I read this on another forum and figured some could weigh in with their own experiences and opinions.

Is this teacher correct from your experience?

If this is wrong, what can be done about it?

If this is right, how can such attitudes towards the illegal immigrants be overcome?

Does any Hispanic contractor have a different take on this position?

If so, what do you feel can be done?

Ed



From a California school teacher - - -

"As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things that you should be aware of:

I am in charge of the English-as-a-second-language department at a large southern California high school which is designated a Title 1 school, meaning that its students average lower socioeconomic and income levels.

Most of the schools you are hearing about, South Gate High, Bell Gardens , Huntington Park , etc., where these students are protesting, are also Title 1 schools.

Title 1 schools are on the free breakfast and free lunch program. When I say free breakfast, I'm not talking a glass of milk and roll -- but a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays and trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten. (
OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK )

I estimate that well over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight. About 75% or more DO have cell phones. The school also provides day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)
I was ordered to spend $700,000 on my department or risk losing funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for anything; my budget was already substantial. I ended up buying new computers for the computer learning center, half of which, one month later, have been carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America . (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)


I have had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the country less then 3 months who raised so much hell with the female teachers, calling them "Putas" whores and throwing things that the teachers were in tears.

Free medical, free education, free food, day care etc., etc., etc. Is it any wonder they feel entitled to not only be in this country but to demand rights, privileges and entitlements ?

To those who want to point out how much these illegal immigrants contribute to our society because they LIKE their gardener and housekeeper and they like to pay less for tomatoes: spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the TRUE costs.

Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools, overcrowding, new diseases etc., etc, etc. For me, I'll pay more for tomatoes.

We need to wake up. The guest worker program will be a disaster because we won't have the guts to enforce it . Does anyone in their right mind really think they will voluntarily leave and return?


It does, however, have everything to do with culture: A third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school by 15 and that refuses to assimilate , and an American culture that has become so weak and worried about " political Correctness" that we don't have the will to do anything about it.


CHEAP LABOR? Isn't that what the whole immigration issue is about?

Business doesn't want to pay a decent wage.

Consumers don't want expensive produce.

Government will tell you Americans don't want the jobs.

But the bottom line is cheap labor.

The phrase "cheap labor" is a myth , a farce, and a lie. There is no such thing as "cheap labor."
Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or 6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an Income Tax Return, he gets an "earned income credit" of up to $3,200 free.
He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent.

He qualifies for food stamps.
He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care.
His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.

He requires bilingual teachers and books.
He qualifies for relief from high energy bills.
If they are, or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI. Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicare . All of this is at (our) taxpayer's expense .

He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance.

Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material.
He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits.
Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after paying their bills and his.
The American taxpayers also pay for increased crime, graffiti and trash clean-up.

Cheap labor? YEAH RIGHT! Wake up people!
THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS WE SHOULD BE ADDRESSING TO EITHER PARTY. 'AND WHEN THEY LIE TO US AND DON'T DO AS THEY SAY, WE SHOULD REPLACE THEM AT ONCE!'
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poeple wonder why california & the u.s.a. is going bankrupt.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/tomatoes.asp

There is no easy answer to much of the important stuff in life & this is no exception.

Political solutions are often 3 parts of this, 4 parts of that, a dash of this one & a touch of that...

Anyone who thinks otherwise & advocates for 'quick & easy' solutions just aren't deep enough into the issues.

It's like a re-roofing project; no matter how simple, the likelihood that two houses are the same is pretty slim to nil & there is always something to contend with to satisfy all the relevant parts to the project.
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They should start by enforcing the law. We need to maintain our boarders,language and culture. We also need to sting up those who employ illegals.
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Ranch, I know I read a copy of that letter some time ago, even though Snopes does not have a verdict on it yet, it does have the smell of one of those made up letters, but the questions I asked at the beginning in relation to the article, regardless or not if it is authentic still remain.

Ed
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I live in NoCal, sounds about right to me.The main reason I moved from the Central Valley (aka Northern Mexico) to the foothills was to get my kids out of the overcrowded, gang infested, English as a second language schools that exist there.

Folks, like it or not, we are in a global economy & the sovereignty of our own borders is nearly impossible to properly maintain.

It doesn't help that Mexico has gone to 4ell in a handbasket...
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Ranch, the U.S. government chooses not to enforce our immigration laws.

If it wanted to the U.S. government could secure our southern border.

The U.S. government could round up and deport illegal immigrants of all nationalities, if the U.S. government made a decision to do so.

This is not a matter of "can't be done".

Too many people are profiting from exploiting illegal immigrants, so the U.S. government chooses to look the other way.
_________________
I don't need no freakin' signature, I Am Roofer.

Same as the "war on drugs", you don't hear about that any more,Did we WIN???,lol
As long as there is money that does not have to be accounted for it will never end...
_________________
When Quality Matters...

I forgot where, the news paper I think but I read that we had more illegals come in from our northern borders last year than southern. Anyone confirm this?

No confirmation on the Northern Border item Bam, but I have not noticed that from first hand experience.

There are a lot of Polish and Bohemian immigrants in the Chicago Region though.

Just like a part of my reply in the Minnesota Storm thread in response to TinkerBell's Racist exploitation comments, my Hispanic friend who was my foreman left this area a year ago, making $25.00 per hour and wound up moving to the Houston or San Antonio area to see if he could find an affordable house.

Well, the best job he could find was installing lightening rods and he only gets paid $8.00 per hour down there. When he started working for me 13 years ago, he started at $15.00 per hour, so the Legal Hispanics are affected greatly by the Illegal Immigration just as much, if not more than natural born citizens.

It's a disgrace that he is making 1/2 of what he was 13 years ago.

He is probably amongst the top 3 workers for skill and quality out of hundreds I have worked with in the past 31 years.

Ed
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Ed,

You should have put him in contact with me. With a reference from you, I would have set him up in a heartbeat.

My biggest problem is that I can't rely on someone to do the job 100% as requested & that's why end up spending more time on the jobsite than the average contractor probably does.

QC is MY concern.
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Here is an article I recall reading several years ago about a Roofing Contractor located in Minnesota.

Ed


http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/06/01/roofing/

Twin Cities roofer Steve Hackbarth, on the roof of a home in Brooklyn Park, is one of a handful of roofing contractors in the area who won't hire Mexican crews. (MPR Photo/Jeff Horwich)Who's on the roof: Immigrant labor shapes a summer industry
by Jeff Horwich, Minnesota Public Radio
June 4, 2006
Listen to feature audio
In Minnesota, summer is the season of roof work. But a glance at the crews overhead this time of year makes it clear most people doing that work are not from Minnesota. The residential roofing industry around the country now relies on low-priced labor by Mexican immigrants. Industry insiders say the roofing business would collapse without this migrant work force -- which includes immigrants who are in the U.S. legally and illegally.

Brooklyn Park, Minn. — Steve Hackbarth has run a roofing business in the Twin Cities for 15 years. He doesn't usually nail shingles himself now, but on this day he's climbing the ladder to a suburban roof in Brooklyn Park.

For different reasons, neither of his two crew members could be on the job today. "It's one of those cases where I end up doing some of the work myself," he says.

Unlike most of his competitors, Hackbarth refuses to tap a pool of workers that could keep him comfortably behind a desk -- and cost him perhaps 20 percent less than his current crew.

"A lot of the guys are hiring the illegal immigrants, and we don't do that, because we want to keep control of quality," Hackbarth says. "When I go out and seek a subcontractor, my main concern is that they're highly skilled. And number two, they have to be legal. If they didn't all have green cards, I wouldn't hire them."

As it turns out, this gives Hackbarth something of a niche in the local roofing market. He says he doesn't specifically advertise that his work crews are not Mexican. But it does become a selling point. "We only tend to bring it up if somebody asks," he says. "And usually what somebody asks is if they can communicate, if the people we hire speak English." Hackbarth's easy answer: "Of course."


Roofer Steve HackbarthBut Hackbarth's choice does come at a price beyond just having to nail some shingles himself now and then. Because he pays his crews more, his bids often come in high. Hackbarth counters by touting superior quality and offering warranties two or even three times longer than the industry norm.

State employment statistics hint at a significant shift in the residential roofing industry. Between the summer of 2000 and the summer of 2005, the number of people in the overall Minnesota residential construction industry rose 30 percent. At the same time, the number formally employed by residential roofing contractors in the state dropped by 34 percent -- and it's not because Minnesotans have stopped having work done on their roofs.

Roofing supply companies, for example, say business is great and there's no shortage of roofers, despite the statistical decline in roofing jobs. "It almost has seemed historically in the last 10 years there's a bottomless pit of migrant labor that's available," says Earl Ward, general manager at Roof Depot in Minneapolis.

Ward says of the 300 contractors he supplies, maybe five operate like Steve Hackbarth. Nowadays it's the informal network of migrant roofing crews that makes the industry go.

"Your typical contractor would sell a job and then call up 'Pedro's Roofing,' or whatever, and get ahold of minority labor crews, predominantly Mexicans," Ward says. "And for a price per square [foot] they would just do the job for him. And with that in mind he doesn't have employees, he doesn't have to worry about workers' compensation issues or any of those. He just pays a guy to do it for him."

Ward and others in the Minnesota residential roofing industry peg the labor shift at a very specific point: the summer of 1998. When massive hail storms hit the upper Midwest, regional roofing companies and crews couldn't meet the demand. So-called "storm chaser" roofing companies came to town and brought their Mexican crews with them; regional companies also needed the extra labor.

(They) helped create the biggest boom in homebuilding in modern American history. Now that boom would not have taken place without (workers) whose true documentation is not verifiable.
- Craig Brightup, National Roofing Contractors Association"After 1998, it seemed that within about a two-year period it turned 180 (degrees) from all Americans doing the roofing to all Mexicans. It happened that quick," Ward says, adding that Mexican crews "are much more efficient, they're easier to find, and in a lot of respects they do a better job."

The National Roofing Contractors Association is eager to tout the quality of the Mexican workers and the jobs they do on American roofs. "Key sectors of the industry have been able to populate their workforces with hard-working, industrious individuals who who need this work," says Craig Brightup, the trade group's vice president of government relations. These workers, he says, "have, for example, helped create the biggest boom in homebuilding in modern American history. Now that boom would not have taken place without the kinds of workers we're talking about now...those whose true documentation is not verifiable."

On the roof in Brooklyn Park, roofer Steve Hackbarth takes issue with the notion that quality has not suffered. Hackbarth says a lot of his business now involves fixing mistakes by inexperienced Mexican crews. "Just slapped (the shingles) on, and they did it wrong -- nailed them too high and then eventually the shingles started blowing off, and the only answer to it was to re-do the whole roof," he says. "We're going to see a lot of roofs having to be redone because people did them wrong."

Not so, says Pat Marcy, the sales manager at St. Paul roofing supply dealer United Product Corporation, who maintains the immigrant crews "saved the industry, plain and simple." He praises today's mostly Mexican crews for fewer problems with drinking and drugs, and a willingness to work long, hot days at what he calls the toughest job in any industry.

And while it has become a cliche in the current immigration debate, Marcy says these are truly jobs Americans don't want. He recalls a recent roofing industry survey of high school seniors, asking what jobs they were considering. "There were 250 choices for an occupation," Marcy says. "Roofing came in 249th. The only one below it was coal mining. So you have to actually go below ground before you get a worse job than roofing."

Part of the problem could be the pay. Between 2000 and 2005 wages in residential roofing rose at half the rate of overall wages in the Minnesota residential construction industry. Some roofers like Steve Hackbarth say skilled young people could be coaxed back into the trade if contractors paid higher wages like he does -- and charged higher prices to homeowners.

Marcy, on the other hand, is among those who thinks it's too late. And he says the industry was struggling to find good workers even before Mexican roofing crews entered the upper Midwest. "Without the Hispanic force, the Mexican labor, there really is no labor force here. They're it. We'd be right back to where we were in the mid-90s, where we couldn't get jobs done, and we couldn't get it done properly."

Not surprisingly, the roofing industry nationally has been an active voice in the current policy debate over immigration. Craig Brightup of the National Roofing Contractors Association calls the current immigration system "completely dysfunctional." He says the industry operates in a don't-ask-don't-tell "pantomime" where workers must conceal their immigration status and roofers don't ask about it.

But Brightup says roofers were even more alarmed at proposals in Congress to close off the border and jail immigrants who are here illegally. Brightup says the country needs an immigration policy that recognizes the economic importance of immigrant labor.

"It really is a formula that has to involve a functional, legitimate, easy-to-use guest worker program as well as a component that recognizes that there are anywhere from 11 million to 13 million undocumented aliens in this country today, the vast majority of which are working hard (and) do not have any kind of problems with the law," Brightup says. "Employers who need workers would undoubtedly help sponsor those workers to make sure everything is on the up and up."

Until Congress takes action -- and probably even then -- those with the ultimate ability to shape the industry are consumers considering the roofs over their heads. A few will pay a premium for the shrinking number of roofers like Steve Hackbarth who avoid immigrant labor. But, as in most areas of economic life, the path of the overall industry will tend to follow the lowest bid.
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RanchHandRoofing wrote:

Ed, You should have put him in contact with me. With a reference from you, I would have set him up in a heartbeat. My biggest problem is that I can't rely on someone to do the job 100% as requested & that's why end up spending more time on the jobsite than the average contractor probably does. QC is MY concern.

Ranch, I thought you were a long ways away from the Houston area???

I will pass along his cell phone number to you if you want.

Ed
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Here is another very severe consequence that can occur to Illegal Immigrant workers.

Read the story to see.

Ed


http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/apr/10/Paralyzed-roofer-at-crux-of-legal-debate-over-what/

Paralyzed roofer's case raises legal debate over rights of illegal immigrants hurt on job
By Hillary Copsey (Contact), Ryan Deering
Friday, April 10, 2009


Photo by Matthew Ratajczak

In constant pain from a previous surgery, Victor Leon, 26, rests in his bed alongside his rosary. "I have nobody to worry about me here," Leon said. "God is the only one to help keep my mind strong." A three-story fall almost three years ago left Leon paralyzed from the waist down.

Photo by Matthew Ratajczak

With help from his friend Angel Velasquez, 26-year-old Victor Leon enters the house he was living at in Indiantown. Help from local churches is starting to taper off and he doesn’t know what he will do in the coming months to pay his water and electric bill, pay for much needed medicine and buy food and other necessities. Poverty worsened his medical condition and Leon has been in and out of the hospital since January.
An illegal immigrant injured on a job is suing for workers' comp or legal damages. Do you think he should get it?

Yes

No

I don't know



See the results without voting ».

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WEST PALM BEACH — Victor Leon is alone in the hospital most days.

The 26-year-old was paralyzed nearly three years ago when he fell from the roof of a three-story building in Palm City while working for Jupiter-based Altec Roofing. Since then, Leon has been mired in a legal battle to get workers' compensation benefits or legal damages from Altec.

Leon is an illegal immigrant. His status puts him at the crux of a legal debate over what rights, if any, illegal workers have after being injured on a job for which the American government says they never should have been hired.

"It's sort of a legal limbo," said Chad Hastings, Leon's attorney. "He's in a place where basically the American government is saying, 'Go die somewhere.' "

Unable to work since the accident because of his paralysis, Leon is homeless and poverty worsened his medical problems. Reused catheters caused infections and bedsores burrowed deeper into his body until they threatened to overtake his bones. He's spent most of 2009 in St. Mary's Medical Center and is about to undergo his third surgery.

His brother, Ivan — also in the U.S. illegally — visits on weekends off work. Leon's grandmother, the only family member with a passport, has visited from Monterrey, Mexico. Leon doesn't return to Monterrey because he isn't sure his family can provide the medical care he needs.

His bill at St. Mary's is climbing quickly toward $500,000. No one is paying that bill. Likely the hospital will have to write it off as charity care.

Returning to Mexico also might destroy Leon's chance at winning his legal case, according to Hastings. Once in Monterrey, Leon might not be able to return for depositions or hearings.

A civil court judge ruled Altec did not owe Leon anything for negligence, citing a precedent case that gives an employer legal immunity when they provide workers' compensation. But Altec denied Leon workers' compensation because of his illegal status.

"This guy paid taxes. He paid higher taxes than me," Hastings said. "But now, no one wants to help him."

Companies shouldn't be hiring illegal immigrants in the first place, said former state Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Port St. Lucie. But even if the employer knew the worker was illegal, Harrell said that doesn't entitle an injured worker — already breaking the law — to benefits.

"I don't think we should give any rights to illegals to start with," said Harrell, who made stopping illegal immigration her top issue when she campaigned for U.S. House District 16. "You've got all these contractors out of work. We should be hiring legal workers, not illegal ones. These contractors could avoid all these sticky lawsuits."

Leon came to the United States seven years ago, following his older brother Ivan and in search of a better life. He worked odd jobs, until Ivan, who was a supervisor with Altec, helped him land a roofing job.

Leon worked first under a fake Social Security number, then procured a real number under a fake name — Jesse James Craig. Hastings and Leon allege Altec knew about — and helped get around — his, Ivan's and other workers' illegal status, pointing to W-2 forms that show Ivan worked for Altec under three different names.

Altec officials did not return calls for comment.

When he wasn't working, Leon enjoyed soccer and dancing. People in Indiantown, where he lived and still stays when he's not in the hospital, remember a vibrant, social 24-year-old before the accident.

One morning, Leon and a coworker were throwing the metal framework of a garbage chute system off the roof of a three-story Circle Bay condominium in Palm City when a split-second miscommunication changed Leon's life.

"I was ready to count, like 'one, two, three,' and then we throw it down," Leon said. "But he just threw it. When he threw it down, I didn't even know it, and I just saw that there was nothing under my feet."

Leon and the six-foot metal girder went sailing over the roof's edge. Leon had the presence of mind to push the metal away, but then the next thing he knew he was in the hospital being told he'd never walk again.

A urine test taken at the hospital revealed traces of cocaine and marijuana in Leon's system. In addition to Leon's legal status, Altec is using this test to fight his claims to benefits.

But a toxicologist hired by Hastings has testified a urinalysis does not prove Leon was impaired at the time of the accident. Hospital charts do not show that Leon appeared intoxicated. Leon admits to taking "about four puffs" from a marijuana cigarette the night before the accident, however, he claims to have been sober that morning.

"I was always careful what time I went to sleep when I was working," Leon said. "I remember that morning. I was alright."

Since the accident, Leon has not been alright. No work means no money, and for awhile, his brother Ivan also was out of work. Leon has had to rely on whatever help people in Indiantown have offered.

"He's just wheeling in the streets all day with that sun," said Tonya Molina, a 50-year-old mother of four who brought Leon two meals a day. "He goes and sits under a tree. He ain't got no TV, ain't got no bed. He's constantly in pain 'cause he's got no way to get medication."

Hastings supplied a new wheelchair and brought him to St. Mary's for care when the bedsores worsened. Before that, Holy Cross Catholic Church in Indiantown helped with medication while Leon stayed in an empty house with the owner's permission but without water or electricity.

"He wasn't the only one working illegally," said Yolanda Whitehead, 30, who helped Leon make calls to social service agencies. "Somebody needs to give him somewhere to stay and feed him ... and some treatment because he needs help."

His makeshift home has been rented. Leon isn't sure where he'll go when St. Mary's discharges him.

"Illegal people can't have no rights, man, and I don't know why," Leon said. "I mean, we're just humans."
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