I wonder if Jamie Fox was as racist back then as he is now?

The labor market may be "healing" faster for immigrants, but almost doubtless the jobs being created are low-wage positions. Neoliberal serfdom, ahoy!

We need a Pathway to Visas.

@3, the upper end referred to is the H1-B visa crowd, the very highly-paid tech engineers, mostly Indians. There are a lot of them over in Redmond.

Charles,
Indeed, not particularly good news. I was just served breakfast at a Subway and the person who prepared it was definitely a recent immigrant. Good on her.

However, with the immigration debate raging and Congress or Microsoft considering allowing more immigrants for high end jobs too, it seems the American workforce is being "squeezed". May be that's an exaggeration. But, I am seeing more immigrants in high end (physicians, engineers etc.) and now low end jobs (service industries like fast food & cab drivers). It remains gloomy for the American worker. Last time I checked the UR is 7.9 %.

#3

In Puerto Villarta I went ziplining. The guy who ran the place, in his early 30s, told me that he had a wife and two kids. She settled in Portland with them and told him to go back to Mexico because he had some legal issues and didn't want him in a US prison when he could earn money in Mex. In Puerto there are more jobs than people and many work two or three jobs, 14 hours a day..even children work, 2 hours, legally.

He told me about his border crossing over the Rio Grande, about trying to help a grandmother across who decided ultimately she could not make it, but take care of her daughter.

I can't see the link but if I recall correctly the Hedleys were the hard working Jamaican couple with scores of jobs. Hilarious.

@5 is correct.

I lived on St. Croix for a while in the 80's. The Hedleys were amazingly spot-on. None of the folks had just one job. Everybody went out driving taxi cabs at night. There was no worse insult than "lazy".

Tourists in the Caribbean might not realize how they look to the locals. Lying around, drinking, wearing shorts in public.... They'll take your money, but underneath the smile, they think you're a horrible person.

@13, which is especially stupid because even a mediocre travel agent can get you a better deal than Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, etc. Smart online shoppers can do all right, but it'll take you so many hours for every dollar you save you'll work an hour -- not a good wage.

Well, there are L-2 also, but ...