Fair wages would encourage more unskilled laborers to take jobs in the market instead of having to hire illegals.

Those of you that advocate using them for slave labor by not paying fair and decent wages are the ones belittling them, not me.

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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"

For that I blame the employers, not the workers.

We don't advocate slave labor. That's a strawman to put it kindly. We advocate the fruit being picked before it rots by the people that come here to do it so they can feed their kids. They have rough lives, but they struggle through. We advocate that they are paid legally, through amnesty or temperary work visas. We advocate their families not be split up because some members are here illegally. We advocate kindness. We don't want to see anyone belittled or made to feel stupid because they only speak one language. How many of us Americans speak more than one language? Not many...we are lucky to have been born here in America, speaking English, with good chances to succeed and prosper. Others aren't so lucky.

Wouldn't it suck if there were no jobs for us here and we had to sneak into Canada to work and send money home to our family, missing our spouses and children, being treated like shit because we are from the country to the south of the only place we can find work? I'd say that would be a shit sandwich. Let's put ourselves in someone else's shoes, as Jesus would say.

Busboy, janitor, gravedigger, short-order cook, truck unloader...

Well, I, like, talked to them and discussed our respective lives and stuff.

I guess it is possible that many of them were in a conspiracy to lie to me and had secret meetings to keep their stories straight.

So you admit you've never picked fruit

Preach it!

Hmm. I agreem I think it works better than my system.

I thought this too at first. I could be wrong but I think after reading pepsi's post again the point wasn't that Americans wouldn't do the job but rather that nobody had fielded a poll asking Americans.

The idea seems to be to hire illegals because then you can get away with paying them less than minimum wage. It is still more than they make in Mexico and besides who are they gonna tell?

Most Republicans are against raising the minimum wage at least in part because when the minimum wage is raised the price of basic necessities is raised by the businesses who employ minimum wage earners (i.e. grocery stores). The net effect is that the benefit of the higher wage is temporary and in some cases results in the minimum wage having less buying power in the long run. At least this is the biggest argument I hear.

I wouldn't raise my children to be cherry pickers. But if they got paid around minimum wage to do it I would encourage them to do that job for extra money and responsibility whilst they are in school. Everyone who thinks Americans won't do hard work seems to forget the enormous amount of teenagers working in the fast food business for minimum wage. Or working as dishwashers at restaraunts etc.

Enact my plan and the illegal immigration will be drastically reduced in a relatively short period of time.

No, sorry. I meant to say that nobody has asked Americans those questions. That is to say that given decent wages, they would. However, the question is always directed in a way to get a favorable response for illegals.

Let me say it differently. If Americans were asked "If given a decent wage, would you do this work?" I am confident many would say yes. I doubt anyone has been asking that, is what I meant.

Speaking as someone who has picked fruit, it sucks more than working fast food.

And I have a hunch that picking pears in california sucks more than picking strawberries in ohio.

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"Jesus said: I have cast fire upon the world, and behold I guard it until it is ablaze."
Gospel of Thomas

Cold hearted? Come on, Samantha - it is reality. Did we create the situation without regards to the law? No, they did. If one comes to this country and knows good and well he could be caught and sent back at any time, and then has a kid -- who created that problem? The govt? The taxpayers? No, the illegal worker did. Making taxpayers feel tax-burden for the non-compliance of the law is both ridiculous and wrong.

Let's follow this assertion to the end. Many bank robbers rob for providing for their families, which is why many illegal aliens work here. If a man robs a bank to provide his family and gets caught, should he go to jail? He will be seperated from his kids in the process, so I guess that would too "cold-hearted".