Mark’s Soap Box

Study says most day laborers are illegal aliens – North County Times

No shock there. What is annoying, is how the North County Times attempts to invalidate the study with it’s biased (typically left wing) reporting.

NORTH COUNTY — A new study shows that day laborers on street corners and in hiring halls make up less than 1 percent of the work force, and that most are in the country illegally.

Sounds innocuous, doesn’t it; “less than 1 percent of the work force.” Just how many people is that? 139 million in workforce per Heritage Foundation by way of the Census Bureau. That makes the street-corner hucksters about 1.4 million. Day laborers account for about 40,000 workers in California.

Think about that. If we need illegal aliens so badly then why are they on the street corner? You know the excuses: no id, being hassled by police, afraid of deportation, blah blah blah. The fact that they have no right to be here seems to escape their defenders. Maybe we have a glut of illegal aliens?

BTW that number (workforce size) is the same size as in 1999. Seems odd doesn’t? We are being invaded and the size stays the same while our unemployment drops. Maybe we need those illegal aliens?

Why are the numbers the way they are? Teenagers are leaving the workforce for education — or maybe because they can’t get summer jobs anymore? –, and it’s much rarer for teens to have to support their families so they are joining the workforce later, also many women are returning to their traditional roles, and business owners — at record highs — are not counted. What about welfare recipients? They are not considered to be in the workforce. Hmm.

If we really need people to fill jobs, then lets start with the lazy bums on welfare.

Considering the North County Times and the Hispanic author, it is not surprising that they would pull a quote like this:

One of the opponents of the day labor sites questioned the study’s credibility.

“For every study you present, I can give you 10,” said Ray Carney, a Fallbrook resident and anti-illegal immigration activist. “I don’t take any credence in what some Ph.D. says. … Illegal immigration does depress wages and takes jobs from undereducated Americans. Construction is a good example.”

The problem is there were two studies mentioned. Which one was he referencing? It also seems odd that they edited the statement and took it up with the talking point to end the comment.

Feigned balance or an attempt to shut up opponents of illegal aliens? Will they quote this guy when a pro-illegal-alien study comes out? Most likely they only point out his opposition to illegal-aliens.

According to the study, 80 percent of the estimated 40,000 day laborers in California are working in the state without legal documentation, such as visas or work permits.

About 68 percent of them are from Mexico, 29 percent of them are from other parts of Latin America and about 3 percent were born in the United States.

This is the closing statement in the article.

“It’s never been about day laborers,” Smith said. “And it certainly is not a question of whether they are documented or undocumented. It is about harassing a ‘bunch of Mexicans.’ If that is what you set out to do, it makes sense to target day laborers because they are the most exposed.”

Such balanced reporting.