[DVNT]

Is this a national thing or is it just here?

I guess word is they are protesting the new law that just passed.

Anyhoo.... News trucks and Helicoptors are around. Should be interesting to see if there is an impact.

 

[biggins]

aww damn the illegal immigrants are striking for their rights. WTF are they thinking? All they are doing is calling attention to themselves. however only in America will you find illegal immigrants getting their way, which they will. However i dont really care, i wouldnt do most of the jobs they do and if it were not for them agriculture and sheetrock industries would collapse.

 

[DVNT]

Hahaha!!!

I just over heard a co-worker say the were supposed to march to the state capitol but they never applied for the proper permits to protest.

 

[MudGrrl]

this whole situation is messed up.

 

[DVNT]

here's what i was looking for

Other protests are planned in Atlanta, where an alliance of Hispanic organizations is encouraging Latino residents to participate in a commercial boycott and work stoppage Friday to demonstrate how Latinos help bolster the Georgia economy.

CNN

The bill, which must get Senate approval before going to Gov. Sonny Perdue, would deny taxpayer-funded benefits to adults living in the U.S. illegally and impose a 5 percent surcharge on wire transfers from illegal immigrants. It also attempts to ensure companies with public contracts hire only workers who are in the country legally and penalize any company that hires illegal immigrants. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Chip Rogers of Woodstock.

Members of the March 17th Alliance said members of the Hispanic community work hard in Georgia. Members of the one-week-old group said they will use their economic power to make sure Georgia legislators hear their concerns about the bill, which passed the House on Thursday by a 123-to-51 vote.

Georgia agricultural commissioner Tommy Irvin said he received no reports of immigrant work stoppages on farms throughout the state. He also noted that few crops are being harvested this time of year.

 

[Dirty]

Reminds me of this article i read for my HR course...

March 5, 2006
Economic View
The Search for Illegal Immigrants Stops at the Workplace
By EDUARDO PORTER

IT may seem that the United States government has declared all-out war against illegal immigration. During the last decade, the budget dedicated to enforcement of immigration laws has grown by leaps and bounds. The Border Patrol has about three times as many agents as it did in the early 1990's, and the southern border has been laced with high-tech surveillance gadgetry.

Yet a closer look reveals a very different portrait of immigration policy. It seems designed for failure. Most experts agree that a vast majority of illegal immigrants who make it across the border every year are seeking work. But the workplace is the one spot that is virtually unpoliced.

"What we've done is put a lot of people on the line of scrimmage, but when you do that the other side can just lob a little pass and score a touchdown," said Richard M. Stana, director of homeland security and justice issues at the Government Accountability Office. "Trying to get a better balance between border enforcement and interior enforcement would go a long way."

In a strategy document in 1999, the Immigration and Naturalization Service put monitoring the workplace last among its five enforcement priorities. Today, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has replaced the I.N.S. and is a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, devotes about 4 percent of its personnel to enforcement in the workplace, down from 9 percent in 1999.

Demographers estimate that six million to seven million illegal immigrants are working in the United States; that is some 5 percent of the nation's work force. Yet in 2004, the latest year for which there is data, the immigration authorities issued penalty notices to only three companies.

The current approach hasn't halted illegal immigration: some 400,000 to 500,000 illegal immigrants enter the United States every year, almost double the rate of the 1980's, before the buildup in border enforcement.

Regardless of whether the United States ought to have more or less immigration, the nation's policy must be flawed when almost half of all immigrants come in illegally. Indeed, some experts argue that the basic reason illegal immigration hasn't stopped is that the country doesn't want it to. Gordon H. Hanson, an economist at the University of California, San Diego, said the ineffective approach was the product of a collection of interests.

"Employers feel very strongly about maintaining access to immigrant workers, and exert political pressure to prevent enforcement from being effective," Professor Hanson said. "While there are lots of groups concerned about immigration on the other side" of the argument, "it's not like their livelihood depends on this."

Employers have long been the main driver of immigration policy, Professor Hanson said. Not surprisingly, they tend to dislike the provision in current immigration law for penalties against employers.

That may explain why fines for hiring illegal immigrants can be as low as $275 a worker, and immigration officials acknowledge that businesses often negotiate fines downward. And why, after the I.N.S. raided onion fields in Georgia during the 1998 harvest, a senator and four members of the House of Representatives from the state sharply criticized the agency for hurting Georgia farmers.

After the terrorist attacks of 2001, the government limited immigration enforcement in the workplace to what it deemed "critical infrastructure" — places like nuclear power plants and airports — that could be vulnerable to terrorism. Even in the late 1990's when the economy was booming and labor markets were tight, the I.N.S. virtually stopped looking for illegal immigrants in the workplace.

Employers might not favor a guest worker program to allow immigrants to work here legally, if such a program included harsher policing of the workplace. "A guest worker program would offer secure legal access to immigrant labor, but at the risk that this labor would come in smaller quantities or with more strings attached," Professor Hanson said.

The immigration law of 1986 contained a basic flaw. Congress barred employers from hiring illegal immigrants, but it didn't provide a reliable way for employers to check an immigrant's status.

For less than $50, immigrants can buy a set of fake documents — usually a Social Security card and green card, indicating permanent residency — to get a job. The fake ID's provide employers with crucial protection in the eyes of the law: companies can plausibly deny that they knew they were hiring people without legal permission to work.

The upshot is that millions of illegal immigrants work on the books, with the odd side effect that the Social Security Administration receives millions of Form W2 wage reports from employers that bear random Social Security numbers.

In 1996 the inspector general of the Justice Department warned that fraudulent documents were allowing unscrupulous employers to avoid accountability for hiring illegal immigrants. If the government decided to halt, or at least substantially dent, the flow of these immigrants into the work force, it would find that it probably already has the tools.

Since 1997, immigration authorities and the Social Security Administration have been running a voluntary pilot program that allows employers to check worker documentation on the spot — matching documents against government databases over the Internet.

This system could end employers' deniability, because they could determine quickly whether a given employee was authorized to work in the United States. That's probably why so few companies have signed up: only about 2,300 of the more than six million employers across the country.

EVEN if such a system became mandatory, people might continue to hire illegal immigrants as nannies and housekeepers, and to pay them in cash. Small businesses operating under the radar might also hire them off the books.

Yet many illegal immigrants work on the books. For employers, it is one thing to fail to question the dubious provenance of Social Security cards. It is quite another to overtly break the law.

Ramping up the pilot program into a mandatory national one would be costly. The Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration would have to make their databases compatible. Glitches — such as different spellings for the same name — would have to be ironed out.

But these difficulties do not seem insurmountable, especially when set against the Department of Homeland Security's enormous and utterly ineffective effort to stop illegal immigration at the border.

So why hasn't workplace enforcement increased? "It's an open question," said Mr. Stana of the G.A.O. "Have we turned a blind eye to this in the interest of keeping the economy humming?"

 

[BurlyShirley]

Hahhahah! This is the stupidest thing Ive heard in a while. They should just park a bunch of US Immigration trucks outside of wherever they are going to protest and start rounding them up.

 

[Westy]

Hahhahah! This is the stupidest thing Ive heard in a while. They should just park a bunch of US Immigration trucks outside of wherever they are going to protest and start rounding them up.

Then all constructions jobs would come to a halt. Dishes in restaurants wouldn't get washed. Crops would rot on the vine, and on and on.

It is a messed up situation. They are breaking the law, but at the same time they are a very important part of the US economy.

 

[BurlyShirley]

Then all constructions jobs would come to a halt. Dishes in restaurants wouldn't get washed. Crops would rot on the vine, and on and on.

It is a messed up situation. They are breaking the law, but at the same time they are a very important part of the US economy.

Im not actually saying to deport them all. Just to stop them from protesting and to get back to making my nachos, goddamit.

 

[LordOpie]

aww damn the illegal immigrants are striking for their rights. WTF are they thinking? All they are doing is calling attention to themselves. however only in America will you find illegal immigrants getting their way, which they will. However i dont really care, i wouldnt do most of the jobs they do and if it were not for them agriculture and sheetrock industries would collapse.

dude, you're commenting without having any clue of the situation. Just FYI.

Im not actually saying to deport them all. Just to stop them from protesting and to get back to making my nachos, goddamit.

POTD... you military guys do do more before 9am than most people all day.

 

[bmxr]

Im not actually saying to deport them all. Just to stop them from protesting and to get back to making my nachos, goddamit.

Obvious joke, but funny nonetheless.

 

[sanjuro]

1. Living in California, I am going to hear about it more than someone far away from Mexico. However, I also see plenty of Latinos, at my job and in my neighborhood. They are doing the tasks which I would not want to do, like pick up the trash, cook the food, or child care.
2. Many of the protestors are not illegal immigrants, or even immigrants. They have family who might be illegal, and that does mean something as well. It is easy to kick out someone who has no ties to our country, a little harder if they have people here.
3. Finally, this is such an easy target, illegal immigration. I know every person has very little to fear from immigrants. Just the fact you know how post on Ridemonkey means you are way more qualified than 99% of all immigrants.

 

[bigdrop05]

From what i hear The illegals are NEVER going back.They are here to STAY !...
So if that's the case,then honor them a temporary green card{fingerprint,get whatever name,etc} & charge thier azz $50 each..
Should generate some revenue there....
I pisses me off they aren't even paying a gate charge..Running across FREE of charge & illegal..

Wow this country is really "on the ball" ha LOL LOL LOL LOL

 

[fluff]

From what i hear The illegals are NEVER going back.They are here to STAY !...
So if that's the case,then honor them a temporary green card{fingerprint,get whatever name,etc} & charge thier azz $50 each..
Should generate some revenue there....
I pisses me off they aren't even paying a gate charge..Running across FREE of charge & illegal..

Wow this country is really "on the ball" ha LOL LOL LOL LOL

If they're here to stay what would be the point of a temporary green card?

 

[Andyman_1970]

I got into a knock down drag out on the Christian forum I post on about this very subject with respect to what the church should do. I was on the side of as Jesus' hands and feet here we should take care of these people.........while the super fundy republican told me I was a sissy and they should all be arrested..........nice

 

[fluff]

I got into a knock down drag out on the Christian forum I post on about this very subject with respect to what the church should do. I was on the side of as Jesus' hands and feet here we should take care of these people.........while the super fundy republican told me I was a sissy and they should all be arrested..........nice

Arguing with Christians, eh? What were you thinking...

 

[Old Man G Funk]

Arguing with Christians, eh? What were you thinking...

Indeed. They have god on their side. You can't win that argument.

 

[fluff]

Indeed. They have god on their side. You can't win that argument.

Yeah, and you've got science and a boundless enthusiasm for the last word on yours....:devil:

 

[BurlyShirley]

Why dont we set up 'work camps' for the illegals?

 

[fluff]

Why dont we set up 'work camps' for the illegals?

You serious?

 

[BurlyShirley]

You serious?

You know, they'd get three square a day, we could put them to all kinds of community service projects, pay them little and tax alot. And they wouldnt be allowed to quit either.
Then we'll see how many are scrambling to get over the border...

 

[fluff]

You know, they'd get three square a day, we could put them to all kinds of community service projects, pay them little and tax alot. And they wouldnt be allowed to quit either.
Then we'll see how many are scrambling to get over the border...

Plenty - to fill the positions left vacant by your little scheme...?

 

[Old Man G Funk]

Yeah, and you've got science and a boundless enthusiasm for the last word on yours....:devil:

A) I'd much rather have science than religion on my side.
B) I don't care about the last word so much as being right. So there.

 

[Andyman_1970]

Arguing with Christians, eh? What were you thinking...

Yeah after that discussion I was (am) pretty discouraged with the state of most evangleical Christians on this matter.............the whole blindly following G. W. Bush, Foxnews, Ann Coulter is pretty sad IMO.

 

[BurlyShirley]

We should have just kept mexico when we conquered it...

 

[Old Man G Funk]

Yeah after that discussion I was (am) pretty discouraged with the state of most evangleical Christians on this matter.............the whole blindly following G. W. Bush, Foxnews, Ann Coulter is pretty sad IMO.

It's pretty sad when anyone blindly follows anyone else. Even more so when anyone blindly follows GWB, Fox news, Ann Coulter, etc. And, even worse when people follow GWB, Fox news, Ann Coulter, etc. and know perfectly well what they are doing.

 

[fluff]

It's pretty sad when anyone blindly follows anyone else. Even more so when anyone blindly follows GWB, Fox news, Ann Coulter, etc. And, even worse when people follow GWB, Fox news, Ann Coulter, etc. and know perfectly well what they are doing.

Now that's a perfect example....

boundless enthusiasm for the last word

 

[sanjuro]

You know, they'd get three square a day, we could put them to all kinds of community service projects, pay them little and tax alot. And they wouldnt be allowed to quit either.
Then we'll see how many are scrambling to get over the border...

Guess what, it is already happening. It is called "Migrant Worker".

BTW, BS, you're unemployed, right?

 

[The Amish]

3. Finally, this is such an easy target, illegal immigration. I know every person has very little to fear from immigrants. Just the fact you know how post on Ridemonkey means you are way more qualified than 99% of all immigrants.

Great! So lets just invite these idiots into the country with open arms. As if our society wasnt dumb enough

 

[valve bouncer]

Great! So lets just invite these idiots into the country with open arms. As if our society wasnt dumb enough

I know you're doing your best to prove it.

 

[The Amish]

With a little help from my friends

 

[valve bouncer]

With a little help from my friends

You're a funny f*cker. I don't agree with most that you say but I'd buy you a beer any day. Ya wanker.

 

[BurlyShirley]

Guess what, it is already happening. It is called "Migrant Worker".

BTW, BS, you're unemployed, right?

I work when I want.

 

[dante]

We should have just kept mexico when we conquered it...

you know, Mexico has oil... I think I hear a "Mexico has WMD" speech starting up pretty soon. Will be followed shortly by the "Mexico harbors terrorists", "After 9/11, we can't for Mexico to obtain Nukular weapons" and "Vicente Fox is a murdering madman who wouldn't hesitate to aid our enemies."

 

[Alpha Kenny Body]

you know, Mexico has oil... I think I hear a "Mexico has WMD" speech starting up pretty soon. Will be followed shortly by the "Mexico harbors terrorists", "After 9/11, we can't for Mexico to obtain Nukular weapons" and "Vicente Fox is a murdering madman who wouldn't hesitate to aid our enemies."

jajajaja, anyways, how do you feel about Mexico and terrorism, do you think terrorist may enter to US from the mexican border? Every time i hear about terrorist planning an attack to the US i can only think that the government wants to keep american citizens scared so they'll approve any new law. I know 9/11 is deep ****, and the US needs to do some changes, but to stop the incoming of cheap labour = problems.
I know illegals aren't in US to make it better, they want money have a better life for themselves and their families, but immigrants makes life a lot easier for some guys, they know immigrants are deseperated to get any job, at any cost.
I want to know how some of you monkeys feel about cheap immigrant workers, do you think they are the enemies or tools to a better life or anything else

 

[sanjuro]

I work when I want.

That's funny. Most immigrants work all the time because they HAVE TOO!

 

[sanjuro]

jajajaja, anyways, how do you feel about Mexico and terrorism, do you think terrorist may enter to US from the mexican border? Every time i hear about terrorist planning an attack to the US i can only think that the government wants to keep american citizens scared so they'll approve any new law. I know 9/11 is deep ****, and the US needs to do some changes, but to stop the incoming of cheap labour = problems.
I know illegals aren't in US to make it better, they want money have a better life for themselves and their families, but immigrants makes life a lot easier for some guys, they know immigrants are deseperated to get any job, at any cost.
I want to know how some of you monkeys feel about cheap immigrant workers, do you think they are the enemies or tools to a better life or anything else

To be frank, a fence across the border doesn't bother me, except for the cost. It will seem unfriendly, but Mexico does very little to stem the tide of illegal immigration and drug smuggling.

However, I would make it easier for illegal immigrants to receive Green Cards. No point in sending people back.

 

[BurlyShirley]

That's funny. Most immigrants work all the time because they HAVE TOO!

Heh, that is funny, isnt it? Suckers.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

jajajaja, anyways, how do you feel about Mexico and terrorism, do you think terrorist may enter to US from the mexican border? Every time i hear about terrorist planning an attack to the US i can only think that the government wants to keep american citizens scared so they'll approve any new law. I know 9/11 is deep ****, and the US needs to do some changes, but to stop the incoming of cheap labour = problems.
I know illegals aren't in US to make it better, they want money have a better life for themselves and their families, but immigrants makes life a lot easier for some guys, they know immigrants are deseperated to get any job, at any cost.
I want to know how some of you monkeys feel about cheap immigrant workers, do you think they are the enemies or tools to a better life or anything else

Meh...I'm kinda ambivolent about illegals. I worked landscaping with a crew that was quite questionable for awhile in high school. They were aight, had families that came with them, worked 6 10's a week, and were generally on time and not hungover. Hell, I think I came to work hungover (or still drunk...stupid parties.) more than they did combined.

However, I had a drive to want to learn as much as I could about what I was doing. They didn't. They went through the motions of whatever our boss said. Sometimes they weren't too motivated to actually do what needed to be done, so I kicked it up a notch myself and I was the one that reaped the benefits. So, when the next year came around, I was suddenly earning 1.50 more an hour while their rate went up a buck. Next year, me=2 bucks more, them=a buck. I was all of a sudden working whole projects myself, while they weren't.

I'm not saying that that's bad by any stretch, I'm merely saying that the way people apply themselves to different ends is very important. I got more money to be able to do what I wanted....They could've been earning just as much and been able to go and spend that on the pimped Neon they drove to work every morning....As well as actually saving some money up in the process...

I'm not one for slacking off (too much...) whenever I can, and I expect everyone else to row with the team just as hard as I am. If you don't.....well, then we have an issue that needs resolving.

I realize that everyone has their own level of "working hard"...but if you're going to be part of our country, no slacking off.

Put up or shut up.

 

[ohio]

but if you're going to be part of our country, no slacking off.

Yeah, I agree. No 4 months of vacation per year at the ranch your daddy's money paid for.