Okay, well, here I go on my illegal immigration kick.
Chipotle, you know, the burrito place, is the current subject of the U.S. immigration enforcement guys, ICE. Seriously? Who did Chipotle piss off?
When I first moved to Atlanta it was like, "Wow! Look at all the illegals!" I even called the police when a group of them was hanging out in front of my apartment with a TV plugged into a car cigarette lighter having a little fiesta. I was told they couldn't do anything about it.
Yeah, I was pretty naive at the time. I didn't know that we were all supposed to be looking the other way while illegals took jobs that are typically filled by our poorest and least educated.
It's rampant in Atlanta though. The closest WalMart to my apartment was like a little Guatemala City. It was in poor taste to mention it.
I remember not long ago when a person could make a decent living cutting yards and doing construction work. I grew up with a series of black housekeepers and yeah, I know how that sounds but I did grow up in a wealthy family.
All of those jobs now are being filled by illegals. And not just those but jobs at fast food joints too. McDonald's is notorious for it and they created Chipotle or at least turned it into what it is before divesting.
The problem is that these little kerfluffles about hiring practices are so few and far between that nobody cares. Hell, you could go to any meat packing plant in the Midwest and round up thousands. Instead they round up a few hundred every other year to make it look like they're doing something.
Now, this is where I don't like MSNBC. I'm an ardent viewer and agree on many things. However, recently, there's been a promo bit featuring commentator Lawrence O'Donnell talking about how the history of America is written by immigrants and all that. Oh, and while it looks like he's sitting on an overstuffed leather couch in some exclusive New York gentleman's club.
Yeah, true statement. America was founded by immigrants, yadda yadda. Things are different now in a couple of ways. One is that we have a dearth of available labor in this country for good paying jobs like construction and manufacturing. That wasn't the case in the Ellis Island days. Every illegal that works construction or cuts a yard is taking a job from an American because some jackass doesn't want to pay social security taxes. And number two, the new wave of immigrants from Latin America, for the most part, has no desire to assimilate. They live in insular little communities, don't learn English, and send most of their money to families back home.
Actually I love Lawrence O'Donnell. It would just do him and others on the media left a bit of good to actually get out on the streets and see what's really going on for the poor Americans they talk about on their show so much.
It's just a way for big companies to bust unions easier and for builders to get by on the cheap. In fact, the abundance of new homes built in the past ten years was partly due to the new wave of cheap construction costs due to illegal labor.
As long as business interests run Washington, we'll keep getting little dog and pony shows like this deal with Chipotle. It will make it look like our government is really cracking down and otherwise it will be business as usual. Twenty million illegal immigrants and they bust like a thousand a year. Yeah, right, I'm an idiot.
Please don't get me wrong. I have no problem with immigrants with a desire to assimilate. Just like if I moved to France I'd learn to speak French and take part in French cultural activities. I wouldn't expect anybody to speak English and I wouldn't move there if I didn't know enough French to get around.
So before any stones are thrown, I've had plenty of immigrant friends from all over the freaking place who got here the right way. Kudos to them.
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