Sunday, October 28, 2018

the refugee pipeline (not in the news)

the "refugee" caravan in the news is of course being spun by both sides. The interviews are with poor moms who sob about fleeing violence but the photos show a bunch of young men, presumably who want jobs.

One wag on a conservative site suggested that US businesses who want blue collar workers should go down and hire them for construction and factory work, since there is a shortage of Americans signing up for these jobs.

As I have posted before: ten percent of Filipinos work overseas or on ships, most of them with legal contracts, and so maybe Trumpie boy should tell the Saudi prince to send his job recruiters to Mexico and Guatemala... to find workers as they do in India, Pakistan, and more recently, to East Africa.

the main problem? They would have to learn English, which is the lingua franca of the workers.

I have sympathy for the "migrants": I just resent that this is being spun by some for political reasons. Build the wall, and arrange for companies to recruit and people to get into the US easier and voila, problem solved. Oh yes: And an amnesty, as Ronald Reagan did.

My daughter in law is a proud US citizen who got her papers via this amnesty: She works full time, and her three kids are college grads. Works for us.

My son immigrated the usual way, but my other son, who lost his green card in a teenaged fit of anger when he went back to his home country, is now unable to even visit his brother in the USA. When he was interviewed, they turned him down, even though he owns a small business, because they figured he's disappear and find a job. Well, his plan was actually to find a job in construction, work all summer, and make some money to expand his business, but never mind. He was turned down for a visa, and can't afford 12 thousand dollars to pay the coyotes to smuggle him across.

My husband, a doctor, got into the US for further training and then got a visa to work in an area that needed doctors. He also became a US citizen and helped his relatives, who were doctors and nurses, get jobs to move to the mid west. Then we have a Navy Vet cousin living in Chicago. The US Navy used to recruit Filipinos who spoke English, mainly to work in the kitchens of ships. So in places like San Diego you can find a lot of people from our area.

So no, I am not worried about immigration.

However, it is an open secret that for low level jobs, employers would exploit and under pay illegals, and not pay their social security etc so they were cheaper to hire: And this contributed to the high unemployment rate in both the inner city and in the rust belt: when the mines and factories shut down, they often couldn't find work because the places were already filled with illegals. The Unions knew this, so should be backing Trumpie boy on the issue (and the blacks knew this too, as did legal immigrants of all types).

But the bleeding hearts who want to let everyone in forgets about the importance of screening out the riff raff. The crime wave after the Mariel boat lift was real. And young men without women tend to get into trouble: be it American soldiers or "yutes" pretending to be children to get into Germany as refugees.

however, there is a major refugee problem right now that is getting little publicity: The huge exodus from Venezuela, whose economy collapsed due to socialism. Even the Chinese are wondering if their investments are worth it.

GlobalVoices has an article with links to Venezuealans who are blogging their flight to another country.
 a number of Venezuelan communities abroad have created Facebook groups, and use Twitter and other social networks to give support and advice in destinations like ColombiaEcuadorChile, and Spain — a virtual solidarity network for those who must leave their country.
Other means of help
The situation for Venezuelans leaving the country has worried some NGOs that support migrants. Among them, the Jesuit Network for Migrants and the Jesuit Service for Refugees from Latin American and the Caribbean who have designed a “virtual map” in order to help with people's safety while traveling to Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador or Peru. The project is another example of the magnitude of the Venezuelan exodus, now considered to be the largest in the region in the last 50 years.


My suggestion: send someone down to screen these people and let a couple hundred thousand of these refugee in while you are at it.


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