The biggest misconception about immigration is that it is a zero-sum game--that there is a finite number of jobs which immigrants "take" from the native-born and that immigrants consume social services without paying anything in. Several state governments--including Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina, and others--have bought into this myth, enacting measures to address what they perceive as problems arising from undocumented immigration. Yet anti-immigration laws hurt not only immigrants, but native-born Americans as well.
Alabama's new immigration law HB 56 clearly hurts employers. Section 15 of the law punishes employers who knowingly or intentionally hire undocumented immigrants. The punishments escalate for each offense. A first offense results in the firing of all undocumented workers, business licenses suspension for 10 working days, and administrative penalties. For a second offense, the Alabama state government will revoke all of the business' licenses and permits for the location where the offense took place. For a third offense, the government permanently revokes all of the business' licenses from all of its locations in the entire state - destroying the business. (That section of HB 56 is called the business death penalty and is based on a similar section of Arizona's anti-immigration law SB 1070 and Legal Arizona Workers Act).
Laws like HB 56 also hurt farmers. Undocumented immigrants are a major source of labor for Alabama's farming industry, which adds more than $5 billion annually to the state GDP. In neighboring Georgia, where lawmakers recently passed a law similar to HB 56, farmers now face severe labor shortages, putting $300 million of planted fruits and vegetables at risk, according to the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association. Without access to low-skilled labor, many farmers will stop planting altogether, decrease the acreage under cultivation, or start planting less profitable crops that can be harvested by expensive machinery.
Georgia's solution to the labor shortage has been to conscript criminal offenders and probationers as field hands. Benito Mendez, crew leader for a crew of Hispanic pickers said, "It's not going to work. ... No way. If I'm going to depend on the probation people, I'm never going to get the crops up." As economics professor Alexander Tabarrok observes, the Georgia immigration law has "turned good workers into criminals and turned criminals into bad workers, losing on both ends of the deal."
Construction in Alabama is also getting pummeled by HB 56. James Latham, chief executive of WAR Construction Inc. in Tuscaloosa and president of the Alabama Associated General Contractors, is concerned that the exodus of undocumented workers will slow down construction projects. He said, "We are seeing smaller crews, and work taking longer to get accomplished, due to less available workers."
HB 56 and laws like it also hurt the global and American economies. Immigrants come from countries where labor is abundant but opportunity is scarce. America's relatively free market has a "place premium" that raises wages for immigrants. Economists Michael Clemens, Claudio Montenegro, and Lant Pritchett show that immigrants, controlled for education and other factors, see an average five-fold increase in wages by moving to the U.S.
More consumers with greater purchasing power is good for business all around. Clemens recently wrote in the Journal of Economic Perspectives that unlimited immigration would increase worldwide GDP by 50 to 150 percent. That's a whopping increase of $32.5 to $97.5 trillion in global yearly production. Most of the benefits would accrue to the immigrants themselves, but trillions of dollars would also benefit Americans. Even diminishing immigration barriers by a little will boost American economic growth substantially. Every day we delay reform costs the economy.
Immigration is like other voluntary trades between two parties--both sides benefit. Immigrants get to make more money; employers get a greater pool of talent from which to choose workers; consumers benefit from lower prices and more business entrepreneurship, innovation, and services; and many Americans see their wages increase.
Immigration benefits both sides. It is neither a zero-sum game nor charity for poor foreigners. The government should get out of the way and let Americans and immigrants work together to each other's benefit.
Alex Nowrasteh is a policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute
Follow Alex Nowrasteh on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AlexNowrasteh
We are spending BILLIONS on ILLEGAL ALIENS and CA is trying to pass the NIGHTMARE act that would take more money away from our own CITIZENS and LEGAL immigrants. This has to STOP!
Your article aptly points out facts about how immigration, legal or by other means benefits this nation. Undocumented immigrants and their families have aspirations just as much as those born here. Our opportunities, as well as those from other minority groups, are limited and filled with roadblocks in every way. But when immigrants thrive and make something of themselves, society also wins. We need more neutral arguments as yours to convey the need for immigration overhaul and reform. Families are being terrorized and torn apart by deportations every day.
Thanks,
Postgraduado
One thing that's never mentioned is this. Illegal workers pay large amounts of payroll tax. And they NEVER file for refunds. The Federal government is well aware of this. It collects these taxes and makes NO EFFORT to identify the people paying.
http://www.usmessageboard.com/immigration-illegal-immigration/62934-90-billion-dollars-a-year-spent-on-welfare-for-illegal-aliens.html
I dont understand and,help me please,its a crime to be illegal in this country,as it is in every other country,why is breaking our laws ok with some people,and,I highly doubt America would dry up and blow away without them,we may even come out of the mess we are in.
You have no idea why people become over stayers in the first place when millions have legal path, you hear nothing because applicants have no voice when they are blatantly ripped off daily.
Its also a crime to defraud immigrants that have legal path to this country through American parents etc by defrauding them of application fees with no intention of ever processing their documents; legal term is A Common Scheme or Plan or Grand Theft for short. It is also an inhumane crime to play with peoples lives.
Latest immigration scam is a $16 a ? pay per call line the applicant is asked for a credit card billed $16 operator then hangs up on applicant in middle of the call the applicant calls back gets same operator but is forced to pay AGAIN as its $16 a call..
Another scam is the short notice... After 21 years waiting in the dark a letter arrives..Congratulations a visa is now ready for you fly to the UK your interview is in two days make sure when you go that you go to an ENGLISH CLINIC only and obtain a full medical and chest x-rays along with these 14 different chemical vaccinations if you do not have these things your interview will be cancelled and your file deleted.
The "Illegal Immigrants do jobs that Americans won't do" claim just does not fly and more. A recent ITEP & IPC Study tried to justify that Illegal Immigration was good because Illegal Immigrants contributed an estimated $11 billion to our tax collections. Never mind that the cost of unemployment and welfare paid to an equal amount of unemployed Americans who sit idle while the Illegal Immigrants work in the same jobs they used to do costs us $100 billion per year. But buried in the analysis was the data that households headed up by Illegal Immigrants have Average Household Incomes that are estimated to average out at $36,000 per year. Per the US Census Bureau fully 27% of American Households have Household Incomes that are below this average. If you think that Illegal Immigrants do only the dirty, low paying jobs no one else will do this statistic sure blows that assumption away.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/income_expenditures_poverty_wealth.html
http://immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/unauthorized-immigrants-pay-taxes-too
"First of all, agriculture is not a labor intensive business. The US supplies all the food it needs, plus exports billion of dollars to other countries, using very few people. In 1870, between 70% and 80% of the US population worked in agriculture. Today, less than 1% of the population works in agriculture. At last count there were only 821,000 people in the US employed in agriculture. This is out of a total civilian workforce of 153,904,000. There are 312,000,000 people in the US and these 821,000 workers produce enough to feed everybody, plus export food to the rest of the world. By 2018, agricultural employment in the US is expected to decrease to 804,400, even though the US population will be increasing."
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/fulano_de_tal/2011/aug/18/the-myth-of-illegal-immigration-and-food-prices/
Good luck paying $35 for your apple...
Also for the record the INS reaps in millions in application fees for which they approve EVERYONE but complete a tiny tiny percentage of applications in return, why do they approve initially?? BECAUSE that way they can constantly ask for fees for anywhere up to 30 years from everyone...
Employ Americans?? What is stopping you from standing outside Home Depot or grabbing a job at the farm?? Unless you are saying your high qualifications and papers are being bypassed to employ Pablo the undocumented uneducated illegal alien for that nice juicy corporate job at Canta Fitzgerald Stock Exchange that you trained for...
Illegals are not taking any quality jobs Americans just love to blame everyone else because of their lack of effort or because they over borrowed and cannot afford to pay for their spoilt little brats cars and jet ski's..... To the rest of the world Americans look like spoilt little brats that stomp their little feet and for the record the whole world does not want to come here get over your selves go to Europe America is never mentioned because no one could care less about it.
2] The INS has not existed for 10 years. Look it up. USCIS replaced them with DHS/ICE/CPB
3] In terms of "but complete a tiny tiny percentage of applications in return"
How many legal immigrants do you want to enter the USA per year? USA is at record levels in the last 20 years, but here is just the years after September 2001.
2001-1,058,902
2002-1,059,356
2003----703,542
2004----957,883
2005--1,122,257
2006--1,266,129
2007--1,052,415
2008--1,107,126
SOURCE DATA
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/yearbook/2008/table01.xls
[Sourced from this page, http://www.dhs.gov/files/statistics/publications/LPR08.shtm ]The file selected was: Persons Obtaining Legal Permanent Resident Status: Fiscal Years 1820 to 2008
Where is the job demand for all these immigrants that you want to enter the USA? The USA has been having a jobs crisis for 3 years now...
4] As I told you before clyde, less than 3 percent of illegal aliens in the USA work on "the farm."
5] In terms of your finish, where is your evidence? Or were you just in the mood to rant?
1st) You say the world is submitting all these applications to get into the USA; Now you say) "the whole world does not want to come here"
You need a "time out" right now...
Farm Labor makes up seven percent of the cost of food. There are multiple sources for this statistic. So if the price of Farm Labor were to drive the cost of the $1 apple to $35 that would be an increase in the cost of Farm Labor from $0.07 to $34.07. Since the average Farm Worker makes $8.64 per hour per the USBLS that would make the new farm wage $8.64x$34.07/$0.07 or $4,205.21 per hour. Assuming that the apple picking season is one month long and the average worker chooses to work only 168 hours per year picking apples and doing nothing else that would mean that an apple picker would be making $706,476 per year in salary. The conclusion that apples would cost $35 each because of the increasing cost of Farm Labor due to immigration enforcement has no basis in reality.
As for your tirade against Americans, I would suggest that you walk on dangerous ground that leads to hate. Remember that Webster's definition of Bigot is: "a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices".
So I guess we may as well call the INS a charity fund that immigrants pay into yearly...
(2) Thousands in application fees will get you a LPR (Green Card) and SSN to work in
. . . the.USA legally w/o risk of deportation - unless H1B visa is allowed to expire
(3) July or 2003 was the end of INS existance ~ new name under DHS is ICE
You are right. We misrepresent ourselves and should stop that.
We should probably stop accepting applications for some categories. Also some people should probably voluntarily remove themselves. If we don't return their money with interest, we should.
Americans could learn a lot from immigrants due to the fact that these people come here many without any papers no ID's no where to live but they always seemed to be employed where as an American with all the opportunities in the world at their disposal is constantly griping they cannot get a job because the phone is too far from the couch..
Where is your link that shows an objective study that proves that?
600,000 illegal aliens work in the USA agriculture, and do not work 12 months per year
Their aggregate wages make up less than .3% of total Food/Beverage Sales per year
Look it up sometime, the people of the USA spend about $1 Trillion per year on Food/Beverages
You come up with a wage, per bucket, per bushel, translated to an hourly wage, times 50 hours per week, times 8 seasonal months per year. What percentage of that total is $1 Trillion?
Almost all food/beverage prices in the USA are set by the futures/options/puts markets, like the CBOE, and related exchanges.
His organization is a Libertarian-Corporate think-tank that has gone against most of the things people who identify as liberal hold dear.
One poster here said this piece was a "plea for sympathy". Nothing so innocuous is true.
This is a plea for cheap labor to replace Americans.
For the Competitive Enterprise Institute, facts and humanity are second to corporate profits.
Their agenda has nothing to do with human rights and everything to do Free Markets and no regulations.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/undocumented-workers-got-billions-from-irs-in-tax-credits-audit-finds/2011/03/23/gIQAhtaKvJ_blog.html?hpid=z3
They can deduct the $4 billion from this $7 billion immigrants pay into Social Security and still have everything they pay into Medicare and $3 billion left to shore up the SS check you get or will get some day, which they can never get.
.
Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions
As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/05immigration.html
However, I believe my point stands and here is why.
People who pay into social security and don't have access to it (unless they have a stolen/forged SS number, and while I'm sure it isn't a huge number, it does happen) are basically a slave labor force. Working for less than minimum wage for years and then, when they are old and require aid, are unable to get it.
This is inhumane and not American. Having an open door policy where we are OK with letting anyone come here so that they can be exploited isn't ethical. And while the social security build is a positive the greatest monetary effect illegals have is on the local governments, not many of which are doing particularly well right now.
http://www.gadsdentimes.com/article/20110903/NEWS/110909914/-1/SPORTS02?Title=Analysts-Illegal-immigration-has-both-costs-benefits
Fanned and Fav'd
1] Way to skip over H2A and H2B visas. The USA has a legal Temporary Worker Visa for foreign nationals that want to work in USA agriculture and USA construction, try to read about those visas sometime Alex.
But Alex, first do some research into the unemployment numbers after the housing bubble stopped a few years ago, more than 1 million in the USA are out of work in the construction trade. You ignoring that shows your agenda.
2] Hey Alex, what percentage of illegal aliens in the USA work in USA agriculture?
"While 3 percent of unauthorized workers are employed in agriculture"
http://pewhispanic.org/newsroom/releases/release.php?ReleaseID=33
3] Hey Alex, I can make a lot of profit off you by making you a slave. It will be good for the economy, com'on, what do you say? It is good for the economy and my business. Think about it...OK
4] You misrepresent the G. Peri piece. When you look more closely at their flawed study, it shows that illegal aliens entering the USA labor market was very bad for legal immigrants that were already in the USA, their wages declined. The findings also showed that mens wages in the USA, legal immigrant or native saw their wages decline. They distorted the overall effect by not understanding why female wages in the USA increased, NEWSFLASH ALEX, female wages did not increase because of illegal aliens, female wages increased because female wages were depressed in a misogynist way in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, years, and it was well overdue for their wages to increase.
Also, the G. Peri study stated that the states with the largest numbers of illegal aliens, did not have a positive improvement.
Conclusion
Alex, I doubt very much they you are lacking information, you just want to present your argument to suit your agenda. Now, please take a "time out" you have misbehaved long enough.
He's too busy spreading his employer's message around the internet.
What this means is new immigrant workers drive down wages so less investment in automation is necessary for American Companies to successfully compete against foreign competitors. More workers paid less produce more products per dollar spent on wages. This describes a low wage economy with the Native Born as rich bosses, where investment in automation is discouraged in favor of hiring more workers at lower wages so that we can have full employment. This sounds a lot like a third world economy rather than a powerhouse economy using automation to support higher levels of productivity and wages, allowing the American Worker to experience a standard of living that few other countries can duplicate.
Henry Ford once said "There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible."
Keep up the good work.
I regret that we must continue to refute Picosa's posts, as well as Alex Nowrasteh, because Picosa has no interest in reading or attempting to even understand the other half of the facts that the MSM is not reporting. Picosa has a half-truth agenda, that agenda is on the order of 'Tokyo Rose' from WWII.
No matter how frustrating, if nobody replies to Picosa's posts, it permits other readers of comments to believe that Picosa is correct, when she is not. She has done this at other places on the internet under the name Evelyn, and at that time, Mark Lindley that posts here, has refuted her as well at those places. Ed Baker here has admitted as much as well.
It would be different if Picosa was a sympathizer, but she is not, she has tunnel vision and tunnel thinking. She expects others to fully explore her posts, but refuses reciprocation. Those type of blinders are not of someone that is an honest sympathizer, but someone that is a part of the apparatus, not necessarily a foreign national apparatus, but nonetheless, one that is against:
1] Legal Permanent Residents of the USA;
2] LPRs that have matriculated to US citizenship through naturalization; and
3] People born in the USA
The US is currently in a Depression. During the last Depression, millions of unregistered foreigners were repatriated and more jobs for Americans appeared. If a business can't compete without using illegal labor their business model is unsustainable. The only industry where illegal foreign nationals have traditionally been used is Seasonal Farm Labor.
The jobs they take in construction, landscaping and service industries are being taken from American workers. Construction, service and landscaping used to be done by Americans. Now foreigners come to America and undercut even the teenagers who used to mow lawns.
The authors contention that America should open it's borders is ludicrous. Having millions more people when we don't have enough jobs for Americans would hurt, not improve our economy.
As for the efficacy of using foreigners to replace citizens as workers, look at Mexico. Their economy is growing robustly and oddly, they strictly don't allow illegal aliens in their nation and severely punish businesses that use them.
We let in enough legal immigrants every year. We don't need foreigners who feel the laws should not apply to them because they aren't from here.
Jobs are just another excuse, like economic costs, national security, desease, crime, and all the other excuses that have been used to smear immigrants, but have been exposed as lies.
It's a matter of fear of the changing demographs of this country which promotes smearing of immigrants.
Racism and Immigration
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/04/27/4210613-racist-roots-of-arizonas-immigration-law
Does Immigration Cost Jobs?
The truth is that immigrants don’t "take American jobs," according to most economists and others who have studied the issue.
Immigrant workers "create almost as many" jobs as they occupy, "and maybe more," said Madeleine Sumption, policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, which is funded by a range of foundations, corporations and international organizations. "They often create the jobs they work in." In addition, "they buy things, and they make the economy bigger," she told us.
http://www.factcheck.org/2010/05/does-immigration-cost-jobs/
Jobs Americans Refuse to do
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704895004575395491314812452.html?mod=WSJ_business_LeftSecondHighlights
For example, under this post of yours I will comment about "Jobs Americans Refuse to do."
(Time permitting I will speak to the others.)
1) That WSJ article is loaded with ridiculousness.
Emirates airlines in Dubai is hiring, and they cannot understand why Americans are not applying?
Duh.....
2) Mechanical Devices company is covered in the piece as well, but when you go to their website,
http://www.mechdev.com/employment.htm
They refuse to hire anyone but temps
Those temp agencies, they so proudly display at that link, will not pay ANY health insurance, and they will not pay the market wage. Those temp agencies will pay you a wage that is not only less because it lacks health insurance from total compensation, but they will pay you minimum wage if you say you will do it.
3) 'Traveling J' truck stops was mentioned as well. Traveling J truck stops are usually located in the middle of nowhere, and they cannot understand why they cannot find anyone willing to drive 60-100 miles one-way to fill a minimum wage job, that waits on truckers earning $60,000-90,000 per year.
4) I also liked the chart that shows the huge number of openings within the Arts & Entertainment industry, and only the tiny number of hires. Melissa Gilbert and the Screen Actors Guild has plenty to say about that... It is called an industry that is loaded with producers that are trying to break the SAG union, but that is not the only union they are trying to break.
A & E has battling this since CBS started reality TV shows with 'Survivor Island'
There are 391 comments below that article as well, many pointing out other good points that were clearly lost on you.
The EU experience has been that skilled immigrants bring value to the economy. Only once jobs are created and the local population have meaningful employment, does it make any sense at all to look at migrant labor and then immigrant labor.
We are coming at this thing exactly backwards. Unskilled immigrants bring no value to the table and actually hurt the most vulnerable amongst our citizens. I cannot see any economic justification for having them here at this time.
As for amnesty, we could give every one of them amnesty today and be back to square one five minutes later as the first new illegal crosses the border.Without the means and will to enforce immigration laws - all discussions regarding illegals, Dream act, amnesty etc... are moot!
The solution is hard time in a federal prison for them and those who employ them, seize the assets of both as proceeds of crime.