Thread: Who wins, loses from mass immigration to California?

Published: Sept. 20, 2010
Updated: Sept. 24, 2010 9:57 a.m.

Who wins, loses from mass immigration to California?

By RONALD CAMPBELL
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Immigrants' effect on the California lifestyle

No state and almost no developed economy has absorbed so many immigrant workers so quickly as California. The arrival of more than 5 million foreign workers over the past four decades raises a basic question: Who wins, and who loses?

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If you are middle-class and college-educated, immigrants make your busy life a little easier – and cheaper.

Over the past generation, immigrants like manicurist Trang Le, a citizen, and cosmetologist Maria Rosa, who immigrated illegally, have flocked to the hairdressing and cosmetology business. Since 1970, wages in that field have dropped by 20 percent.SOURCE »

MORE PHOTOS »•Interactive chart with average wages for immigrant-dominated occupations from 1970-2008.
•Interactive chart with top 25 California occupations with highest percentage of foreign-born workers and top 25 California occupations with highest number of foreign-born workers.
•Interactive chart showing the education levels, average wage and birthplace of California workers from 1970-2008.

Immigrants like Martha, an undocumented worker in Anaheim, have largely taken over the housekeeping business. Wages for housekeepers have dropped by 30 percent since 1970.

No state and almost no developed economy has absorbed so many immigrant workers so quickly as California. The arrival of more than 5 million foreign workers over the past four decades raises a basic question: Who wins, and who loses?SOURCE »

“Five million workers over the past four decadesâ€

Martha, the undocumented housekeeper in Anaheim, cleans one house a day, six days a week, collecting $60 to $90 cash for each house.

Hey, Martha, you did you remember to pay taxes on those cash payments?

"And finally, there is the impact on the economy. Highly skilled immigrants like Budapest, Hungary-born Andrew Grove, who headed Intel for many years, and Sergey Brin, the Moscow native who co-founded Google, helped transform California's economy." These guys were highly skilled,but they were not ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS So again we have a left wing progressive rag newspaper blurring the lines between LEGAL CITIZENS and ILLEGAL ALIENS.... They write the article as if "IMMIGRANT" covers everyone whether or not their ILLEGALLY In OUR COUNTRY

Originally Posted by topsecret10

"And finally, there is the impact on the economy. Highly skilled immigrants like Budapest, Hungary-born Andrew Grove, who headed Intel for many years, and Sergey Brin, the Moscow native who co-founded Google, helped transform California's economy." These guys were highly skilled,but they were not ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS So again we have a left wing progressive rag newspaper blurring the lines between LEGAL CITIZENS and ILLEGAL ALIENS.... They write the article as if "IMMIGRANT" covers everyone whether or not their ILLEGALLY In OUR COUNTRY

Furthermore, even all legal immigrants are not "highly skilled" overall. Are we to let our country be flooded with illegals just to get one or two skilled workers? They always point to the one or two success stories as if all immigrants fit the description. If we need highly skilled workers then Americans can be trained with those skills. Americans are just as smart as anyone else. Oh but wait....they want to get paid a decent wage. Um...that could be a problem. And then there are those pesky worker rights.