Off The Cuff

Illegal Immigrants Used As Slaves

Posted by: From Arkansas in Are You Kidding Me?, Odds And Ends on May 24 2008

Welcome back!

Whatever you may or may not think about illegal immigrants, this practice is just plain WRONG! These people are coming from desperate situations. I can attest to that having been in Mexico and having seen the poor people who can hardly make it on a few pesos a day. You would not be able to live on that kind of pay!!

Now, when they come here to the “land of opportunity”, many times the unscrupulous business owners that put these folks to work, treat them as slave labor. Large corporations will pay them a pittance to work for them, much lower than Americans are willing to work for. These people live in outrageous conditions just so that they can make a buck to send back to their families. They receive slave wages to work at slave jobs that Americans will not touch. And this is okay with many people. The rest think that illegal immigrants should not be here anyway so they get what they deserve. EXCUSE ME????

Now I realize that being in this country without benefit of coming in legally is definitely against the law but so are SLAVE conditions and wages. Some of the top company names (You would KNOW them if I mentioned them by name) are employing immigrants to do their crappy jobs and getting away with it!! Why encourage people to come into this country the right way when you can take advantage of them and get “more bang for your buck!” Yep, just like the rich, greedy oil companies gouging us at the pumps, these greedy individuals and corporations are stripping these people of any dignity and working them for wages we have not seen in a multitude of years.

I do have a bit of working knowledge of this although my experience is a bit dated. My ex and I were flat broke in Florida one year. We could not find work anywhere and then….we got a hold of a notice that this one place wanted workers to harvest the orange crop. It was, however, ceiling fruit and the wages were not quite as good as they would be otherwise. We decided that we could take about anything at this point so we went to get hired. We were.

We were living in our camper at the time for which I was ever so grateful when I saw the dilapidated, closed down motel rooms they were making others live in. We were told to be ready bright and early, as in 4:30am. Because we had transportation, we could ride to the place ourselves instead of getting on the back of the big truck that picked up the others that day. The orchards were definitely low on fruit and I learned what ceiling fruit was right away. It’s those oranges that are way up at the top of the tree that no one wants to go get.

Wages were to be paid out each evening. We got just enough to get a meal at the company owned cafe. That is, we worked ourselves silly for about $3. The other workers told us that we would get used to doing this and then we could get as much as $10 a day. This was in 1966. Are you serious??? $10 a day! Yes, that’s right. The meal we got was the standard one especially for the fruit company workers. That is, it wasn’t nearly as nutritious or as filling as it should be and it cost at least $2 each. We actually owed the cafe a buck that night. I happen to know that, in those days, we could have gotten a good breakfast or supper for about $1 to $1.25 anywhere else.

So, nothing has changed much, has it? Crappy conditions, crappy wages, crappy living quarters, crappy..very expensive meals. Because it isn’t you, you do not care about these people. And here’s a great way to think….”go back to where you came from! You can get a job in your town and leave ours to our own people.” Yeah right. As I stated before, these people are so ingrained in our country now that if they were all deported, this country could not survive. But lets just suppose that they were to leave. Who would do those thankless jobs, you? Yeah right.

Maybe these folks are here illegally. I am not going to debate that question. But, I want to ask you again, who is going to do those jobs if they are not here? You? Doubt it. After all, they are not really taking YOUR job away, are they. Yes, we should put a stopper in the highways in but that will not happen either. Know why? Same reason that no one is going to mass deport these folks. Maybe we should think about this a bit.

I used to say that I was proud to be from the United States. That is still true but the fact is that our country is doing some things that we cannot possibly be proud of and the world knows it. Why do we think we are thought of like we are. This did not come from one President. This comes from all the actions of the past Presidents who did not respect life and the other countries. This comes from the fact that we have lost our original plan. This country was founded on CHRISTIAN principles and now we have no principles left. One of these days, we will be treated like the redheaded stepchild we actually are. And we will deserve everything we get even though most of us are innocent of all charges. Sad but true.

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