Illegal immigration post number 43974876954937637

You think you know about illegal immigrants?

Mexico arrests man wanted in the U.S. for distributing fake documents
By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ Associated Press Writer
Monday, June 19, 2006
...The documents were distributed in several U.S. states, including California, Illinois, Georgia, North Carolina, Nebraska, Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado, ICE said...

Here Illegally, Working Hard and Paying Taxes
By Eduardo Porter
The New York Times

... And they are now present in low-skilled jobs across the country. Illegal immigrants account for 12 percent of workers in food preparation occupations, for instance, according to an analysis of census data by the Pew Hispanic Center. In total, they account for an estimated one in 20 workers in the United States....
... But getting a Social Security number could be a little more complicated in the old days. Lily, 38, another janitor cleaning a building downtown, knew no one in Minneapolis when she arrived illegally from Guatemala 14 years ago. So when a neighbor said she needed papers, she called the smuggler who brought her across the border at his home in Mexico.
He asked her to make up a nine-digit number, which she did by combining the date she left Guatemala and the date she arrived in the United States two months later. She sent him some photos and $75 and received her fake papers by return mail...
...Cheaper Labor
Starting about 30 years ago, as illegal immigration began to swell, building maintenance contractors in big immigrant hubs like Los Angeles started hiring the new immigrant workers as part of a broader effort to drive down labor costs. Unions for janitors fell apart as landlords shifted to cheaper nonunion contractors to clean their buildings. Wages fell and many American-born workers left the industry...
...In New York City, janitors cleaning commercial buildings make $19 an hour. Mike Fishman, president of the Service Employees International Union's local in New York, points out that the union never lost ground in the city, and it is still unusual to find illegal immigrants cleaning office buildings there.

In Southern California, by contrast, unions were decimated in the 1980's, and only started recovering in the late 1990's. According to Mike Garcia, president of the union's main local in the state, Southern California's unionized janitors earn between $8.50 and $11 an hour.

(yes...we did leave, something about pride in our work, a livable wage and a new language barrier)


African Americans 'Dread' Growing Power of Latinos

Blacks refuse to compare recent Latino protests to their movement in the 60's. African Americans recall that they weren't immigrants, but fully-fledged American citizens that took to the streets after suffering centuries of slavery, rape, lynching and discrimination. We didn't choose to come to the United States, we were brought here as slaves. And we were deprived of our basic rights although we were citizens of this country. Many of these problems have remained unresolved since the 60's. But now we may relegated to the status of a secondary concern, said one Black university professor.

The Black community dreads above all that it will see its economic condition worsen due to competition from Latinos. In 2004, 72% of America's Black community between the ages of 20 and 30 having had abandoned high school and were unemployed, while only 19% of Hispanics were in a similar position. Latinos survive better because of their accommodating attitude toward employment, which fit in nicely with capitalist ethics: they accept working long hours at low salaries. They hardly ever complain and rarely avail themselves of the social protections that normal employees would.

To summarize, Black Americans are worried and are asking themselves: Will the power of Latino immigrants diminish the value of their secular struggle and speed their marginalization?