Thread: Just doing their jobs

http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com

Just doing their jobs
200,000 unauthorized workers are crucial to employers
San Francisco Business Times - by Adrienne Sanders and Daniel S. Levine
Immigrants drive Joe Cassidy's construction company. Bosnians and Serbs lay hardwood flooring, Poles and Croatians craft finished carpentry, and Irish and Mexicans nail in framing and wire electricity.

Cassidy, a San Francisco developer and contractor, says it's hard to know for sure which of his workers are here legally and which aren't. But he is certain that his company simply could not function without unauthorized immigrants -- and that many other employers here are in the same boat.

"If you were to deport the 11 million illegal immigrants in this country, you would destroy the economy in California, Nevada and New Mexico," he said. "You'd be talking 80 percent of the guys on any job site."

It's not just construction, either. Politicians, government agencies and economists continue to argue about the causes and effects of illegal immigration and the best way to respond to it. But among employers, there is little argument: The United States economy as a whole -- and California and the Bay Area in particular -- have come to depend on millions of unauthorized immigrants willing to work, often for low wages at tedious jobs. These laborers pave our streets, clean our homes, build our offices and cook our food.

"If they weren't here, it would be a disaster, a complete disaster. There just wouldn't be people to do the work," said one Bay Area small business owner who believes many of his workers are unauthorized. "I keep hearing there are 12 million undocumented workers. If we were to lose those 12 million undocumented workers, who is going to fill those jobs? Are there 12 million unemployed people willing to work and do those jobs? I really doubt it."

Moreover, it's a work force that continues to expand rapidly. The state estimates there are almost 200,000 unauthorized immigrants in the Bay Area, a number that has increased 15 percent this decade. Nationally, estimates range from 9.5 million to 20 million, three in every four from Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America.

Once concentrated in California and other border states, in recent years unauthorized immigrants have spread throughout the country. So have their effects, good and bad, on the economy.

"The United States is simply hooked on cheap, illegal workers and deferring the costs of providing public services to these quasi-Americans," said a 2005 report from the investment bank Bear Stearns on the underground labor force. "Illegal immigration has been America's way of competing with the low-wage forces of Asia and Latin America, and deserves more credit for the steroid-enhanced effect it has had on productivity, low inflation, housing starts and retail sales."

It's the economy, stupid
The draw to the Bay Area is simple: jobs. The local economy has expanded rapidly from its dot-bomb doldrums, with Bay Area unemployment dropping steadily in recent years.

While the Bay Area's unauthorized population is dwarfed by Southern California's estimated 1.9 million, this area's generally higher wages, and San Francisco's higher minimum wage in particular, are making it a more attractive destination for unauthorized workers.

"More people are moving to San Francisco, even coming from other cities in Oregon and Florida, because the pay is higher," said Jose Soto, former case manager at Arriba Juntos vocational training center in San Francisco's Mission district. "Here they're expecting at least $8.82 an hour minimum wage."

Bay Area employers tend to take a "don't ask, don't tell" approach to unauthorized immigrants. Many say they seek the paperwork required, such as a Social Security card, but don't go out of their way to scrutinize it.

Tony Ruiz, owner of San Francisco-based Anthony Ruiz Construction, said his unionized, largely Mexican workforce earns as much as $50 an hour. Some, he assumes, are unauthorized. But the Mexican-born entrepreneur doesn't know who. Nor is he interested.

"I'll close my shop before I become a part-time cop," he said. "And then they can have my 68 employees walking the streets."

'Legal' for $60
In any case, getting "legal" enough to work is easy and cheap. Immigrants say counterfeit Social Security cards are plentiful on Mission District streets at $60 to $80 each.

And the government does little to prevent the use of Social Security numbers that are either bogus or already in use by another person. Soto, who used a fake social security card to begin his 14 years in the restaurant business, estimates that 40 percent of restaurant workers in San Francisco are unauthorized.

Several restaurant owners said the Social Security Administration occasionally contacts them to flag a questionable Social Security number an employee has provided, but never follows up beyond an initial letter. One said he tells the corresponding worker of the problem and keeps the person employed if he can provide another number. "There's no clear system for checking the number anyway," he said.

In fact, a telephone verification system for employers to confirm the legal status of potential employees was designed under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. However, the program was never funded and, as of today, the system is still not running.

Overall, unauthorized immigrants create a combined net benefit for the Social Security and Medicaid systems estimated in excess of $7 billion a year, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, because the 75 percent who are working "on the books" contribute to both systems, but receive few benefits.

The irony of this is not lost on unauthorized immigrants like Alejandro, a 38-year-old busboy who has worked at a Bay Area pizza restaurant for 15 years. Each week, Social Security and Medicaid taxes are deducted from his paycheck, but, as an unauthorized resident, he is unlikely to ever collect either. Alejandro broadcast his frustration on a sign he carried at the immigration rally in front of the Ferry Building in San Francisco on May 1: "We pay tax too ... Or is my tax illegal?"

Give and take
Though it is difficult to measure how the effects of unauthorized immigrants reverberate through the economy, a more finite measure is their fiscal impact -- the difference between the taxes they pay and the government services they consume.

The Center for Immigration Studies calculates that, on average, unauthorized immigrant households cost the federal government more than $2,700 more than they pay in taxes for a total deficit of $10.4 billion in 2002.

Others argue that the impact at the federal level may be positive, because unauthorized immigrants contribute to Social Security and Medicaid without receiving benefits, but negative at the local level where governments are shouldering the cost of additional emergency-room health care and additional demands on schools and social services.

Economists, though, say the overall cost imposed by unauthorized immigrants has more to do with being poor than with their legal status. Their unauthorized status means they have less access to services available to legal residents at the same poverty level. The Center for Immigration Studies estimates the cost of the average unauthorized immigrant household would triple if they had legal status.

But their economic impact appears less ambiguous. Though the wages of native-born high school dropouts are likely hurt by the supply of unauthorized immigrant labor, economists said, overall, immigrants help the economy. As with the globalization of capital and goods, unauthorized immigration reflects a globalization of labor.

Stephen Levy, director and senior economist of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, said that unauthorized immigrants have a positive impact on the economy in the Bay Area, as well as throughout the country, and notes that despite higher levels of unauthorized immigration during the past 10 years, unemployment and poverty rates have not been rising. At 4.9 percent, California's unemployment rate, he notes, is now lower than in 1990 -- before the most recent heavy wave of immigration.

"The whole deal with foreign trade and imports from China and buying Japanese cars 30 years ago was that if somebody else could make it cheaper, that was an enormous consumer benefit," Levy said. "If you are talking about the entire economy, it helps to have a large labor force willing to work those lower paying job."

Eric Young, J.K. Dineen and Ryan Tate contributed to this report.

Wow, the above article gives ICE a lot of great information! These law breakers are so brazen that they even give their names and places of business. There is something seriously wrong with this picture!