Iowa "Latinos" Not Getting Paid. Legal or Illegal?

If you do a job, you should get paid for it. I think everyone agrees with that. The Des Moines Register has the headline "Growing number of Latino workers report they aren't paid wages". Not until the 12th paragraph does it say anything about whether or not these Latinos are legal or not. In that paragraph a woman saying that she wasn't paid declined to give her full name. Why? Because she came to the United States to work illegally and was afraid she would get deported.

Iowa has had milquetoast legislators when it comes to illegals. Farmers and businesses alike drive the so called "need" to use illegal immigrants. But no one really wants to phrase it that way. Apparently we are going to pick a "group" by ethnicity and not by whether they are legal or not.

Make no mistake, Iowa readers of newspapers and Internet know what the score is no matter how you phrase it. To prove my point, read the Des Moines Register comments on this story. The general sentiment is that if you are illegal, you cannot be pulled over and asked for your license, you will be open to free health care, food stamps, schooling for your kids and the list goes on and on . It doesn't appear that Iowans believe we should be spending time and money appeasing illegals.

What's to be done? For a refreshing change of pace, maybe the laws on illegal immigration could be upheld. Maybe the businesses that are hiring illegals could be fully prosecuted. With more jobs open to legal citizens of Iowa, maybe the businesses will have to bite the bullet and pay them what the job is worth. Or, maybe instead of being on unemployment, you would have to take one of these jobs.

Before anyone cries wolf, I have planted, hoed and picked tomatoes. I have worked in more hog factories than I'd like to remember. I gave them a hard days work and they paid me a fair wage. I'm still standing. What part of "Iowans are out of work" do we not understand?

Iowa legislators need to step up to the plate, now. If you are illegal you need to go back to your country. If you are hiring illegals, you need to be punished "severely". Iowans need to get a grip and work the jobs that their parents and grandparents had to work.

Des Moines Register