Just starting her career in 2006 as a filmmaker with the now indie cult classic Waitress
in which she also directed and co-starred in, Adrienne Shelly's life
was cut short at age 40 by an illegal alien construction worker.
Now
if you have been reading this site for a while you already know the
impact of the sweatshop construction work force on the cities finances.
You already have read about the slave conditions in which their
employers keep them under thumb. You understand the pre-1900's
conditions in which they must work. You also know that I believe that
the enforcement against employers is almost totally ignored.
This
unregulated populous is growing by the day and with it is the influx of
more who are not coming here just to support their families back home.
They are here to make money fast and easy. The powers that be just
don't seem to care as long as the countries citizens divide even more
on the illegal immigration topic. I personally loathe the idea of
making licenses easy to attain, especially the fact that I had to bring
my mother with me to get one because I didn't have enough points of
identification, and yes i had a student ID, a draft card and a social
security card. That still wasn't enough. I don't think that deporting
en mass is the correct way to go either.
What I do know is that
we have to find a responsible party who is allowing the breach in our
border patrolling system. We must then sue them as a class. For unpaid
state tax revenue. In construction alone it is estimated according to
the Fiscal Policy Institute, that the loss in tax payments to this
criminal construction industry in NY is almost 1/2 a billion dollars, thats 1/2 a billion dollars!
Thats a lot of Police Officer raises. Damn, the subway could be free if
we got that back. Imagine what the estimates would be if it included
all industries in New York? We could build an educational skyscraper.
New York State should sue the Federal government.
They
should sue for the complete lack of stopping the illegal aliens from
getting into the country. If they don't the people of the state should.
In this case of Adrienne Shelly's murder, the contractor who hired the Ecuadorian illegal immigrant should also be tried for aiding and abetting in a murder.
Obviously whoever wrote the stories doesn't think that any mention of
who the contractor was is of any importance. Of course they don't, who
knows maybe they are building in your apartment house, next store or at
a local skyscraper in the city. Isn't that a good thought? God, most
stories fail to mention that Diego Pillco, the murderer, was an illegal
alien from Ecuador. Guess the NY Post is good for something, NOT!
Well heres the story of Adrienne Shelly from The New York Times:
image from NYT
In Guilty Plea, Actress’s Killer Changes Story to Robbery
His
original confession had the ring of truth: He was an illegal immigrant
working on a renovation job in a Greenwich Village building when the
imperious woman upstairs confronted him over construction noise.
They
argued. She scratched him. Panicked that she would call the police and
that he would be deported, he punched her and pushed her to the floor.
Mistakenly thinking he had killed her, he hanged her from the shower
rod of her bathroom, in a staged suicide.
But in a courtroom on
Thursday, the construction worker, Diego Pillco, 20, told a very
different story of how he killed the woman, Adrienne Shelly, a
filmmaker, on Nov. 1, 2006. Ms. Shelly, who was 40 and the mother of a
3-year-old daughter, had just finished a film, “Waitress,” which opened
to warm reviews after her death.
Mr. Pillco, a short,
boyish-looking man, speaking softly through a Spanish translator, told
a judge in State Supreme Court in Manhattan that the argument had not
been over noise, but over a robbery. He told the judge that Ms. Shelly
had caught him stealing money from her purse after he had slipped into
the apartment at 15 Abingdon Square that she used as an office.
When she picked up the phone to call the police, he said, he grabbed it and covered her mouth as she started to scream.
“When
she fell to the floor I saw a sheet and decided to choke her, and
that’s what happened,” Mr. Pillco said. The judge, Carol Berkman,
prodded him: “And you tied a sheet around her neck and strung her up?”
“Yes,” Mr. Pillco replied, “and I made it look as if she committed
suicide on her own.” (click for full story)
Diego
Pillco was only 19 when this occurred, what makes anyone think that
there aren't thousands of underage illegal aliens working here. There
really needs to be some penalty for the employers, there really needs
to be some action against the Fed for lax border safety.
The big
money corporations, the wealthy, the opportunists, are all profiting on
the backs of the American born worker and the illegal aliens, they are
making our tax money supplement their illegal employees.
We,
the citizens, are getting double fucked, first by the job we don't get,
then by the welfare we grant the illegal alien employers.
I
truly was born to late. The American dream is becoming a nightmare.
Everything our forefathers fought for, safety conditions, the eight
hour day, the weekend, social security, child labor laws, affordable
health care, an honest days work for an honest days pay, paid vacation,
sick time, the Constitution, our nations sovereignty, the gross
national product, the pride in buying union made in the USA, the right
to retire securely at an age where you can actually enjoy a bit of
life, all of it is now fading away before our eyes. NAFTA seems like it
did as it was sold to us, it leveled the playing field between us and
Mexico, bringing the Mexican work force upward, the only difference is
that the opposite occurred, we are continuously lowering our standard
to Mexico's.
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Thank you for this
I remember when we talked about this issue and that you would be working on the piece. I want to just say that you did a great job reporting/writing and getting this to our attention.
As for the meat of the story ... there is a lot here -- and everything you put forward I totally agree with. We need to get the companies that hire these illegal workers to be held responsible -- and we need to be able to try and punish these workers who commit these heinous crimes -- and that is a concern of mine. You see, I am not sure what exactly can happen to someone illegal. Are they simply deported?
The reason that I think about this as much as I do is because of the Mexican trucking pilot program that I am involved with on the <a href="http://www.firemarypeters.com">FireMaryPeters.com </a>site. I understand that when an illegal Mexican driver gets into an accident here, they are fined and are then sent back. What then stops the driver to come back in a few weeks in a whole different rig?
This situation where this young construction worker reacted as he did, I believe, needs to have suit against the company that knowingly hired the kid. I am not sure I ever read a story, yet, about a company that was held to any level of accountability.
Thanks for bringing this here.
aliens
My moms dad came from
I agree with most of what
I agree with most of what you've said here. Increasing border security needs to be our first priority. What good is it dealing with undocumented workers here if there are more coming at the same time? I'll admit that I don't have any brilliant ideas on how to do that, nor am I very educated on that particular subject, but it seems like common sense that this should happen first. Once that's taken care of, employers need to be held accountable at a new level (more than just the occasional raid on some random restaurant in Anytown, USA). Until then, they will continue to hire illegal immigrants and since that is the path of least resistance, people will continue to take those jobs rather than go through the hassle of obtaining citizenship, which brings me to my last point. There has to be some sort of path to citizenship that includes reasonable expectations for those who are already here. It would cost a lot less to pump some money into ELL programs than it would to attempt deporting a majority of undocumented workers. While I think there should also be some education on US history and law, I'm conflicted about the level we should hold that to. The general American populace, especially young Americans educated under NCLB, know next to nothing about history and law thanks to the disproportionate level of testing on math and literacy. But the beautiful things about citizenship are that formerly undocumented workers will have to be paid a fair wage (eliminating the incentive for employers to hire them over anyone else, not to mention better conditions for them) and they will have to pay taxes (yay, revenue!).
I admit
that I kind of knew you were going to be a breath of fresh air to this site once you got your user name and passord; this comment is case in point ...
You are a smart person who relies on common sense when formal education in one area or another is not there. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has not operated the same way!
There is a whole trade of human smuggling coming to the States from Mexico. The people are generally hauled, like cattle, in trailers to the other side of the border. What are they fleeing from? Lack of work, money, medicine, clothing ... primary things that many working Americans have. When they get here (not only Mexicans) they are hungry to make a nickel. Without the appropriate paperwork, the corporations can hire these people at a fraction of what a person like you or me might get doing the same work. In this sense, I am of the opinion that the sole responsibility should be on the company that made that hiring decision -- the worker's immigration status is a whole other subject.
If someone came here illegally and was busted down the road -- I think they should pay a fine and go through a process to acquire citizenship. I am not sure (or smart enough) to know what the process should be, but I do believe that they ought to be back-taxed for every penny they earned while working under the table. This way there is a double revenue -- one from the company that hired them -- and one from them. If they cannot afford that penalty, then deport them :) But again, I don't know where to begin to solve the immigration issues, I simply don't like any workers of any nationality getting exploited ...
In the case of the young construction worker who reacted and killed the actress ... that guy needs to spend his life in jail. And this is where it confuses me even more -- because he is not a citizen of the US, can we incarcerate him for the rest of his life ... if so, our tax dollars are paying for that too.
It is confusing ... and I don't know the answers. I hope our next president comes up with something that is common sense enough for us both.
wow, I'm glad this
wow, I'm glad this conversation is continuing, there is quite a similar one currently at the AFL-CIO WebBlog, I haven't taken a moment to add a comment there yet, but yes I agree with Richard about the employer responsibility, it is ignored, or a slap on the wrist. Norah, thanks for joining and adding that post, you might like to take a glance at my newest article which I haven't published here yet, where the NCLB and the dumbing American Values collides with companies leaving the states and getting rid of Bush's mistakes
Carhartt, Red Wing Shoes and more union news you may have missed, ideas, blurbs and dumbed down Americans
the AFL-CIO Blog story can be found here: Slaves, Sharecroppers, Now Immigrants