While President Trump wants to send the military to the Mexico border to greet the so-called “Migrant Caravan” from Central America, I think we should send different groups down there to meet them. Every employment agency and Department of Workforce from the lower 48 states should be on-hand at the border ready to take the “new arrivals” right to businesses that need workers.
We hear all the time how many jobs employers cannot fill. While most of the focus is on skilled labor, nearly every restaurant, store and farm in this country could use more help. And that is where the “Migrant Caravan” can come to the rescue. They claim that they are coming to the US to find a better life–well as our ancestors found out, the best way to build that life is to get right down to work.
So bring those folks here to Northeast Wisconsin and start filling all available positions that you can. Put the able-bodied men to work on dairy farms in the milkhouses or moving feed and manure. When my German and Belgian great-great-grandparents came to this area, that is exactly what they did. Get others set up at retailers needing people to unload trucks or stock shelves during the upcoming busy holiday season. Find businesses that need cleaning services or laundry staff. Send them over to restaurants that need dishwashers or line cooks.
If these are only part-time positions, work out schedules so our new arrivals can work two or three jobs a week–because the hours are definitely available and obviously, they need the money. Don’t see this mass of humanity coming to the US as a bunch of charity cases, see them as the workforce that our booming economy needs right now!
The housing part could be a bit tricky, but I see a lot of churches and social justice groups demanding the migrants be allowed in. Let those supporters open their doors, whether they be shelters, low-rent housing complexes or even their own homes. We plan to put our new friends to work as soon as they get here–so they should be self-sufficient and able to find their own places in short order.
There is plenty of effort being made to compare the Migrant Caravan with the ships that brought European immigrants to the US throughout the 19th and the early 20th centuries. And if that is the case, we should welcome our Central American arrivals the same way they did at Ellis Island–“Welcome! Now find a job.”
