Free traders will never answer this... if immigrants are needed here...

[Zalatix]

84. Okay, hold, stop. Now YOU are the one who is ignorant.

You said:

They are NOT factory workers, they are AGRICULTURAL workers.

That is flat out wrong. That is a statement that could only be written out of sheer, alarming ignorance.

History says:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/05/15/us-usa-immigration-raid-idUSN1543286320070515

The class-action lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Boston on behalf of 500 workers, follows a raid by federal immigration agents on March 6 that drew criticism of the Bush administration's immigration policy and brought national attention to the perils facing undocumented workers.

Dozens of children were stranded when 361 workers at Michael Bianco Inc., which makes equipment and apparel for the U.S. military, were arrested by federal agents in New Bedford, a port city about 55 miles south of Boston.

Many of the immigrants were initially held at a decommissioned Army base in Massachusetts before being flown to Texas.

The case, separate to a lawsuit filed in March by the arrested immigrants against the U.S. government, accuses Michael Bianco Inc. of setting up a fictional company, Front Line Defense, to pay employees who had worked overtime.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/irrad/slaughterworkers.cfm

In the 1930s, unionization swept through the meatpacking industry, and for decades meat jobs were well paid, came with health insurance and led to stable communities. But that has all changed, according to Eric Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation," published by Houghton Mifflin.

The industry has consolidated and moved its factories from the city to the U.S. High Plains. In the late 1970s, the top four beef companies controlled about 20 percent of the market; now they control more than 80 percent, Schlosser said. A return to poor working conditions in this period is not only bad for laborers but ultimately dangerous to consumers, he added.

In 1995, Schlosser, an Atlantic Monthly correspondent, wrote a story about Latin American migrant strawberry laborers in California. Rolling Stone magazine editors read it and asked him to write about fast food in the United States, leading to his new book, which spent six week under review in Houghton Mifflin's legal department before publication.

On arriving in meatpacking towns, Schlosser would meet with migrant workers from Mexico and Guatemala. Many of them were illiterate in English or Spanish, which made it hard for them to work together or organize to make conditions better, he said.

http://www.polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/labor-trafficking-in-the-us/factories

Labor trafficking in manufacturing has been known to occur in the garment industry and in food processing plants in the United States. Victims, both men and women, have been forced to work 10-12 hour days, 6-7 days per week with little or no break time. People may be trafficked into garment industry jobs such as sewing, assembling, pressing, or packing apparel. Others may be forced to work in food processing operations that include slaughtering, preserving, canning and packing goods for distribution. Immigrant workers, both documented and undocumented, are often recruited into these industries. Some documented immigrants include H-2B visa holders who arrive in the U.S. to perform non-agricultural labor or temporary services.

Several workers paid large fees to labor recruiters who brought them to the U.S. with falsified documents. When the workers arrived in the U.S., they learned that their debts had increased and that they had to work at a canning plant in a small, rural town in Kansas to pay the debt. The recruiters required that the workers live in overcrowded conditions in housing that they provided. Because of its isolated location the workers had to rely on the recruiters for food and basic supplies. The recruiters took the majority of the workers’ paychecks, claiming that the money went to their debt, housing and food.

-----------------------

Immigration Status – Traffickers often use threats of deportation and document confiscation to maintain control over foreign national workers in the production industry. H-2B workers, (temporary immigrant workers) are particularly vulnerable because their legal status in the United States is tied to their employment, and because they often have extended families in their home countries who depend on their wages. Traffickers impose hefty debts to immigrant workers for job recruitment fees, transportation costs and visa processing. Additionally, traffickers prey on immigrant workers’ unfamiliarity with the language, laws and customs of the U.S. to further manipulate or exploit them.

I thought I'd highlight that H-2B part just in case we're unclear on whether or not these are LEGAL IMMIGRANTS being exploited in U.S. factories. Something you clearly and unambiguously said doesn't happen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/us/22immig.html?pagewanted=all

Like many places across the United States, this factory town in eastern Tennessee has been transformed in the last decade by the arrival of Hispanic immigrants, many of whom are in this country illegally. Thousands of workers like Mr. López settled in Morristown, taking the lowest-paying elbow-grease jobs, some hazardous, in chicken plants and furniture factories.

Now we get to the REAL reason why corporations and their lackeys keep pushing for more immigrants: companies can scare the illegal immigrants into not fighting for their rights, while legal immigrants can be scared into losing their jobs and being a thousand miles away from home and family.

It worked SPLENDIDLY in the meat packing industry, as you clearly see. I'm sure the organicconsumers people, collectively, know as much about this as you or me. As for you saying They are NOT factory workers, uh, YES, some of them in fact are. I've got a cite from the New York Times that says that.

And then there is this:
http://www.incite-national.org/index.php?s=123

Today, the overwhelming majority of garment workers in the U.S. are immigrant women. They typically toil 60 - 80 hours a week in front of their machines, often without minimum wage or overtime pay. In fact, the Department of Labor estimates that more than half of the country's 22,000 sewing shops violate minimum wage and overtime laws. Many of these workers labor in dangerous conditions including blocked fire exits, unsanitary bathrooms, and poor ventilation. Government surveys reveal that 75% of U.S. garment shops violate safety and health laws. In addition, workers commonly face verbal and physical abuse and are intimidated from speaking out, fearing job loss or deportation.

Sounds like immigrants are hired in factory jobs to me. Textile factories, in fact. I dunno about you, but I trust a cite from a source like this.

which Americans DID NOT take this past summer

You're putting the cart before the horse here. Americans don't take these jobs because they're incredibly, unnecessarily dangerous. They're so dangerous because employers have been using immigrants who won't fight back for better working conditions.

So, basically, when we're talking about bringing in more immigrants, it is exactly as I said it was. It's done to depress wages AND to help employers neglect their duties in maintaining workplace safety - a combination of which is guaranteed to drive American citizens out of the workplace. You're seeing no Americans in these workplaces because they were driven out long ago by a onset of both crappy wages and a needlessly deadly work environment. On the farms, in factories, in textiles, you name it. And if they could get away with replacing American workers in construction, they'd do it... and dear God, they've tried to do just that. They are also trying to replace American workers with immigrants and non-immigrant visa holders in IT, but thank God the Government has clamped down on that. The companies have failed, but not for lack of trying.

I make you a promise you can take to the bank - if we import a million high-tech immigrants, employers will drive their wage down and their working conditions will become horrendous in comparison to what you see in American IT workplaces now. And if their English is poor, on top of that? Conditions will be even worse. This has happened in every industry they've hired large numbers of immigrants into.

I'm not sure why I need to inform you, of all people, of the pattern of reduced pay, abuse and neglect that follows any workplace that hires large numbers of immigrants. I'm not sure why you don't see how this would drive American workers out of that workplace, or that industry. I'm certainly not sure why you're attacking me because of YOUR ignorance of these basic facts.

You know, there's one other thing, too. I've seen many of your posts, and I'm surprised your solution to this was not to UNIONIZE IMMIGRANTS. I'm not sure why you didn't mention this, but now I most certainly will. We need another Caesar Chavez who will organize the immigrants in a fight to put an end to these abuses. Employers have no moral right to do this to their workers, immigrant or otherwise.

If immigrants unionize and if they win their struggle, no employer will be able to get away with their abuses. And Americans will seek out those jobs as they did before. I'm not sure how you don't see that. But then, you also said immigrants don't work in factories, and I've got a cite that shows 80% of garment factory workers are in fact immigrant women. Then there's the furniture factories. And probably many others.

Yes, I know you'll respond to this with more "YOU'RE IGNORANT! YOU'RE STUPID!!!" but hey, the cites support me and oppose you. And nothing you say will refute that.