• ameancow@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    When I worked as operations manager in a contracting company we had an installer named Jesus. He was a young guy, illegal immigrant trying to support his family back home.

    I was gonna tell a funny anecdote about how he smoked a joint on lunch break and ended up installing a door backwards and trapped an old lady in her house, but then I remembered that my boss would hire illegals like him because he could get away with paying them far below minimum wage and fire them for any passing mood he had, he delighted in punishing struggling people and didn’t view them as human. I, the only white guy working with them and I started there counting screws and doing all the same shit work they did, learned a lot of really funny or vulgar spanish, I got to know them all as people and made friends and I wonder even nearly 20 years later what happened to some of them.

    Jesus was deported when my boss called a “tip” into immigration services because he thought Jesus was lazy. Jesus was 19, it was not only his first job, it was his first job in a foreign country surrounded by people he doesn’t know, living alone, no education or legal protection. He needed help, not cruelty.

    So yeah, when people say “Jesus was treated unfairly” I always nod in agreement.