For weeks, dozens of construction workers from Latin America have streamed onto the site of the Old Post Office Pavilion in downtown Washington and taken pride in their work building one of the city’s newest luxury hotels.The WaPo report falls in line with the few undocumented Mexicans I have come across. They tend to be hard working and don't cause trouble. In fact, I know a couple of small businesses that seek out those born in other countries becasue they tend not to file lawsuits against employees, something that is all too common these days.
But that job site is now laden with tension after the man behind the project — billionaire developer Donald Trump — put himself at the center of the nation’s debate over illegal immigration.
Trump garnered headlines — and prompted several business associates to sever relations with him — when he launched his bid for the Republican presidential nomination last month with a controversial description of drug dealers and “rapists” crossing the border each day into the United States from Mexico.
But a Trump company may be relying on some undocumented workers to finish the $200 million hotel, which will sit five blocks from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, according to several who work there. A Trump spokeswoman said the company and its contractors follow all applicable laws...
Interviews with about 15 laborers helping renovate the Old Post Office Pavilion revealed that many of them had crossed the U.S-Mexico border illegally before they eventually settled in the Washington region to build new lives.
Several of the men, who hail mostly from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, have earned U.S. citizenship or legal status through immigration programs targeting Central Americans fleeing civil wars or natural disasters. Others quietly acknowledged that they remain in the country illegally...
Several of the laborers — who travel to work from as far away as Baltimore or Manassas, Va., every day — fumed at Trump’s comments, saying that they have led honest lives that have allowed them to buy homes and raise U.S.-born childre
To be sure, there are probably some criminals that cross the border into the US from Mexico, but I am sure that there are many American criminals who cross into Mexico to stay one step ahead of American law enforcement.
This DC thing is going to get interesting. Will Donald demand that the background be checked on all workers at the DC hotel under construction or he is going to stand by his claim that he is "following all applicable laws"? Of course, in his camapign, he is implying the applicable laws are not sufficient to protect against the threat he sees from undocumented Mexicans.
Despite his blowhard stance on undocumented Mexicans, when Trump is acting as a businessman instead of a politician, he does what all the rest of us do when dealing in transactions with others, we look to see if the person we are dealing with is competent to handle the task at hand. Whether, it is dealing with a clerk in a convenience store or a waitress in a restaurant. I have yet to ask to see anyone's Green card. I care about a person providing good service. I don't care who they are, where they are born, or how they got here.
-RW
Here in South Carolina, there have been several times that Mexicans have worked at my house. They've always done a remarkable job, sporting boundless energy and a certain sense of good will about them. As such, they've always received very good tips when the job is done. Those Mexicans whom I call friends have always been the most pleasant people to frequent, and when they describe to me all the work and projects they do week in and week out, it makes me tired to think about it - but also fills me with admiration. I've never once wondered about their status as "citizens" but, me being a libertarian, that's no surprise.
ReplyDeleteFrom a political point-of-view, Trump should have kept his thoughts fixed upon the distinction between legal and illegal immigration, without denigrating the people involved. Such broad generalization brings division within an arena where coalitions are usually needed for success. Add to that the biased magnification of his words by the opposing plantation-owners on the left, and we find that Trump has stumbled badly out of the gate, dragging the republican party with him.
Anyone who climbs over a federally erected fence has already shown ample American spirit and should be welcomed into the fold.
ReplyDeleteA comment at Reason:
ReplyDeleteAccording to BJS about 1% of Hispanic males are incarcerated compared with 0.5% of white males.
While immigrant crime rates are comparatively low, the rate for second-generation Hispanics soars, as California's prisons would attest. The second-gen attainment in education is also abysmal.
This is more troubling than illegal immigration itself. If illegals eventually settled down to lives of productivity, it's a problem (illegal immigration) that can be dealt with. But the data show that the problem actually worsens over time as criminality increases along with dependence on the state for income assistance.
http://reason.com/archives/2015/07/06/trump-and-the-myth-of-immigrant-crime#comment_5419686
With the welfare state and profits from drug dealing, there is no incentive to become bourgeois and every incentive to not.
I do not care for Trump but until there are no welfare, nor minimum wage laws, nor government owned lands, roads, etc, anyone here illegally is an unwelcomed demand on my resources that are taken from me under compulsion.
ReplyDeleteHow about the FedGov stopping sending foreign to countries, including Mexico.
I know many Mexicans are hard working, etc. but I am not the one tasked, Constitutionally, to enforce immigration laws, plus I have no means or authority to investigations, nod tge inclination to do so. But whe they are caught, they need to be sent back.
Good grief! My apologies for the typos and the missing words.
Deleteforeign to countries --> foreign aid to countries, including Mexico.
to investigations --> to perform investigations
nod tge --> nor the
whe --> when
Typing into a Kindle Fire can be challenging. Again, my apologies.
Thanks for caring!
DeleteLooks like I am in good company.
DeleteFree Immigration Is Forced Integration
By Hans-Hermann Hoppe
July 10, 2015
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/07/hans-hermann-hoppe/free-immigration/
Trump, Lou Dobbs, Frosty Wooldridge, Pat Buchanan and others like them cant figure out the concept that if you dont like a business because they are hiring certain types of people that they are free to take their money elsewhere. However like most statists its easier to get government goon squads (aka coproaches) to forces businesses to change their policies.
ReplyDelete