ILLEGALS PLEASE DONT TAKE MY JOB !

I love concrete cutting and I want to keep my job. I love taking care of my customers and putting in a hard days work.  I am a white caucasion male.  I am a Christian and I love everybody. I am not racist . I am not a bigot. I love my country and I love the flag .  But I can't make it on 10 bucks an hour with no benefits.  I want to preserve the quality of life in this country. And I want people from other countries to get that same opportunity.  I just hope and pray our goverment won't let us down and come up with an orginized way  for people to come into this country to work and get that opportunity. Please save us CSDA!

signed,

A happy concrete cutter in Southern Utah who likes his job, but needs to learn Spanish becase he can't communicate anymore with any of the other Subs.

Ben Syphus

Arrival of aliens ousts U.S. workers

By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 10, 2006

An Alabama employment agency that sent 70 laborers and construction workers to job sites in that state in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina says the men were sent home after just two weeks on the job by employers who told them "the Mexicans had arrived" and were willing to work for less.
    Linda Swope, who operates Complete Employment Services Inc. in Mobile, Ala., told The Washington Times last week that the workers -- whom she described as U.S. citizens, residents of Alabama and predominantly black -- had been "urgently requested" by contractors hired to rebuild and clear devastated areas of the state, but were told to leave three job sites when the foreign workers showed up.
    "After Katrina, our company had 70 workers on the job the first day, but the companies decided they didn't need them anymore because the Mexicans had arrived," Mrs. Swope said. "I assure you it is not true that Americans don't want to work.
    "We had been told that 270 jobs might be available, and we could have filled every one of them with men from this area, most of whom lost their jobs because of the hurricane," she said. "When we told the guys they would not be needed, they actually cried ... and we cried with them. This is a shame."
    Mrs. Swope said employment agencies throughout Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi faced similar problems, when thousands of men from Mexico and several Central and South American countries -- many in crowded buses and trucks -- came into the three states after Katrina, looking for employment and willing to work for less money.
    The number of foreign workers who flooded the area after the hurricane has been estimated at more than 30,000. Many of them have been identified by law-enforcement authorities and others as illegal aliens.
    The Gulf Coast Latin American Association noted in a report that whether those workers will remain after the cleanup work is completed is not clear, but the longer those jobs last, the more likely it is that the workers will settle permanently. After Hurricane Andrew hit southeastern Florida in 1992, the association said, the construction boom attracted large numbers of Hispanic immigrants to several areas, including Homestead, Fla., where the Latino population doubled during the 1990s.
    Many of the illegal aliens came into the Gulf Coast states not only from south of the border but also from California, Arizona and Texas, responding to the demand for workers. U.S. Border Patrol officials in the three states have reported an increase in the number of illegals apprehended.
    Some of the migrants who did get jobs in the Gulf states also were mistreated, records show. Two class-action lawsuits are pending in federal court in New Orleans in which thousands of migrant workers said they never were paid, although many worked 12-hour shifts, seven days a week and were required to remove toxic contamination from hurricane-ravaged buildings.
    Some of the named companies were working on contracts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other government agencies.
    Government estimates put at 400,000 the number of jobs lost in the Gulf region as a result of Katrina, which displaced more than 1.5 million people, and many of those workers left the area to seek employment elsewhere because available construction, laborer and cleanup jobs in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi had been filled by foreign workers, including illegal aliens.
    President Bush last week signed the Katrina Emergency Assistance Act of 2006, which extended for 13 weeks unemployment compensation benefits to more than 140,000 residents of the Gulf states who were displaced from their jobs by Katrina. Their benefits, funded by FEMA, had expired March 4.
    Would-be employers in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, awash in cleanup and reconstruction jobs, faced little in the way of legal problems in hiring the illegal aliens after Katrina because the Department of Homeland Security temporarily suspended the sanctioning of employers who hired workers unable to document their citizenship.
    Mr. Bush also had suspended the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires local contractors to pay "prevailing" wages, in the areas hit by Katrina to encourage reconstruction and cleanup.
    "The men we sent to jobs in Alabama were local fellows looking for work, men who needed jobs," Mrs. Swope said. "After driving 50 miles to the work sites where they had been promised $10 an hour, they discovered the employers had found substitutes who were willing to work for less."

Illegals hurt Americans

TODAY'S COLUMNIST
By John Hostettler and Lamar Smith
December 2, 2005

When there are many willing workers, employers cut wages. That is simple supply and demand. Illegal immigrants who take low-skilled jobs reduce wages and take jobs from both citizens and legal immigrants.
    A study by Harvard economist George Borjas shows that cheap immigrant labor has reduced by 7.4 percent the wages of American workers performing low-skilled jobs. A report by the Center for Immigration Studies concludes that "immigration may reduce the wages of the average native in a low-skilled occupation by... $1,915 per year." Illegal immigrants come here to find jobs. You cannot blame them when a typical Mexican worker, for example, earns one-tenth as much as their American counterpart and when American businesses are willing to hire them. One study estimates that illegal immigrants displace 730,000 American workers every year.
    Contrary to the assertion that Americans will not take low-skilled jobs, Americans in fact do these jobs every day. Americans mow lawns, wait tables and work in virtually all other low-skilled job categories. A report by the Center for Immigration Studies shows that more citizens than non-citizens are employed in construction and maintenance, which are thought of as having mostly immigrant laborers.
    Some claim that illegal immigrants are doing jobs that Americans will not do. But when an illegal immigrant finds a job here, that does not mean that no American will take the job. In fact, 79 percent of all service workers are native-born, as are 68 percent of all workers in jobs requiring no more than a high-school education.
    Illegal immigrants make up only 17 percent of workers in building cleaning and maintenance occupations, 14 percent of private household workers, 13 percent of accommodation industry workers, 13 percent of food manufacturing industry workers, 12 percent of the workers in construction and extraction occupations, 11 percent of workers in food preparation and serving occupations and 8 percent of workers in production occupations.
    We must put citizens and legal immigrants first. Americans need these jobs: 17 million adult citizens do not have a high-school degree; 1.3 million are unemployed; and 6.8 million have given up looking for jobs. The percentage of 16- to 19-year-olds holding jobs in the United States is now at its lowest point since 1948. American workers in building cleaning and maintenance have an 11 percent unemployment rate, as do 13 percent of those in construction and 9 percent of those in food preparation.
    Despite these facts, many U.S. lawmakers and interest groups want to enact another foreign-worker program. The Borjas study concludes that proposals that increase the supply of low-skilled workers will only drive down wages further for Americans.
    Past experience shows that a foreign-worker program is an invitation to fraud. Individuals would set up bogus "businesses" to petition for temporary-worker visas for friends, relatives or any other illegal immigrant willing to pay. Even terrorists could set up these fronts. Under the 1986 immigration law, up to two-thirds of the applications for Special Agricultural Worker status were fraudulent, and most were approved.
    Those who are hurt by foreign-worker programs are low-skilled Americans — the most vulnerable in our society. This includes new legal immigrants, who have to compete with a large pool of unskilled illegal immigrants. It's not fair to them to fail to enforce current law and reward lawbreakers by letting them work here.
    Americans do not want illegal immigrants to come here as workers and compete with Americans for scarce jobs. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll asked about President Bush's proposal for a foreign-worker program. Fifty-eight percent strongly or somewhat oppose the plan, and only 38 percent strongly or somewhat support it.
    Virtually all studies show that competition from cheap foreign labor displaces American workers, including legal immigrants, or depresses their wages. Rather than legalize illegal immigrants, we should enforce the laws on the books. That will reduce illegal immigration, increase wages and make these low-skilled jobs more attractive to American workers.
    The result of a large illegal-immigrant workforce is that the poorest Americans must compete with those illegal immigrants for jobs. Illegal immigrants deprive American citizens and legal immigrants of the same American dream. That is wrong and regrettable.
    
    Rep. John Hostettler, Indiana Republican, is the chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims. Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, is the former chairman and a current member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims.
    

I think you have missed the point here...

The government justifies the overlooking of illegal workers by saying "They do the work nobody else will do".

However...

We do want to do our work, we are legal, taxpaying citizens, and we take pride in our work.

We are NOT "nobody" and our work is being taken from us.

Or one could say:

Our government thinks we are "nobodies".

If they only do the work nobody else will do, then what's the problem? Did you want to do the work that nobody else will do?

Somebody's got to do the work!

I am very active.

I have turned them in before.

Once I had some illegals apply for work and present me with forged SS cards!

When I had confirmed the SS cards were not real, I called INS and told them.

The response was "We can't do anything"... bs!

Then I said "Well I am going to destroy these SS cards since they are not real", they told me I couldn't do that!! What a joke!

They said I HAD to give them back and let them on their way.

I took the cards anyway. The guys knew they were busted and just happy to walk away without INS doing anything.

Until immigration laws have teeth and INS is allowed to do more than answer a phone, nothing will get done.

Dave

And, I should say that I am NOT anti-LEGAL immigration.

My familly did that too, as most any other US citizen.

The problem is the unregulated and under-the-table nature of ILLEGAL immigration.

If you're aware of illegal workers then turn them in to Immigration!  When I find non-union subcontractors on a union jobsite the Union gets a phone call.  The problems will go away when YOU start doing something about it other than whining.

No I am not saying we have undocumented operators. You say nothing about undocumented operators in your post you talked about men not speaking english. Just because they don't speak english well does not mean they are illegal. If you have so many "American" operators beating down your door send some my way and I will put them to work. My father came over on the boat when he was 15 looking for a better way of life and that is what the rest of these people are doing.

Read what is wrote on the Miss  Liberty sometime

Are you telling us that you hire undocumented workers???

If so, you are part of the problem.

If not, then you are just an employer with hispanic workers, and that is NOT what this is about.

Any person can cut concrete, the thing is that persons that work illegally are more likely to work below industry pay levels and quality standards.

Now if the GC wants low quality, that is really none of my business, per se...

But when ILLEGAL workers STEAL money and morale from legal cutting professionals, then I become passionate about the issue.

The govt says they do work that others won't... It's just not true.

Dave

Dave,

 What type of response are you looking for? What do you want lobbied for. Immigration is a hot topic everywhere. You can't go to a job site where I am at and not find out that at yeast 70% of the workers are Hispanic even in our company we run about the same. I can't find "Americans" to do this work. Even our union halls are running 50% Hispanic now. So yes I believe they are doing "jobs Americans don't want to do."

Alot of views but no comments?

Not PC???

I guess I should be asking what our Association does for us on these issues.

We are proffessionals that take our work seriously, we are NOT nobodys without rights in the eyes of our govt.

What does the Association do in the way of lobbying for our rights?

How does a member get involved in lobbying?

This is something that will affect all of us soon if not already... Mark my words, deny it at your own peril.

Dave