Thread: Immigration crosscurrents

Immigration crosscurrents


January 3, 2008


By Alfred Tella - As I perused the Dec. 26 editorial on immigration in The Washington Post, the page kept slipping to the left in my hand for a decidedly one-sided read.

The editorial was an attack on a tough new law on illegal immigration passed by the Arizona state legislature. The law, effective Jan. 1, punishes companies that knowingly employ illegal immigrants by temporarily suspending their business licenses for a first offense and revoking them for a second offense. Federal judges have refused to block it.

The Post raised the question of "how much pain a state is willing to endure, and inflict, in the name of ridding itself" of illegal immigrants. That question can be turned around — how much pain are the citizens of Arizona willing to endure before coming to their own defense?

Even with border controls, illegal immigration cannot be effectively restrained without putting employers' feet to the fire. At the federal level, sanctions against employers are not enforced save for a handful of token raids for publicity's sake. The Bush administration is trying to look good, but after only nibbling at the problem it still has egg on its face.

Despite election year rhetoric, there is little likelihood Congress or the White House will do much to reverse illegal immigration in 2008, thanks in part to the big campaign bucks business and agricultural interests are spreading around.

Is it any wonder, then, that a border state like Arizona, inundated by illegal aliens, has taken matters into its own hands? Politicians, at least the smart ones, heed the will of their constituents, and it is the voting citizens of the sovereign state of Arizona who are demanding action. Other states and localities will likely follow its lead.

Isn't it interesting, though maybe not surprising, that on selective issues an editorial by a leading liberal newspaper would fail to mention that little something called the will of the people? At other times it suits The Post to wave the flag of democracy.

In its editorial, The Post parades out the shop-worn economic arguments of the pro-illegal immigrant constituencies.

Those illegally in the state of Arizona "contribute enormously to its economic growth and prosperity," declares The Post, citing a study by a University of Arizona researcher. That study "and others like it, including in Texas, refute the arguments that illegal immigrants are an overall burden on state economies because of the education, health care and other services they require."

Never mind that there have been scholarly cost-benefit studies that have delved deeply into this question and found just the opposite — that illegal immigrants cost American taxpayers far more than they contribute economically (e.g., see the Web site of the Center for Immigration Studies). Steven Camarota, research director of the CIS, has estimated the net fiscal cost at the federal level alone to American taxpayers of illegal immigrant households in one year at about $10 billion.

Says The Post, "Illegal immigrants have flocked to Arizona for years to fill jobs that native-born people don't want." We've heard that before, including from President Bush. Never mind that in the occupations which heavily employ illegal workers the great majority of employees nationwide are native-born. In the absence of illegal immigrants, competition would cause wages to rise and attract more Americans into the job market — a phenomenon known as the law of supply and demand. For a job and decent pay, legal workers have even been known to move to other states.

Unsurprisingly, you won't find any mention in The Post's editorial of studies such as those by Harvard University professor George J. Borjas, probably the nation's leading authority on the economics of immigration, showing immigration reduces the earnings of the native-born workers, particularly the less-skilled and African Americans.

Nor will you find any mention of productivity studies, such as the one by economist Ethan Lewis of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, showing low-wage immigrant labor has slowed the adoption of technology in manufacturing. Other researchers have reported similar findings for other sectors of the economy, including agriculture.

Cheap immigrant labor substitutes for investment in technology. Less investment in technology translates to slower productivity growth and a reduced standard of living for all Americans. And with less efficiency, we lose out to foreign competition.

The Post editorial expressed concern that existing databases used to check workers' legal status are subject to error — "a recipe for chaos and confusion." Databases are fixable. Meanwhile, even if some workers are falsely identified as illegal, they can be given the time and the opportunity to prove otherwise.

The Post's partial prose is a reminder of why the Washington area needs two major newspapers with competing perspectives so that the public can get a balanced view on issues.

http://washingtontimes.com/article/2008 ... /988730374

Its the same old all the time.
Never changes and its wearing out.
Don't they realize we are sick of hearing the same excuses for them?
Don't they realize only the elite are using their services, as lawnmowers, nannies, housekeepers? Crooked employers?

Why don't they stand up for Americans?
The bread and butter of this country! The ones who work hard, pay their taxes, the one's who lose their jobs to illegal aliens, or outsourcing. We are the one's affected by this blight on our society and country.

WE ARE AMERICA! WE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO COUNT!

Darn it ..... Someone didnt get the Memo. The debate about Illegal Immigration is over... we won... the American People.. there will be NO AMNESTY...

Pull the Memo out of the trash can and re-read history DUMB A_S

I get so tired of reading crap like this. My main problem is experiencing and reading about idiots that don't have the best interest of this nation at heart. If they are so darn right on how hard illegal aliens work then why don't they go to Mexico and see how hard they are working there, before they become illegals here. If they work so much harder than us then why in hell is their country so destitute, why is there country a third world cespool? They have been a nation twice as long as us, so why, is the only stories about how hard they work here and not there? It was Americans that built America and not millions of people that shouldn't be here. And I am more than prepared to pay an extra ten cents for a head of lettuce if that is what it takes to get our politicians off their posteriors and make this country a nation of laws again.

All of this is the fault of one man, George W. Bush, Control Freak Extraodinaire, the infamous non-American President whose legacy is a travesty and who will never be forgotton as the most notorious traitor of them all. What he has done is worse than any secrets passed or sold by any other traitors and he should have been impeached a year ago.

Well, overall even though he was trying to be sympathetic with our point of view, he does ok throughout most of the article and then slips up on his own banana peel at the end....

Cheap immigrant labor substitutes for investment in technology. Less investment in technology translates to slower productivity growth and a reduced standard of living for all Americans. And with less efficiency, we lose out to foreign competition.

The Post editorial expressed concern that existing databases used to check workers' legal status are subject to error — "a recipe for chaos and confusion." Databases are fixable. Meanwhile, even if some workers are falsely identified as illegal, they can be given the time and the opportunity to prove otherwise.

1. 'Efficiency' in the 'lowest cost' variety. In sheer terms of amount of work done per input hour, Americans have been, and still are, among the most productive in the world. ... And then we can have the needed debate regarding the wisdom of the 'race to the bottom'... but I'll hold that off for another time...

2. Apparently the writers in The Post don't realize that many if not most of those same employers probably use online databases like Lexis/Nexis and that a majority of that information originates or emanates from government sources too.... And the accuracy of E-Verify has cracked the 99% level. So it's proving to be quite reliable - so what other excuses will the 'hold-out' employers come forward with to try to scam us with???

Rockfish: Some would argue that not only is a 'non-American President', there are folks that would argue he is a 'non-American, non-President' to boot.

Originally Posted by PhredE

Rockfish: Some would argue that not only is a 'non-American President', there are folks that would argue he is a 'non-American, non-President' to boot.

Doesn't surprise me in the least!