[socalwingfan]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

Yeah, they're looking for work that would pay them the way their fathers were paid in the coal mines--comfortable for raising a family on a single income, with pensions and health coverage because they were union jobs. They're not looking for jobs making 7.25/hr. Those jobs exist. Those jobs are the ones often held by undocumented immigrants. Undocumented immigrants aren't taking 50k/year jobs, they're taking 15-18k/year jobs. You can't raise a family on 18k/year, and you sure as hell can't retire on it. Getting rid of undocumented immigrants isn't helping dying coal towns.

If you want to panic about immigrants, worry about the legal immigrants who get their affordable medical schooling in other countries and then are highly in demand in the US, willing to work in smaller communities because they don't have $250k in student loan debt like American students accrue. And then while you're thinking about, think of the fact that American students cannot afford to work in those small dying coal towns because they won't make enough money to pay their student loan payments every month, and wonder why it is that we as a country apparently don't care enough about those people in those small towns to simply ensure that they have access to a damn doctor.




When undocumented immigrants live here, they often obtain social security numbers illegally in order to be employed. They're then taxed the same as citizens are, federal, state, local taxes taken from their paychecks. Those undocumented immigrants however cannot obtain any of the perks of citizenship, despite paying taxes into the system.

Immigration needs a massive overhaul, absolutely, but immigrants aren't the cause of the lion's share of problems in this country. Our excessive need to police the entire planet is most of the issue, and politicians' desire to cozy up to corporate interests is another huge part. In the grand scheme of things, undocumented immigration is a miniscule problem in this country, it's just a really easy bogeyman for guys like Trump to point at while he's stealing from blue collar workers to build his casinos and hotels that he then staffs with immigrant workers on temporary visas rather than hiring actual citizens because he'd have to pay them more and provide healthcare.

I'm out of thanks - but have to thank you for this extremely well thought out post!