[quote=spdrun] . . . most service worker immigrants are fairly young. Why not give them a shot at permanent residence? Chances are, if they’re legal, they’ll start out low, but some of them will get an education and move on to higher-paying jobs. More money into the social security system. What we’ll pay them after age 65-70 will be a comparative pittance.[/quote]

spd, only the very highest earners will put a substantial amount in the OASDI program of Social Security thru wages paid to them. A younger worker in the US only needs ten years worth of quarters to qualify for a SS benefit between 70 and 73 years old. Most immigrant workers crossing the border every day aren’t high-wage workers but service workers who will ostensibly be eligible for a SS benefit after ten years worth of quarters of wages reported, provided the SS number they are using to work is legitimately theirs. If they live past 75 years old (and the OASDI program is still in place at that time), this lower wage-earning group will have already likely collected the entire amount of their contributions thru their wages in monthly benefits. So, your last sentence is incorrect in that this (younger – GenX and below) group of current workers will be able to qualify for a SS benefit between 65 – 70 years old and that their benefit will be a “mere pittance” in relation to the monthly benefit they will receive if they live long enough.

I don’t believe for one second that there aren’t enough US born workers who reside on the US side of the border to take these thousands of SD County service jobs occupied by Mexican Nationals who have a legal right to work in the US. For example, there are a LOT of boomers (and older) who wouldn’t mind at all working as a laundry supervisor at the Hotel Del to supplement their (often meager) income or working in ANY of the many service-sector jobs in the county. The working conditions are actually pretty good at many of the hotels and restaurants throughout the county, especially those located in busy tourist areas. If the work visa program was not in place for this HUGE group crossing the border every day, these employers would HAVE to hire resident US citizens. They would have no choice. What has been happening over the last 40+ years (and much more pronounced the last 20 years) is that the vast majority of these jobs (a portion of these positions represented, with accompanying benefits) are given to border-crossing work visa holders and thus those US citizens who are “retired” or “semi-retired” or college students who need extra income know they won’t be considered for them so have given up. The employers use the guise of fluent Spanish being “required” for these jobs as a roadblock for many US-citizen applicants but that may only be partially true for customer service positions. It is NOT true for housekeeping, laundry and kitchen positions, among many other non-customer service positions.

I believe entry into service industry and retail positions has been “sewed up” in SD Metro and SD South/East County (and likely North County, as well) to the point where anyone who is not fluently bilingual cannot be considered for a job and that is just plain wrong and discriminatory because this is the US.

Service employers in SD County like the current system of having a never-ending supply of daily “border crossers” to choose from for their hiring-pool composition. They know this pool of applicants is able to live relatively cheaply, has other relatives back in MX to take care of their small children and don’t want anything changed in this regard. This hiring practice has resulted in their workforces consisting of 90-95% of ONE race/Nationality of employees and they don’t care. None of our state representatives have proposed any solutions to this problem because Americans don’t file EEOC claims and the like for “failure to hire.” Why? They have been conditioned to become complacent over the issue in past decades and thus no longer attempt to apply for these jobs. They know that if they should be successfully hired in the laundry room of XYZ 5-Star Hotel in SD County that they will be the black or the white sheep of ALL of their co-workers who are constantly speaking another language at the worksite in front of them and don’t want to deal with it.

In other major cities much further from the int’l border, hotel, restaurant and retail staff is comprised of a much broader range of employee races and Nationalities. The reality is that this huge “border-crossing” group DOES take good jobs away from Americans who want them but the employer-sanctioned practice of hiring only one race/Nationality for these jobs will continue to go on into perpetuity SD County, because, in all practicality, they CAN and have gotten away with this practice for many, many years.