Is there another reason for border patrol enhancement?

[Chiaroscuro]

<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/06/06/immigrant-workers-impaled-shredded-and-buried-alive">www.firedoglake.com/2006/...ried-alive</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Almost lost in the grand debate over immigration policy filling consuming the media and political campaigns is discussion over the work environment of the millions of immigrant workers in this country- both legal and illegal. <br>But peruse a list of recent workplace fatalities and you'll always find a high number of foreign names, workers from Central America, South Asia and Africa who fell from buildings, dismembered in machinery, crushed in trench collapses or shot in convenience store or taxi cab robberies.<br><br>Immigrants made up 14 percent of the U.S. workforce and work-related fatalities and injuries among these workers has been rising at an alarming rate. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of workplace fatalities among Hispanic and immigrant workers is climbing far faster than their percentage of the workforce. 902 Hispanic workers were killed in 2004, the last year in which statistics are available. This compares with 794 in 2003 and 533 in 2002. 164,000 were injured on the job in 2004. According to an AFL-CIO analysis of BLS data, Hispanic construction workers were nearly twice as likely to be killed by occupational injuries as their non-Hispanic counterparts in 2000. While the share of foreign-born employment increased by 22 percent from 1996 to 2003, the share of fatal occupational injuries for this population increased by 43 percent.<br><br>Surprisingly, homicide, not construction work is the leading cause of traumatic workplace death for foreign-born workers in this country, accounting for one out of every four fatal injuries. The second and third most frequent types of fatal events involving foreign-born workers were falls to a lower level (15 percent) and highway incidents (14 percent).<br><br>The media began paying closer attention to the plight of undocumented workers two years ago with a series of award winning articles by AP reporter Justin Pritchard who told of how "The jobs that lure Mexican workers to the United States are killing them in a worsening epidemic that is now claiming a victim a day," and described in gruesome detail how "workers are impaled, shredded in machinery, buried alive. Some are as young as 15."<br><br><br>More at the above link <p></p><i></i>

[chiggerbit]

I know of a case of a foreman for a roofing crew who had no inhibitions about physically abusing illegal immigrants, but never laid a hand on the other American workers. Pitiful. <p></p><i></i>

[kermujin]

Forgetting2:<br><br>If it were to keep us in, would they also want to secure the Canadian border? Or are there other means of retrieving draft dodgers from Canada?<br><br><br>Yes, there is. They've begun the wholesale importation of rightwing 'christianity' and managed to bamboozle Canada into installing a toadying, asskissing wannabe as prime minister. There will be no official toleration here of US draft dodgers or 'deserters.' <br><br>Plenty of grass-roots support, though, as Josh Key could tell you. <br><br>Every time Canada takes another drunken, staggering step along the US's path, my heart breaks a bit more.<br><br>-kermujin <p></p><i></i>