Eventually, he was smuggled out of Cuba in a crate with diplomatic tags on a Mexican Airforce transport plane. The Mexicans saved his life, but they wouldn’t let him stay there, he had no choice but to enter the USA illegally. He turned himself in to the US authorities after swimming across the Rio Grande, and they tried to take him back to Mexico, but the Mexicans wanted no part of him. He spent six months in a concentration camp at McCallen TX, until they were convinced he was a genuine refugee and not a spy.

They let him stay in the US as long as he was a refugee from Communism, but he’d have to go back and face a firing squad the moment relations between Cuba and the US improved. He came to Florida where there were agencies set up to give Cuban exiles support, got working papers, a job, and met and married my mother.

He wanted to be a US citizen, but he had “entered the country illegally”, so he couldn’t even apply. He wound up having to go to Canada, get some papers stamped at the US embassy in Ottawa, so he could enter the US “legally” and start the long process of becoming a citizen.

My cousin Rudy came in about the same time, under the Pedro Pan program, which allowed him to enter the US for school (although his parents could not follow him). To become a citizen, he had to join the Army, and only then could he sponsor his parents as a US citizen. The funny part is that after he got his citizenship, the Army realized he was a from a Communist country, and so were his parents, so he was promptly discharged as a security risk.

Getting government assistance without being a legal alien is very difficult, but the business community really wants this, even though they complain all the time how they don’t. Just think, you can hire seasonal illegals to do a job, or during the agricultural season, and then they go on welfare at public expense until you need them again! You can afford to pay them even less, because their meager income is now supplemented with food stamps and other benefits. They don’t have to go back to Mexico during the off-season. It is a fucking racket designed to provide slave labor for American Capital.

And relax, to collect welfare you would have to be a citizen. Don’t worry, Rob, all those brown people aren’t coming here just so they can steal from white folks. They’re coming here so we can steal from them; to do all those jobs “Americans refuse to do”.

I’m experiencing my own immigration challenges. Applying to become a permanent resident in Canada is not easy. I got myself fingerprinted and sent them off to the FBI. My record just came back.

To keep it short, it’s a complicated and costly process and the current wait time for them to make a determination is 15 months. For now, I have to apply for temporary residency every 6 months.

They don’t want people coming to Canada just to take advantage of “free” healthcare, which is in a dismal state right now because of Covid and other pressures.

Maybe it is the pay level, but I read a few years ago about an orchard in California that hired college students. Typically, they would work one day and quit.

To be clear, I favor a path to citizenship for migrants. And good wages. If they work to improve our economy, they deserve to be citizens. Otherwise, it is slavery as you describe.

Outside farm labor was brought in and they were willing to work for so cheap that Americans just gave up on picking fruit or farm work. In high school, many of my classmates worked in the orange groves to pick up extra money.

During my hippy-dippy college days I worked a lot of construction jobs, and most of my fellow laborers were other freaks, long hair under the hard-hats. Working summers pouring concrete or building forms paid most of my college bills. I tied steel, busted rebar, poured asphalt and did roofing work, and all my colleagues were other college students. Just think, that lazy, stoner, privileged pampered generation held most of the laborer, casual and helper positions, and some even were formally apprenticed to trades in union training programs. OOPs! No unions any more…

We did it because we were young, strong, and smart, and because the pay was good, even for unskilled grunt work. All that crap about how Americans won’t do dirty manual labor is just that: crap. When the bosses learned they could get away with using undocumented workers that’s who they started hiring, construction, agriculture, domestics, factory work. Every time I ride my bike past a construction site today I don’t hear any English spoken, it’s all Central American accented Spanish, and sometimes, Mexican Indian languages I don’t even understand. And the skilled tradesmen are often Irish, they’ll work for cheap too.

And pretty soon, all those nice middle class white folks office-type jobs will be held by foreigners, too. Have you noticed how many professionals lately are, Asian, Middle-Eastern, Eastern European, South American, etc. We live in a society that deprecates education, academic achievement and intellectual ability. We go to college for the football and the frats, and study lunatic disciplines like real estate investment counseling, sports journalism and event planning. So when we need a doctor, lawyer or college professor, we get an Israeli, or a Brit or a Czech.

“Americans won’t do that kind of work.” is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And its also a lie. The “illegals” are here because they were invited. And like the slaves that were brought into Rome because Romans “wouldn’t do that kind of work” they’ll be the ones picking up the pieces after everything goes to shit.

These are people that want to work. And they bust ass. They’ll do the work that white folks will not. We NEED them. And they want to become Americans. What’s the problem with that? They’ll haul dirt, clean your hotel room, pick your fruit, dig your ditches, butcher your meat… And have family values more admirable than most Americans. They will do anything for a better life for their children.

We need to make it easier for them to do so legally, and have basic rights, than making it harder. They are escaping truly horrible situations. Where the hell is our morality?

These people are desperate, they’ll do whatever it takes to feed their families and stay alive. But they are not stupid. They know who is screwing them, and why, and one day they WILL get even. And those of us who never hired an undocumented worker will suffer too.