Building a Better Burrito with Healthy Immigration
However, people were violating the law. That seems to be the only point carrying any weight with most conservatives, including those in the Tea Party. Leading up to the Iowa caucuses, the Tea Party Immigration Coalition has encouraged recipients of its newsletter to bombard talk radio with a message of crackdown on illegal immigrants and those who would employ them. Talking points include securing the border with a fence and the military, securing the workplace with E-verify, and securing the interior by apprehending and deporting illegals, among other measures.
Removing incentives is a better deterant to illegal immigration than this or any fence.
The frustration which drives conservative angst regarding illegal immigration is understandable. At root lies our reverence for the rule of law. People who break the law ought to face consequences. Yet immigrant illegality is tolerated while citizens are held to a different standard. There is also a serious national security concern when millions of foreign nationals are pouring over the border without any scrutiny of their health, conduct, or character.
However, these and other concerns surrounding immigration conflate in strange and unusual ways which contradict free market principles. For instance, how is life under E-verify an expression of the free market? Would not a mandate of E-verify place the federal government in direct oversight of every employment relationship in the country? Where’s that in the Constitution? Aren’t conservatives typically arguing against such intervention in the marketplace? How could we insure against abuse? Imagine your E-verify status being “turned off.” How could you fight that? How would you feed your family in the meantime?
Zeal to crack down on illegals too frequently crowds out such questions. The assumption is that decent hard-working Americans have nothing to fear from an E-verify system or other measures to handle illegals. That’s a dangerous assumption, particularly when you cannot say with certainty who may come to power tomorrow.
Of greater concern than unintended consequences are our first principles, the foundation upon which we ought to base our policy prescriptions. As conservatives, we tend to recognize that laws are not made just through their passage. We would not argue that a law restricting speech, if passed, ought to be enforced. Our first concern is that policy flow from natural law and secure individual rights.
What we need is a root and branch reform of the current immigration system, itself a liberal/progressive “present” courtesy of Teddy Kennedy. His law enshrined the principle of “family reunification” as the most important gauge of whether or not an applying legal immigrant should receive a visa – and there is a quota system by country, as well.
We need skilled workers, not mom, pop, and a third cousin. America needs scientists, engineers, skilled technicians in most trades, and anyone who wants to invest say, $2.5 million of their own money [not borrowed]. Anyone who graduates from a U.S. university with a masters or PhD in science/engineering/technology should be welcome to stay as a permanent resident alien. We should halt the current policy of sending student and exchange visitor visa holders home at the end of their education in the U.S. An American citizen should always have the right to have a non-citizen spouse and children immigrate to the U.S. Permanent resident aliens, or new immigrants, should be able to bring their spouses and children with them or be guaranteed to right to join within a few years.
As far as quotas go, what do we need? A million a year? 500,000? In any case, there should be no quota by country. If we have more immigrants from India than Ireland, so what? We need the best and the brightest, not the more geographically preferable.
The rationale behind quotas by country is that we want immigrants to assimilate into the American culture. There is less incentive for that if you can just move to a neighborhood with a majority population of your former countrymen. I think that’s a legitimate concern.
Well, I fit that bill. But, I’m an American who needs work. I;m not a hyphenated American. I’m an American. I have science background AND work experience. I’ve worked in engineering capacity.
But, between the EEOC and AA and what ever other minority subsidy companies get for hiring unskilled uneducated and ‘hyphenated’ americans (small ‘a’ because only their address “IS” America) that creates a widely disproportionate employee cultural demographic keeps me from getting a (another) decent career, since the recession in 2008.
You want ‘burrito building skills’?(Mr. Author) fine. I can understand your marveling at them. After all, you are only a WRITER. We don’t need another apologist for illegal immigration, thank you. And changing the lexicon to “healthy immigration” ain’t gonna do it either. We need LEGAL Immigration. Period. Can’t wait? Too bad. Life’s tough all over.
Here in America where Americans have, like it or not, built the strongest and most productive (until recently) economy in the world (that means EFFICIENT as well). And falling wages and disappearing benefits due to cheap unskilled labor is killing that. And the entire national economy shows it. Jobs are going overseas and companies that can afford to remain domestically look for cheap educated workers from other nations whom they sponsor, LEGALLY, to come here to work for them.
Smoke and mirrors is not the fix, Mr. Author. REAL government and REAL government control, not feigned control, are the answer.
Yes! We do not need illegal immigrants to save us from anything.
A word of advice, from a young political centrist: You really, really should not have framed this argument around a burrito chain. People will insist on interpreting that badly. Yes, I know we can’t be held responsible to other people’s kneejerk reactions, but that doesn’t mean we can’t exercise caution. Young voters are a very reactive sort, and public education has, shamefully, taught us to be witch-hunters.
That said, I’m greatly encouraged to see an article that focuses on liberalizing (using the word classically, here) the American workforce. Don’t get me wrong, I disagree with a lot of it, but all the rationalizations are refreshingly consistent.
You have, however, hit on a problem with a total free-market: If I want to feed my family, it’s in my best interest to keep some other poor guy out of a job. Even if I’m less qualified, pursuing my own interests demands that I tip the scales in my favor any way I can. That’s more or less why labor unions got started, in addition to rotten working conditions. Cesar Chavez was no friend to scabs.
It’s all well and good to talk about “bitter pills to swallow”, but this does not console the unemployed. And yes, we actually do have to console them, because people have a habit of getting angry when they’re idle and impoverished. The Occupy crowd could have sought gainful employment apple-picking, but would they have been hired? What happens when they’re not? Which entitlements are we getting rid of? Social security was a scam from the get-go, but as for entitlements like unemployment, well, I think we need those. It is hard to look for a job when you’re starving to death.
Yes, I know very people in this country starve, but I would wager that that’s *because* of the entitlements. Every year we need less unskilled labor even as the qualifications for “unskilled” rise.
I’m in the middle of Gen Y, but my parents were baby-boomers. They’ve expressed dismay at the lack of employment for people my age, an artificial problem that has been created by unthinking regulation. So I do understand the points you’re making. But, ultimately, I doubt anyone will want to pursue the free-market ideal if they can’t buy their children textbooks.
There’s so much to address in this comment. Suffice it to say, as I stated in the piece, need is not a moral claim. That’s how the Left has gained ground over the past 100+ years, by appealing to our sense of altruism and demanding sacrifice. However, sacrifice is inherently immoral, trading a greater value for a lesser one, a destructive exchange.
I take issue with the notion that we are responsible for consoling the unemployed, lest they riot. There is no circumstance under which the initiation of force – said rioting – is appropriate. It is THEIR responsibility to behave like men, not mine to placate them like boys.
I recognize that we likely agree more than we disagree, and that your heart is in the right place. But I can’t stress enough how dangerous it is to embrace need as a moral claim.
As for the burrito reference, it’s a direct reference to a real situation. I understand your concern, but tend not to yield to irrational controversy. Let the accusations fly.
“A thug is a thug”
Unless that thug is representing a criminal gang like MS-13, in which case a thug is a representative of a hostile terrorist power who moves easily in Hispanic immigrant communities.
If your common-sense prescriptions on immigration don’t include a complete moratorium on immigration until a real wall is built and the illegals in this country are all deported, your proposals are not serious.
“The immigration debate confronts us with an uncomfortable truth regarding our own sense of entitlement. Often lost among the lofty rhetoric of a free market is the reality that you may not be the best person for your job. Indeed, an immigrant may be able to do it better and cheaper. If they can, your employer is within their rights to dump you and hire them. That can be a tough pill to swallow, particularily in a time of high unemployment. ”
You will have to decide if you want your country run like a farmer runs his farm and decides what livestock makes the most profit in which cages and which livestock to discard when it no longer performs; or if you care about your community and way of life enough to badger your teenagers (and other lazy folk) into improving their attitudes to a level that you (and they) can live with.
One way anonymous serfdom lies, the other way is how cultures are built and maintained.
Your analogy is misplaced. The country ought not be “run.” It should be governed. The object of that governance should be the protection of individual rights. Speaking strictly from natural law, business owners have the right to hire whomever they please based on whatever criteria they choose. Employment decisions are hardly analogous to a farmer managing livestock, as the livestock have no volition or agency and engage in no trade. Employees accept what is offered, are free to serve or leave, and cannot be lawfully harmed. Livestock are property which can be disposed of. Employees are not. Firing someone does not deprive them of anything they had before they were hired.
I’m all for getting Americans in better shape to compete in the workforce. However, that is a responsibility that lies with the individual, not the “community.”
Well, if you want to bring natural law into this, then you should acknowledge that under natural law theory, individuals must obey all just and reasonable laws such as immigration laws which prohibit you from knowingly employing illegal immigrants. Natural law theory is not libertarianism…
“…individuals must obey all just and reasonable laws such as immigration laws which prohibit you from knowingly employing illegal immigrants.”
Finding out whether a future employee is an illegal is NOT an easy job & fake legalization documents & phony SS numbers can make it downright impossible. Investigating too much gets employers in trouble because it’s “profiling.” Some states even make it unlawful to use E Verify, the Federal govt’s own system. Hiring anyone w/a foreign accent is a gamble & a lot of employers aren’t willing to take the risk…fines hurt the business AND employees already on the payroll.
Not a problem, an opportunity. Simply charge immigrants a surtax of say 10% on their earnings. Charge everyone until there is proof of citizenship provided.
The immigrants will gladly pay 10% to live here legally unmolested.
In the case of the average illegal from Mexico and Central America I think you might have to charge nearer to 50% to cover the excess of the cost of (i) services required due to their presence over (ii) their actual contribution to State, Federal and Local revenue. Their employers get the benefit of cheaper labor, but in the meantime, in Texas for example, all the major cities, school districts and hospital districts have been in a continuing crisis mode for some years trying to deal with the influx of people who pay few taxes but demand a lot of services. The recent economic downturn hurt of course, but the crises and the cause of the crises are old, if politically incorrect, news.
I agree, 50% is more appropriate to the cost.
Just a side note. With all those illegals how did they talk them into making that god-awful food. The Mexican workers must have got a chuckle out of the recipes. Not sure how you say WTF? in Spanish but they must have asked.
I forgot to mention that: having spent 2 years in Latin America I can truthfully say it is the worst “Latino food” I’ve ever had, worse than Taco Bell. Hope they got the Quiznos across from the Hopkins store as I have never once seen anyone other than a Latino work there nor ever once a Latino buying food there.
Really nice people, but I’m not fond of using Spanish to clarify my orders so close to the frickin’ North Pole. I make my bed, I lie in it, not someone from Melchior de Mencos. Fair’s fair and there’s every evidence that if more millions arrive they won’t be enjoying the bed I made but a new and crappy version of Melchior de Mencos without sheets or mattress.
This debate is just one in a series that presents the same issue: we are debating ways to “fix” policies that are fundamentally unconstitutional in the first place. It undermines our arguments everytime, and makes us look like hypocrites in every debate.
Progressives have ruled the roost, policy-wise, for so long that conservatives are blamed when they are incapable of managing progressive policies (that were never going to work anyway) effectively.
How is a single conservative held accountable for the disasters of Medicare and Medicaid (or of healthcare in general)? Of the War on Poverty and the destruction of the inner-city? Of immigration, and the mess that’s become?
Until we change the premise of the debate from “fixing” policies that were broken since inception to rebuilding from the Constitution up, this will continue to happen
Indeed. That’s the crux of it precisely. We must start from first principles and question the basis of law rather than debate the efficiency of its management. Contrary to popular rhetoric among friends, the state is not a business and should not be run as such. The state is a referee, a sentinel of natural law, or at least it ought to be.
A little burrito disruption is worth it when:
1. The social and tax burden illegal immigrants have on a community is reduced.
2. Public schools aren’t further burdened by children who don’t belong in the country and can’t speak english.
3. Uninsured, illegal immigrant drivers aren’t damaging property or worse injuying or killing others thru negligent or drunk driving.
4. American teenagers, particularly the underprivileged, are introduced to work and responsibility.
Alternatively, create a worker visa where citizenship is not conferred on to the off-spring and employers are responsible for the health care of the worker and educatiom costs of their children.
This is the same kind of cost/benefit analysis that the Left utilizes to arrive at policy prescriptions. Rather than start from the purpose of law, they start from an objective they wish to accomplish. They then use the government’s monopoly on force in an attempt to coerce that objective. As conservatives, our policy prescriptions ought to be based on principle, not desired outcomes.
I’m certainly not saying you are a leftist. However, it concerns me greatly when conservatives validate the Left’s objective-based policy-making by using it when convenient.
Each item you list would be moot if our civil law flowed from natural law, rather than attempts at social engineering. The burdens you cite are self-imposed. We need only sit them down.
As a libertarian conservative, I have grown so tired of the simplistic application of libertarian principles. The real world of laws and economics is a complex system and the principles cannot be shallowly applied in isolation in the name of ideological purity. It is is not a question of sacrificing principle, but rather applying them in the context of complexity.
The difficulty lies in incrementally moving this messy system back in the direction of what the Founders called ‘ordered liberty’, with moving in such a way that results in a global (in the math sense of overall) improvement, which is stable at each step.
The more common simplistic ‘pure’ libertarian take is that every individual local (in the math sense) step toward liberty is an unmitigated win — regardless of the consequences in the larger system.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
A simple example is the Savings&Loan debacle of the 80s. A great reduction in the federal regulation of S&Ls was hailed by libertarians everywhere as a ‘win’. Reason, Cato, etc were all high fiving each other. Of course the fatal flaw was in not thinking about the larger system in a mature fashion — FSLC protection (the S&L counterpart to FDIC gov’t guarantees) was still in place. The end result was ever riskier behavior by the S&Ls, knowing the govt would always bail them out — the ‘moral hazard’, blocking true market discipline — and as a result billions of dollars were lost, and deregulation and economic liberty got a black eye.
Clearly it sometimes better to *not* make move, or make a smaller one, unless/until related changes can also be put in place, so th elocal improvement does not become a net loss globally.
Illegality is not the issue, so much as assimilation (wrt to basic American libertarian ideals.) Freedom of contract is not the only issue here. For radically greater liberty to succeed, in moving the state further out of the equation, the only other real option for supporting self-regulation in society is the core culture. [I know many libertarians make the same mistake as the Marxists in thinking economics --in this case market -- is everything.]
If you want to either a) continue ignoring illegal immigration (or make it ‘legal’ with the stroke of the amnesty pen) or b) vastly increase legal immigration under the existing scheme (with its current preference for third world diversity over what people bring to the table), in the context losing our republic to ‘democracy’ and the welfare state, it will NOT end well for liberty.
Aside from securing the border and increasing enforcement of current law, I wouldn’t touch immigration without first reforming the several other areas of policy which exasperate it. Your S&L example is instructive. In a system where inappropriate intervention is considered acceptable, you end up with a web of interventions which interact with each other in complex ways. However, the negative affect of one does not justify another which mitigates it in some way.
Thinking of liberty in global terms smacks of a kind of utilitarianism. The complexities of implementing a policy have no affect upon the morality of doing so. People should be able to engage in economic relationships because it is their natural right, regardless of any global effect.
1) The first page or two totally — and deliberately — talks about illegal immigration without any context. Then later you only mention welfare reform as a similar issue of liberty, and add one throwaway line about incentives. Then you’re back to talking about immigration in isolation.
2) It is not ignoring or abandoning ‘principle’, or mere utilitarianism, to argue — based on common sense reality — about the *order* in which liberty (and better policies based on those principles) should be reasserted and applied. It is not unprincipled to say that *dismantling* a statist, command system is highly path dependent, and is in some ways vulnerable to the same knowledge problem that those who want to command and control face. FWIW I am *not* proposing a libertarian precautionary principle (funny how progs/libs never apply that to social engineering), but rather common sense care in how we proceed with reform.
Examples:
In the legal and regulatory environment we actually live in, would you go for marijuana reform *without* first also ensuring stoners don’t become a protected class and employers can’t be barred from, or sued for, firing them?
Would you vote for drastically curtailing the powers and cutting back budgets of the police without first guaranteeing/confirming 2nd Amendment rights, and the individual’s sovereign right to defense of person and property, including deadly force and no requirement to retreat?
3) Right here in your response to me you betray a certain incoherence, contradicting yourself with acknowledging my historical example of the S&L crisis then retreating back to simplistically ignoring the larger context of any specific liberty issue in the name of principle.
Taking you at face value, after ceding the facts and relevance of my S&L example, you return to the shallow approach under which you would have to say that the unbalanced policies in that case were just fine and dandy — a local, short term win is a win, regardless of the overall impact (in that case innocent people losing their money, taxapayers on the hook for those that were fully covered, and a black eye for deregulation).
Make up your mind.
P.S. I was a subscriber to Liberty and Reason, and an actual dues paying LP member back when you weren’t shaving yet, so you can skip the earnest lectures about the basics of principles.
What in seven hells are you talking about? You want to empower the wholesale transfer of Latin Americans in their millions on the ultra trivial idea of a few minutes of service at a restaurant? And please source this slowdown of service now that lazy white kids are involved.
Whom does this benefit? It benefits law and order and me. Guess what: here’s a startling couple of ideas: Minnesota ain’t Mexico and nor is it a Constitutional airport at the service of the Third World now that all the redecorating has been done – there’s law and then there’s what’s right and the law is being ignored as well as what’s right. If Latinos want this type of country, let them redecorate the Third World.
And you think Americans see this as some academic view of the rule of law otherwise devoid of considerations such as sucking entitlements and the economy dry and sending their income to Latin America, crime, overpopulation, illegals in Minnesota holding immoral extortion strikes against companies like Super Valu they don’t even work for? I say kick ‘em out and keep ‘em out.
And what’s this nonsense about a double standard for illegals and citizens? They’re illegals, they have no entitlement to any standard let alone comparative analysis that sheds tears for them. They’re not supposed to even be here in the first place.
And stop using the hideous Orwellian dangers of E-Verify and minimum wage to prop up this depraved argument. Wages and unemployment would be better minus millions of illegals.
And if you want to see an example of an “invented” problem, invent yourself over to Rio de Janeiro and Mumbai where I’ve been and look at hundreds of illegal shanty towns and in the case of Mumbai not enough room to frickin’ walk on the street. We have to start thinking about overpopulation now and not in 50 years when we’re undone.
And then you have even more for us like “national origin or legal status so much as weak and permissive law enforcement. A thug is a thug.”
Oh yeah? DO TELL? You live in a country where a Tea Party not organized around race and mere disagreement with the President constitute racism and yet organizations formally FOUNDED on race like the Congressional Black Caucus and La Raza get a pass. And try reading TheGrio and The Root for just 7 days and tell me they are not hate speech-lite against whites while not one single equivalent white version with the same mainstream advertising and celebrities participation exists in the United States.
No sir, a thug is not a thug in America as the Rainbow Coalition is considered incapable of bigotry and racism but which it prominently displays with naked self advocacy devoid of any Constitutional view of the greater good. That poor prostitute is only dragged out when needed to pillory Arizona or any one crazy enough to not feel gay marriage is one of the four element of antiquity.
I am so angry at this article I could bite the head off a nail.
Here! Here! Bravo and well put!
” And try reading TheGrio and The Root for just 7 days and tell me they are not hate speech-lite against whites”
Try reading Walter and not deciding he’s venting a little hate-whitey anger.
Thank you, and well said.
How did this piece even get past the editorial board (is there one?) at PJMedia? And I’m not talking about the content (even though it sounded more than just a little bit like an 11th grade essay written by a teenager who believes he has some insight into anything), but the crazy, all-over-the-place swings.
I won’t even argue the content of this article. This piece was more nonsense than otherwise, and not worthy of PJMedia.
Your anger is preventing comprehension. You attribute arguments that I did not make, and ignore ones that I did. In my experience, that’s a sign that meaningful discussion is impossible. Suffice it to say, if you think “it’s the law” is a valid argument, you must by default be as vehemently in favor of Obamacare as you are for the status quo in immigration law.
Reading further into these comments, it’s quite distressing to see just how prolific this “it’s the law” sentiment is. “Law and order” is not arbitrary. It’s based upon principle, individual rights above of all. That is my point. It’s disappointing to see professed conservatives disagree. It implies that you merely prefer your set of arbitrary laws to another.
No sir “it’s the law” is not a sheep like submission to the law regardless of it’s morality but a recognition of laws in place – you are purposefully confusing being “in favor” of a law and obeying a law – you can’t just cozen a tidal wave of ILLEGAL aliens cuz you don’t like the law – it’s the law and a good one too but it’s the law, it’s not arbitrary. What in the world is arbitrary about border laws? They didn’t come out of a lotto.
If you have a problem with a law then work to get them changed but you can’t simple ignore them; everyone has laws they don’t like. To ignore them is the opposite of law and order as every gov’t official and private citizen then merely does what their conscience tells them to do.
I didn’t ignore arguments you made but simply didn’t disagree with every last word. What I did in fact do was specifically address issues YOU brought up which is more than I can say for you.
Shorter message: screw the rule of law, I was inconvenienced and that cannot STAND!!!
Between Ruben and Walter, is it the editorial position of PJMedia to support open borders?
If you are going to Chipotle Grill for your “mexican” food, you are a sad, sad man.
If Chipotle Meheecan Grill cannot function without illegals, then maybe it needs to go out of business, like any other business that relies on lawbreakers and lawbreaking to profit by srewing over Americans.
Funny how if a car or plane isn’t manufactured by inflated bogus Union salaries, thats somehow wrong, but using a vast force of illegal immigrant labor to keep your labor costs down and to avoid having to pay more to actual American Citizens in order to reap higher corporate profits at the expense of the law and American workers is entirely A-OKAY!
“If Chipotle Meheecan Grill cannot function without illegals, then maybe it needs to go out of business, like any other business that relies on lawbreakers and lawbreaking to profit by srewing over Americans.”
Damned Skippy; well said, Sir.
I fundamentally disagree with the author. I understand the frustration with an unmotivated teen-aged workforce, however those jobs are important to the development of those teenagers. We complain endlessly about the high cost of college tuition, yet we want to deny teens the opportunity to earn ANY money before college so that they can reduce their dependence on loans. Restrictive teen labor laws started in this country in the 1980′s in the west and they were heavily backed by immigrant labor groups. They wanted to provide workers an alternative to seasonal farm work so that they would have a steady income.
Secondly, that immigrant that you are so pleased with costs taxpayers over $600,000 in SNAP, WIC, housing vouchers, Medicaid, and public school for their children over about a 20 year period. I’m afraid that I am not interested in paying that much just so that you can get your burrito quicker (and so that Chipolte can continue their pride in their ability to “control labor costs” and maintain their impressive profitability). I don’t think the increase in your productivity by having 10 more minutes a day to work outweighs the cost. On the other hand, the savings to working families in taxes coupled with the teen’s ability to earn money for college will likely lead to a more educated labor force as more families will be able to afford college for their children.
The average Latino immigrant family has 4.6 children according to Pew Hispanic Center. It is the fastest growing demographic in the country. In my state over 1/2 of babies born each year are born to illegal immigrants on Emergency Medicaid (which was created because illegal immigrants are not allowed to enroll in Medicaid and hospital districts were being bankrupted by all these uninsured mothers). Think about the long term repercussions of 1/2 of babies born each year into poverty. What does that promise for our future? This demographic is more likely to be a parent of more than one child than to be a high school graduate at age 20. That is statistics, not racism. It does not bode well for these families in a society where jobs for unskilled workers are shrinking while that population is growing at a rapid pace.
Let me add that in any enterprise it is only natural that a new employee needs a period of learning before smoothly functioning in the system. Imagine I have ten employees and need to replace one. I expect minimal, if any, disruption in function. In your example because the original staff had to be replaced almost entirely (lets say 9 out of 10) disruption is unavoidable. Will this disruption last forever? NO! In a period of time it should be expected that the minimal turnover rate is attained again and the functionality of the enterprise is back to normal.
Chipotle isn’t the only game in town ’round here. I will never again enter their doors and order another “Naked Burrito.” If In ‘n Out burger can hire today’s *legal* youth, manage each store with remarkable efficiency and service and serve up a quality product, then so can Chipotle. This isn’t rocket science. If Chipotle say’s it can’t run it’s stores successfully without a majority of illegal aliens in their workforce, it sounds like a management problem to me. Maybe Chipotle should seek advice from In ‘N Out corporate?
Many (most?) Latin American illegal immigrants work hard and efficiently. They live in run-down apartments two to a bed room with several sleeping in the living room. This is the life of most US immigrants, Asian, Latin, Easter European, African, legal or illegal, irrespective of origin. You see them everywhere performing landscaping jobs, car washes, other types of menial jobs. They work in the restaurants, warehouses, hotels. (And yet, after a lifetime of hard work, they own homes, businesses and send their kids to college, go figure.)
Many middle class white kids have only experienced a life of indulgence and are dreadfully unprepared to survive. Whose fault is that? Typically in their first job, they perform miserably, especially compared to hard working Latins, who show up to work every day, on time, not hung-over. So which choice is an employer to make in an industry that depends on labor? English speaking, sloppy and recacitrant, or Spanish speaking, attentive and go-getter?
The most salutory experience for a middle class kid in his first job is to be fired within a week for poor performance. Your Chipoltee problem is poor line management, and the temporary disruption of bringing on a large number of inexperienced workers on at one time. Nothing else. It will work itself out in a couple of weeks and you will not see half of the present workforce.
Ive noticed that the fast food chain restaurants have much better service, food quality, and store upkeep in upstate SC as opposed to the SC Lowcountry. Also the faces upstate tend to be much paler, as opposed to the much darker faces found in the lowcountry, where African American populations are much greater as a percentage of the population.
Look for white faces and generally your experience at a fast food restaurant will be much better on average. This probably goes for most businesses as well.
When choosing a lane of traffic at a toll booth I look for the Asian face.
What a revolting article from a so called conservative news sources. The entire premise appears to be based justifying why we need illegas in the USA. I will take a previous post to the next logical step. Th ebusiness needs to fold period the premise of a free market system. It also reveal the truth about the “time out no consequence’ generation. They need to learn social and work skills somewhere. Fast food joints are entry level not a career choice for middle aged folks to raise a fmaily on. So is service is poor then the manager has a responsibility to MANAGE his business and imprve his work force culture and work processes until his level of service meet consumer expectations. Those that don’t go uot of business until a better manager succeeds, the Americna dream we all do not succeed nor all fail. I find the continual railing of why we need law breaker in this country to be vulgar and digusting. No one on Germany nor in South Korea accomdated my English to get aounf their country. Survival and qulity of life motivated me to learn enought to get around. The locals showed their appreciation and helped me along. Great lifetime experiences, thanks, Uncle Sam! Note to conservative justfying and sucking up to the latino voter block STOP it! stick to coer values of ur country and the rest get culled out for the better.
I am sorry to burst everyones bubble but this is not an immigration problem. We do need to stop all illegal immigration and the illegals should have been let go. This problem is a ‘Management’ problem. It is also a training problem that started in the early years of the new employees education. No discipline, no respect for authority and the replacement employees never had to think for themselves and follow directions. This is a direct product of union logic and socialized education. The work ethic is disappearing. So, train your employees and if they don’t do it right let them go and get better people. Then you do not have to depend on illegals who have a good work ethic and character.
This has got to be one of the silliest pieces ever on PJ Media..an argument in favor of massive illegal immigration justified by waiter service a Chipotle. Dear misinformed, those illegal workers are costing taxpayers billions annually. Who do you think pays for the education, welfare, health services and other social costs? You think Chipotle or other scoff-law employers are paying for it? And what happens to all those millions of US citizens or legal immigrants displaced from thes jobs or whose wages are otherwise depressed?
The erosion of the rule of law is a factor, an important one at that, when reviewing the negative costs of illegal immigration. But so is the economic factor. Illegal immigration is social engineering of the most pernicious kind, because it constitutes a massive transfer of wealth from US taxpayers to employers of cheap illegal labor. The scoff-law businesses reap all the profit while the taxpayers are stuck with all the cost.
Perhaps our esteemed misinformed blogger should spend less time fretting at the fast food window and more time concerned about the fate of his country.
This has got to be one of the silliest pieces ever on PJ Media..an argument in favor of massive illegal immigration justified by poor waiter service at Chipotle. Dear misinformed, those illegal workers are costing taxpayers billions annually. Who do you think pays for the education, welfare, health services and other social costs? You think Chipotle or other scoff-law employers are paying for it? And what happens to all those millions of US citizens or legal immigrants displaced from these jobs or whose wages are otherwise depressed?
The erosion of the rule of law is a factor, an important one at that, when reviewing the negative costs of illegal immigration. But so is the economic factor. Illegal immigration is social engineering of the most pernicious kind, because it constitutes a massive transfer of wealth from US taxpayers to employers of cheap illegal labor. The scoff-law businesses reap all the profit while the taxpayers are stuck with all the cost.
Perhaps our esteemed misinformed blogger should spend less time fretting at the fast food window and more time concerned about the fate of his country.
So, we have a libertarian free market shill from the left who wants open borders without E-verify because white folk cant’ do fast food service like those brown folk can. Damn, white folk can’t jump and do good pot stickers. May I suggest, in the interest of a multicultural menue, horse meat steak burritos? There damn tasty, but you can’t get them anywhere in California, because it’s illegal to use horse meat for human consumption, along with cat and dog. Eating horse apparently offends the Beverly Hills types. Damn narrow minded intolerant people, there’s nothing like a good monkey burger and Chinese cat cuisine. The government and it’s affluent left, Beverly Hills celebrity government politicians, should get out of the kitchens and the slaughter houses, as well as our beloved bedrooms.
If it wasn’t for the decadent values, endemic racism and interference of white people, minorities would be living in air conditioned domes on mountain tops having erudite conversations about the greater good, art and history amidst stacks of books.
“…white folk cant’ do fast food service like those brown folk can. Damn, white folk can’t jump and do good pot stickers.”
Yeah, but we white folk are unsurpassed at the most important profession in this country…paying taxes!
I really find it hard to believe that white teenagers can’t learn to do the jobs that illegal immigrants have been doing. It might take a while. It might require (as others have pointed out), competent management (which indeed, In-N-Out Burgers seems to have at every store). And guess what? They might have to pay workers a bit better. If your burrito costs $0.25 more–but you aren’t having to cough up taxes to provide emergency room services to uninsured illegal aliens, or social services, or criminal justice for the minority of illegal aliens who are here because they are being actively sought somewhere else–perhaps you will come out ahead.
@Clayton… BINGO.
Patrons of Chipotle will have to pony up a bit more for their food and Chipotle will have to put more effort into training, mentoring, leadership, promotion, etc (again, as they already do at In ‘N Out). I understand that the slacker mentality among much of today’s youth and twentysomethings is out there in abundance. But I also see many motivated, outgoing and helpful youth and twentysomethings working in non-chain/fastfood restaurants, electronic stores, etc. Clearly, they’re out there and many, apparently trainable. I’ve also seen the other side of the coin (appathetic and unmotivated youthful service industry employees) and I refuse to patronize those locations. Bad service is ALWAYS a deal breaker for me. Illegal immigration IS a problem and companies like Chipotle need to be held accountable. They also need to adapt or close their stores. Someone will eventually come in and fill the void successfully, without illegal baggage.
Spot on Mr. Hudson. Spot on. I’m a Tea Partier but their stance on immigration is pure legalism. 1) it’s illegal! 2). You can’t discuss the reasonableness of the law! 3). Go back to 1 and repeat. They even use the welfare state to justify why we can’t question the law. The real issue is what it takes to be an American. I’m a Reaganite on that. Liberalism is destroying the country. The natives and their Liberalism. Bravo for spelling out the issues that Conservatives should have with e-verify. I find it frightening and as a database administrator I’m amused at the blind faith Conservatives have that this massive database would be accurate, let alone non-politically administered. Good luck with that.
Yeah, this whole passport thing was ill conceived. :rollseyes
“1) it’s illegal! 2). You can’t discuss the reasonableness of the law! 3). Go back to 1 and repeat.”
1: It is.
2: You can but it’s difficult when the law is in fact reasonable.
3: It always will come back to wether people who broke the law should be rewarded and the day people do decide to reward will be the day that our borders become party decorations.
I’m choosing to respond to your comment, but could have just as well chosen from a handful of others which miss the same points.
I explicitly affirmed the rule of law, calling for those who break the law to be punished. The fact that I question whether deportation is the one-size-fits-all sentence is not “rewarding” lawbreakers. There’s any number of potential consequences which could be considered for those who broke our laws.
I explicitly called for securing the borders, ending welfare, and reforming labor law. No where in there is amnesty, open borders, or an undue burden upon the state. But apparently, because I dare to suggest that we revisit immigration priorities as part of an overall reform, the rest falls on deaf ears.
You are not suggesting a revisit but in ignoring laws you aren’t on board with until they come around to your point of view; in a country of 300 million people, I’d say that’s hell of a lot more dangerous than some mythic encounter I might have with E-Verify during a coming despotism.
You are absolutely correct that welfare, broadly defined to include education and access to hospital emergency wards, is a magnet for especially Central and South American immigrants, and that the min. wage, especially the “living” wage of the left, is responsible for the black market in workers, which includes avoiding labor standard laws on e.g. overtime pay. And I agree that changing, or better yet eliminating, these has to be part of the solution. But how, in a place like California?!
Fire the unproductive employees, oops forgot, having the ability to fire a person is now an exercise in jumping through so many hoops and to be more costly than having the restaurant suffer at the hands of the incompetent.
Actually what this article presents is pure demagoguery:
Never mind the law, we want better burritos!
And by extension, we want a better bottom-tier labor force!
Not just that, we want that bottom-tier labor force to be underpaid!
We want superior peons to prop up our desire for cheap service industry goods!
And that is supposed to be a Tea Party principle?
Sure, let’s discuss getting rid of mandatory union membership requirements and revising or eliminating the minimum wage, and getting rid of insurance requirements.
Let us understand that when we do so, wages will be affected by the number of people available for those jobs, and bringing in more foreign workers, legal or illegal, will do nothing but depress wages beyond the effect of all those domestic policy changes. And let us be very clear that if those foreign workers are illegal the wage depression effect will be even greater.
Now perhaps some people are okay with having a permanent underclass of illegal or quasi-legal guest workers. Certainly most have little issue with the cheap overseas manufacturing labor, so why not just import it.
But does no one have any issue with permanently excluding Americans from those introductory jobs? If all those first jobs with McDonalds disappear from the resumes of our children, how exactly will they ever show the job experience needed to move on to the better paid jobs we expect for them?
Leaping to endorse a foreign worker underclass is ideology-wise and dollar-foolish. It is sad to see it endorsed like this.
Mandatory union dues produces a workforce? Huh?
And @escapevelocity: saying Hidson or any other Conservative who isn’t a legalist wants “open borders” is demagoguery. Did Reagan advocate eliminating passports? Why don’t you offer an argument for whatever you wish to say?
Border controls are unconstitutional? WTF??? Well, if E-Verify is unconstitutional, then Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. are also. Are you going there?
Welfare is a perverse incentive, and should be ended. In the 30s you either worked hard for little pay or you starved to death.
End food stamps and unemployment insurance and you can end E-Verify, but the perverse incentive is paying people not to work, then complaining when there aren’t enough people working fast and hard.
Oh, and by the way, minimum wage has nothing to do with Chipotle’s. They don’t pay minimum, most earn above.
But then you forget that the housing and medical care of these illegals is mostly born by the taxpayer. They live in welfare housing, yes, they do, Section 8 housing and other welfare housing is filled with illegals. They certainly use hospital emergency rooms for their medical care, including the birth of their anchor babies.
So, what we need is an end to the welfare state to disipline lazy Americans on welfare, but that does not mean that illegals have a right to come here and complete for jobs.
Combine E-Verify with an end to Section 8, unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other welfare programs for the abled body, and you can do it. But I don’t see the author making that argument.
In any event E-Verify is not needed. Social Security and the IRS already know where most illegals work, so with that information ICE should start making arrests. But in the end the solution needs real welfare reform. Mandatory work at any availble job for all welfare recipients. If they refuse or get laid off for any performance issue, then they are off welfare.
Even better would be an end to welfare for the abled-bodied.
pjm is becoming a joke.
“an influx of white suburban teenagers. Coincidently, the quality of service has declined.” Substitute black or Muslim for white and we have a journalistic “hate” crime. CBS, NBC, CNBC, NYTimes, WaPO, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton all have PJM put out of business for the hideous hate crime!
How Capitalism Saved America and How Government is Destroying It | Thomas J. DiLorenzo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLJaBJwYHHc&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmises.org%2F&feature=player_embedded
Wow.. the author Mr. Hudson, looking at his Bio clearly isn’t though this incoherent-like piece has as much hate-Whitey sentiment than PJM’s P/T contributor, F/T racist & open borders advocate Ruben Navarette.
Mr. Hudson, the ONLY people to blame for Chipotle’s current staff/ poor work ethic is the HR person(s) and owner for not vetting said potential employee/slackers.
Did you share your misgivings with management? Write on Chipotle’s comment card/website your problems with said service? Call out said employee(s) for their lethargy? Anything?
Breaking this disservice down by race is ignorant to say the least.
Walter Hudson, you sir are the proud creator of a bouncing pile of drivel.
“Similarly, we have exasperated the illegal immigration problem with perverse regulations on employers which create a black market for labor. A major pillar of that black market is the minimum wage. Sold as protection of the little guy, the minimum wage actually bans his employment. Consider, there would be no purpose in dictating a minimum wage unless someone was willing to work for less. Telling them they can’t work for less is telling them they can’t work. How does that help them? Indeed, all it does is cut off legal opportunities, many of which are replaced by illegal ones. An illegal immigrant, having already crossed the line both literally and figuratively, is a natural fit for the black market our labor laws have created” -The modern world has already seen the outcome of this line of logic. If somehow you have forgotten it, in all your lofty rhetoric allow me to direct you here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle
As for “All this — the jobs, the productivity, and the value — were results of voluntary trade. No one was holding a gun to anyone’s head. No one was violating anyone’s rights.” -the same could be said of the drug trade, and it is not legal either.
We respect and abide by the law or we lobby to have it changed. That is what separates us from the culture of such unfortunate refugees.
And my favorite,”Perhaps the best example is the welfare state. Taking money from those who earn it to give to those who do not is a bold-faced violation of individual rights.” -Just who is it that you think is the beneficiary of the welfare state if not the illegal worker?
I do not often demean myself to an ad hominem attack, but you sir, are a fool, of insurmountable capacity.
Illegal alien healthcare, court, and jail costs, anchor babies, and housing to the tune of how many millions of illegal aliens? Mexico has declared war on America.
Ten years of war on the southern border instead of Afganistan, and we would have a good neighbor.
Yes, the usual hate-Whitey stuff. I expect this. This is why PJM is NOT a conservative site, but just less hard-left liberals.
Newsflash — your cheap burritos are costing me my country. As a Black man this may be indeed your not so hidden goal (I assume from your picture that you are indeed a Black man). “Drown” the White majority that founded and created this country with Mexicans, the way Labor sought to make Whites a minority in their own country by unlimited immigration from Pakistan, Africa, and the Caribbean. If that is your goal you ought to contemplate the attitude of Mexicans towards Blacks. Or that only a large White majority population can support the permanent Welfare class of Black urban people. About 47% of Detroit is illiterate — these people in order to avoid starving to death require a large White majority inclined to fork over money rather than fight, because it is convenient.
[The people of Detroit, to simply survive, require MASSIVE amounts of Wealth transferred from a White majority. A population that is nearly half-illiterate is basically useless for anything. Even the most base and unskilled manual labor. Most of the second/third generation Barrio dwellers are not much better, requiring massive WHITE taxpayer assistance to buy food, etc. The Black middle class, such as it is, requires preferential treatment in government make-work positions of no value, again with excess wealth. World class companies like Apple or Microsoft or Oracle have essentially NO Black or Hispanic employment, but plenty of White and Asian and Indian employees. How else can the Black rioters at Footlocker afford those $180 Air Jordan Nikes? Designing the new Ipads? Please. Your influx of Mexican workers means Detroit starves to death, as the money is spread out among the myriad Mexicans working at below decent cost of living rates and they vote themselves the money ... and NONE AT ALL for Black people in places like Detroit.]
Chipotle ought to pay labor market wages. If they can’t pay decent wages to employ motivated, decent staffers (Starbucks seems able to do this without semi-serf Mexican labor) who are (I know, “horrors” White teens) then they ought not to be in business. Black people CONSTANTLY (and I do mean CONSTANTLY) complain, whine, moan, agitate, demonstrate, threaten, boycott, and intimidate because businesses … DON’T HIRE “ENOUGH” Blacks! And here you are, complaining that White teens got hired. Maybe if Chipotle paid enough they’d get motivated White teens. You certainly would not say there are “too many Black teens” running around Chipotle. Why is this acceptable to say about WHITE teens? [Oh yeah, the attitude that it is fine to insult White people.]
Chipotle ought to be shut down, shuttered. Chipotle is attempting to use below-market, illegal labor, to pay lower costs while taxpayers pay for illiterate, illegal, dirt-poor workers and their permanent welfare burdens, their kids. The taxpayer picks up the costs, while Chipotle reaps the profit.
There’s a lot of poor people in the world. How about we simply import say, 20 million skinheads from Russia who hate Blacks and view them as sub-human? Any takers? I didn’t think so.
Open Borders is simply an attempt by non-Whites and SWPL to drown the historic American nation in a Mexican flood, and construct the faux-utopia of the Colors of Benetton (more like the horrors of Nuevo Laredo). Yes I know, both really HATE HATE HATE “the wrong sort of White person.” And are in the words of Tom Hayden dreaming of “the peaceful extermination of the White race.” Good luck with the White majority CARING anything in that regard. Look at Russia for how that will work out.
Wow! What a well written comment and it is right on the money, the complete opposite of political correctness. This type of comparative analysis once simply called common sense or what’s good for the goose is good for the gander is a lost art in America, particularly on the debased Left.
This comment completely shows how depraved the Democratic Party is and how much minorities in this country have been going to the “racism” trough rather than reading Horatio Alger.
One need only look how fast a devastated Europe put itself back together again after WWII and contrast it with New Orleans where they are still sitting amongst the ruins waiting for someone to come and do the work they can’t or won’t do cuz the gov’t that tried to kill blacks there ironically is seen as the invisible helpmate.
One need only look at an Israel created only 3 years after a thousands years of anti-Semitism in Europe to see that post-traumatic slave syndrome in America is so much excuse making and cheap psychology bruited about by con men who know a chump with money when they see it.
I can make my own stinkin’ tacos, burritos, homemade tortillas, guacamole, salsa, pico de gallo etc. It’s not exactly rocket surgery.
I certainly don’t need some third-worlder with third-world sanitation techniques with a case of H1N1 on crack cooking my food.
I’m still waiting for the author to respond to my libertarian-based criticism up above. He can’t just dismiss it as knuckle-dragging right-wingery.
BTW, I’m in Alabama and its quite funny how with the passage of the new law, I am in fact seeing more Anglo faces waiting tables at one of the Mexican-American owned restaurants around.
With no loss of service, no less.
Sounds like the law is working exactly as intended.
Here’s an argument somewhat parallel to the authors, one I think would anger him:
Welfare reform in the 90s has pushed more black teens and twenty-somethings with a poor work ethic into the McDonalds workforce in the years since, so the policy change was bad.
However objectively true the first part may or may not be, it does not prove the conclusion.
Why would this upset me? I make no such argument above.
I’m deeply disappointed by the eagerness of so many to impute positions and motives which I have not expressed.
My argument is based on individual rights. I explicitly state that welfare is a violation of those rights. So why would I entertain an argument about welfare which valued an outcome over that principle?
This has nothing to do with race. I suppose I could have omitted demographic descriptors. But I figured I was dealing with conservatives. I didn’t realize so many would react with the same knee-jerk irrational focus on race that is the trademark of the Left.
Let me see… you write a deliberately provocative article on a topic on which your real opinions are somewhat more nuanced, but then surprised people took it at face value and responded accordingly (however inappropriately)?
Can’t have it both ways.
Saying a thug is a thug is in fact that Leftist argument as it ignores the politically correct role of race in America that charges a double standard where there is none and ignores the double standard where it exists.
A thug is not a thug in America as law breaking illegal aliens occupy a permanent position as innocent and oppressed people by race rather than the grifters typical of the Third World they largely are.
If this were not true there would be hate crimes for whites and Polish immigrants come here a hundred years ago wouldn’t have to have their kids pay with affirmative action for what a guy did 300 years ago cuz that guy was white. Even the hint of doing the same thing to minorities drags out the “profiling” curse.
Race is at the heart of the entire immigration argument as far as ignoring law. If these were all Swedes where would the sanctuary mayors be then? No where. Swedes are not viewed as the eternally oppressed but oppressors and occupy no such warmth in the hearts of the politically correct Left as do Haitians and Guatemalans. Ironically these “equals” from the South are not looked at as such as crutches are handed out by race and not by law.
Thank you Mr. Hudson for standing up for common sense and real conservative values . Like others in the comments section here, I support the Tea Party except for their sophomoric understanding of immigration issues. Hope this article does something to help us move in the right direction.
P.S. – None of those “workers” in the ic looks remotely Mexican. :0o
The pic is from Kevin Smith’s, ‘Clerks II’.
‘Conservative values/common sense’ go hand-in-hand with illegal alien amnesty?
As I’ve mentioned before, do a sit-in or ride along at your local police department, BMoon. It’s your taxpaying right.
More specific, go to a PD/Sheriff’s Department with a moderately sized illegal alien population.
I believe your ‘understanding’ varies from my Independent understanding (reality).
I do not consider the dominant Tea Party position to be “sophomoric,” just incomplete. I don’t think most Tea Partiers see the forest from the trees on immigration. But the same is true of most everybody. People tend to ignore how we got here, which is inherently the key to how to get back.
It’s not the key how to get back: this is not 1912 and we have 300 million people. The new immigrants aren’t coming from societies that invented time keeping at sea but never even had the wheel. It’s a whole new ball game with the ironic solution being the old one – end all immigration and kick out the illegals.
We will have more jobs, less rabble rousing, more peace, less crime, more money staying in the country, less stress on public systems almost entirely inhabited, not by those who need the occasional safety net but those who permanently occupy one.
If you don’t think shanty towns will spring up in America in the next 10 years you’re crazy. The extortion against Super Valu in Minneapolis by illegal aliens and the OWS movement have shown the way.
Ignore law when crossing the border and setting up shop in America but then insist on the law when it benefits you. There is no greater good in Latin America which is why it is what it is. Extrapolate out that Super Valu incident over America and we are in trouble. The shanty towns will have media, will have the ACLU, will cry racism, will insist on electricity, squatter’s rights, sewage and the whole nine yards.
All of a sudden the law will look awful good as these illegal immigrants feel the way you do: it’s optional and to be respected only when it works and agrees with you.
Here’s another angle to letting the “free market” decide, if that is the primary point of your column: no one gets social services unless they prove they are legal. Before the days of welfare, if you sneaked in, OR were here legally, you either made it or went home. Generations ago some of my families members having arrived from Europe found that life here was a little too “rugged” for their tastes and they left. Good riddance. Not so anymore. So if Juan comes here and then either has children or brings in the extended family, WE get to support them on OUR money without their having our permission to do so. The left LOVES Darwin but when it comes to survival of the fittest, they want US to pay for the unfit and the unwanted. If you really take the idea of a “free market” solution to this problem, most would go home because their skills are not in demand and they would be getting nothing from the public’s purse. And that’s how it should be.
I couldn’t agree more, and had thought the point plain when I explicitly called for ending the welfare state. Apparently, many readers skipped over that part.
Sure, the welfare state is ended by law and then they take your other advice and don’t obey it.
It has nothing to do with the workers, so much as the management. I routinely get orders screwed up by aliens and native born alike at two of the Chick-Fil-As I go to. The other two I go to, which are virtually all native born and run by serious management (you can tell just by the way the restaurant is maintained), I’ve never had a single problem. Ever. It’s a management issue. When management makes it clear that “you WILL get the order right,” the employees follow. My guess is that your Chipotles were chastened by their experience with the illegals and didn’t want to get into a fight with entitled American brats who might raise their own stink (which would be harder to fight if you already are on the government’s $%^& list for an immigration labor violation).
Ok Walter Hudson, I will grant that you bring your libertarian view in a serious and sincere way.
But there are several things in particular that really rile me here.
First – I don’t think you have been reading VD Hanson close at all. You articulate your view well enough – so you can’t rely on just being silly or stupid. But really now, common. You see a whole confluence of tired urban myths about lazy white boys and all? Because the take out joint you like has let you down after enforcement kicked in?
I first read Hanson about the time I started to see noticable changes regarding immigration here in Phoenix. (tripling population in less than 3 years in an area less than fourty square miles will do that) A little BEFORE 9/11. At the time we were considered, besides HotLanta, the #2 desired destination my friend. The vally of the sun was the place to be. Tax friendly -corporations were flocking here. Every where the place was blowing up. The offical unemployment rate after new years 2000 was around 2%. Certianly as close to anything I ever encountered as full employment – when living the majority of my life in Ohio – or stints in Va, Pa, NC and NYC. Hanson already was chronicalling nearly 20 years of what amounted to surrender in Cali. How that slow decline was entirely politiclly motivated – it has directly led to 30 years of political dominace by Democrats.
To what end?
When the last Republican – Pete Wilson – left office – California was just then coming into the public conciousness because of the very immigrant excellence you quite inappropriatly conclude is a dominate Latino trait. These are exactly the kind we all want coming to America – well educated – often already wealthy – innovative…they don’t just create jobs they creat whole friggin sectors….
Where are the great Latino companies and great Latino innovators?
My friend you are kinda sheltered up there in kannuk land of minntakka or whatever. You don’t know squat about what you are talking about when it comes to the southwest…or the topic. Just being civil now.
Your quasi – free flow of labor libertarian bunk – that equates chinese and indian engineers with Oxacan peasants without so much as a 1st grade education -and then have the temerity to claim ‘you’ve read’ VD Hanson, is typical of libertarian Ron Paulism. You wax philosophy while people who have been here generations but just want…what…handouts…?….people are getting crushed in debt and joblessness…we hear this quaint bootstraps rah rah.
Here is what you leave out about all that history you quote. Labor Violence. Ethnic and racial violence. Land ownership on the southwest border that acted as ipso facto posse comitatus until WWIII. Repatriation as much to survive the threat of violence as for some longing to forgo the need for American assimilation.
And it seems, as a black man, just about all of our collective civil rights history since about 1917?
The kind of violence Arizonans are frequently being accused of but nobody doing the finger pointing manage to back up with anything but the occational death by restraint in Maricopa County – hardly a unique tragedy – since it likewise happens by accident all over the country.
Instead because we push back politically – like it is our state and our right – we are the new racists skinheads ect ect ect.
Finally, I don’t buy you are interested in a civil discussion about illegal immigration any more than PJ Media’s resident marxist provacatour – Ruben Navarrette. Frankly your arguments don’t sound much different than the St of San Deigo. Same old border security…but…rule of law…but.
At a time when millions of americans are teetering with a new reality that food stamps has replaced the dignity of work, the most pervasive unemployment and labor drop out since WWII, a host of failings when it comes to education or any kind of retraining for workers who have found themselves adrift in their 30′s, 40′s, and 50′s….and you are going to lecture people about why its probably a good thing we have tens of millions here both uninvited, expensive, and unwanted?
Well I have read Victor D Hanson. And I’ve seen californication devastate my adopted home. It was politically motivated here – just as it was in California. It wasn’t just SB1070- look up the history from the moment Janet Nappy snuck into office. Democrats have a hard time selling progressivism in Arizona. Importing voters was a major reason we once were an open borders state under her – and a major reason why there are a lot of forclosed homes and empty office towers and cinder boxes.
I and the rest of Arizona has already lived your quaint andicdotial experiment.
You don’t know squat about what you are talking about. And if enough Minnesotians are stupid enough to buy your snake bit bull…then hey..go ahead..let them test the theory.
It could be that ownership at your favorite Tex Mex franchise just happened to take a haircut after 9/08 as easy as the breezy kumbya observations you have tried selling. I was halfway to beliving you were just going all sarcastic on us until I started reading your comment responses.
You may be serious, and you may be sincere, but you are so far out of your depth on a subject way more important than getting your burrito on time friend.
Stop writing and go back to school with VD Hanson. Read him again. Then after that READ HIM OVER AGAIN. You missed the forrest for the trees.
The real issue is limited or unlimited immigration of poor,mostly Latino immigrants.There is no right or wrong involved. If we want a permanent underclass and a different culture, the present course is fine. Let blacks, Jews, and others abort their next generation because of concerns over crowding while we flood our streets with needy people from abroad who will vote for the left.Southern California has shown the way.Cheap labor benefits the haves and is paid for by the have nots.While the immigration flood benefits the Democrats,it has destroyed the native working class.Black neighborhoods have been destroyed but black politicians have prospered. Union labor only exists in government jobs.Every country but ours limits immigration to preserve a national culture.California universities grant affirmative action to anyone with a Hispanic sounding last name but veterans get no help.
Interesting to find that your opinion of immigration laws is formed by service at a psueodo-mexican fast food joint? The immigration laws and policies are not sound because you were inconvenienced? The description sounds more like a management problem than an example of national immigration failures. I’ve eaten at a couple Chipotle’s that did not have “Latino” staff and provided good service. Not sure I’m thrilled with their menu or prep but your anecdotal basis for a national policy decision is defeated by my anecdotal observations.
If we need immigrant labor to do those jobs that Americans just won’t do, or won’t do to your satisfaction, why do you (we) not demand that the government do its job and provide a legal basis for guest workers? Why do we accept “it is not convenient or it is too hard” as national policy? Enforce the law. Illegal is illegal. Enforce the law. My kids can’t get in-state tuition to my alma mater, but those of an illegal can. I get to pay for my medical as well as the illegal’s. I get to educate my kids and pay for the illegal’s. Yep, I’m not real thrilled with US immigration policy or those who believe I should keep paying for the new voters they want.
The writer fails to point out that there are any number of worker visas available to employers if they are unable to find native employees. Chipotle is simply too cheap or too lazy to take advantage of these programs. At the same time, our president is advocating a new program to provide summer work opportunities for American youth. Maybe e-verify would clear out a lot of those summer jobs that past generations of teens used as a springboard into the workforce.
America ignores lawbreaking by illegals.Feds don’t enforce immigration laws.Local governments ignore widespread violations of all sorts of licensing rules. But when it comes to ruining the lives of potheads, the law is inviolate. A kid caught with a joint can lose his job, his college scholarship,or his freedom and no one cares. But come here illegally, drive without insurance or license,use another person’s social security number, forge documents, contract without a license and all is forgiven.Most lefties I know truly hate working class whites as shown by the negative stereotypes in the media. Illegals,like islamics,are treasured.
Bless your little heart, Walter!
Sovereignty overides the Free Market. America is for Americans. Within the USA we establish a free market, without unions and without government interference in any form. That market is restricted to persons legally within the perimeters of the USA. Those outside may not come in without an express invitation. If that means that YOU suffer some minor inconveniences; so be it.
If we don’t deport all illegals they will soon be the majority, and you will find yourself the permanent victim of a racism you will not be able to live with. The people of the US have been brainwashed into dependency. Government control and goodies is their expectation, from the erection to the resurrection. But it can’t really be like that. Because collectivism, however denominated, has and can never work. It is not Gods way.
Lets focus on teaching values and morals to our kids, instead of teaching them to have overinflated egos and senses of entitlement that the Left promotes.
Here is an example of 20 some odd years of Leftwing education…
“I know my rights!” “Im a majorette in drama!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06-LschF82o
Where is Mr. Hudson on immigration? Hard to tell reading this article.
With respect to the decrease in the quality of the service at Chipotle restaurants, in a truly free market there would be no minimum wage. The minimum wage is one of the Government’s attempts to influence the free market with the predictable distortion in the market that results but that’s getting off topic. Chipotle management, as is any non union free enterprise, has the opportunity to set the example for it’s work force by training it to meet its established criteria for customer service and firing those who do not, can not or refuse to measure up. Are we to believe that only illegal immigrants from Mexico can meet these standards?
It is apparent that they are more likely motivated by the prospect of finding meaningful work in other than the country of their birth accompanied with the numerous social benefits also unavailable to them in their native Mexico. Why does any foreign national come here exclusive of those miscreants motivated by nefarious purposes and it is this latter that is perhaps the bigger issue regarding illegal immigration. No one, other than a bigoted, racist minority, is against anyone of any color or religion willing to adapt to the American culture and honor the principles of our founding documents but America has laws already on the books intended to control this process and why is it too much to ask that all immigrants respect and abide by these laws?
The system is not flawed. It is enforcement of the existing laws that has been compromised and that has resulted in the dilemma we now find ourselves in. And like so much else that has twisted this nation into knots all of it is motivated by the insatiable appetite in the U.S. federal and state capitols for political power and financial gain. What is in the nations best interest is at best a secondary issue.
And, excuse the politically incorrect question, but what about the quality of this mass influx from Mexico? Religious, hard working, largely law abiding if the illegal immigration aspect is removed from the equation, but typically uneducated and given no encouragement or motivation to learn the English language. An outrageous comment for some no doubt but that America is on a technological decline as a result of the “wonderfulness” of the greatest of the liberal achievements, diversity and political correctness, is arguable but, in my view, largely true. Equality of outcomes is a road to mediocrity. That Obama and his progressive leftists are obsessed with this utopian, intellectual, theoretical exercise in social engineering, if allowed to succeed, is the hopeless change he promised in October 08.
Mexicans should be allowed to emigrate to America but on the same terms and with the same restrictions as émigrés from every other country. But, as with citizens from other nations around the world, there is an alternate and, to many, a preferable path to alleviate oppression and seize the natural human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that is from within their mother country. Millions of Americans, men and women from every race, creed and country of origin have fought and died to acquire and protect those rights we enjoy as American citizens and they are not to be given away lightly. Mexico may be more rife with corruption as a result of the lucrative drug trade and human trafficking but according to Wikipedia, “[t]he politics of Mexico take place in a framework of a federal presidential representative democratic republic whose government is based on a congressional system, whereby the president of Mexico is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. The federal government represents the United Mexican States and is divided into three branches: executive, legislative and judicial, as established by the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, published in 1917. The constituent states of the federation must also have a republican form of government based on a congressional system as established by their respective constitutions.”
It took the United States 250 years to evolve into the political and social magnet it’s become. Mexico has the political framework in place since 1917, is not involved in any major territorial disputes or wars and should be following suit creating the environment that made their northern neighbor such a success. It’s time to stop the coddling and excuses and to exercise a little tough love. Closing the border should be step one. We’ll not likely eliminate the American demand for drugs which is admittedly a major part of Mexico’s problem but dealing with that problem from within will become a lot easier once the border is effectively closed and the profiteering on that trade on the Mexican side dries up.
Work for Free Narrated by Stefan Molyneux. Part III: “Work for Free” [7:12]
http://mises.org/media/6807/27-Work-for-Free
Its simple. I would do everything I could too, to deflect attention from my criminal behavior, were I a criminal. These people are criminals and will do what is necessary to stay here. They most certainly won’t put as much effort into their own country. Wow, make a good burrito and you get to stay… Get em gone and charge a little more for a very sub-average burrito.;
At first glance, seems like a plausible argument, but on second thought, if this argument were true, then In and Out Burger would not be able to provide an excellent, inexpensive product using (gasp) White, American-born, kids.
This article is pathetic.
I am a native of Arizona. I have been to Chipotle a number of times, since its start here back in 1999/2000. Guess what…the staff there was not all Latino. The food was served quickly.
It is not about the ethnicity of the staff serving the food. That is a stupid concept.
It is about who is the trainer and how the staff is managed. Good leadership, not Mexican roots, made the Chipotle here in Phoenix grow to the point the restaurant chain flourished and the expansion into the Minnesota area.
The implication that teenagers are somewhat lazy, or that the stores you frequent were headless in direction is a direct problem of the management. I have seen plenty of laborers from south of our border here who are equally as lazy as the talentless local individuals. It pretty much is a universal topic. When immigrants, illegal or not, are given the teet of society, helping them by assistance, then it becomes a cancer. The same cancer that gives our kids the answers in the back of the book, everyone a trophy, and instantaneous outcomes.
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