Thread: Illegal immigrants: Here to stay

Posted at 12:15 PM ET, 02/ 1/2011

Illegal immigrants: Here to stay

By Lee Hockstader

Two new studies on illegal immigration are out this week, looking both at demographic trends and at the enforcement efforts, mostly by local governments, to contain the problem. Here's the headline: Illegal immigrants are here to stay, no matter how much pressure, legislation, ethnic profiling and furious rhetoric are directed against them.

In the gusher of new data, one thing that struck me was how deeply entrenched undocumented migrants are, not just in communities across the land but in the American economy. Dislodging them in any meaningful way isn't just nativist fantasy; it's economic folly.

Consider this: Three big states -- California, Texas and New Jersey -- on their own account for about 25 percent of U.S. GDP. In those states, unauthorized immigrants account for, on average, about 9 percent of the work force, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center. (It's actually closer to 10 percent in California and a little below 9 percent in New Jersey.)

Removing almost a tenth of the labor force in those states, as the pro-deportation crowd favors, would deal a staggering blow to a quarter of the American economy, robbing it of the low-skilled workers that underpin agriculture, food processing, hospitality and construction industries, among others. And don't count on millions of unemployed American-born workers, who tend to be relatively well educated and skilled, rushing to fill the places of deported illegal immigrants who sweated through jobs in meat-packing plants, construction sites and picking lettuce.


Overall, the Pew study found, the number of illegal immigrants has leveled off, at 11.2 million after two years of decline linked largely to the recession. About 8 million undocumented workers were in the country in 2010, a number virtually unchanged from 2009; they represent 5.2 percent of the overall labor force.

Maybe even more striking is the ongoing surge of so-called anchor babies -- children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants, who tend to be younger and have more children than the population overall. While illegal immigrants represent just under 4 percent of the U.S. population, about 8 percent of all newborns has at least one unauthorized parent, Pew reported. In the 12 months ending in March 2010, about 350,000 babies were born in this country to illegal immigrants -- about the same number as in the previous year. (Another 17 percent of all American babies were born to legal immigrants, meaning that a quarter of all U.S. children have foreign-born parents.) And of all 5.5 million kids born to illegal immigrant parents, more than 80 percent were born in this country and are therefore citizens.

Those numbers will undoubtedly cause even more gnashing of teeth from the nativist crowd, and calls to reinvent the 14th Amendment, which has been interpreted as conferring automatic citizenship on children born within our borders.

The other study, by the Migration Policy Institute, offers fewer big surprises. It features the unshocking information that crackdowns by local authorities in a number of jurisdictions led illegal immigrants to, well, go next door to jurisdictions that took a more tolerant stance.

Two of the localities highlighted by the report are Prince William County, in Virginia, and Frederick County, in Maryland. In both places, immigrant-bashing rhetoric and policies led to sharp (in Prince William) or very sharp (in Frederick) declines in the unauthorized population. But in national or even regional terms, the effect was negligible since most who left those counties appeared not to have gone very far.

The MPI study focuses on the federal government's 287(g) program, which authorizes state and local law enforcement officers to screen and hold people for immigration status and violations, and trigger deportation proceedings against them. Unsurprisingly, the application of that program has been highly inconsistent. Some local police departments use it against any illegal immigrant they can get their hands on, and others target those who commit serious crimes, in line with the feds' stated policy.

Still, as the report acknowledges, only about 10 percent of deportations are initiated by state and local officials. So while they have been instrumental in generating a hostile atmosphere for unauthorized immigrants in some places, they're having little impact on the overall demographic trends that the Pew report highlights.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpa ... o_sta.html

I can't think of a better time then now to deport all the illegals. Our economy is in the toilet, we have millions on unemployment, etc. Yeah, deporting them will make things worse, but only for a short time. Once they are gone, we save money from not having over crowded schools, hospitals, etc. Gangs and crimes will go down. All the illegals stealing "free" Gov. benefits will be gone, so we save millions there.

Overall, it would hurt BUT in the end we would save more.

sugar highwolf
you are 100 % right



No Amnesty

Of course we can send them packing. If all benefits are denied from jobs, welfare, anchor babies, and education they can't afford to stay. Secure the border and they will self deport especially if you crack down on pro illegal centers, rallies, and protests.

Then they make the loose arguement that we cannot afford to lose the work they do as the US economy thrives on it. But lets figure that out. We'll use some rough estimates that about 10% of the US population is illegal counting children of illegals born in the US. However only 40% of those are actually working which means 4% of the illegal community is working. That 4% thats working is closer to 2.5% of the US work force meaning remove them and out of the 9% unemployed it goes down to 6.5% as Americans can fill those jobs.

But wait also figure in with 10% of the US population now gone... we are also consuming less at least as far as food and staples goes. This will do multiple things from lowering rent especially in big cities as big cities tend to have the largest amount of illegals. The cost of basic staples will stay about the same as there are less workers least for the moment but those jobs are quickly filled along with less demand, they may even lower slightly.

Now figure in welfare, estimate that 15% of welfare is related to illegal aliens and 20% of medicaid and ER unpaid hospital costs or significantly more. This means healthcare costs won't raise as fast as they increase to pay for care that goes unpaid, medicaid costs for state/country will go down as well as will welfare.

The numbers become staggering. I was recently providing information to a State House Rep of mine and found that MN spends close to $1.3 billion a year on illegals and their benefits not counting there healthcare even. The numbers look high for a northern state but looking it over multiple times figuring in education, welfare, and housing. We didn't even figure healthcare OR prison / judicial costs among many little initiatives hard to track.

Anchor baby births are the biggest threat illegal aliens pose to this country.
With a birthrate higher than that of American citizens, these people are taking over our country by producing "legal" citizens whose loyalty will not lie with the U.S.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Posted at 12:15 PM ET, 02/ 1/2011

Illegal immigrants: Here to stay

By Lee Hockstader

Removing almost a tenth of the labor force in those states, as the pro-deportation crowd favors, would deal a staggering blow to a quarter of the American economy, robbing it of the low-skilled workers that underpin agriculture, food processing, hospitality and construction industries, among others. And don't count on millions of unemployed American-born workers, who tend to be relatively well educated and skilled, rushing to fill the places of deported illegal immigrants who sweated through jobs in meat-packing plants, construction sites and picking lettuce.

Unless you count the high school grads who can't get jobs and the high school dropouts who can't get jobs and the unemployed construction workers who can't get jobs and the seniors who can't get jobs....

It may very well be that Americans would demand better working conditions, but that would improve the job situation for American workers. It's difficult to see how that would be a bad thing.

What's happening with these articles, whether they appear in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, or the San Francisco Chronicle is that media owners want the United States to be run for the convenience of their corporste CEO pals. That means promoting an Open Borders, Come And Get It strategy.

Whether it's jobs or anchor babies, the Open Borders crowd will say either that nothing can be done about it or that it's too expensive to do anything about it or that doing something about it is mere Ism. Well, three previous presidents had no problem doing it. The problem now is that 'Bama sees himself as president of all he surveys and he's willing to sacrifice Americans, to further his globalalist agenda.
************************************************** ******************************
Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

There will be no problem filling the jobs. Once these businesses are
forced to start paying a "wage" that "surpasses" what people get on
unemployment and food stamps.

These phony arguments are old and boring. They are used for a few.

They do NOT represent or benefit the majority. Only the minority. "Illegal aliens".
Those that exploit illegal alien labor.
Just what are they afraid of? A strong American workforce? Or us NOT being a
welfare state?

Enough is Enough!

Consider this: Three big states -- California, Texas and New Jersey -- on their own account for about 25 percent of U.S. GDP. In those states, unauthorized immigrants account for, on average, about 9 percent of the work force, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center. (It's actually closer to 10 percent in California and a little below 9 percent in New Jersey.)

Consider this: Both CA and NJ are bleeding red ink profusely, illegal aliens are sucking dry welfare bennies, driving up costs for American tax-payers; while contributing very little to state/federal coffers. Don't know how bad off Texas is financially, but I know CA and NJ are in dire straits.

A large portion of the money those illegal aliens earn, as well as the welfare benefits money, are not part of our tax system. If any money was attempted to be withheld, the illegal worker claims many dependents whether they are his or not. Welfare is given when the dad makes more than enough to make the family ineligible for assistance, but they all have different last names or are not married or have multiple ID's so they can obtain fraudulent benefits.

There is no way that these marginally educated and employed workers with many children could possibly make enough money to send billions home every month.

How can anyone figure with all of this outgo, even shopping with our welfare money spent at fly by night Mexican grocery stores that don't even collect sales tax, that if these "workers" are replaced with Americans who pay taxes, pay sales taxes, do not send money outside of the country, cause an economic decline?

They must think we are really stupid, that we need these illegals for economic stability? Maybe not so much Texas, but NY and California are dead broke and cannot pay their bills. It could not get worse for them, only better.

Originally Posted by miguelina

Don't know how bad off Texas is financially. . .

Texas is having major budget problems, like most other states.