Here & There Column 6-12-07

Ulster Orchard Owners Support New Law

Our Sullivan County coffee klatsch took a long look the other day at the proposed immigration plan that has come out of the magical think tanks in Washington.
We were not surprised by the comment made by several in our group who noted that last fall they were talking to a leading orchard owner in the New Paltz area who said he could not keep his prices down and be competitive in the market if it were not for the illegal immigrants.
This Ulster County orchard owner made it very clear that without the low-wage, unskilled labor, costs for goods would be far higher.
As we settled in with our first cup of home brew and of course those famous home made donuts one in our group pointed out that he felt this new proposed immigration legislation is nothing more then a plan to grant legal status to millions of people in the country unlawfully.
Discussion within our group said that it looks like the United States does not want to limit immigration but that we also are not obligated to take in all the poor of other nations and the only ones to get hurt with this proposal are lower-middle class Americans who can't compete with the low wages and some unsafe workplaces illegal immigrants will accept.
"It's amnesty," one in our group said, "and amnesty will bankrupt all social programs including social security."
Our coffee klatsch entered the second cup phase of debate on the proposed new immigration plan with discussion on how many businesses are stating that they would have the labor they need to keep economies humming because national estimates say 70 percent of illegal immigrants work in low skill jobs.
We all had a number of questions on how the new proposal could have strong implications for the work force, for the industries it serves and for the consumers who buy everything from prices houses to pints of berries.
Our Ulster County orchard owners gave us a cautiously basic thumbs up by pointing out that the new law would give provisions to legalize immigrants which could relieve a broken labor system and protect loyal workers skittish about being deported.
Several in our group noted that the immigration reform bill would grant immediate legal status to 10-12 million illegal aliens and that the bill seeks to take "illegal" out of "illegal immigration."
Four members of our Sullivan County coffee klatsch said that statistics they have point out that it will cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $2.4 Trillion dollars to covert the retirement costs of illegal aliens who get amnesty under this new bill. They added that "each year, low-skilled illegal alien households cost our society about $20,000 and that's because low-skilled immigrant households consume 3 dollars in government services for every 1 dollar they pay in taxes."
Our coffee klatsch concluded that there is indeed a lot of controversy with this topic and much of that surrounds the topic of ;amnesty.
This certainly is a not a Republican, Democrat, Conservative or Liberal movement but we hope the adopted Congressional plan does what's right for America.