Why Legalizing 12 Million Undocumented Immigrants Would Help U.S. Economy
Why Legalizing 12 Million Undocumented Immigrants Would Help U.S. Economy
Yesterday, Lamar Smith published an error-ridden editorial in USA Today in which he made a desperately weak case against providing 12 million undocumented immigrants already living in the U.S. a path to legalization. Smith’s first line of reasoning is that the current economic recession would put Americans in a position in which they’re competing with immigrants for jobs. According to Smith, legalizing immigrants would flood the nation’s Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security systems and hurt U.S. taxpayers. However, Smith’s logic is mind-bogglingly flawed on a variety of levels.
To begin with, study after study shows that there is little, if any, relationship between immigration and unemployment rates at the regional, state, or county level. Furthermore, the potential economic benefits of a legalization program have been widely documented. Available research suggests that — had the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 passed — it would have generated a much needed $66 billion in new revenue during 2007-2016 from income and payroll taxes, as well as various administrative fees. Giovanni Peri, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California-Davis, further suggests that immigrants don’t even compete with the majority of natives for the same jobs because they tend to work in different occupations. Smith also sidesteps the argument that by legalizing the undocumented population, the “trap door” that artificially suppresses wages, benefits, and working conditions would be removed so that workers could compete fairly in an above-ground economy.
Smith hysterically claims that a flood of immigrants will flow into the country as soon as “amnesty” is passed and that a harsh policy of “attrition through enforcement” is the best way to deal with the nation’s immigration woes. Yet a study released today by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that the global economic recession is causing an international migration slow-down, echoing the well-documented claim that immigration is primarily driven by economics. Meanwhile, the OECD advises nations like the U.S. to “keep doors open” to immigrant workers in order to meet long-term labor needs. Watch the OECD’s video on the study’s findings:
Smith’s proposed solution of “attrition through enforcement,” a harsh strategy used to “wear down the will” of undocumented immigrants through deportations, detentions, and anti-immigrant ordinances, would cost taxpayers at least $206 billion over five years, or $41.2 billion annually. Finally, Smith cited a 2006 Zogby poll which showed that the majority of Americans prefer harsh enforcement policies that destroy communities, terrorize workers and rip families apart. Three years later, 2009 polling indicates that 68% of voters believe that undocumented immigrants should be required to register, meet conditions, and eventually be allowed to apply for citizenship.
2 Responses to “Why Legalizing 12 Million Undocumented Immigrants Would Help U.S. Economy”
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I do not support Smith’s “attrition through enforcement” policy. Whatever the answer… it must be compassionate.
Thom Hartmann examines historic labor policy in the following article (http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0329-21.htm) and disagrees with Giovanni Peri’s suggestion “that immigrants don’t even compete with the majority of natives for the same jobs because they tend to work in different occupations.” Peri’s view remineds me of the GOP canard that Americans won’t do the jobs that immigrants do.
From Thom’s article…
“Progressives fought – and many lost their lives in the battle – to limit the pool of “labor hours” available to the Robber Barons from the 1870s through the 1930s and thus created the modern middle class. They limited labor-hours by pushing for the 50-hour week and the 10-hour day (and then later the 40-hour week and the 8-hour day). They limited labor-hours by pushing for laws against child labor (which competed with adult labor). They limited labor-hours by working for passage of the 1935 Wagner Act that provided for union shops.
“And they limited labor-hours by supporting laws that would regulate immigration into the United States to a small enough flow that it wouldn’t dilute the unionized labor pool. As Wikipedia notes: “The first laws creating a quota for immigrants were passed in the 1920s, in response to a sense that the country could no longer absorb large numbers of unskilled workers, despite pleas by big business that it wanted the new workers.” …
“Between the Reagan years – when there were only around 1 to 2 million illegal aliens in our workforce – and today, we’ve gone from about 25 percent of our private workforce being unionized to around seven percent. Much of this is the direct result – as César Chávez predicted – of illegal immigrants competing directly with unionized and legal labor. Although it’s most obvious in the construction trades over the past 30 years, it’s hit all sectors of our economy.”
June 30th, 2009 at 8:15 pmWhy not begin by inserting compassion into the system…
Pap with author Ben Skinner on human trafficking
http://tinyurl.com/l2yr3w
Ben: “In this country… too often… our… immigration services have been complicit, have been unwilling accomplices… to traffickers because when …an undocumented migrant is found the first thing that is noted is that this person doesn’t have their papers. …The first thing that should be done is to… profile, is to do a comprehensive evaluation as to whether this person is working here under threat of violence for no pay beyond subsistence – whether this person is a slave. Because when you… summarily deport that person in many cases the traffickers will take their due back in the home country.”
Pap: “Which is what?”
Ben: “…Which is …in some cases forcing them back into labor, in some cases beating them up, in some cases …meeting out punishment against their family. …”
A Crime So Monstrous; Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery
http://acrimesomonstrous.com/
or…
60 Minutes: Immigrant Detention In America
July 1st, 2009 at 10:33 amhttp://crooksandliars.com/comment/permalink/579384