I heard an argument for expanding the number of unskilled foreign laborers on the radio that almost made me want to slap someone. A landscaper from MICHIGAN was complaining that he can’t find any workers without importing them because he’s working 8 months of the year and college students aren’t available the full 8 months. Excuse me, but doesn’t MICHIGAN have the highest unemployment rate in the country? Doesn’t that indicate that there is a surplus of available labor there? Exactly how much skill does it take to do lawn work if you can hire uneducated, illiterate Mexicans to do it? I would guess that the problem isn’t that it’s a job Americans won’t do as much as it’s a job Americans won’t do for substandard wages and benefits. Considering my dad was a coal miner, and there aren’t many jobs much nastier than being 1,000s of feet underground, risking being buried alive in a cave in, digging out a mineral that produces a dust that not only leaves you filthy (a nail brush couldn’t get the dirt out of the callouses on his hands) but also destroys your lungs, AND is potentially explosive, I really do NOT BUY the JOBS AMERICANS WON’T DO argument. I don’t see city fire departments, coal mining companies, police departments, Alaskan fishing vessels, or the US military recruiting foreign nationals. How much more dangerous a job can you get then running INTO a burning building, or one after an unknown armed felon? What’s the difference? Those jobs all pay a decent wage with benefits.

Detroit NEEDS better leadership…