The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers says it's "time to bring the American worker out of the shadows," instead of implementing a program to bring in new foreign workers.
The group's solution: a guest-worker program for Americans.
The association wants Americans to have access to the same sort of program President Bush and Congress desire for foreign workers — recruitment, paid travel to where the work is, job training, a decent wage and working conditions, decent housing or a housing allowance, some degree of medical care and paid travel home when the work is done.
"Employers in many fields claim that they are unable to obtain sufficient numbers of American workers to fill their needs. We believe their desire for foreign workers to fill that gap is misguided," NAFBPO Chairman Kent Lundgren says.
"There are American workers available. What employers must do is offer to those unemployed Americans the same things they are willing to give to foreign workers."
Mr. Lundgren points to official unemployment statistics that show the rate of unemployment and partial employment is 8.4 percent, or 80 percent higher than the unemployment rate alone. That amounts to 11.5 million potential workers, he says.
"It's not that there aren't enough American workers. It's that they are often in the wrong place," he says. "An American employer should certainly have a temporary worker program if he feels the need.
"But he should recruit his temporary workers from among the ranks of unemployed Americans before he goes looking abroad for them. He should recruit in Michigan, not Michoacan; Iowa, not India."
— Jerry Seper, national reporter, The Washington Times
Comments (2)
News story rom MSNBC: Mexico will lower remittance fees
Please read and if you think it is a good idea give it to all the people in politics you know!
The implications of the news story below are these:
1. Every person sending money to Mexico is identified uniquely.
2. The Mexican government charges each of them a tax each time they send money home.
We can use that as a way to 'convince' illegals to go home as follows:
1. It would be straight forward for the financial system to automatically check to see what SSN is associated with that transaction and determine if it was legitimate. But we don't take the money from the illegals. We set up an 'escrow system' so legal immigrants can send their money, but illegals have to return to Mexico to get it.
2. Impose a 'social services tax' on every remittance from the USA to any other nation; in this case it is Mexico. Put it in an escrow account to pay for the health care and education of illegal immigrants and their families.
3. So if we had secure borders, in less than two years, all illegal immigrants would have to go back to Mexico to claim their money. Or leave it in the escrow account to pay for the social costs they create in our country.
The Mexican Government could, if they chose, loan the amount in escrow to the intended recipient. The loan would be repaid when the illegal came home to claim their funds. But either way the _problem_ gets shifted to Mexico, so they will be serious about changing their nation so the illegals don't want to come here in the first place.
It would then be very hard or impossible for that person to return to the USA illegally because the border was secure.
No round ups. No mass deportations. No coercion. Nobody 'unfairly treated'.
Just a set of forms to fill out when the remittance is made, and identity cards presented when the money is recovered.
_________________
From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21822322/
Calderon coupled his criticisms with several broad-ranging initiatives to better the lives of Mexicans in the United States, who are an important constituency in Mexican politics.
The government estimates that there are 11 million Mexicans in the United States, about 6 million of them illegally. It calculates that they sent back to Mexico more than $23 billion in remittances to help support their families last year.
"Remittances from the United States are a major source of income for our country, at present the second largest after oil exports", said Maria Rosa Marquez Cabrera, the secretary of rural development.
The government announced that it would sharply lower the banking fees that are charged for remittances to immigrants' relatives in Mexico City, the capital, to as little as $3 for a $500 transfer. No transfer would cost more than $10 under the program, which is a partnership with the national banking corporation Grupo Financiero Banorte.
It also said it would back a proposal by the immigrants agency to organize a coalition of Mexican activists inside the United States to respond to political attacks on immigrants. The coalition would be called la Liga contra la Discriminaci?n de los Mexicanos en Estados Unidos, or the League Against Discrimination of Mexicans in the United States.
Posted by William Halverson | February 14, 2008 11:03 PM
This make sense! Why are we importing so many cheap laborers when we have millions of unemployed Americans. We need our pols to get their heads out of their butts, and help unemployed Americans first!
Posted by Robert | February 15, 2008 9:55 AM