She works at a wholesale plant nursery… Now, the nursery she works at doesn’t happen to employ very many immigrants, I think mostly because they want to offer an alternative to McDonalds to Americans who only have a high school education. They pay a living wage and treat their employees extremely well, however, you’re expected to actually work… You’d be surprised how many people either A. walk off the job within the first week or B. get fired because they don’t want to actually do the job they’ve been hired to do.

Where my mother works tends to be somewhat of an anomaly for nurseries their size… It’s far more common to hire immigrants (there are some that hire illegally, but most hire legally)… I’m sure part of the reason is because hiring immigrants is cheaper than hiring Americans but also because the hiring an American is far more risky in the long run because they’re more liable to walk off the job in a week because it’s “too hard” or they’re going to be more lazy than an immigrant worker.

I think what bothers me so much about when people say immigrants will do jobs that Americans won’t is the fact that it’s in part true… We may have problems with illegal immigration, but we’ve got problems with the work ethic of our own workers too.

In this instance I think the problem is caused by an economic devide between two adjacent nations. I think we have it rather lucky actually. Just think if the situation in Mexico were more like that of Haiti, what would happen then?

People never talk about the economic divide in an international context around here. I like to think of borders as a semi-permeable membrane where osmosis (the force of people desiring something better) will always bring people who need something, to a place that has what they want.

I used to wonder why instead of coming here and working hard, why they do not stay home and work hard to make things better. I now think that the resources to do so are just not available to the individual.

Maybe if we want to fix the problem here, we need to help Mexico get what they need to help them help the individual. Help them with education, defining and managing their resources.

Anyways…