it's scary.  She got the position with a college degree- just by her wits and abilities!) 

We have the same situation with landscaping here.  Almost- maybe even virtually- all in the business are Hispanics.  With PG&E doing a lot of work to clear limbs from around power polls, we have many crews doing arborist work- again, most are Hispanics. That's high paying work, but apparently only Hispanics want to do it.

Trade positions here, including plumbing, electrical, house painting, flooring, etc., seems to be done mostly by Caucasian workers.  Those jobs pay really well but there is a real shortage of people in those trades here.  It's hard work.  Most younger people want jobs sitting behind a computer. 

But now I have to stop short of saying more about younger people.  Otherwise I might sound like a cranky old man which, of course. I am not...

...right?   

mickeyrat

erm....

https://twitter.com/MikeSington/status/1775862416343236943?s=19