Miller must clean own backyard first

Since the first oversight hearing in 1993, the NMI was browbeaten to death by the likes of liberal social democrats such as California Congressman George Miller, about worker conditions here. Nice try, Congressman Miller. Now read the following from Copley News Service about Central Valley, California:

“A swarm of flies buzzed around Georgina Ma, written by daughter in the doorway of their room in a labor camp on the backside of this mostly Latino town. There was no way to escape the heat of the tiny room — a room without running water or even a toilet. This labor camp and California have been Macias’ permanent home since she immigrated from Mexico 2 1/2 years ago. Other residents of the town, surrounded by cotton fields, live in trailers, converted garages and shacks behind old bungalows.

Meet America’ s new underclass.

“Conventional wisdom holds that America is an economic launch pad for new immigrants. Instead, a growing number of them — lured here by the promise of moving up in the world through hard work — find themselves dragged down by the very promises that drew them. The biggest promise — a job paying minimum wage or higher — offers far more than these workers earned in their own countries. But it’ s not enough to lift them out of poverty here.

“Now, decades after Mexicans began migrating to California’ s Central Valley, poverty is spreading like dandelions through the world’ s richest farm belt.

“The situation is so bad that some researchers describe the Central Valley as America’ s New Appalachia, created by California growers and their quest for cheap labor. They say what’ s happening here also is happening in Iowa, Mississippi and Delaware. In those states, foreign workers are being recruited to cut up beef, pork and chickens. In Illinois, they’ re hired to make candy and fold boxes. In Georgia, they weave carpets and put up roofs. Almost everywhere in America, they make beds, change diapers and mow lawns.

“Eighty percent who settle in this country each year are here legally. Combine their enormous numbers — about 900,000 a year — with the low-wage jobs many of them take, and you have a country fast developing a new class of working poor. One in four noncitizens in the United States lives in poverty — twice the national average.

“In California, the largest single group of immigrants is Mexican and Central American, according to Kevin F. McCarthy and Georges Vernez, analysts with the think tank RAND.

“‘These immigrants earned, on average, about 40 percent less than native-born workers in 1970, and their relative earnings level has declined further over the past 20 years,” the two researchers reported in a 1997 study on how immigrants are faring in California. “In 1990, male immigrants earned about 50 percent less than native males earned.” Earnings “of poorly educated immigrants are deteriorating relative both to native-born workers and to earlier immigrants,” they found.

“The labor of new immigrants may have revitalized some neighborhoods in New York, given new life to rural communities in the Midwest, and added prosperity and comfort to the lives of many Americans. But prosperity and comfort seem increasingly elusive for the immigrants themselves.

“Macias, who was 21 when she was interviewed for this series last year, earned about $4,000 a year in the fields not far from where Interstate 5 cuts through California’ s Central Valley. That’ s about the average income in many of the Latino towns springing up in the fertile Central Valley. It’ s also about the average income in Mexico.

“Macias’ life in the labor camp was typical. She had to walk to the community spigot to do her dishes, or elsewhere in camp to go to the bathroom, bathe and cook. Her room was more fit for a horse than a human. The only change on her horizon was a monthly rent increase from $245 to $275.” Congressman Miller, steer clear of the use of the glass house syndrome.