In 40 years of teaching, I did not hear the parents once that they wanted their child to grow up as a field worker. To own and manage a farm, yes.
I also did not hear that parents hoped that their child would be waiting in a parking lot for Home Depot and was concerned with low wages for a long day at a building location. To lead the construction companies, safe.
Politicians want jobs to “return to America”. Why should companies uproot factories to pay higher wages, to follow OSHA security guidelines and to follow the environmental regulations? To encourage them, the administration at the workplace greeted security guidelines and environmental regulations.
They reject any increase in the federal minimum wage of 7.25 US dollars – which will now not buy pound beef meat meat in Safeway.
Do the parents strive for their children to make immigrants in meat packaging factories for minimum wages, under unpacked security and environmental protection, where workers wear diapers because bathroom breaks are not allowed?
Some want teenagers to do these jobs after school. It doesn't matter whether you have time or energy for homework or fall asleep in class: Can the gap of literally millions of migrants who are detained and deported after school? Can Medicaid work? Medicaid recipients are already able to work.
America used to welcome immigrants who worked for the advantages of citizenship. Many did these jobs that others didn't want. Her children became small business owners, teachers, nurses: participation members of our society.
You may think: “Yes, but you went through the legal process.” This is how many immigrants are now circulating. Refugees, owner of Green Card and those who crossed the border and have registered with the authorities, are arrested – during their immigration lists.
We ask you to “do it right” and then attack you.
Some are annoyed about “lazy illegals” who accept services without paying taxes. But you pay taxes – sales tax if you buy food or tie up a car. You will not receive food stamps or schnapppf functions, although the right wing influencer tells you.
It is true that hospitals do not reject people who need emergency care. If I were approached by a car in another country, I hope that doctors would concentrate on saving my life and not looking for my papers.
If immigrants are lazy, how does it come to pick you up on construction sites? Why are employers – the tools have to check whether someone is a citizen, if they hire them – confronted with consequences? Didn't you suggest “illegal” to come?
It seems to me that we got things backwards. Of course we don't want violent criminals to come here. But ICE admits that most of the “illegals” that are picked up have no criminal convictions: they are the wage workers who pick our fruit and vegetables, build our houses, wipe the floors and pull the weeds and clean the bathrooms in our schools and hotels and nursing homes.
Let us reduce the temperature and bring reality and compassion into immigration.
Susanne Weil
Onolas