This morning, the Boston Globe had a rather moving story about the poor, beleaguered Brazilian population of Massachusetts. It seems they are being horribly persecuted in and by the Bay State.
It seems that they are feeling rather picked on of late. Recently, 14 Brazilians were arrested while cleaning at Logan Airport. Those arrests brought to 105 the number of Brazilians arrested in the month of March.
The spokesman for the Brazilian Immigrants Center, one Fausto da Rocha, says there are about a quarter of a million Brazilians in Massachusetts, and they are being squeezed unfairly by law enforcement.
Their crime? They’re “undocumented workers.”
Let’s look at a few selected quotes from the story.
“There’s more of them, so they’ll feel” they are being targeted, said Paula Correia, a Framingham town meeting member who is concerned about the high number of undocumented Brazilians in the city, which she puts at more than 10,000.
One city, over TEN THOUSAND illegal aliens from a single country. That’s roughly twice the size of the town I grew up in.
Fausto da Rocha said that of the quarter million or so Brazilians in the state, up to 70 percent may be undocumented.
The official spokesman says that if you grab a random Brazilian on the streets, the odds are better than two in three that they’re here illegally. That’s their OWN SPOKESMAN.
Law enforcement officials say there is a simpler explanation: So many Brazilians are being detained because of an expansive scheme exposed in 2002. Former Framingham businessman Karl K. Vasconcelos headed an identity fraud ring that sold more than 1,700 Social Security cards to illegal immigrants across the country, about 700 of them in Massachusetts.
Gee, in the days of rampant identity theft, the police are concerned about someone who sold bogus Social Security cards? Who’da thunk it?
The largest of the March roundups sprang from that case: Jose Neto, one of the Brazilians who bought a card, was one of the 700 summoned to interviews with immigration officials.
In his interview, he admitted being in the country illegally and offered a $20,000 bribe for green cards for him and his wife. Neto’s arrest, in turn, led authorities to the 57 employees of his cleaning company — also Brazilians, and also in the country illegally.
This guy can get his hands on 20 grand to score green cards — almost a year’s pay to me — but he can’t afford to get into the country legally?
One of the common rationalizations by the defenders of illegal immigration is that “they’re only doing the jobs Americans don’t want to do.” I happen to know a guy who is trying to start up an office-cleaning business. He keeps losing out on jobs, though, because he keeps getting underbid by competitors who seem to exclusively employ people who don’t speak English. And I’m sure no Americans really mind that their airports (and Logan was the origin of the hijacked 9/11 planes that crashed into and destroyed the World Trade Center towers) are being cleaned by illegal aliens, who have full access to every part of the airport.
And just when I was finished writing this article, a reader calling him/herself “HumanX” e-mailed me a link to this story. Apparently the officials of Jupiter, Florida have also decided to tackle the problems if illegal immigrants head-on by establishing a central assembly point for day laborers.
I’ve said it many times, but I’m gonna keep saying it again and again until someone convinces me that I’m wrong: either ENFORCE THE EXISTING GODDAMNED LAWS ABOUT IMMIGRATION OR CHANGE THEM. At this point, I almost don’t care which they do. But I’m sick and tired of people — especially our ELECTED PUBLIC OFFICIALS — simply choosing to ignore the laws.
Screw it. I’m short of cash. I’m gonna break into my neighbor’s house, do a bit of cleaning up, and then steal some money. After all, I’m just doing the job that they don’t want to do, aren’t I?
J.
I don’t know that I totally buy the “they only do the jobs nobody else will do” argument.
I read an article somewhere several months back (think it may have been in the Concord Monitor) that talked about a study that indicated that in areas of the country with large populations of illegals that the entry level unskilled jobs (and even some skilled ones in construction type work) had wages much lower than areas with low populations of illegal immigrants. It explained how illegal immigrants hurt legal immigrants and citizens more, because the wages were lower.
I would love for legal immigration to be made easier and cheaper, but see a zero tolerance policy for illegal immigration. Anyone who is “undocumented” should be deported quickly.
Illegal aliens depress the wages of low-skill workers. This was the case with the meat-packing industry, and its certainly the case with construction, fast food, etc. While I can understand illegals rationalization for coming, we have laws, and they need to be followed. If people want to lobby to change the laws, that’s fine, but let’s follow the laws.
As for me, I am against changing the laws.
LA County Sherrif Lee Baca was interviewed on Laura Ingraham’s show Monday morning. LA Cty jail system is the largest, with the most inmates of ANY county jail system in the county
and 23% of the inmates are illegal aliens.
23%
And when they are released and kicked out of the country, many of them come right back in.
And LA has a policy that no one can be stopped and asked their immigration status UNLESS they are being stopped for another crime.
insanity … effing insanity
typo
should be “largest county system …in the country“
Maybe Taxachusetts can cut a deal with the LDS Church and get them all baptised then send them to Utah…
Personally, I’d not mind an influx of Brazilians here in Pittsburgh. Of course, we don’t have any jobs for anyone, undocumented or otherwise, but still, as people go, they’re a fun bunch.
Especially the women. 🙂
Brazilian ladies look hot in those G-Strings though!
Yeah, Jay Tea’s idea seems to emphasize the issue best: every citizen (that means, you’re “legally” in residence in the U.S., generally, unless you’re legally here as a non-citizen) ought to go break into their neighbors’ homes and clean their homes, then eat their fill, use whatever they need/want (clothing, linens, some new dishes and a car would be handy) and leave a note that they did the work that the neighbor didn’t want to do, so, hey, thanks for the things!
WHY don’t legislators enforce the laws? That’s truly an offensive aspect to the immigration/illegal immigration problem, as to why these vast networks of peoples even exist (um, Brazilians in such numbers all in one area of the country surely indicates a well established network of human trafficking, mostly, from the stats, of the illegal immigrant kind).
I still opine here that the line (I find it a taunt) that illegal immigrants “do the work that Americans won’t do” really offensive. It’s like, jab-yer-host-in-their-eyes-and-then-say-‘friends?’.
I can’t stand the denigration and lack of respect that that statement delivers about the opinions of those who use it, reason via that rationalization (that it makes their illegal status alright since they’re ‘doing the work that Americans won’t do’), is truly low.
They also expect Americans (who they think so badly about) to pay for just about everything they want, need. I hear it and read it every single day here in Southern CA.
Illegal immigration denigrates worker conditions, all around: wages, ethics, safety, quality…
Immigration law must be enforced! Let’s see if I can get a couple of points acros as to why I personally am fed up!
#1) I live in the Central Valley of California where in my town the population is over 90% hispanic. My children have sat through classroom instruction in SPANISH because the school district is so focused on migrant education that their solution was to be “fair” and instruct the non english speaking in their native language.
#2) My last job was as a manager for a tax credit property. Over 80% of the tenants were illegal, undocumented immigrants!! How fair is it to tell a citizen that I have to run a credit report on them with their valid social security number and possibly decline them because of an oustanding bill or two and then turn around and have my regional director tell me that if an applicant does not have a valid social then we should just verify employment with whatever invented number that they are using at work. No credit report can be ran obviously because their will not be a match of the number to their also invented name. Anyways, I was under the immpression that a tax credit property was to help provide affordable housing to those that are low to moderate incomes, not provide an immigrant haven. Day in and day out I would watch all of those tenants come and go from work…yep, all of those individuals that did not have a legal right to even be here and had no documentation and no right to be employed here, coming and going to work. Which brings me to an even better part of that job, All of those females that right away would ask if their applying would affect their welfare because they were not reporting their spouses that they had listed on the rental application. (Yes, those spouses that were out there working and earning money that they could be supporting their welfare receiving families with.) Don’t think that it is only the males that work and don’t report the money to welfare, I watched many of those women coming and going from work as well. But all that concerned them during the application process was “Does the welfare see this?” I processed so many applications of men and women that were illegal but receiving welfare for their children and boasting of their “Right” to welfare because their children were born here! (I quit this job because I got pretty sick and tired of seeing just how easy we have made it for illegal immigrants.) You know that highly debated mexican consulate issued matricula? Yep, this particular property management company that I worked for accepts it as valid identification! Right along with their acceptance of fake social security numbers.
#3) Did I mention that the only reason that I was given my last 2 jobs was because I speak spanish fluently? Yes, it is true. I was born in Oklahoma but when we moved to California most of my classmates did not speak English. Through the past 20 years I have been forced to learn spanish out of exposure.When I gave notice I watched my boss reject applicant after qualified applicant because and I quote “THEY DON’T SPEAK SPANISH” which brings me to point
#4) I remember being a teenager willing to work in the fields. I would line up with my friends at what I guess would be considered a day labor pick up spot.Vans and busses would pull in to get workers and truck them to the fields. I would be left to back home so upset and crying because the foremen would not take me to work. As my frinds translated, “because you don’t speak spanish and you won’t understand the bosses instructions.” Hmmmm, is that not reverse discrimination? Now you understand the forced learning of a foreign language in my own country… just so that I could get a job working on the field!! By the way, the few americans that I know would be happy to even have field work wages for income because unemployment levels here are sky high.
Now even though I speak spanish, my children have been raise speaking English. Why do they have to be forced to learn in a language that is not their own? The general consensus here even by the hispanics that do speak English is that they raise their children with only spanish because they “will learn English at school.”
Now this type of mentality has created a dumbed down society. My own children are in schools that are severely below standard levels. Why? Because the school is having to teach English before they can teach the children to read and write.
The marquee at my childrens schools are posted in Spanish!!! The mexican flag is flow prominently over numerous houses here. I feel like screaming when I see vehicles airbrushed with “Michoacan or Jalisco” Their owners native states in Mexico. I have had more that my share of hearing from numerous individuals that Mexico is so much better than America. When I ask them why they are here then they all have the same answer…because they make a lot of money here. They all brag of how much they are sending to their families and how they are sending money to have their houses built…Or how they are sending money to bring the rest of their family over.
Look us up…Avenal, California in Kings County. Home of one of the highest unemployment rates,phenomenal welfare figures even though Yes, Clinton did try reforming welfare…BUT…here is a loophole to their welfare to work program. They can not require you to find a job and get you off of welfare if you don’t even have a legal right to work here!!! Nope, just do like the good law abiding “citizens” of Avenal, get welfare, work under a fake name, don’t report any of it! We have one of the highest teen pregnancies statistics around and lowest educational test levels according to state standards.
Welcome to the daily life of a minority in America…sign me Proud to be an Authentic American. The Few, the Proud, the Nearly Eradicated
Well, in my opinion, that`s the price all of you and your so beloved country pay for using of propaganda to elevate your country`s value or richness. I don`t know if I should say this but, accepting immigrants in your “adorable” country, is kind of “perks of the job”. If you did not want that, then, you should not use such ingratiating propagandas to “sell” your contry`s image as PARADISE itself. Doing so, you all have to accept and expect some change. May God, who is control of all of this, bless BRASIL and also U.S !