Imagine Life Without Them | Garth Portillo

In recent weeks I have read several letters in the Tribune concerning illegal aliens. With rare exception, the authors express indignation and even rage at the idea of illegal aliens receiving even basic public support - basic education for children, housing, a license to drive or even medical attention.

I alternate between being ashamed for the callous attitudes of my fellow citizens and being amused.

This morning I amused myself for a few minutes picturing our world if all of these good citizens got their wish, waking to a new dawn with all of the undocumented workers gone. All across the country, garment factories closed, thousands of restaurants unable to open for lack of staff, crops rotting in the fields and packing plants with no one to stoop, harvest or load. Construction
work slowed as masons, dry-wallers, plumbers, carpenters and other trades become short-handed overnight. Your gardener or landscaper faced with a client list that can't be served because there are no crews. No rooms available in Salt Lake hotels because there are no staff to clean the rooms or launder the linen. And my favorite, fast food chains becoming slow food chains with no one to cook, clean or run the cash register.

If you all think there are enough capable and unemployed citizens to fill the vacancies, think again. Especially in Utah, where the governor has signed a law prohibiting payment of a living wage to workers.

Garth Portillo
Guest Commentator