Thread: Study of illegal workers urged

http://www.charleston.net/stories/?n...on=stateregion

Immigrant population needs to be tracked, economic researcher says

By SEANNA ADCOX
Associated Press

COLUMBIA- South Carolina leaders must learn more about the state's immigrant work force if they want to make economic decisions based on accurate information, said a University of South Carolina economic researcher.

Many of the problems with South Carolina's labor market are not the result of legislation, but of private businesses importing cheap labor, said Doug Woodward, director of the research division of USC's Moore School of Business.

"We can handle the phenomenon. We just need to recognize it," Woodward said at this week's annual Economic Outlook Conference. "Nobody's tracking them."

Stephen Gardner, a research and market analyst with the state Employment Security Commission, confirmed the state has no way to count workers who are illegal immigrants. It's an issue for many states, he said.

For that reason and others, the state's true unemployment rates and job creation numbers are unknown, Woodward said. Gardner, however, said a count of illegal immigrants wouldn't change the unemployment numbers much.

Woodward pointed to a chart that showed an 85 percent rise in construction permits in South Carolina over the last five years but a stagnant number of construction jobs. Obviously, that's not right, he said.

Businesses employ illegal immigrants who work long hours for little pay. That equals bigger company profits, Woodward said, but doesn't necessarily improve the state's per capita income, now at 82 percent of the national average.

Such a low-wage strategy hurts South Carolina's economic competitiveness, Woodward said.

The 2000 Census put South Carolina's Hispanic population at almost 100,000. Gustavo Penaranda, vice president of Columbia-based Hispanic Connections Inc., believes the number is actually closer to 500,000 today.

Woodward said tracking illegal workers will require federal help, but not necessarily from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which could create a hostile situation. He suggested the federal government give money to the state Employment Security Commission to track and monitor workers.

Gardner said that would be an incredibly difficult task.

With no one else taking it on, Woodward began to compile information on illegal immigrants earlier this year. The results of his USC-funded study are due out in late January. It involved surveying 450 Mexican immigrants in Lexington, Hilton Head Island and Greenville as they sought documentation from the Mexican mobile consulate from Raleigh, N.C. Woodward estimates Mexicans make up 80 percent of the state's Hispanic population.

Many of South Carolina's undocumented workers are single men who come from central Mexico and send about 20 percent of their earnings to relatives in their native home, Woodward said. A visit to Veracruz in central Mexico, he said, found South Carolina license plates and homes that look more like they belong in the Palmetto State than in Mexico.

"There's a whole sister-city-state relationship going on that nobody's recognizing," he said.

XXCX

Yeah, let's track them like bears in the woods. Let's put collars on them with GPS tacking devices. Maybe we could perfom little experiments on them too!

What the hell is the point of this! Let's deport them!

Lack of confrontation only makes sense where you have two groups with equal rights.

The Mexican illegals living in South Carolina destabilize South Carolina. They create situations in which the citizens and legals have greater difficulty getting jobs and are paid worse.

The results are two groups who are both going to be dependent on taxpayers and will be reliant on government assistance.