Proudly harboring the undocumented

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a home in a very red state, and we and the neighbors are all happily harboring an undocumented immigrant from Latin America who does tremendous yardwork for all of us. We pay very very well. And we advise on how to keep their head low and avoid ICE.


I have no qualms about this. What is going on in this country right now is morally wrong. These people work their butts off, are law abiding good people and make our country great. THEY’RE doing that. Not MAGA.

And, you are breaking the law.

He without sin can cast the first stone . . .

So democrats want the U.S. to be a theocracy? I prefer my laws secular.

You cannot be that obtuse. My point was that there is no one on this thread who hasn't violated the law in any respect whatsoever. I'd argue that those of you who drive over the speed limit are more risky to the public than me paying an undocumented immigrant good money to help me with my lawn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So effectively an indentured servant?

Considering that we pay him more than triple the minimum wage in our state? I don’t think so.

You should be paying that to an American citizen or lawful resident immigrant.

Your humble brag only says you’re scofflaw, not that you’re generous.

The American citizens in this area do a shitty job at this kind of work, and any lawful resident immigrant doesn't even do this kind of work because it's not the kind of work that the government is likely to allow anyone to enter legally to do.

I've struck out time and again with "domestic" workers. They are almost uniformly unreliable, cut corners, are lazy, and do a bad job. You don't know how many times I've tried. It's not what I'm paying my guy that's undercutting them -- it's his work ethic that is.

And what's so backward is that the reward for that work ethic is to round them up and ship them out. The work ethic of someone that actually has the wherewithal to uproot themselves travel to a far away country and start over, learn the language, get a job, support their family is usually pretty impressive. I don't think I could do it. And yet we voted to discard these people. It makes no sense unless you're an out and out racist.

Exactly, although I (the OP) have to add that my guy doesn't speak English -- not because he doesn't want to, but because he's working too hard to find the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So effectively an indentured servant?

Considering that we pay him more than triple the minimum wage in our state? I don’t think so.

You should be paying that to an American citizen or lawful resident immigrant.

Your humble brag only says you’re scofflaw, not that you’re generous.

The American citizens in this area do a shitty job at this kind of work, and any lawful resident immigrant doesn't even do this kind of work because it's not the kind of work that the government is likely to allow anyone to enter legally to do.

I've struck out time and again with "domestic" workers. They are almost uniformly unreliable, cut corners, are lazy, and do a bad job. You don't know how many times I've tried. It's not what I'm paying my guy that's undercutting them -- it's his work ethic that is.

And what's so backward is that the reward for that work ethic is to round them up and ship them out. The work ethic of someone that actually has the wherewithal to uproot themselves travel to a far away country and start over, learn the language, get a job, support their family is usually pretty impressive. I don't think I could do it. And yet we voted to discard these people. It makes no sense unless you're an out and out racist.

How else can lazy MAGAs compete?

White guy DEI everywhere, deport the people at the lower end of the economic spectrum, destroy education, destroy science, make it as difficult as possible for legal immigrants to come, kill independent thought.

The entire program is designed for mediocre white Americans to feel less bad about being completely unremarkable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a home in a very red state, and we and the neighbors are all happily harboring an undocumented immigrant from Latin America who does tremendous yardwork for all of us. We pay very very well. And we advise on how to keep their head low and avoid ICE.


I have no qualms about this. What is going on in this country right now is morally wrong. These people work their butts off, are law abiding good people and make our country great. THEY’RE doing that. Not MAGA.

If, and it's a HUGE IF, then you are stupid beyond belief to brag about your altruism! Expect ICE to be breaking down your door and murdering all of you!

Settle down sparky. Are you really so ignorant of the significance of undocumented labor to the US economy? In some industries it approaches 20% of the workforce. Why don't you educate yourself about the economy instead of spouting a bunch of dramatic bull crap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So effectively an indentured servant?

Considering that we pay him more than triple the minimum wage in our state? I don’t think so.

You should be paying that to an American citizen or lawful resident immigrant.

Your humble brag only says you’re scofflaw, not that you’re generous.

The American citizens in this area do a shitty job at this kind of work, and any lawful resident immigrant doesn't even do this kind of work because it's not the kind of work that the government is likely to allow anyone to enter legally to do.

I've struck out time and again with "domestic" workers. They are almost uniformly unreliable, cut corners, are lazy, and do a bad job. You don't know how many times I've tried. It's not what I'm paying my guy that's undercutting them -- it's his work ethic that is.

And what's so backward is that the reward for that work ethic is to round them up and ship them out. The work ethic of someone that actually has the wherewithal to uproot themselves travel to a far away country and start over, learn the language, get a job, support their family is usually pretty impressive. I don't think I could do it. And yet we voted to discard these people. It makes no sense unless you're an out and out racist.

How else can lazy MAGAs compete?

White guy DEI everywhere, deport the people at the lower end of the economic spectrum, destroy education, destroy science, make it as difficult as possible for legal immigrants to come, kill independent thought.

The entire program is designed for mediocre white Americans to feel less bad about being completely unremarkable.

The lower end of the economic spectrum is extremely difficult regardless of the color of your skin. Trashing a percentage of the economy does not help anybody on the lower end of the economic spectrum. It makes it more difficult. Giving a whole bunch of money to billionaires doesn't really do much for the low round of the economic spectrum either. Maga does not give two craps about the lower end of the economic spectrum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t agree with the way MAGAs are approaching this as hunting down immigrants for sport, but there needs to be humane immigration reform. Plenty of people all over the world are in bad situations and would love to live in the US. Laws need to be respected.

Drop me a lime with those laws or changed so that people like our guy have a realistic chance of legal immigration. Until then I’m hiding him.

That’s the crux: he’ll never have a realistic chance at legal immigration because his economic value and utility is *derived* from his undocumented status.

Your worker is a good person and you are well intentioned. Nonetheless, if your worker had legal status his costs of operating his business would go up. As it is, he is paid cash under the table, he accepts more risk than a worker with legal status would (risks that would more properly be allocated to you the homeowner), and he very likely does not report his income to the IRS. This all means he is cheaper than properly authorized labor. A cost savings that *you* are the true beneficiary of. The net effect is that you get cheaper cost services and domestic workers with legal status are priced out of the market.

I’m sure you think that using and harboring cheap labor is noble. But the reality is that no matter how good your intentions are and how decent a person your landscaper is, you are intentionally engaging in economic activity that benefits you materially, helps the undocumented laborer but undercuts the domestic workforce. You are selling out the American labor force so that you can have extra dollars. In doing so, you are perpetuating inequality and creating a permanent economic underclass.

If your laborer ever actually had legal status, he would find himself price undercut by undocumented labor. If you were using above board labor, your prices would go up.

No, he'll never have a legal chance at immigration because the current law doesn't allow it under any circumstances. And I'm not benefiting economically in any way, shape or form. As I said earlier, I also have a lawn service where the workers appear to be documented and I'm very sure -- based on what I pay the company -- that the workers are paid less than my undocumented guy. For your argument to make any sense, I would have to be paying my guy a low wage, but I'm not. And do you know why I'm not? Because he does a BETTER job than anyone I've used around here from your so-called "domestic" workforce. They don't do half as good a job that he does. I pay him what he's worth, and I'm not undercutting anyone. If the "domestic" workforce wants $30+ an hour to take care of my yard, it can do that by doing comparable work.

In short, the whole premise of your argument is that I'm underpaying, which I'm not. I'm paying generously. I always pay generously for good work. "Domestic" laborers, by and large, do shitty work and then blame immigrants.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” The price point the domestic labor business charges in a market place where it is competing with undocumented labor is distorted and cannot be relied as a data point for setting the market labor wage.

It is not that you are paying generously, it is that your laborer is pricing generously. And you are happy to take advantage of it. Prices paid are pretax to labor but labor makes economic decision on an after-tax basis.

Dollars: Assume your guy is working 50 hours a week and 52 weeks a year. $30 * 50 * 52 = $78,000 per year. As an undocumented immigrant, the odds are overwhelmingly high that he is:

*not properly business bonded and insured (that's 2-5% in costs)

*he is not paying into SS and MC (that's another 15.3%)

*he is not paying income taxes (that's another 10-15% depending on jurisdiction)

*he does not have commercial (or consumer) auto insurance (around 12.5% of his revenue if you figure about $10,000/year--which is low for commercial auto)

There are a bunch of other things like business licenses and compliance costs he is probably also skirting and you are already approaching an increase in 50% of his costs just to get him to the same place on an after tax basis. He would need to charge you at least $45/hour if he was doing everything above board just to get himself to the same economic outcome. You think you are generous because you are paying him $30/hour because it is in your economic interest to save the true cost differential of getting him to the same place economically. Your greed is blinding you. And the moment he charged $45/hour, he would lose so much business to the undocumented guy charging $30/hour that it makes no economic sense for your guy to ever get legal status.

Of course the competitor cannot pay his laborers $30 an hour. He is likely paying full freight on the costs of running his business and the undocumented laborer is undercutting him. Your legal workforce guy would need to charge closer to $60/hour to get his crew near $30/hour and even that is cutting it thin. Most service business need to charge more around 2.5x what they pay their hourly laborers to get to a modest profit margin after accounting for all costs, so you would be talking in the ballpark of $75/hour price to get a domestic laborer to $30/hour (which will still be less on an after-tax basis than your undocumented laborer).

Risks: Last week I helped connect three undocumented laborers with a good friend from law school. They had been badly burned on a job where a homeowner asked them to unsafely burn debris on his ranch. My friend has taken on several of these types of cases and achieved great outcomes against the home owner's insurance. My undocumented laborers are so scared of any contact with the legal system (as was the case pre-Trump) that they are going to eat the injuries themselves. And while you may be one of those nice white people that thinks so highly of yourself, I am a native citizen of and raised in the same country as these injured men came from. As you would expect, I speak the language fluently, and I am trusted a lot to help a lot of these people never at a gain to myself. It didn't matter how I explained the issue to them. They are going to eat the injuries.

Undocumented migration by and large is an economic issue, not a social justice issue (in this country, at least). It always has been and always will be. There is a reason why Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers were hostile to undocumented labor. Chavez knew that this was purely an economic issue and rich farmers and wealthy people like you would use undocumented labor to undercut the wage and bargaining power of the domestic labor force. I know you think you are doing something noble. In reality, you are only perpetuating inequality and a permanent underclass.

Look, these are real people. We're not in economics class. Nothing that you just said changes the fact that if I put on my community's Facebook page that I was offering, say, $25 a hour for yard work I'd be inundated with responses from "domestic" workers happy to take it on. There's no requirement that I, hiring a guy to do yard work as an independent contractor and paying him under $2800 a year, have any obligation to withhold anything or pay the government anything. The responsibility falls solely and squarely on the guy doing the work. Were I paying $25 an hour to some "domestic" guy down the street to do shitty work, which I can virtually guarantee to be the case, and he took doesn't follow the law and pay his taxes or social security either, am I responsible for that too? Or are you saying I should only hire workers who work for companies and not themselves regardless of their legal status?

You got yours, so f#ck dem poor people, huh? And you think you are the hero of this story. You are an awful human being.

To give an American worker who is complying with the law the same economic benefit of what you are paying your undocumented laborer, you would need to be paying somewhere in the ballpark of $60-75/hr. Post that job on Facebook at $60-75 hour and see the quality of the work product your receive from domestic labor at that price point.

The undocumented laborer is arbitraging costs and undercutting the domestic labor market through noncompliance with the law. You are all too happy to accept this arrangement because it economically benefits you ($30 for great work product sure does beat $60 for it). The undocumented laborer is happy to accept this arrangement because it economically benefits him. The domestic middle class is pissed because they are on the losing end of this transaction. That you can’t see this distorts the labor market and contributes to inequality is driven by your material greed (who cares if the other guy complies with the law, you got a great work product, right?).

If you share no sense of community or duty to your fellow Americans, why should the MAGA voters? If you are all too happy to live in some libertarian paradise where you don’t care about the consequences of your economic choices because compliance with the law is on the other dude then why should anybody have any sense of duty to the common good? Or is your expectation that MAGA voters should just sit idly by and watch undocumented labor destroy the domestic worker’s bargaining power and be happy about it? Is that the stupid fantasy land you live in where they fancy economics class stuff doesn’t apply?

The middle class has watched their economic opportunities be hollowed out for a variety of reasons (lots of those reasons caused by Republicans) and you’re all too happy to continue doing it to them in this part of your personal life. Then you wonder why they vote the way they do.

This is an economic issue, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with your laborers work ethic or social justice. I’m sure he is a fine human being trying to take care of his family. But one side of this issue is for cheap labor and the other isn’t. You have made clear which side you are on.

The best part is that you are probably one for people who claims to be happy to pay more taxes for the common good. If you only felt that way about lowing your lawn and your produce….

P.S. If you are really going to hang your hat on the constructor status argument, you should not be bragging about paying by the hour for your unskilled labor. That really, really undermines your argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t agree with the way MAGAs are approaching this as hunting down immigrants for sport, but there needs to be humane immigration reform. Plenty of people all over the world are in bad situations and would love to live in the US. Laws need to be respected.

Drop me a lime with those laws or changed so that people like our guy have a realistic chance of legal immigration. Until then I’m hiding him.

That’s the crux: he’ll never have a realistic chance at legal immigration because his economic value and utility is *derived* from his undocumented status.

Your worker is a good person and you are well intentioned. Nonetheless, if your worker had legal status his costs of operating his business would go up. As it is, he is paid cash under the table, he accepts more risk than a worker with legal status would (risks that would more properly be allocated to you the homeowner), and he very likely does not report his income to the IRS. This all means he is cheaper than properly authorized labor. A cost savings that *you* are the true beneficiary of. The net effect is that you get cheaper cost services and domestic workers with legal status are priced out of the market.

I’m sure you think that using and harboring cheap labor is noble. But the reality is that no matter how good your intentions are and how decent a person your landscaper is, you are intentionally engaging in economic activity that benefits you materially, helps the undocumented laborer but undercuts the domestic workforce. You are selling out the American labor force so that you can have extra dollars. In doing so, you are perpetuating inequality and creating a permanent economic underclass.

If your laborer ever actually had legal status, he would find himself price undercut by undocumented labor. If you were using above board labor, your prices would go up.

No, he'll never have a legal chance at immigration because the current law doesn't allow it under any circumstances. And I'm not benefiting economically in any way, shape or form. As I said earlier, I also have a lawn service where the workers appear to be documented and I'm very sure -- based on what I pay the company -- that the workers are paid less than my undocumented guy. For your argument to make any sense, I would have to be paying my guy a low wage, but I'm not. And do you know why I'm not? Because he does a BETTER job than anyone I've used around here from your so-called "domestic" workforce. They don't do half as good a job that he does. I pay him what he's worth, and I'm not undercutting anyone. If the "domestic" workforce wants $30+ an hour to take care of my yard, it can do that by doing comparable work.

In short, the whole premise of your argument is that I'm underpaying, which I'm not. I'm paying generously. I always pay generously for good work. "Domestic" laborers, by and large, do shitty work and then blame immigrants.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” The price point the domestic labor business charges in a market place where it is competing with undocumented labor is distorted and cannot be relied as a data point for setting the market labor wage.

It is not that you are paying generously, it is that your laborer is pricing generously. And you are happy to take advantage of it. Prices paid are pretax to labor but labor makes economic decision on an after-tax basis.

Dollars: Assume your guy is working 50 hours a week and 52 weeks a year. $30 * 50 * 52 = $78,000 per year. As an undocumented immigrant, the odds are overwhelmingly high that he is:

*not properly business bonded and insured (that's 2-5% in costs)

*he is not paying into SS and MC (that's another 15.3%)

*he is not paying income taxes (that's another 10-15% depending on jurisdiction)

*he does not have commercial (or consumer) auto insurance (around 12.5% of his revenue if you figure about $10,000/year--which is low for commercial auto)

There are a bunch of other things like business licenses and compliance costs he is probably also skirting and you are already approaching an increase in 50% of his costs just to get him to the same place on an after tax basis. He would need to charge you at least $45/hour if he was doing everything above board just to get himself to the same economic outcome. You think you are generous because you are paying him $30/hour because it is in your economic interest to save the true cost differential of getting him to the same place economically. Your greed is blinding you. And the moment he charged $45/hour, he would lose so much business to the undocumented guy charging $30/hour that it makes no economic sense for your guy to ever get legal status.

Of course the competitor cannot pay his laborers $30 an hour. He is likely paying full freight on the costs of running his business and the undocumented laborer is undercutting him. Your legal workforce guy would need to charge closer to $60/hour to get his crew near $30/hour and even that is cutting it thin. Most service business need to charge more around 2.5x what they pay their hourly laborers to get to a modest profit margin after accounting for all costs, so you would be talking in the ballpark of $75/hour price to get a domestic laborer to $30/hour (which will still be less on an after-tax basis than your undocumented laborer).

Risks: Last week I helped connect three undocumented laborers with a good friend from law school. They had been badly burned on a job where a homeowner asked them to unsafely burn debris on his ranch. My friend has taken on several of these types of cases and achieved great outcomes against the home owner's insurance. My undocumented laborers are so scared of any contact with the legal system (as was the case pre-Trump) that they are going to eat the injuries themselves. And while you may be one of those nice white people that thinks so highly of yourself, I am a native citizen of and raised in the same country as these injured men came from. As you would expect, I speak the language fluently, and I am trusted a lot to help a lot of these people never at a gain to myself. It didn't matter how I explained the issue to them. They are going to eat the injuries.

Undocumented migration by and large is an economic issue, not a social justice issue (in this country, at least). It always has been and always will be. There is a reason why Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers were hostile to undocumented labor. Chavez knew that this was purely an economic issue and rich farmers and wealthy people like you would use undocumented labor to undercut the wage and bargaining power of the domestic labor force. I know you think you are doing something noble. In reality, you are only perpetuating inequality and a permanent underclass.

Look, these are real people. We're not in economics class. Nothing that you just said changes the fact that if I put on my community's Facebook page that I was offering, say, $25 a hour for yard work I'd be inundated with responses from "domestic" workers happy to take it on. There's no requirement that I, hiring a guy to do yard work as an independent contractor and paying him under $2800 a year, have any obligation to withhold anything or pay the government anything. The responsibility falls solely and squarely on the guy doing the work. Were I paying $25 an hour to some "domestic" guy down the street to do shitty work, which I can virtually guarantee to be the case, and he took doesn't follow the law and pay his taxes or social security either, am I responsible for that too? Or are you saying I should only hire workers who work for companies and not themselves regardless of their legal status?

You got yours, so f#ck dem poor people, huh? And you think you are the hero of this story. You are an awful human being.

To give an American worker who is complying with the law the same economic benefit of what you are paying your undocumented laborer, you would need to be paying somewhere in the ballpark of $60-75/hr. Post that job on Facebook at $60-75 hour and see the quality of the work product your receive from domestic labor at that price point.

The undocumented laborer is arbitraging costs and undercutting the domestic labor market through noncompliance with the law. You are all too happy to accept this arrangement because it economically benefits you ($30 for great work product sure does beat $60 for it). The undocumented laborer is happy to accept this arrangement because it economically benefits him. The domestic middle class is pissed because they are on the losing end of this transaction. That you can’t see this distorts the labor market and contributes to inequality is driven by your material greed (who cares if the other guy complies with the law, you got a great work product, right?).

If you share no sense of community or duty to your fellow Americans, why should the MAGA voters? If you are all too happy to live in some libertarian paradise where you don’t care about the consequences of your economic choices because compliance with the law is on the other dude then why should anybody have any sense of duty to the common good? Or is your expectation that MAGA voters should just sit idly by and watch undocumented labor destroy the domestic worker’s bargaining power and be happy about it? Is that the stupid fantasy land you live in where they fancy economics class stuff doesn’t apply?

The middle class has watched their economic opportunities be hollowed out for a variety of reasons (lots of those reasons caused by Republicans) and you’re all too happy to continue doing it to them in this part of your personal life. Then you wonder why they vote the way they do.

This is an economic issue, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with your laborers work ethic or social justice. I’m sure he is a fine human being trying to take care of his family. But one side of this issue is for cheap labor and the other isn’t. You have made clear which side you are on.

The best part is that you are probably one for people who claims to be happy to pay more taxes for the common good. If you only felt that way about lowing your lawn and your produce….

P.S. If you are really going to hang your hat on the constructor status argument, you should not be bragging about paying by the hour for your unskilled labor. That really, really undermines your argument.

I pay by the hour because I don't need a lot of hours. And I pay well. Nobody in America pays anybody 65 dollars an hour for yard work unless you hire a landscaping company or something. And there's nothing morally wrong with not wanting to do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They aren't law-abiding if they entered the US illegally or (more likely) entered legally and overstayed their visas.

Yes, we need to let more people into the US legally, but we also need to enforce the law. I have no love for Trump's policies, but I don't support blatantly breaking the law (or allowing that to happen), either.

You’re weekly reminder that Biden wanted to sign a bipartisan immigration reform bill. Drafted by and R so they had input. Supported by the CBP union. But Trump and his sycophants sunk it so they could campaign on it and use “emergency” powers to abuse his executive authority.

And y’all fell for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They aren't law-abiding if they entered the US illegally or (more likely) entered legally and overstayed their visas.

Yes, we need to let more people into the US legally, but we also need to enforce the law. I have no love for Trump's policies, but I don't support blatantly breaking the law (or allowing that to happen), either.

You’re weekly reminder that Biden wanted to sign a bipartisan immigration reform bill. Drafted by and R so they had input. Supported by the CBP union. But Trump and his sycophants sunk it so they could campaign on it and use “emergency” powers to abuse his executive authority.

And y’all fell for it.

+1. Trump just wants to be in power. If he can manipulate people to vote because of this racist anti-immigrant garbage then he will do it. He'll do it over abortion. He'll do it over trans people. You think he actually cares about any of those policies? He does not. He is trashing your economy, taking billions for himself and his family personally , and you voted for him to do it.

[Anonymous]

This reminds me of those stories after the emancipation where the former slave holders were surprised when all the slaves left.

"Yes, massa thank you for being so gracious."

They didn't realize the slaves were just telling them what they wanted to hear.

"Yes, massa thank you for being so virtuous."

The second they get amnesty. Wait where'd Jose go? He's supposed to mow my lawn. Why is he down at the local restaurant now. Where's Juan? He's supposed to pick my strawberries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They aren't law-abiding if they entered the US illegally or (more likely) entered legally and overstayed their visas.

Yes, we need to let more people into the US legally, but we also need to enforce the law. I have no love for Trump's policies, but I don't support blatantly breaking the law (or allowing that to happen), either.

You’re weekly reminder that Biden wanted to sign a bipartisan immigration reform bill. Drafted by and R so they had input. Supported by the CBP union. But Trump and his sycophants sunk it so they could campaign on it and use “emergency” powers to abuse his executive authority.

And y’all fell for it.

Biden closed the border and stopped parole and asylum processing in 2024, without this bill. It was Biden's choice to let in illegal immigrants, shut down wall construction, end remain in Mexico, and let people in on parole and TPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a home in a very red state, and we and the neighbors are all happily harboring an undocumented immigrant from Latin America who does tremendous yardwork for all of us. We pay very very well. And we advise on how to keep their head low and avoid ICE.


I have no qualms about this. What is going on in this country right now is morally wrong. These people work their butts off, are law abiding good people and make our country great. THEY’RE doing that. Not MAGA.

If, and it's a HUGE IF, then you are stupid beyond belief to brag about your altruism! Expect ICE to be breaking down your door and murdering all of you!

Settle down sparky. Are you really so ignorant of the significance of undocumented labor to the US economy? In some industries it approaches 20% of the workforce. Why don't you educate yourself about the economy instead of spouting a bunch of dramatic bull crap.

You want an economy running on cheap labor with indentured servants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t agree with the way MAGAs are approaching this as hunting down immigrants for sport, but there needs to be humane immigration reform. Plenty of people all over the world are in bad situations and would love to live in the US. Laws need to be respected.

Drop me a lime with those laws or changed so that people like our guy have a realistic chance of legal immigration. Until then I’m hiding him.

That’s the crux: he’ll never have a realistic chance at legal immigration because his economic value and utility is *derived* from his undocumented status.

Your worker is a good person and you are well intentioned. Nonetheless, if your worker had legal status his costs of operating his business would go up. As it is, he is paid cash under the table, he accepts more risk than a worker with legal status would (risks that would more properly be allocated to you the homeowner), and he very likely does not report his income to the IRS. This all means he is cheaper than properly authorized labor. A cost savings that *you* are the true beneficiary of. The net effect is that you get cheaper cost services and domestic workers with legal status are priced out of the market.

I’m sure you think that using and harboring cheap labor is noble. But the reality is that no matter how good your intentions are and how decent a person your landscaper is, you are intentionally engaging in economic activity that benefits you materially, helps the undocumented laborer but undercuts the domestic workforce. You are selling out the American labor force so that you can have extra dollars. In doing so, you are perpetuating inequality and creating a permanent economic underclass.

If your laborer ever actually had legal status, he would find himself price undercut by undocumented labor. If you were using above board labor, your prices would go up.

No, he'll never have a legal chance at immigration because the current law doesn't allow it under any circumstances. And I'm not benefiting economically in any way, shape or form. As I said earlier, I also have a lawn service where the workers appear to be documented and I'm very sure -- based on what I pay the company -- that the workers are paid less than my undocumented guy. For your argument to make any sense, I would have to be paying my guy a low wage, but I'm not. And do you know why I'm not? Because he does a BETTER job than anyone I've used around here from your so-called "domestic" workforce. They don't do half as good a job that he does. I pay him what he's worth, and I'm not undercutting anyone. If the "domestic" workforce wants $30+ an hour to take care of my yard, it can do that by doing comparable work.

In short, the whole premise of your argument is that I'm underpaying, which I'm not. I'm paying generously. I always pay generously for good work. "Domestic" laborers, by and large, do shitty work and then blame immigrants.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” The price point the domestic labor business charges in a market place where it is competing with undocumented labor is distorted and cannot be relied as a data point for setting the market labor wage.

It is not that you are paying generously, it is that your laborer is pricing generously. And you are happy to take advantage of it. Prices paid are pretax to labor but labor makes economic decision on an after-tax basis.

Dollars: Assume your guy is working 50 hours a week and 52 weeks a year. $30 * 50 * 52 = $78,000 per year. As an undocumented immigrant, the odds are overwhelmingly high that he is:

*not properly business bonded and insured (that's 2-5% in costs)

*he is not paying into SS and MC (that's another 15.3%)

*he is not paying income taxes (that's another 10-15% depending on jurisdiction)

*he does not have commercial (or consumer) auto insurance (around 12.5% of his revenue if you figure about $10,000/year--which is low for commercial auto)

There are a bunch of other things like business licenses and compliance costs he is probably also skirting and you are already approaching an increase in 50% of his costs just to get him to the same place on an after tax basis. He would need to charge you at least $45/hour if he was doing everything above board just to get himself to the same economic outcome. You think you are generous because you are paying him $30/hour because it is in your economic interest to save the true cost differential of getting him to the same place economically. Your greed is blinding you. And the moment he charged $45/hour, he would lose so much business to the undocumented guy charging $30/hour that it makes no economic sense for your guy to ever get legal status.

Of course the competitor cannot pay his laborers $30 an hour. He is likely paying full freight on the costs of running his business and the undocumented laborer is undercutting him. Your legal workforce guy would need to charge closer to $60/hour to get his crew near $30/hour and even that is cutting it thin. Most service business need to charge more around 2.5x what they pay their hourly laborers to get to a modest profit margin after accounting for all costs, so you would be talking in the ballpark of $75/hour price to get a domestic laborer to $30/hour (which will still be less on an after-tax basis than your undocumented laborer).

Risks: Last week I helped connect three undocumented laborers with a good friend from law school. They had been badly burned on a job where a homeowner asked them to unsafely burn debris on his ranch. My friend has taken on several of these types of cases and achieved great outcomes against the home owner's insurance. My undocumented laborers are so scared of any contact with the legal system (as was the case pre-Trump) that they are going to eat the injuries themselves. And while you may be one of those nice white people that thinks so highly of yourself, I am a native citizen of and raised in the same country as these injured men came from. As you would expect, I speak the language fluently, and I am trusted a lot to help a lot of these people never at a gain to myself. It didn't matter how I explained the issue to them. They are going to eat the injuries.

Undocumented migration by and large is an economic issue, not a social justice issue (in this country, at least). It always has been and always will be. There is a reason why Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers were hostile to undocumented labor. Chavez knew that this was purely an economic issue and rich farmers and wealthy people like you would use undocumented labor to undercut the wage and bargaining power of the domestic labor force. I know you think you are doing something noble. In reality, you are only perpetuating inequality and a permanent underclass.

Look, these are real people. We're not in economics class. Nothing that you just said changes the fact that if I put on my community's Facebook page that I was offering, say, $25 a hour for yard work I'd be inundated with responses from "domestic" workers happy to take it on. There's no requirement that I, hiring a guy to do yard work as an independent contractor and paying him under $2800 a year, have any obligation to withhold anything or pay the government anything. The responsibility falls solely and squarely on the guy doing the work. Were I paying $25 an hour to some "domestic" guy down the street to do shitty work, which I can virtually guarantee to be the case, and he took doesn't follow the law and pay his taxes or social security either, am I responsible for that too? Or are you saying I should only hire workers who work for companies and not themselves regardless of their legal status?

You got yours, so f#ck dem poor people, huh? And you think you are the hero of this story. You are an awful human being.

To give an American worker who is complying with the law the same economic benefit of what you are paying your undocumented laborer, you would need to be paying somewhere in the ballpark of $60-75/hr. Post that job on Facebook at $60-75 hour and see the quality of the work product your receive from domestic labor at that price point.

The undocumented laborer is arbitraging costs and undercutting the domestic labor market through noncompliance with the law. You are all too happy to accept this arrangement because it economically benefits you ($30 for great work product sure does beat $60 for it). The undocumented laborer is happy to accept this arrangement because it economically benefits him. The domestic middle class is pissed because they are on the losing end of this transaction. That you can’t see this distorts the labor market and contributes to inequality is driven by your material greed (who cares if the other guy complies with the law, you got a great work product, right?).

If you share no sense of community or duty to your fellow Americans, why should the MAGA voters? If you are all too happy to live in some libertarian paradise where you don’t care about the consequences of your economic choices because compliance with the law is on the other dude then why should anybody have any sense of duty to the common good? Or is your expectation that MAGA voters should just sit idly by and watch undocumented labor destroy the domestic worker’s bargaining power and be happy about it? Is that the stupid fantasy land you live in where they fancy economics class stuff doesn’t apply?

The middle class has watched their economic opportunities be hollowed out for a variety of reasons (lots of those reasons caused by Republicans) and you’re all too happy to continue doing it to them in this part of your personal life. Then you wonder why they vote the way they do.

This is an economic issue, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with your laborers work ethic or social justice. I’m sure he is a fine human being trying to take care of his family. But one side of this issue is for cheap labor and the other isn’t. You have made clear which side you are on.

The best part is that you are probably one for people who claims to be happy to pay more taxes for the common good. If you only felt that way about lowing your lawn and your produce….

P.S. If you are really going to hang your hat on the constructor status argument, you should not be bragging about paying by the hour for your unskilled labor. That really, really undermines your argument.

I pay by the hour because I don't need a lot of hours. And I pay well. Nobody in America pays anybody 65 dollars an hour for yard work unless you hire a landscaping company or something. And there's nothing morally wrong with not wanting to do that.

Are you paying social security taxes, and unemployment insurance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tax fraud? Shouldn’t he be paying taxes on income and reporting it.

He would if he could. He's a good man.

He should get an ITIN from IRS and pay income taxes. You (and your neighbors) should be generating 1099s to report his income from each of you.

FWIW - This is one of the privacy issues between IRS and Homeland Security - the undocumented are required to and have been paying taxes using ITINs. Part of the reason IRS has gone through so many Commissioners this year. They get told by Counsel they can't legally comply with DHS's blanket requests and don't feel like going to jail over it.

[Anonymous]

I commend you!