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Danny’s Gone
Everyone makes mistakes. I’ve made a bunch. It’s the ones that start small and seem insignificant that sneak up on you over time that are the ones that have the biggest consequence. The mistakes that lead to other people getting hurt are hard to confront. But the most pain comes when a mistake ends up hurting a child. I’ve done that.
I’m not writing about this to cleanse my soul (I wish it were that easy). I’m hoping that readers see this story and learn from my errors. I think my mistake has been made a few million times the past decade or so. It’s just time to discuss the consequences of our actions.
About ten years ago I was in need of a big hole. I have enough property to always need something. This time it was a drainage ditch and a dry well. I knew that there were workers looking for jobs in a nearby town. I’d heard about it from neighbors who had gone to a corner in Ossining, NY where day workers from south of the border came in the mornings. I didn’t think much of it at the time.
Sure enough, there were workers. Construction trucks were picking up guys. When I drove up a half dozen came up to me. They all talked a fast Spanish, they all wanted a job. For no particular reason I chose one. His name was Caesar. Two days later what I wanted done had been accomplished. A nice job at that. I paid cash for the work. It was $80 a day, plus I provided food.
I drove him back to where he lived at night; a not so nice apartment that he shared with eight others. I didn’t think much of it at the time.
He had my telephone number and called a few weeks later and said, “I need work”.
I understood that this was a cry for help from a guy who was having trouble getting food money. I had a ton of things that had been left undone. So I said, “Yes”.
So it became a few days a week. That lasted awhile. I introduced him to others. Everyone needed work done. It turned out that Caesar had many skills. He was a good mason and could lay up stonewalls. He was a painter, gardener, a decent mechanic and a pretty good rough and finish carpenter. He was from Quenca, Ecuador (small city outside of Quito). He had a wife, Ruth, and a daughter who was then three years old. He left his family to come to America.
We talked while we worked, I spoke “Spanglish” he spoke broken English, we understood each other perfectly. He, of course, was here illegally. He had made the long trip from Ecuador to NY via the Texas border. He came to the US because (his words) there were no jobs an no future in his home country. We became friends of a sort.
After a year or so, Caesar had saved up some money. He sent $10,000 (via Citi) back to Ecuador. This was the payoff money to the Coyotes who would transport his wife to the Texas border. She made the trip in the back of a box truck. She was raped on the way.
She was dumped, (with 20 others) in the brush country outside of Brownsville, Texas. She walked to the lights of the city and took a bus to NY. Thousands of “Ruth’s” made this trip.
Not too long after she made the long journey she was pregnant. This may have been the result of two devout Catholics and a long separation. But it was also a defensive move on their part. They knew that a child born in America would automatically become a citizen. They believed that if they were the parents of a American child they would never be deported. A common belief that has led to many children being born to illegal workers.
They named their son Danny. A healthy and happy child. Life was good for the family during the early part of the decade. There was steady work for both of them. Housekeeping for Ruth, Caesar worked construction. In 2003 they had a combined income of $60,000. A number that made them “rich” compared to the world they had come from. They were living the same dream that millions of immigrants had when they came to the US over the years. The difference, of course, was that they were illegal and had no right to be here. They bought fake Social Security cards (easy to get back then).
They lived in an area that was exploding in population of men and women who had come from Ecuador. Word travelled back to Cuenca that work and money was available. Over the course of just five years the illegal population exploded in the towns of Ossining, Peekskill and Mt. Kisco. Bodega’s and restaurants popped up.
Danny grew up fast. I saw to it that he had the medical attention he needed and later pulled a string or two to get him into the local schools. There were birthdays and holidays that I contributed to. He came to my home and I taught him to swim. Unlike his parents, he took to the water and swam like a rat. He called me, “Grandfather”. I was okay with that.
Danny was as much an American boy as any you could find. He spoke English perfectly (much to his parents chagrin). He liked American football, he didn’t play soccer. He loved basketball. He did fine in school. He made many friends. He was invited to the birthday parties of his classmates. He was a very happy kid.
Around 2005 my feelings on what was happening began to change. What had started innocently enough was now morphing into something that was no longer innocent. It was clearly a population explosion that would end up with a bad result. I slowly changed my views. I saw the risks that were developing for all that were involved. This change of heart was influenced by people who knew I was helping a family out. Some made it clear that I should not be helping the “Browns”.
I tried to make things right. I hired a lawyer and sponsored Ruth to become a US citizen. Her application was accepted in 2005. The formal notice that she was “in line” to become legal was a source of a great celebration. Six years later her application had still not gone anywhere. Not one single applicant from Ecuador was given immigration status (Green card) in all those years.
I saw to it that Ruth kept a record of all of her income. She paid taxes on what she made, the same as anyone would do. I thought this was important. It would prove that she was playing by the rules. I thought that the tax records would support her request for citizenship. It never mattered at all.
I no longer hired Caesar. I wanted him “on the books”. So he found work where no one asked questions about his legal status. If he had a SS card (illegal or not) there was plenty of work to be had. Somehow that quasi-legal status made it “right”.
Things fell apart for this family starting in 2008. The recession killed the construction industry. With that went the jobs the illegal’s had come for. The unemployment rate for the illegals went from functionally zero to at least 50%. Caesar was only able to find “pickup” work a few days a week.
I saw what was happening. I urged them to go back to Ecuador. I offered them the money to buy plane tickets. They wanted none of that. They stuck it out in the hope (like so many others) that the US economy would turn around. It never did.
Around 2010 there was a new challenge emerging. The local police began targeting the illegals. They stopped the cars they drove in to work. The cops were clearly profiling (they swore they were not). ICE (Immigration, Customs Enforcement) raided a few businesses that hired these workers. Jobs disappeared as a result. To make things worse the illegals were subject to random attacks. One was beat to death while in the custody of the police. A once happy immigrant community was scared to walk the streets.
Ruth, Caesar and Danny stuck it out as long as they could. But Caesar was stopped by the police and was given a summons to appear in court.
I was gone last week. When I got back there was a message on the phone from Danny. He was leaving the next day. He was crying. He wanted to see me before he left. When I got back I went to his home. He was already gone.
Think what it must be like for a ten-year old boy who is American as any of us to be forced out of the country. Think what a strange life he faces in a country that bears no resemblance to what he grew up with. He will not fit in. He doesn't speak Spanish fluently. His parents are back in a place that they know. They are also back in a place that has no opportunity for them and their son.
I know in my heart that I’m partially responsible for Danny’s plight. There is not much I can do about it. I will find him someday. I’ll try to make this right. But the damage has already been done. There is a ten-year old American boy whose life has been ripped apart. That’s a fact that is very hard for me to come to grip with.
**********************************
There is little to celebrate this Labor Day. There are so many Americans who have no work or are doing jobs for little pay and no upside. The illegal workers who came here in the good times are leaving in droves. In 2007 there were 12mm in the country. The endless recession has reduced that number to 8mm in just a few years. The depression we are living through has hurt many families. The ones that are on the bottom of the rung are paying the biggest price. Families like Danny’s have been hurt the most.
I know that many readers will think that my participation in this story was all wrong. That Danny and I deserve the pain we have. I expect a fair bit of criticism for this. Trust me, no words you can write would make feel worse than I do. I think of Danny all the time. I pray that this American child is safe.
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Bruce:
Just a comment to assuage your guilt. . . .
I have been to Ecuador, especially Cuenca, which I liked very much!
Cuenca is actually a clean, modern, beautiful city, with both old and new parts. They use the US dollar (for now) and prices are extremely cheap (in dollars). Entrees in nice restaurants are $5, you can get a taxi ride across the city for $2, and the climate/environment reminds me of Colorado, except at an average of 70 degrees year around. If they were able to take some of their bucks back, they can live quite well. I stayed in a building that used to be the Chilean embassy, and it only cost me $24 bucks a night. All in all, I think I could live their quite well.
Sounds like Danny is better off in Ecuador than that shithole NY where he is taxed to death and screwed over by the money changers.
You "rule of law" guys make me sick.
Read this then we'll talk about it.
http://voluntaryboundaries.blogsome.com/2011/01/04/the-myth-of-the-rule-of-law/
Too long, maybe if you could summarize your position like the rest of us rather than point to a 6 page URL...
Wow, pass the tissues. Change Danny's name to Brucie and you have the storyline for a MOW on cable. The sequel can have Caesar getting involved in a traffic accident while driving drunk and leaving the paralyzed victim and their family ruined while he jumps on a plane and is reunited with Ruthie... The sequel will make a good MOW on a Ecuadorian cable channel. For the victim, however, there is no sequel or happy ending.
There can be a subplot movie about Danny running into his long lost sister in Equator who is a hooker with a heart of gold, but the twist is he doesn't know it is his sister because he never met her, and she is lying to the family that she has this good job in the tortilla factory, and she thinks he is a gringo because his Spanglish is so bad, anyway, they both go to a family fiesta for Quatro de Decembre, not together, and the best shot is when they both realize they are brother and sister and they flash back mentally to all that steamy sex the other night before they knew.........
And then Bruce marries Danny because New York just passed that new law.......
Then his sister has a baby and he is not sure if he is the uncle, the father or both? ;)
I think we just upgraed the plot from a Hallmark Movie of the Week to "Straight to DVD"
Great! It can have a painted cover instead of a photo to "add class"!
You know, this entire article is almost moot.
Really, We are sposed to be a nation of law.
OUR own Govt breaks them all, prosecutes us, US citizens for doing so, allows illegals too break w/impunity and gives Bennie's free to boot.
Then they steal us blind thru taxation, and stealing from the coffers, and the LAW does not apply to them.
JUST US.
Operation Fast and Furious is just another pile of stinking shit.
NOT ONE DAMNED thing will change....................one dude got demoted to another cushy position, our asses would be in jail for LIFE.
Screw it all............................ANARCHY will reign here before it's all said and done, those not ready to kill, and die, should leave now like Danny...........I see no WAY OUT.
Our leaders are CORRUPT to the core..................we lose more ( Enumerated rights daily),or ,in reality had already lost them.
IF you are not an elite member with a net worth of at least 100 million plus,in the USA you are SCREWED.
And, I'm a numbers person. So, if Danny's family took in $600,000 over ten years and paid Social Security & Medicare Withholding, perhaps pension contributions....the pension funds, States & Feds keep all that money and pay out nothing? Who tracks this accounting? THIS is another reason the Corps, States & Feds want illegals paying withholding into potentially uncollectable systems. We are all a party to this if we continue to allow it.
You didn't comprehend the article correctly. Only the wife was paying taxes on her income, and that was probably on a meager housemaid salary, not much above minimum wage, which was rather low the last ten years, in the $4-$5 range. And, she probably only agreed because she was only paying probably around 10-15% on her income and was able to take advantage of all the Federal income tax credits available, like the child tax credit, which probably resulted in her having to pay no income taxes at all.
And, she probably didn't start paying any taxes until much later when she decided to try and leagalize herself. Hubby was a tax evader, and if an American citizen tried that and got caught they might be looking at Federal prison time.
As far the Feds wanting the illegals to pay into SS to take advantage of them, well the Mexican government and the Federal government have worked out an agreement that lets Mexicans that worked in this country, legally or illegally, collect SS.
http://www.ssa.gov/international/Agreement_Texts/mexico.html
Plus, any foreigner that worked legally in the country and payed into SS is legally entitled to collect.
They can't collect off withholding programs if they used a fraudulent Social Security number. If they're illegal they cannot legally obtain a Social Security number for working, they can get a Social Security number to open accounts or use for ID/Driver's License that is a limited SS# and stamped "not valid for employment". If they perpetrated FRAUD by using another person's SS# they could be prosecuted when trying to collect. This is up to the District Attorney and/or Justice Department to prosecute. What many illegals do is collect SSI & Food Stamps (SNAP), which is more money than SS retirement anyway. Medical care is free for low income, so they don't need Medicare and they sure aren't interested in paying premiums for medical coverage. Even retired/Medicare people can pay over $200/mo in supplement and drug coverage as Medicare only pays 80% of allowable expenses. US Citizens have the true financial hardships and continue to pay to support illegal and low income/untrained people.
Again, our government totally out of control in selectively enforcing laws or providing loop holes for special interest groups for votes to keep politicians in power.
VOTE THEM ALL OUT, REBOOT THE COUNTRY.
They can get and use a Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), so they can collect SS.
Both US Citizens and Illegal Aliens are issued ITIN #s by the IRS. Originally in 1996 the IRS issued special "not authorized for work" numbers to non-citizens. Non-Citizen ITIN #s are not authorized for work. They have now stopped identifying which ITIN #s are for Citizens and Non-Citizens...............wink, wink..........our government at work paving the path for illegal aliens. Why do we allow this?
It IS fraud if you are a non-citizen not authorized to work in the US and use your ITIN # for work. However, the IRS continues to issue ITIN #s to illegal aliens and I could not find any legal penalty if it is used for unauthorized work. So, what's the penalty? Nothing to illegals. The penalty falls on tax paying legal citizens of the US.
This is no mistake...the government agencies do what they want at the tax payers expense and our political represenatives know what is happening and do nothing but grease the palms of illegals to get their votes. Oh yes, they vote!
No arguments I was just stating that they can collect SS if they used an ITIN.
He had a wife, Ruth, and a daughter who was then three years old. He left his family to come to America.
This daughter, the 3 year old, vanishes after one mention. She wasn't with mom, so she must've stayed in Ecuador with grandma?
It's a tough world, especially for 3 year olds.
Yes, she stayed in Ecuador. With the grandmother. 10 years. Most of her life. She has never seen her brother.
Did ever try to help her after all she might need some help being raised without her parents or was it just Danny you cared about?
He never saw her swim in his pool.
Haha. Labor Day is the new April Fool's Day? This article is a joke , right Bruce? I mean who would believe that you went out of your way to hire an illegal alien knowing that he would not pay taxes on the lesser amount of money that you would pay him compared to someone else who is here legally? Then you befriend him and his entire family while benefiting from cheap and illegal labor. Did you report this on your taxes or did you not do so like so many members of Congress? Then you knowingly aided and abetted someone using stolen social security numbers and here illegally for years and years. You helped his family milk the system for all they could get from us. Yes, us! Then finally you realized the barn door of illegality was closing in on you and you changed course. Frankly I find it hard to believe that you would do all of this and more. I think your Labor Fools Day joke is over. Next time make your joke more interesting by picking someone like Charlie Manson in his early years to befriend and aid.
Now if you really did what you say then I think the only thing that will help your grief would be to mail a check for $2000 a month to the US Treasury for as many years as you aided and abetted the illegal family. That's about what it cost us in stolen benefits and we could really use the money right about now.
Not that two wrongs make a right, but all the illegals combined X100 have taken far less from this country than the Wall Street kleptocrats. The demonization of illegals is a nice tool to divide the sheep, however. Congratulations for lapping up the argument like a dog eats its own vomit.
are you Mexican?
Sioux. May I see your papers, please? Why don't you go ahead and step out of the vehicle. Real slow.
Sorry, you don't get to do that. Paleface won.
Siouxsie and the Banshees!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9otg_Cm50RE
If America fell almost completely apart - filled with rampant poverty, crime and violence on every corner, what options would I have if I were poor? If a better life meant sneaking into Canada illegally to work the oil sands to better my life and support my family I wouldn't think twice. If one of the kids was sick and the choice was to let them suffer or let the Canadian tax payer take the hit - again I wouldn't think twice. Would I spend a decade waiting, hoping and suffering to enter legally, especially with no guarantee? I find it difficult to believe anyone would sit in abject poverty when a better option existed - even if it was filled with risk.
I'm not suggesting illegal immigration is not a serious problem (or was) but honestly - what would you do if you were trapped in a third world hell?
"I find it difficult to believe anyone would sit in abject poverty when a better option existed - even if it was filled with risk."
Better options do exist HD...They're called "revolutions"
HD @ 16:03,
I'm not suggesting illegal immigration is not a serious problem (or was) but honestly - what would you do if you were trapped in a third world hell?
So as to see me as I really am, I agree with you in principle and would likely try and do the same thing.
That said, I would be FAR more open, and accepting of the entire fiasco, IF those countries that these folks come from Illegally, allowed Americans to move in/around, as freely about as we allow them to.
I cannot(stupid on their part), understand why they do not welcome with OPEN ARMS Americans wanting have dual citizenship, and moving into their countries, and bringing vast amounts of capital with them to BRING up the std of living for ALL.
But, not so.........................you will be jailed, and if lucky let go with a hefty ransom, if your family can afford it, if not, you die or suffer intolerable conditions we would not put on a dog here.
Open borders, all around, OK.
Just allow US to come in and own property, and start businesses, and become legal citizens also, with full rights.(equal opp destroyers).
We be Happy then, huh?.
but would the Canadians be called racist if they wanted you out?
This story also has many positives. Danny received a better quality free education than he could never get in Ecuador. Danny is now bilingual, great for getting a good job. He can use this knowledge to contribute positives in Ecuador. In a few years he can probably also attend a US College, get free tuition, housing, food, school loans, ask all the American born illegals in California how to do it. As Americans our object should be to help third world countries educate and develop their own country, so returning to their origin to create a better place is exactly what the world needs. Everyone cannot live in the US or Switzerland. There are many beautiful places on the planet, probably far better than the US. And if they aren't they can be developed into something far better with education and effort. Life is change. You aren't living if you aren't changing. Danny has his whole life ahead of him and many skills to build upon that other ten year olds growing up in Ecuador never had. Danny can develop into a super star of better things for Ecuador. I've been to Ecuador, it's depressingly poor and filled with military. Ecuador will benefit from Danny and his parents returning and making positive changes.
Things are not so good here. Danny might very well be better off leaving.
Does anyone ever wonder about the economics behind all those PRC take out delivery guys riding bikes all over Manhattan? And how they manage to get visas?
They certainly can't do that in HK. They would be sent back across the border in second.
Come on, have to love bikers! Tons on Canadian bike messengers moved to NYC in the early 80s. This is one of my all time favorite songs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrPOKNU5Ds4&feature=player_embedded
I was a little too young to take advantge but awesome song.
that building right across from the Intrepid is quite impressive, isn't it? nice view of the continental US.
All this talk on immigration is just another form of divide and conquer. Why not bring in the topic of gay marriage? I'm sure the oligopoly would love that. For all you people who feel sorry for this family why don't you get off your behinds and have congress change the law or grant amnesty. Right or wrong and even selectively enforced the law is the law. Congress could end this problem one way or other but they are in the back pockets of the oligopoly, and the oligopoly likes the status quo
You led with your heart and you were gracious. Too many times the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions. I suspect even despite the great hardships that Danny will face, you had and will continue to have a positive impact on his life.
I won't judge your decisions. But I will judge your intentions: they were beautiful; not something we can say about most of the malignant characters we read about in 0H.
Thank you for your honesty Bruce.
1. Ten years in America
2. Sometimes earning decent money "In 2003 they had a combined income of $60,000."
3. Came to America and quickly had a child.
If they played the game well, like previous generations of imigrants who lived on little and saved almost everything, there should be a very decent nest egg built after ten years.
If that nest egg is built up, they will have few problems back home.
If that nest egg wasn't being built up, they should not be having a child.
That's what many generations of other imigrants did. They saved up, got their life and citizenship in order and then started thinking about having children or having more children if they migrated with children
All sorts of Americans and people all over the world think about their financial resources before having children. Why not these people?
No stones from me, Bruce.
To paraphrase Marc Antony, "Bruce was compasionate – if so, 'twas a grievous fault . . . and grievously hath he ansered for it."
If you did any wrong, you are clearly answering for it, on your own.
I think the greater wrong is a culture that makes the best intentions fo our better natures somehow the wrong answer. I am deeply suspicious of the manufactured hatred of a people who have harvested our crops, built our homes, tended our lawns, and in some cases, raised our children for us, for Decades! They are Not our enemy.
No less a light than von Mises himself argued for more open borders, and I think this story is an example of why. If we did not have this ridiculous social welfare system that we have to defend from 'infiltration' (by hard working foreigners), these tragedies would not happen.
BK, whether I agree with you or don't agree is of no consequence. I would like to thank you for your honesty. Sharing a story that may or may not show oneself in a positive light takes a certain level of courage and a temporary suspension of full blown ego mode. I personally want to thank you for your continued contributions to this site good or bad, right or wrong, I value your insight and ideas.
Danny will be just fine. Remember Elian Gonazalez who is doing fine in Cuba. Ecuador is not some war torn, poverty stricken country they needed to flee--at least it is not now. Ecuadorians know how to get rid of a corrupt leader and they act very quickly when they fial to keep their campaign promises.
Ecuador is a thriving country that is not under the thumb of the IMF, exports oil and other natural resources, has a big tourist and ecotourist industry--you have heard of the Galopolos Islands--they are part of Ecuador. I have personally researched the country throughly and willl be moving there to
start my early retirement from the rat-race and start up a new business while living on the beautiful Pacific coast, enjoying perfect weather year round and no hurricanes for about $60k USD. And believe it or not they don't hate Americans. Crimes is much less than any American city of the same size period. They are not involved in the cocaine wars.
Yes Bruce you were wrong. Yes Bruce there are consequences to bad decisions. Get over it, move along.
There are a number of different standards against which to measure what is wrong and what is right. What is wrong when measured against one standard is not necessarily wrong when measured against another.
A case in point - in response to the comment about don't come here looking for a Sharia paradise below: It was OK for the Puritans to come here looking for a Puritan paradise, and displace the native americans in the process - but it is not OK for anyone else to do that? Funny value system, that.
A bit of practical wisdom, captured neatly by this saying attributed to Mohhamad Ali: If you are the same person at 50 as you were at 20, you've wasted 30 years of your life. We aren't born knowing everything we need to know to properly navigate life. We all start from where we are and navigate to where we need to be (immature to mature). We learn. And because we learn, we change.
We do wrong. We learn that it is wrong. And we stop doing it. But then we learn that, as measured against a different standard, what we did wasn't wrong. What to do? That is where principles, or lack of them, come into play. It's at this point that the greatest freedom to act is when we've little or nothing left to loose. Otherwise, our decisions are motivated more by a desire to keep our stuff than by a desire to do the right thing, if doing the right thing will lead to us loosing our stuf.
Or, when folks are poor they are Democrats. When they get rich, the become Republicans.
You can probably think up your own cliches.
Some problems have no solutions. The human tendency to protect their own stuff is probably one of them.
I don't know, it doesn't sound all that philosophical, Bruce wanted to save money on a hole project in his back yard, things snowballed. Next time use the yellow pages, hire a licensed contractor, you'll probably get a decent hole and you won't feed into insane life choices.
Everybody wants to save money, not just BK. It is a philosophical problem. How, then, shall we live our lives? What sort of society do we wish to live in? We can't answer the Bruce-level questions until we answer the what sort of society do we wish to live in questions.
But it appears that we have answered the philosophical question. Everybody wants cheap, not just BK. We just didn't understand the unintended consequences. All production flows to cheap labor. That leaves Americans without jobs. Without jobs, Americans cannot purchase anything, no matter how cheap. And therein lies the problem for the policiticans to solve. Why? Because at the individual level, everybody chases cheap. Who do you know that will intentionally pay more than they have to just so their neighbor can have a job?
A world truth: everybody chases cheap, from consumer to producer. That is the white elephant in the room that nobody discusses and it is a philosophical problem. Because everybody chases cheap, world commerce cannot function without a slave-labor class. Slavery is not dead; it just exists under another name. At least BK worked to improve the lives of his cheap labor. Had he paid them more, they could have done it themselves. That is meant to simply state the obvious. I don't mean it as a cheap shot at BK.
The question of whether to pay more when you don't have to - whether for products or labor - is a philosophical question, with real-wold, practical implications.
Please do not include me in your tirade. You have no idea how tempting it has been for me to go get an illegal immigrant for work, but I have never done so, now saying that I have hired licensed legal immigrants who were fully bonded and insured. Yes everyone wants cheap but not everyone encourages law breakers while looking for cheap. For future reference only speak for yourself not the rest of the world. Besides as some other have put it that cheap labor has a direct financial consequence if the work is shoddy or if the illegal immigrant gets hurt.
Not a tirade, but a generalization. With the understanding that there are exceptions to every rule. But it is more true than not that we chase cheap. And I'm sure you have done it before and will do it again. Maybe not in everything. But in some things. And wherever cheap is chased, jobs move to cheaper labor. Macro perspective. Think it through and see if it isn't true in general, if not in all specifics. It requires a political solution because people won't willingly pay more just so jobs will stay in America. Again, macro perspective. If you will, wonderful. But not enough will do as you do to have any effect. If a solution is to be implemented, it has to be a political one. But I don't think that is possible. Some problems have no solution.
Perhaps Bruce should learn to keep his desire in check. For want of a hole he destroyed an entire family. I think sometimes it is better to want less, to realize everything we do creates a reaction, there are consequences, even for digging a hole.
Everyone is welcome. Just come here legally and make some effort to learn English like my Russian grandparents did.
Oh by the way, if you want to come here looking for a sharia paradise. Just do us all a favor and stay where you are.
You're nuts for writing that Bruce, but you did the right thing, you helped out a desperate man...nothing wrong with that, the kid will be fine, American or otherwise. Here is a little peice on American Labor in the hope that you can garner a better existential position for yourself;
Demographically, the United States is the youngest and fastest growing of the major industrialized economies. At 37.1 years of age, the average American is younger than his German (43.1) or Russian (38.6) counterparts. While he is still older than the average Chinese (34.3), the margin is narrowing rapidly. The Chinese are aging faster than the population of any country in the world save Japan (the average Japanese is now 44.3 years old), and by 2020 the average Chinese will be only 18 months younger than the average American. The result within a generation will be massive qualitative and quantitative labor shortages everywhere in the developed world (and in some parts of the developing world) except the United States.
The relative youth of Americans has three causes, two of which have their roots in the United States’ history as a settler state and one of which is based solely on the United States’ proximity to Mexico. First, since the founding populations of the United States are from somewhere else, they tended to arrive younger than the average age of populations of the rest of the developed world. This gave the United States — and the other settler states — a demographic advantage from the very beginning.
Second, settler societies have relatively malleable identities, which are considerably more open to redefinition and extension to new groups than their Old World counterparts. In most nation-states, the dominant ethnicity must choose to accept someone as one of the group, with birth in the state itself — and even multi-generational citizenship — not necessarily serving as sufficient basis for inclusion. France is an excellent case in point, where North Africans who have been living in the Paris region for generations still are not considered fully “French.” Settler societies approach the problem from the opposite direction. Identity is chosen rather than granted, so someone who relocates to a settler state and declares himself a national is for the most part allowed to do so. This hardly means that racism does not exist, but for the most part there is a national acceptance of the multicultur al nature of the population, if not the polity. Consequently, settler states are able to integrate far larger immigrant populations more quickly than more established nationalities.
Yet Canada and Australia — two other settler states — do not boast as young a population as the United States. The reason lies entirely within the American geography. Australia shares no land borders with immigrant sources. Canada’s sole land border is with the United States, a destination for immigrants rather than a large-scale source.
But the United States has Mexico, and through it Central America. Any immigrants who arrive in Australia must arrive by aircraft or boat, a process that requires more capital to undertake in the first place and allows for more screening at the point of destination — making such immigrants older and fewer. In contrast, even with recent upgrades, the Mexican border is very porous. While estimates vary greatly, roughly half a million immigrants legally cross the United States’ southern border every year, and up to twice as many cross illegally. There are substantial benefits that make such immigration a net gain for the United States. The continual influx of labor keeps inflation tame at a time when labor shortages are increasingly the norm in the developed world (and are even beginning to be felt in China). The cost of American labor per unit of output has increased by a factor of 4.5 since 1970; in the United Kingdom the factor is 12.8.
The influx of younger workers also helps stabilize the American tax base. Legal immigrants collectively generate half a trillion dollars in income and pay taxes in proportion to it. Yet they will not draw upon the biggest line item in the U.S. federal budget — Social Security — unless they become citizens. Even then they will pay into the system for an average of 41 years, considering that the average Mexican immigrant is only 21 years old (according to the University of California) when he or she arrives. By comparison, the average legal immigrant — Mexican and otherwise — is 37 years old.
Even illegal immigrants are a considerable net gain to the system, despite the deleterious effects regarding crime and social-services costs. The impact on labor costs is similar to that of legal immigrants, but there is more. While the Mexican educational system obviously cannot compare to the American system, most Mexican immigrants do have at least some schooling. Educating a generation of workers is among the more expensive tasks in which a government can engage. Mexican immigrants have been at least partially pre-educated — a cost borne by the Mexican government — and yet the United States is the economy that reaps the benefits in terms of their labor output.
Taken together, all of these demographic and geographic factors give the United States not only the healthiest and most sustainable labor market in the developed world but also the ability to attract and assimilate even more workers
BK, i realize i hallucinate the past and/or future sometimes, but didn't i read this story already before? like 1 or 2 years ago?