Undocumented workers in the U.S.; Senegalese Migrants

Although it is not a total surprise to immigrants’ rights advocates and the like, today’s NYTimes by Eduardo Porter provides an important reminder that the majority of undocumented workers in the U.S. “now work for mainstream companies, not fly-by-night operators, and are hired and paid like any other American worker.”  This means, of course, that they also pay taxes.  The full story is here.

From around the world comes another story about immigration.  Meg Bortin reports about the operators of Senegalese fishing boats who have shifted their business from fishing to transporting unauthorized migrants who are trying to reach Spain.

“The Japanese took all the big fish,” said Moustafa Elhadj Sow, 26, a boat painter in this fishing city of 300,000. “Now all that’s left is herring.”

So some residents of Mbour have found a new source of income: smuggling Senegalese and other West Africans 800 miles to the Canary Islands of Spain, as they aim for what local newspapers call “the dream of El Dorado”: jobs in Europe.

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This year, more than 10,000 migrants have reached the Canaries.

The link to the full story is here.

-jmc