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Lax immigration hurts the poor
By Steve Kropper | March 22, 2007

SUPPOSE SOMEONE offered to import 350 foreign workers to New Bedford to work for less than the minimum wage. Since the unemployment rate is over 8 percent, we would expect public outrage. The city needs jobs, not more unskilled laborers. So it is no surprise that citizens seeking jobs started lining up at the Michael Bianco plant after Immigration and Customs Enforcement uncovered 350 illegal immigrants.

Similarly, after the Crider chicken-processing plant in Stillmore, Ga., was raided in January, it boosted wages and hired US citizens, according to the Wall Street Journal.

These are positive steps to reversing lax immigration policies that sacrifice economic mobility simply because illegal immigrants will work for less. Neither amnesty nor mass deportation is the solution. Instead, illegal border crossing will decline as news filters back about tighter enforcement. And the illegal population will fall if enforcement is consistent.

Contrary to popular belief, illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. The victims may not have a voice, but they are low-paid, low-skilled American workers. Many are historically disadvantaged groups such as minorities and those with disabilities. . Some pundits use code words about the need to "control" wages. Whose wages? Carpenters? Child-care workers? House cleaners? Nurses? Why not teachers? The best way to raise wages for the poor is to restrict immigration. There are more illegal immigrants working in the United States than there are unemployed Americans who are looking for work or who have dropped out. Let's take care of our own first.

A 1997 study by the National Academy of Sciences found that wages of high school dropouts plummeted 30 percent between 1980 and 1985, with about half of the losses due to competition from immigrants. Citizens without a high school degree are another group of victims with no voice. Mass immigration depresses their wages because it floods the market with cheap labor.

Companies that flout the law and prefer to hire low-wage, powerless illegal immigrants have an unfair advantage over those that play by the rules. Companies that comply with the law are victims of illegal immigration. My great-grandfather was a union organizer. When employers hired people for less than a living wage, he called the replacement workers "scabs." Are illegal immigrants today's scabs?

Another victim of illegal immigration is the taxpayer. In 2005, the Federation for American Immigration Reform found that New Jersey households pay $800 annually to educate, incarcerate, and provide medical care for illegal immigrants. For Texas the figure was $725, and for California $1,183 per citizen per year.

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Immigration is about taxes, justice for the poor, and the environment. Americans use more energy and generate more emissions than any other nationality. Half of all immigrants are from Mexico, a nation that burns just 80 gallons of gas per capita annually, according to the International Energy Agency. But if they achieve the American dream, they join citizens who burn 500 gallons, according to the Department of Energy.

According to the California Energy Commission, Californians use only about two-thirds as much electricity as the average American. However, the flood of immigration has overwhelmed conservation and that state's emissions have risen steadily. In the 1990s, the United States grew by about 35 million people. Three-quarters of that was due to immigration, including children born to immigrants. Last year's immigration "reform" legislation, cosponsored by Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, was forecast to drive population up by 66 million in the United States over the next 20 years.

There are few jobs Americans won't do, just wages they should not have to accept. And while low wages may be China's competitive edge, no one has seriously proposed that Massachusetts compete on low wages. The Bay State's competitive edge is productivity: skilled, educated workers supported with innovation and capital investment. Yes, paying Americans a decent wage is more expensive, but that's what we do for our citizens. Maybe that's why we call Massachusetts a Commonwealth.

Steve Kropper is a board member of Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform.