Almeria in the New York Times

I’d like you to click here and read this article before you continue any further.

Sad, isn’t it? The current state of the immigrant in Almeria. Poor sods.

“Yet the true secret of the region’s bonanza is less visible. Hidden beneath a shining sea of plastic are some 4,000 immigrant workers, most of them from Morocco, who spend their days in suffocating heat picking eggplant, peppers, melons and the like for sale in Paris, London and Frankfurt.

In a sense, it is a good arrangement. Local farmers can rely on a seemingly endless supply of cheap, undemanding labor. And immigrants fleeing poverty and unemployment in North Africa and beyond can earn around $30 a day, enough to put a little aside to send home to their families.

Yet the contrast between the newly rich farmers of Almeria and their bedraggled workers from the third world also tells another story: for all the signs of its growing hostility toward nonwhite foreigners, Western Europe still needs immigrants to do jobs rejected by its own nationals. Jobs Nobody Wants.”

Oh, hang on, that was written in 1993. Spot the difference?