Thread: How Unskilled Immigrants Hurt Our Economy

How Unskilled Immigrants Hurt Our Economy
Steven Malanga
A handful of industries get low-cost labor, and the taxpayers foot the bill

The day after Librado Velasquez arrived on Staten Island after a long, surreptitious journey from his Chiapas, Mexico, home, he headed out to a street corner to wait with other illegal immigrants looking for work. Velasquez, who had supported his wife, seven kids, and his in-laws as a campesino, or peasant farmer, until a 1998 hurricane devastated his farm, eventually got work, off the books, loading trucks at a small New Jersey factory, which hired illegals for jobs that required few special skills. The arrangement suited both, until a work injury sent Velasquez to the local emergency room, where federal law required that he be treated, though he could not afford to pay for his care. After five operations, he is now permanently disabled and has remained in the United States to pursue compensation claims.

“I do not have the use of my leg without walking with a cane, and I do not have strength in my arm in order to lift things,â€

What the migration from 1880 to 1924 actually did was replace that portion of the projected population that was lost due to the Civil War dead. If it were not for the Civil War a lot of the Americans who died or were unable to start families would have had two generations of children.


The American Civil War dead would have been starting at a young age and had large families compared with our current family patterns. The number of incoming immigrants during that period merely replaced them in a large country in which the damage to our infrastructure was localized in the South.

There is a decline in the fertility of native born Americans aused by the lower wage levels among our younger lower skilled workers and it is being caused by the unlimited in flow of other unskilled workers.