Great Depression of 2016

[The Yakima Kid]

Your mention of farm work in the Pacific Northwest brought back memories. Back in the Dark Ages when I was growing up in Oregon, and later in Idaho, I would catch a bus in the morning that took me and the other juvenile conscripts out to the fields and brought us back in the late afternoon. After a summer spent picking strawberries any job is easy. Before the Santa Clara Valley got overrun with houses and became Silicon Valley, a lot of kids spent their summers cutting apricots and picking fruit. Nowadays that would be considered unacceptable child labor.

Personally, I think we need to bring back that "unacceptable" child labor. It definitely motivated everyone to finish high school and go to trade school or college or start a business. Planting trees for reforesting and working Christmas tree farms wasn't a lot of fun, either. We used to have these little seedlings in plastic tubes (how un-environmental) that we shoved into the ground with an applicator and the plastic tube either broke or was removed, depending on the system.

 

[cassie]

If you want an illegal alien, go to Home Depot. They hang out at the edge of the parking lot, or even right by the doors. There are plenty of them in Missouri.

Not in my neck of the woods. Don't have a Home Depot in easy driving distance. Have a Lowes though. Haven't seen any potential workers hanging around there. I've looked. I do know what you are talking about. I used to see them at the Home Depot in San Jose. Might find them here in Missouri in more urban areas like St. Louis. Just not here in the sticks where I am.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

Not in my neck of the woods. Don't have a Home Depot in easy driving distance. Have a Lowes though. Haven't seen any potential workers hanging around there. I've looked. I do know what you are talking about. I used to see them at the Home Depot in San Jose. Might find them here in Missouri in more urban areas like St. Louis. Just not here in the sticks where I am.

Yeah, it seems the illegals aren't at all interested in farm work. They are at home improvement stores in Michigan, where my in-laws live.

 

[rufus]

We have had similar problems in our neighborhood. Gunshots in the night, not just one or two, but like Viet Nam. I pray,"Dear God, don't let them shoot my air conditioner." You never know what is going on. The police helicopter, called the "Barrio Bird" flies over so low I think it will take out my trees.

Two girls from down the street stabbed another girl. She died. Now it looks like there is some sort of feud going on.

The neighbors were having a yard sale, and a car pulled up and shot it up. Someone went out and picked up the shell casings. My sons called the cops, but they couldn't do anything. Best advice was to park cars in front of the house so that they couldn't get good fire to the structure.

The house across the street and down was a house of ill repute for two years. One morning we heard a horrendous bang. The cops threw a flash bang grenade through through the window, The cops spent about four hours taking documents and other stuff from the place. All that time, two working girls were hiding in the trash bin in the alley.

The cholos don't mess with us because they know my kids will have the cops on them.

Along with the hard working and industrious come the criminals.

Two years ago last Christmas, I and my oldest son went to look at a forty acre piece of real estate. The place was for sale, but the seller wanted $60,000 cash money for it. Not a check, but cash money.

When we found the property, it was half way to California. We looked around and found black sand, which is a good sign for gold. Then I picked up a bone and realized it was human. My son promptly reminded me of that "Native America Graves Act." I dropped it like a hot rock.

The property was littered with brass shell casings. It looked like there had been a war there. We got into the car to leave, and my son spotted a leg bone. The bone I found was old and sun bleached. The leg bone still had traces of flesh. The coyotes had gnawed it, but it was easy to see it was fresh.

My son took a picture of it with his cell phone which also marked the GPS. He called the Sheriff's office, and they went out there and looked the place over. They found the bones of God only knows how many people.

I sure didn't want to buy a property where the cartels dump bodies or take people to kill them. Besides, I would have to fence the property and put down a well, and in Arizona that can be an iffy and expensive thing. I let that deal go.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

Rufus,

What you've just said is exactly why I think the border needs to be sealed and that if illegals are allowed to stay that there be NO path to citizenship, but only a five to seven year maximum work visa and no welfare support for their families - because even the hardworking all appear to have more children than they can support, at least around here.

I also think we need to redefine birthright citizenship - we are one of very few nations that offers it automatically. A birthright citizen should be limited to children born to at least one US citizen if born on foreign soil (as it is now) and if born in the US, must be the child of either at least one US citizen or two green card permanent residents.

 

[rufus]

Beware of the law of unintended consequences. If you deny citizenship to children born in the US of alien parents, then to what country would they have citizenship? We would end up with a whole underclass of stateless people.

The last time I read "La Ley de Poblacion de Mexico" as I recall, the mother of a child born outside the territory of Mexico had something like ninety days to record the birth of the child at the consulate. But then again, if the mother had the moxie to read and understand the law, she probably wouldn't be cleaning toilets in the US.

We have to think these things through before we act hastily.

 

[cassie]

Yeah, it seems the illegals aren't at all interested in farm work. They are at home improvement stores in Michigan, where my in-laws live.

There just isn't any farm work here to be had. This area is almost all beef cattle and most of the farmers I know don't hire labor. They are small operations and they either do it all themselves or hire the Amish. I can't recall the last time I ever even saw anyone that looked to be of Mexican descent, legal or otherwise here, but then I don't travel out of my immediate area any more than I have to.

Apparently you have a far different breed of illegals than I had contact with where I lived in California. Those people were here to make money to send back to their families in Mexico and when the crops were finished they went back themselves.

 

[rufus]

There isn't a lot of money to made in agricultural labor. Most of the people in my neighborhood work in service industries. Laundries, mechanics, construction and landscaping. They also work in the fast food industry. You just about have to speak Spanish to order a burger here.

Most come with expectation of saving some money and putting a business or ranch back home. They send money back to support the family and build nice houses, but very few ever go back to live. They end up married to someone they met here, and their kids don't speak Spanish and would not fit in Mexico.

The idea of bracero labor is pure fiction.

Then there is the problem of kids that were brought to the US and grew up here. If they don't have papers there is no career path for them. They might have a degree in process engineering, but that does them no good if the only job they can get is mopping out a motel.

Many don't the required identification number to work in Mexico. Nor do they have their Mexican birth certificates.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

Beware of the law of unintended consequences. If you deny citizenship to children born in the US of alien parents, then to what country would they have citizenship? We would end up with a whole underclass of stateless people.

The last time I read "La Ley de Poblacion de Mexico" as I recall, the mother of a child born outside the territory of Mexico had something like ninety days to record the birth of the child at the consulate. But then again, if the mother had the moxie to read and understand the law, she probably wouldn't be cleaning toilets in the US.

We have to think these things through before we act hastily.

Rufus -

Most Latin American countries grant citizenship to children of their nationals born abroad. The same holds for US nationality if born abroad (I can tell you about a formerly stateless person of my acquaintance who was sacrificed to her father's political beliefs and I note that he didn't renounce *his* US citizenship.)

Since we have lots of translators in US hospitals, we should have no problem instituting instructions and assistance to ease the process of registering children with the consulate. Perhaps Latin American countries would be willing to meet us half way and assist in finding ways to expedite the process.

I think this is far less of a problem than the current spectacle in California of wealthy Chinese women arriving here to give birth. There have been a number of "birth houses" shut down because wealthy entrepreneurs rent properties and provide birthing facilities in residential neighborhoods, in violation of the zoning codes.

Ideally, our immigration laws should be tit for tat - mirror back to other countries how their immigration laws impact immigrants from other nations; and do not permit them to evade these requirements by writing exceptions for North Americans, or Europeans, or specific nations or groups of nations.

For example, an American legal resident in Mexico must pay for the education of their children in a Mexican school - free education is limited to Mexican nationals. We should mirror that policy back.

In any event, it plays a lot better with me than the current situation, the one where my neighborhood is overrun with Sureno and MS-13 anchor babies. We had a neighbor who taught in a nearby city's school district and was assaulted by a gangster baby mama and seriously injured. She is now on permanent disability.

 

[rufus]

Again, you have to read the law. Each nation has its own out look on the situation. Carlos Salinas Gotari, former president of Mexico, took asylum in Ireland. His enemies blamed him for all of the economic ills. They prevented his daughter from having Mexican citizenship. She has to carry and Irish passport.