By Mike Hollis
The Huntsville Times
Tuesday, December 27, 2011, 7:00 AM

Alabama lawmakers who plan to debate the pros and cons of revising Alabama's ill-conceived immigration law in the Legislature next year might want to look at a pamphlet put out by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, "Immigration Myths and Facts."

The U.S. Chamber is among the nation's more conservative and influential lobbies. Whether you agree with its positions on many issues, many members of Congress and other public officials listen carefully when the chamber speaks. As a lobby, the chamber has an agenda based on the interests of its members, and some of them have an economic interest in the nation's immigration policies.

But that doesn't make some of the chamber's points any less valid.

The report, available on line at this address, http://bit.ly/kyYReA, debunks several myths about immigrants, documented and otherwise.

Rep. Micky Hammon, R-Decatur, and Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, promoted their immigration legislation as a "jobs bill" that would put unemployed Alabamians back to work by running illegal immigrants who had taken their jobs out of the state.

In fact, says the chamber report, it is a myth that "Every job filled by an immigrant -- especially an illegal immigrant -- is a job that could be filled by an unemployed American."

This is "Because native-born workers and immigrant workers possess different skills and cannot simply be swapped for one another like batteries." Put another way, North Alabama farmers growing squash and tomatoes watched their crops rot on the ground this fall because Hammon and Beason's law ran illegal aliens out of the state.

Even Gov. Robert Bentley, who signed the bill into law, said recently that there is still isn't enough evidence in state unemployment statistics since the law took effect to prove that Alabamians have gone back to work in jobs Hispanics abandoned.

Actually, the chamber notes that immigrants create jobs as consumers, entrepreneurs and inventors. All immigrant workers, including the undocumented, spend their money buying food, clothes, appliances, cars and other products and services. "The end result is more jobs for more workers."

The report goes on to say that (a) nine out of 10 Americans graduate from high school, and (b) the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that nearly four in 10 job openings between 2008 and 2018 will require only short on-the-job training. "There are too few less-educated native-born workers willing and able to fill all of the less-skilled jobs which the U.S. economy creates. Less-skilled immigrant workers fill this gap."

A couple of other major talking points in this debate center on taxes and welfare benefits.

The myth, says the report, is that illegal immigrants don't pay taxes when they pay billions of dollars of taxes every year, and usually for benefits they will never receive.

Like everybody else, they pay sales taxes and property taxes, even if they rent. According to the report, more than half of undocumented immigrants provide their employers with counterfeit IDs, so federal and state income taxes, and Social Security and Medicare taxes are automatically deducted from their paychecks. But they are not eligible for any state or federal benefits.

And the report goes on to say that illegal immigrants provide "an enormous subsidy to the Social Security system in particular." Social Security taxes are withheld from billions in wages earned by workers whose names and Social Security numbers don't match the government's records. The Social Security Administration says "a major portion" of this money is earned by undocumented workers using fake documents. By October 2009, taxes had been paid on $836 billion in such wages.

Welfare costs? Illegal aliens are not eligible for public benefits such as Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps. "Even most legal immigrants," says the pamphlet, "cannot receive these benefits until they have been in the United Sates for five years or longer, regardless of how much they have worked or paid in taxes."

According to the chamber report, a number of state studies shows that, on average, "immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in government services and benefits." According to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, households headed by undocumented immigrants across the nation paid $11.2 billion in state and local taxes in 2010.

Regardless of the needlessly harsh provisions of the immigration law that have brought the state widespread criticism, some lawmakers, including at least 12 Republican senators, say they support the law pretty much as it was written.

Next year, for a change, let's have an informed debate in Montgomery over what the law should really say.

By Mike Hollis, for the editorial board. Email: mike.hollis@htimes.com.

http://blog.al.com/times-views/2011/...ration_my.html