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Undocumented workers contribute nearly $100 billion in taxes.
(prismreports.org)
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this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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Undocumented workers must be valuable to the economy. The people who employ them tend to be business owners who vote Republican, so they know the people they're employing are creating profits, because those workers are creating profits for them.
In the early 2000s I had long conversations with a Republican-voting business owners who railed against 'illegal immigration', while employing them and therefore producing the conditions which incentivised them to become undocumented workers. His intellectual response was simply one of denial. He denied that his actions were hypocritical, or that he was creating the problem that he hated.
That was one of many important events that has led to me not assuming that compassion or moral integrity are commonly shown by humans.
It's funny how Republicans absolutely never mention the most obvious solution to the "problem" of undocumented workers: pursuing and prosecuting the American citizens who hire them. It's always useless walls and deportations and bullshit like that.
Tiniest violin.
Because "Republican voter, punish us - your fans - for creating the problem we're pissed off about," just sounds ridiculous.
What he couldn't articulate, is that his individual actions don't have any effect the larger systemic problem.
He can't fix anything by not hiring a dozen undocumented people.
He's taking advantage of the problem he complains about. Which might make him a hypocrite. But nothing about the problem would change if he stopped doing either.
"It doesn't matter whether I do or do not beat my wife and children. It would still happen anyway."
Society is all the individuals within it. Its output is the sum of all those individuals. If Republican business owners stuck to their principles and did not hire undocumented workers to make more profits, the amount of undocumented workers they are unhappy about would go down.
They are, quite literally, profiting from something they like, but then saying they don't like it and it's a reason to vote for shitty politicians. It's not just hypocrisy, it's wilfully making the world worse for other humans. Which is quite popular.
"If everyone just does the right, thing instead of what's best for them ..."
That never happens. That's not how people work.
Systemic problems need systemic solutions. Your example isn't a systemic problem, it's an individual one. As such it can be solved by an individual.
I agree. People are machines for making the world worse.
I agree that there's a systemic problem at the root cause of this and, of course, I agree they're a fraction of a fraction in size.
However, I don't think we take that attribute with any other crimes, big or small, right or wrong.
I hope we can agree that a lot of theft is a symptom of the problems caused by systemicpoverty. However, it wouldn't excuse theft, simply because you wanted a bit more, despite already having enough.
Not just you, by any stretch of the imagination, but we're so quick to minimise the wrong doing of wealthy people doing illegal stuff to make just a little bit more money for themselves, purely out of greed. I feel like we've been almost groomed into some kind of "Well that's just good business" mentality, for this ne specific kind of law breaking.
Even if it was a starving person, we would say "I understand they're starving. However, we also can't have them stealing everything they want to eat from one small, family owned mini mart, all the time. Yeah, yeah, no I still think that even though doing something about it might not contribute that much to the wider, systemic issues leading to poverty."
I think you're looking at my argument too specifically.
It applies the same to climate change, and people buying cheep junkfood instead of more expensive healthy options.
Blameing people for doing what's better for them in the moment, instead of what's immediately difficult but ultimately better for everyone, is always wrong.
Personally, I would say its not something that applies to those things in the same way. It isn't illegal to have a hight carbon footprint or eat junk food but it is illegal to employ undocumented workers. The problem is, they choose to employ non documented workers because they can force them to accept appalling and unlawful work conditions as well as massively underpaying them for the value of their work.
If always then it would apply to someone who found robbing and killing you better for them in the moment. The harder thing would be for them to get a job and earn that money.
Would blaming somone for robbing and killing you be wrong?
I wouldn't blame them for robbing me. That makes sense in a world where they aren't mentally stable enough to keep a job. If they asked nicely I'd have just given them the money. Their being an asshole about it isn't enough reason to let them starve.
I also wouldn't blame them for killing me, because I'd be dead. I wouldn't be able to blame them.
Legality has nothing to do with right and wrong, or hypocracy and consistancy anyway.
I mean, I made a point not to use legality as a moral argument but you went ahead and said that anyway....
Sorry but it wasn't someone starving or mentally ill. Its anyone who just feels like robbing you because its "whats better for them in the moment" per the below:
Its not like the people hiring undocumented people are doing so because they're starving or mentally ill either. So, its a bizzare caveat to throw in, out of no where.
I mean, if you're going to claim you wouldn't blame somone for robbing you when they could have just asked you, as you even say yourself, in order to not have to admit that people are actually culpable for their own actions then I don't know what to say to that.
I’m not sure that’s true, a lot of the undocumented workers I’ve met have worked in restaurants, and MANY of the owners there are absolutely champagne socialists that push Democratic rhetoric.
Would love to see data on it, but that’s got to be hard to gather, undocumented and all.
Like with everything it's a spectrum. I've known republican restaurant owners who also hire undocumented people, as well as warehouse, construction and field jobs. The difference at least usually is that the left leaning owners vote in a way that would help those undocumented people vs Republicans that vote in a way that would hurt everyone that isn't exactly like them and in plenty of cases even hurt people who are exactly like them.