Through Tequila and Carne Asada shots in the Nicaragva restaurant on the east side of Green Bay, Josue and I have devoted a bright future. That day he had just married the love of his life. While working for our company over the years, he earned the awards of the caretakers, saved money, plan children, and, like many immigrants against it, creating a better life with their two hands.
Three months later, he learned that he had been deported.
Josue entered the United States three years ago legally through the asylum system, fleeing poverty and violence in his small village in Nicaragua. The journey almost killed him. He was beaten, robbed, hidden in truck trailers and walked days without eating. And yet he did it. He landed in Wisconsin, found a job and has been doing everything right since.
In fact, because of our skills, we employed it from another local company. He knows how to weld. It can eliminate problems. He quickly chooses new tasks. Josue is the kind of person the employer would like and we have noted the involvement of it because we have seen its value.
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We can deport someone we need in communities
As he began the process of adjusting his immigration status through his wife, he learned that the court had already issued a deportation order. Suddenly, everything he worked for was a danger. If something does not change, Josue will be forced to leave this country and leave his wife.
We deport exactly the type of person needed by America.
Josue is a solid employee. When we recruited it, he hesitated- you are not sure about the stability of the old work for the industry, which, to his knowledge, may experience a decline. I gave him my own word to draw him. At that time, I wanted to make sure he would have a stable job. I had no idea that one day it could mean an attempt to stop his deportation.
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But I just don’t want Josue in our company. I want him in our community. I live here. I want his children to go to school with mine. I want to see it at the grocery store, the football field, the county fair. Here’s what the community is – and Josue is part of our part.
He has earned the best veterans to praise: “Good guy and hard worker”
His supervisor, a veteran of the fight, served in Iraq, calls him a “good guy and hardworking employee.” Such praise means something here in the village of Wisconsin. It should also mean something in Washington.
His coworkers feel the same. They have no problem crossing fever rhetoric that dominates national politics. They see a man in front of them.
On a working day, we complain of tribute to American workers. We say we honor the diligence and sweat and those who make things by hand. However, we are currently quietly deporting the same people we pretend to be celebrating.
Our company operates factories in small towns – some have only a few thousand inhabitants. Our biggest challenge is not the price or competition. These are people. We are not enough for us. Two -thirds of our new employees are immigrants. Six years ago, less than 5 percent of our workforce was born abroad. Today it is more than 20 percent. And we’re not alone. Produces workplaces are changing throughout the Wisconsin and across the country, but there are no people who fill in them.
Who will work in the factories we will return to America?
President Trump wants to bring back more factories, but what will help them exactly? Anyone who spent five minutes in the northern mid -West knows that the lack of labor is not hypothetical. They are a daily experience. In factories. In restaurants. In hospitals.
Meanwhile, we pour billions into mass deportation systems. Earlier this month, Florida began evacuating detainees from the office, nicknamed Aligator Alcatraz after the court ruled that he had violated the environment and humanitarian standards. These are not solutions. These are the symptoms of politics that have lost reality.
The problem is not just politics. This is perception. Immigrants are often portrayed as a faceless group or threat. But Josue is not a headline. He is a man with a wedding album and the future he fought for.
It may not be a popular opinion, but I will say it clearly. Anyone who sacrificed everything and survived what Josue did to get into the manitowoc for the factory work – that is something I want in this country. This is something I want in my company. This is something I want to live on the street.
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This is a matter of common sense. We should be able to distinguish between those who want to create life and those who threaten.
When Josue comes out in a few weeks, the loss will be his and ours. We will have another example of what American Dream should look like.
This is the first time one of our employees is deported. I hope this is the last one. But I doubt it.
Sachin Shivaram is the CEO of the Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry Manitowoc.
We need a better approach to immigration. The one who appreciates people who they are and what they contribute. The one who allows us to keep those who build, work and love us with us.
We need Josue in America.
Sachin Shivaram is the CEO of the Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry in Manitowoc.
This article initially appeared at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: We deport the employees we celebrate on a working day. This is wrong | Opinion