Are illegal immigrants a big issues in Chicago? (neighborhoods, buying)

[Attrill]

Getting back to the OP's original question, there is a great survey here (http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1050 - broken link) that deals directly with how Chicagoans feel about illegal immigration and immigration in general:

"The recent influx of immigrants, especially Hispanics, does not appear to have produced a backlash, according to the survey. On the contrary, the Chicago area emerges as a place that is generally more tolerant of immigrants, even though residents express some concern that immigration could affect jobs. This generally welcoming outlook of Chicagoans is especially evident when their views are compared with those of residents of Phoenix, Las Vegas and Raleigh-Durham, other case-study metropolitan areas that have all experienced recent spikes in immigration. Among the metropolitan areas surveyed, only Washington DC appears more welcoming."

Phoenix is also included in the same survey, so it should be pretty easy to get a good perspective on differences between the two cities.

[Humboldt1]

Attrill,

I appreciate your response regarding the girl I am dating. She works under the table as do many in the restaurant and hospitality sector. There are also many in construction who work under the table, but obviously this sector has taken a hit lately. I think there are more people working under the table than you may realize in Chicago.

As far as forged papers to get employment you can get "real" papers for about $2,000 that will pass background checks. A social number is generally $100-200, but "real" papers cost more.

The girl I am dating and my friend Laura both have soc numbers. As the girl I am dating works under the table, getting paid cash she is not currently using the social number she bought, but has used it in the past. She is currently applying to work in an upscale restaurant and will use it there and would be paying social security taxes.

My friend Laura uses her soc number (someone else's) to work in maintenance, making $15/hr. She pays soc security taxes and income tax and even received a tax return this year. She was upset that people of her lack of citizenship she did not receive the $600 bonus many citizens did this year.

I agree with the poster that I would much rather have illegals working in this country than people living in projects who contribute nothing and only take from our society. If I had it my way, these are the people I would be shipping out of the country, not those who are here to work. Granted, I still don't like paying for their healthcare, but I am doing this for any poor person, legal or not.

[Humboldt1]

Welder,

I worked non-union construction for a year framing houses and working in industrial construction. I also worked on a hog farm for a year after that. I know hard work. I never had the kind of perks you receive as a union member. When I got hurt there was no workman's comp, just my employer driving me to the emergency room and paying cash for my treatment (I was hurt while leading a framing crew).

I am not a fan of unions, perhaps out of jealousy for them having it so good while I had it so bad working construction, though I loved my $11.50/hr job. I will be honest and will say I have never seen any construction worker work as hard as I did. I just am a hard worker and being fairly athletic (6'2, 185lbs, 30 year old, marathon runner, etc.) I can just do things most other people can't. Even now, working in an office I can still work most people into the ground, which I sometimes do on the weekends while working alongside contractors I bring out to do work for me.

My hometown in southern Indiana is not home to many unions. Towns with unions have fared much worse than my hometown (Greensburg), which just landed a major Honda factory, large part due to a non-union labor force. It is interesting to note that they hired people from Indianapolis and not Anderson, even though Anderson is closer. This is because Anderson is a union area is serious decline with Delco Remy and Delphi and GM in general having problems. As such, Honda did not want to be plagued with union problems that have brought down these other companies.

I now work for a bank and make far more than I ever would in construction, non-union or union, but don't think for a second I don't know what it is like to work hard. On my properties I do much of the maintenance in my spare time, only deferring to contractors for major jobs. I am the guy you will see at Home Depot at 10pm at night buying pvc and plumbing supplies, while still weariing my business suit from work earlier in the day.

I also grew up on a hog and cattle farm, which I return to frequently when needed to help my dad out, especially in summers with baling hay, as we can't find good local help to do it and it is very hard work, even harder than construction, though it only lasts a week or two. I am not some yuppie who grew up in suburbia and does not know what real work is. I actually liked my construction job better than the job I have now as life was so much more simple then. At the end of the day I was done. Now, I sometimes am on conference calls at 2am in Singapore and India and the blackberry and email along with cell phone follows me everywhere. There are certainly trade-offs to taking jobs with more pay but more responsibility.

I appreciate your honesty on this forum but did not appreciate your comment about shipping the girl I am dating back "ship her a## back" as you said. She does much more for this country than someone on welfare. Also, she has two small children here. Are you going to ship her back and leave them here to fend for themselves? Who is then going to pay for them. They are 4 and 6 years old. I think not.

I will tell you what generally happens in Chicago when an illegal is found working in a store. This happened to the mother of the girl I am dating (still don't call her girlfriend yet if any of you are curious). Her mother was found to be working under false papers and they set a court date 4 months away. They didn't think she would show. She did. Then they delayed the hearing another 8 months, thinking she would not show. She did. The judge did not want to defer it any longer and seeing that she would continue to show up (she had $8,000 in bond money she wanted to get back too folks) gave her full citzenship. Most people, with or without the bond, would just not show up for court. This is what the govt wants, to look the other way. We need the cheap labor illegals provide. Can you imagine what a big mac would cost if McDonald's were a union shop?

[Humboldt1]

Moderator cut: calling out mods . I am usually pretty conservative but on the issue of illegal immigration I am fairly liberal, perhaps because I have many friends who do not have papers and most of my neighbors are illegal. If you start deporting illegals, the population of Humboldt Park would drop by half.

If you think about it, "illegal" is a really bad word for people who come into the country illegally, mostly to work and raise their families here. Yes, they are breaking the law coming here and working under false documents, but aside from that most obey the law otherwise. I am not PC enough to start calling illegals "people without papers", but you have to admit perhaps it is a more fair term as they are not murderers or thieves (maybe they are stealing wages from the unions).

I respect the work that a union construction guy like Welder does, but even he would not want to have to pay $8-10 for a value meal at McDonald's or an extra couple of dollars to fill up their tank. If everyone starts getting paid $10-12/hr with benefits for minimum wage jobs, everything becomes more expensive.

My friend Laura makes $15/hr non-union, living in Bensenville. If you mandate that all employers now have to pay union wages and benefits, her cost of living will go up dramatically. For me it will be just a pain. I can afford the increase. For her, raising her 15 year old daughter (just had her quince anos), it will be a real sacrifice. I don't see her wage going up as she is already well above the minimum at $15/hr.

Unions lead to wage inflation, which negatively impacts the rest of us. Any 101 Econ course in college will tell you that increases in the minimum wage correlate to increases in unemployment. Creating an artificial floor in wage leads to loss of jobs.

[eevee]

I used to live in West Humboldt Park, an area w/ a mostly black population, and now live in Pilsen, an area w/ a mostly Latino population (granted, there are plenty of poor students/artists like me of all races, plus a few people here looking to live in an "up and coming" area), and, for me, I've had less issues living in Pilsen than I did in WHP. I have no doubt some of my neighbors may be illegal, but I don't care. they keep up their houses, my block is FAR cleaner here than the one I used to live on in WHP, and for the most part, I'm surrounded by many families that for all appearances are quiet and decent. my neighbors wave hi to me, I've encountered little issues shopping at the many Latino grocery stores and restaurants (one place I went to the menu was in Spanish and an employee helped me out by translating and explaining what the items were), and they basically just blend in and cause less trouble than my previous neighbors in WHP.

I've grown up in immigrant communities (Haitian though, not Latino, though there were plenty of illegal Haitian immigrants where I grew up) and, like Humboldt1 said, most of these people aren't evil. they may have come here illegally, but once they're here, they settle down, get jobs, raise families, and generally don't commit violent crimes. overall, them being here haven't affected me much at all. Lord knows, as a poor starving student, I'm grateful for the inexpensive Latino mom&pop shops, grocery stores, and restaurants Pilsen has!

[chitownperson]

Lots of times the word "Mexicans" or "Latinos" follow the word "illegal" on here, surprise, surprise! Chicago has plenty of "illegal" Irish people here too. You just don't hear about them as much, if ever, because people generally think white people are here legally. I'd bet that if we REALLY start finding out who in Chicago are illegal, we'd get a whole rainbow of colors... Polish, Irish, Mexican, Chinese... choose your color. For the people who commonly equate illegal to brown people, YES, white people can be illegal too!

To OP, black people tend to have a much harder time here compared to Hispanics, but there are always racists everywhere. I don't think the racism in Chicago is going to be anywhere near as bad as what it is near the border to Mexico.

[britster180]

I am new to the Chicago area and I dont know where to find a job for someone like me. please inbox me.

[ToriaT]

My sense is that people from the chicago area are more tolerant of immigrants and illegals than people in ca, tx and az. they seem to rant and rave in excess way more than we do here. we are used to being a melting pot and many of our forefathers like mine came over on the boat. who knows what the laws were at that time and whether they were legal. I am not saying illegal immigration is not a problem but when I see how hard some of them work I do have some sympathy. the cleaning people, the landscapers, the health aides in the hospitals, and the busboys and cooks. some would say they are taking jobs away from americans but i do not believe its that simple. I have never had an american cleaning lady show up at my house when i have called a service so what gives.

[chet everett]

There are huge problems with illegal immigrants in the region. The poster that states there are lots of folks from Europe or Asians in the region with unauthorized immigration status is touching on something that is technically true, but since virtually of those folks did at least fly into Chicago or some other US city with a INS agents the "paper trail" of their visa is fairly easy to trace while the US southern border is notoriously porous. Healthcare in states like CA, AZ or TX is a even more of a crisis than in Illinois, though the details on the massive problems facing the publicly financed healthcare system is heavily burdens by those that live outside the reach of the tax / immigration system...

I doubt that just because most folks that work in janitorial / cleaning business look to be foreign born they are necessarily "illegal". The relative ease of doing "messy" jobs and the strong work ethic of those who leave their native land is probably a simply explanation of why they seem to "dominate" such jobs. I suspect that most folks that go through any sort of "service" are in fact documented holders of green cards, probably pay the proper taxes, and generally are not engaged in criminal activity.

[ToriaT]

I agree. One woman who showed up at my house to clean was from Kosovo and looked to be illegal but she was actually an American citizen. Language skills and lack of other training propelled her into cleaning.