What should be done about illegal immigration?

When buying a product, you not only support the people who produced the product, you support the ideas behind the company which produced the product. That's why it is important to research companies before you buy stuff; I fully understand that the economic support I provide with my purchasing power goes to further various ideologies and practices, and therefore shop accordingly.

Back to 'fairness.' I don't believe that it is unfair to charge import fees on products from other countries. It doesn't really matter that it negatively impacts that worker to do so; there are a lot of things which negatively impact the profits of companies, such as taxes, environmental restrictions, etc.; just because something negatively impacts the profits of a company doesn't mean it is a bad idea.

If one of the costs of doing business which markets itself to America is an import fee, businesses will either -

-raise the prices of their products, ideally to match the prices we pay here in America. This provides a level playing field for shoppers here, and also disallows foreign companies to profit from their poor human rights attentions.

-keep the prices of their products stable, and cut into their profit margins. Whether or not this affects the wages paid to the workers is immaterial

-go out of business. Once again, this isn't America's fault; we have both the right and the obligation to set those business practices that we see as being the most beneficial to the nation, not to the population of the world at large.

While I do believe that we can do things to help foreign gov'ts and economies, it isn't a primary duty of ours; and when our trade deficits are where they are today here in the US (2+ Billion a day), something has got to change!

Cycloptichorn wrote:

When buying a product, you not only support the people who produced the product, you support the ideas behind the company which produced the product. That's why it is important to research companies before you buy stuff; I fully understand that the economic support I provide with my purchasing power goes to further various ideologies and practices, and therefore shop accordingly.

I agree -- but you and I probably make different choices about the ideas we want to support. Therefore it's also important that we retain our freedom to make different purchasing decisions. I don't wish to interfere with your "buy American" policy, and conversely I ask you not to interfere with my "buy from whoever gives me the best value for my money, whichever country they live in" policy.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Back to 'fairness.' I don't believe that it is unfair to charge import fees on products from other countries. It doesn't really matter that it negatively impacts that worker to do so; there are a lot of things which negatively impact the profits of companies, such as taxes, environmental restrictions, etc.; just because something negatively impacts the profits of a company doesn't mean it is a bad idea.

The discrimination doesn't come from taxing people who sell something. I do not fundamentally object to the fact that foreign and domestic companies alike pay are subject to sales taxes VATs etc. Tarrifs are different. They charge sellers differently, based on what country they sell from. That's the discrimination I object to.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

If one of the costs of doing business which markets itself to America is an import fee, businesses will either -

-raise the prices of their products, ideally to match the prices we pay here in America. This provides a level playing field for shoppers here, and also disallows foreign companies to profit from their poor human rights attentions.

It also worsens the human rights conditions in the places whose output is being taxed. And it raises the prices shoppers pay. You conveniently ignore that this imposes a cost on American shoppers.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

-keep the prices of their products stable, and cut into their profit margins. Whether or not this affects the wages paid to the workers is immaterial

The wages of foreign workers may be immaterial for you. They aren't immaterial for me.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

-go out of business. Once again, this isn't America's fault; we have both the right and the obligation to set those business practices that we see as being the most beneficial to the nation, not to the population of the world at large.

Transpose this to the Southern States, ca. 1950. Some state decides by majority vote to tax white people for buying from blacks. In doing so, it argues: If black shopkeepers go out of business, it isn't the white man's fault. We have both the right and the obligation to set those both business practices that we see as being the most benefitial to the white race, not to the US population at large. Do you fine this bigoted? I feel the same about your bigotry towards non-US humans. I hope one day we'll move on beyond that bigotry, just as the Democratic party toned down its racism in the decade following the 1950s.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

While I do believe that we can do things to help foreign gov'ts and economies, it isn't a primary duty of ours; and when our trade deficits are where they are today here in the US (2+ Billion a day), something has got to change!

Yes: You've got to start spending less and saving more. Your nation is running a huge budget deficit both in its public sector and its private sector. As long as this continues, you will have a huge trade deficit, no matter what your official trade policy is, because someone has to supply the difference between what you produce and what you consume. That, too, is one of those economics 101 wisdoms that most American journalists conveniently forget.

Last update: December 13, 2006 - 1:32 PM

Immigration agents arrest 230 in Worthington raid

WASHINGTON -- Federal agents arrested 230 people Tuesday in their raid of the Swift & Co. meat-packing plant in Worthington, and another 1,052 at five other Swift plants in different states, officials of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said today in Washington.

By Brady Averill, Star Tribune


WASHINGTON -- Federal agents arrested 230 people Tuesday in their raid of the Swift & Co. meat-packing plant in Worthington, and another 1,052 at five other Swift plants in different states, officials of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said today in Washington.
Of those, 65 people were charged with identity theft crimes, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.

"These were not victimless crimes," Chertoff said.

None of the people charged with identity theft was in Worthington. The rest of the detainees were held on suspected violations of immigration laws.

The arrested workers were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Peru, Laos, Sudan, Ethiopia and other countries.

The raid was the result of an ICE investigation that began in February, when agents learned that large numbers of illegal workers may have used Social Security numbers belonging to U.S. citizens and using them to work at Swift.

Julie Myers, assistant secretary of homeland security for ICE, said that people in the Criminal Alien Program (CAP) who were interviewed last winter admitted that they had assumed other identities to work at Swift.

ICE also got referrals from police and received tips from a hotline.

"These factors led us to open an investigation," she said.

The Federal Trade Commission is currently notifying victims.

No criminal or civil action is being taken against Swift at this time, because it participated in the program in good faith, Chertoff said.

Swift is part of a government Basic Pilot program that helps detect fake Social Security numbers, but it doesn't catch people who are using authentic documents belonging to other people. It isn't a "magic bullet" for every single problem, Chertoff said.

The company tried to prevent the one-day raid and filed an injunction in a U.S. District Court, proposing phased workplace enforcement over several weeks or months instead. ICE rejected the proposal.

U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson wrote in her denial of the injunction that Swift interviewed 450 suspect employees at several plants between October and November and found around 90 percent of the suspect employees were using fake documents or were not legally eligible to work in the United States. Over 400 workers were terminated or quit.

Neither the plant nor ICE knows the whereabouts of those 400 workers.

Tuesday's arrests were part of stronger workplace enforcement, ICE officials said. In April, ICE agents arrested 1,187 illegal workers at more than 40 IFCO Systems North America Inc. locations. They also arrested seven current and former IFCO managers, charging them with harboring illegal workers for financial gain.

Advocates of stricter immigration control praised the raids and pointed out that they targeted people suspected of committing other crimes in addition to being in the U.S. illegally.

"I'm glad that ICE is enforcing our immigration laws in light of the illegal immigration crisis we face across the country," Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said in a statement.

The raids were denounced by Swift and by worker and immigrant advocacy groups as an attack on civil liberties.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Is that article from the TPMuckraker? The article I posted was AP I think. Which do you think provided a more objective account of the raids?

Foxfyre wrote:

Is that article from the TPMuckraker? The article I posted was AP I think. Which do you think provided a more objective account of the raids?

I neither know what TPMuckraker is nor what article is more accurate.

I just used the latest I found on the ticker - from the Star Tribune, Minnianapolis-St. Paul.

Largest workplace raid ever
By Mike McPhee
Denver Post Staff Writer
DenverPost.com
Article Last Updated:12/13/2006 12:59:14 PM MST

A total of 1,282 workers were arrested Tuesday at six Swift & Co. meat packing plants, including 261 workers at the plant in Greeley, federal officials said during a press conference this morning.

Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff said 65 workers have been charged criminally. The other 1,217 workers are being held on administrative charges of immigration violations. The arrested workers are from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Peru, Laos, Sudan, Ethiopia and other countries.

"This is the single largest workforce enforcement operation to date," said Julie Myers, assistant secretary of Immigration and Custom Enforcement, in describing what agents called "Operation Wagon Train."

Chertoff added: "I will pretty much guarantee you we're going to continue bringing in these cases."

Of the Colorado workers, 11 of them will be or have been charged criminally and will be prosecuted. The fate of the other 250 Greeley workers being held on immigration violations is unclear, whether they will be released, deported or charged criminally.

More than 1,000 federal agents conducted the raids Tuesday at Swift & Co. meat processing plants in Colorado, Nebraska, Utah, Texas, Iowa and Minnesota.

At least 250 workers were detained at Swift's Grand Island, Neb., plant, which employs 600 people.

Swift, which claims to be the second-largest meat processing company in the world, said it employs 10,000 people, including 2,700 in Greeley.

Swift had been told that immigration agents were going to raid the packing plants on Dec. 4. Swift's lawyers went to court to stop the raid, arguing it would cause "substantial and irreparable injury" to the company. A federal judge denied the request last Thursday.

Between Oct. 19 and Nov. 17, Swift voluntarily interviewed 450 suspected employees at several of its plants and found that between 90 to 95 percent were not who they said they were, according to court documents. Four hundred were fired or quit and the company stopped that self-review at ICE s insistence, court documents said.

Chertoff said Swift has cooperated with the government's Basic Pilot program that tracks Social Security numbers around the country. He explained that the program is limited because it can only match names with Social Security numbers.

The program does not spot multiple uses of the same Social Security number.

"If we could get permission from Congress to have the Social Security Administration identify multiple appearances of the same identification, it would help us do our job," Chertoff said.

Myers said a raid in Minnesota earlier this year exposed a ring of identity thieves who were selling actual birth certificates of Puerto Rican citizens.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

It is important to note that you will still have the freedom to buy from 'whoever gives you the best value for your money.' It's just that the level which goods from overseas are charged taxes will be raised; therefore, the price of the good will be raised to the consumer. But it doesn't take away your choices.

]Not me. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't prefer local businesses over foreign ones, or why foreginers shouldn't prefer their businesses over American imports.

THere is no god-given right not to be taxed based upon your location. Companies are taxed differently in America depending on what state they are in; this is no different.

No, I don't ignore this. I'm not concerned that it raises the cost of goods on American shoppers, because price points are not stable and companies will still compete to have the best price on their products; new techniques will come out which drop the production and shipping costs of products; prices will drop again sooner or later, but stay more stable across the board re: American v. foreign goods.

Think of it as an economic incentive to be more efficient.

Plus, you conveinently ignore that many foreign makers of goods sold here in America profit tremendously from their amazingly low labor costs and still sell their products at a high rate here in the US; they can afford to suck up a large amount of tariffs without doing anything but cutting into their profits.

Our economy is not responsible for the human rights conditions in other countries, sorry.

That's nice. Would you like to contribute to raising my wages?

You can say that it is 'bigoted' if you use the word bigot to mean something it doesn't, I guess.

Bigot

NOUN: One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

I agree, we have to start spending less and saving more. Tariffs help this in two ways: one, goods being more expensive means that they are less likely to buy them and more likely to save their monies. Second, we stand to reap a rather large windfall from the actual monies of the tax itself; and we sure could use those monies to help balance our budgets and adress our trade deficits.

It strikes me that this isn't exactly a new argument...

Indeed, your arguments for protectionism are so old David Ricardo debunked them as long ago as 1817. Again, I encourage you to read an economics textbook. I'm sorry to sound so arrogant, but debating international economics with you at this point is much like debating evolutionary biology with a creationist. You don't know the vast body of solid, peer-reviewed science that refutes your convictions about how economies work. And until you make an effort to change this, debating the matter wastes both your time and mine.

But you are responsible for not making life too hard on those compatriots less callous than you about the wages of foreign workers.

The low productivity in these countries are the reason for the low wages -- and why those wages are not really that low on a per-unit cost.

New technologies come out and lower prices whether you impose tariffs or not. The tariff does nothing to improve technology.

Tariffs do not remove a companies' ability to innovate or become more effecient, therefore, there will still be price competition and I'm not really concerned that prices will be raised on foreign goods in the long run.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Tariffs do not remove a companies' ability to innovate or become more effecient, therefore, there will still be price competition and I'm not really concerned that prices will be raised on foreign goods in the long run.

True enough, but they do create a positive incentive for owners to move their operations offshore where they can find cheaper labor. The investment for innovation to which you refer will likely occur in locations where the cost of labor is lower and productivity higher.

As an aside the Government raids on the meatpacking plants of the Swift company (which have shutdown the Cactus and Grand Island plants, with others to follow), have also halted a project my company was doing to build and operate biogas generatuion plants, using the waaste stream from their operations as a bioenergy source. This provides solutions to both waste processing and energy demands for these large plants.

Those who would close our borders to immigrants and guest workers should be asked if they also support continued unemployment benefits for citizens who refuse to take available jobs in the agricultural, food processing, and construction industries.

This is a false canard. You posit that the average person supports free trade because they are 'less callous than I about the wages of foreign workers.' I beleive that 99% of consumers are interested in one thing and one thing only, and that's cheap prices for the goods they desire; they couldn't give a fig for the wages of foreign workers.

You said the above in response to my point that foreign companies don't index the wages they pay to the prices they charge, and I don't think it adequately addresses the point that those who run foreign businesses can afford a certain level of tariffs without impacting the amount paid to their workers one bit.

For a Conservative, you have an odd attitude about nation's responsibility to financially support the citizens of other nations at the detriment of their own financial situation, I must say...

I'm not really concerned that prices will be raised on foreign goods in the long run.

We shouldn't ignore the secondary and long-term effects of an action. For example, trade restrictions on foreign sugar that result in higher prices for domestically produced sugar save jobs in our sugar industry. Because of those higher prices, major candy manufacturers such as Wrigley and Brach's moved to Canada and Mexico to take advantage of lower sugar prices. That resulted in more U.S. jobs lost than were saved by the sugar trade restrictions.