Thread: How does Illegal Immigration Affect Jobs?

How does Illegal Immigration Affect Jobs?
Submitted by Bill Mitchell on May 14, 2007 - 6:56pm. News | Immigration: Cost of Freedom
We begin tonight with our month long look at illegal immigration.

Tonight we look at jobs.

Are illegal workers taking jobs Americans need and want?

And are they forcing wages down?

WDEF News 12's Bill Mitchell continues the series of reports you'll see Only on 12.

This is the scene along the Mexican border every day...thousands of people entering the U.S. without an invitation and with little resistance. They are not here to visit Disneyland or see a Braves game. They come to work...and the jobs are waiting here for them.

The Pew Hispanic Center..a research group, says there are more than 7 million unauthorized workers in the U.S.....about 5% of the labor force.

In another report Pew says the average weekly earnings for unauthorized males is over 480 dollars a week. That's a fortune compared to wages in Mexico and central America. And these mostly uneducated illegals bring something business owners want.

SOL "I know we really need them..because they work really hard."

Sol Rodriguez is from Puerto Rico and she teaches English to Spanish speakers for Chattanooga State. She doesn't ask where her students like Jose come from.

JOSE "sometimes the Americans don't want to do the job, hard job, you know. And the Mexicans,, the Mexicans do it."

Reverend Mike Sealy directs St. Andrews Center.... which helps smooth the path of immigrants in this area. He says there are about 25 different ethnic groups In Chattanooga...these primarily from central America..not Mexico.

REV. MIKE SEALY, ST. ANDREWS CENTER "these folks pay much more in sales taxes and other kinds of indirect taxes than they ever get back from any kind of services."

That may be true in Tennessee and Georgia..but national figures tell a different story.

In a CBS report ....it's stated that Illegal Immigration costs taxpayers 26-billion dollars a year.

Mike Sealy says maybe so...but he once heard this from church members...

REV. MIKE SEALY "we're hiring these folks because we can't find local people for the 8, 9 and 10 dollars an hour to help work tobacco and pick tomatoes."

Immigration experts have plenty to say about that.....

D.A. KING, IMMIGRATION REFORM ADVOCATE "there are no jobs Americans won't do...there are wages for which Americans can not live with any dignity in their own country."

http://wdef.com/node/5035

I said this before and say it again. I have yet to see farmers advertise those jobs anywhere. The if those people in the article think Americans won't do certain jobs then they aren't looking at legal immigrants as many of them aren't afraid of hardwork. Illegals are actually causing legal immigrants to loose their jobs. My friend came legally from an Eastern European country and lost her job to illegals. The hotel she worked at had Hispanic supervisors who favored their own and got rid of her to get an illegal a job. In fact one of the maintenance men would steal her tips and she caught him and her supervisor did nothing about it.
As I mentioned in a posting Canadians are loosing jobs when factories are closing and moving production to their factories in the United States. I believe that these companies are hiring illegals.

Originally Posted by steelerbabe

How does Illegal Immigration Affect Jobs?
Submitted by Bill Mitchell on May 14, 2007 - 6:56pm. News | Immigration: Cost of Freedom

This is the scene along the Mexican border every day...thousands of people entering the U.S. without an invitation and with little resistance. They are not here to visit Disneyland or see a Braves game. They come to work...and the jobs are waiting here for them.

I do not believe jobs are waiting for them. Jobs are created by them and for them because of greedy corporations who want cheap labor and they are putting some American out of work.
When jobs are being sent out of this country, 7 million jobs and more are waiting? Hard for me to comprehend.



[quote:3rkqpa9q]The Pew Hispanic Center..a research group, says there are more than 7 million unauthorized workers in the U.S.....about 5% of the labor force.

In another report Pew says the average weekly earnings for unauthorized males is over 480 dollars a week. That's a fortune compared to wages in Mexico and central America. And these mostly uneducated illegals bring something business owners want.

Cheap labor and hard labor.

JOSE "sometimes the Americans don't want to do the job, hard job, you know. And the Mexicans,, the Mexicans do it."

The is not true, because they are not doing and do not want to do the hot and dirty work either and they say so.

REV. MIKE SEALY "we're hiring these folks because we can't find local people for the 8, 9 and 10 dollars an hour to help work tobacco and pick tomatoes."

[/quote:3rkqpa9q]Immigration experts have plenty to say about that.....

These jobs are just stepping stones and they do not return. That is why year after year more workers are needed.

If the illegals are doing jobs the Americans won't do why don't they just run for political office? Should be a lot of openings.

If 12-20 million illegal aliens are here doing work that Americans will not do, why do farmers in Calif not have enough workers to harvest their crops? If we cannot get workers from Mexico why don't we bring them in from another country. There are people willing to do farm labor.
Is a guest worker program really a guest worker program? It looks as if we do not need a guest workers program.


Guest-Worker Debate: Human or Mechanical Labor
by Carrie Kahn
Morning Edition, April 23, 2007 · American farmers, fretting over a shortage of workers as immigrant labor becomes harder to find, are being pushed to give mechanization greater consideration.
Even as thousands of Mexican workers push through turnstiles at the San Luis, Ariz., border station to pick winter lettuce crops in Yuma, Ariz., farmers still don't have a sufficient workforce."
Not a lot of people realize it but on an average day during this time of the year this port processes between 25,000 and 30,000 people a day," says port director William Brooks.
Once past the border agents, workers walk to waiting buses or pick up day work in front of a local convenience store.
Labor contractor Jose Campos, who is at the convenience store grabbing a quick cup of coffee, says despite being so close to Mexico he can't find enough workers.
"It's a big problem. To properly work a lettuce harvester you need 26 guys, I've only been able to bring them eight or nine," says Campos.
Economists say farmers should stop complaining and find machines to do the work.But lettuce worker Jesus Mitra scoffs at the idea.
"You want a machine to do this instead of a person. There's no such thing, it hasn't been invented yet," Mitra says. "You have to have a person do it."
Or do you?
Agricultural economist Philip Martin doesn't think so. He says when labor is tight, wages rise and that pushes farmers to invest in mechanization.
"We certainly saw that in the 1970s when unions pushed up wages. That was a real decade of mechanization," says Martin.
But by the 1980s, he recalls, the Mexico peso plunged, labor was once again abundant and sanctions against employers hiring illegal workers were minimal.
"By not enforcing the immigration laws the government is sending a signal to farmers that by hiring unauthorized workers they do not have to make a transition to a more mechanized, higher productive agriculture — at least not right now," adds Martin.
But Manuel Cunha, who heads a farmers' group in Fresno, Calif., says mechanization can't solve all of agriculture's labor woes, especially for farmers who grow perishable crops like strawberries and tree fruits.
"If we don't care about how a fresh peach looks or taste that may be a different issue," he says.
Cunha wants Congress to pass the so-called Ag Jobs bill that would create a special guest worker program for agricultural workers.
He recognizes that farmers are mechanizing, but it will take time.
Fresno raisin farmer Trent Hammond isn't waiting for Congress to act.
In his work shed on his family's raisin-grape vineyard, he pulls out huge rolls of paper that will be used to dry the grapes into raisins. Traditionally this is hard work that must be done by hand. In fact, raisins are the most labor intensive crop in North America. It takes 60,000 farm hands to work the four-week harvest in late summer.
Still, Hammond is looking for ways to replace almost all his workers with machines.On his 43-acre plot he ripped out all of his old vines and is getting ready to plant new ones. These vines will grow straight out of the ground, leaving enough room for a machine to come through the rows.
"We are putting in stakes. We have about 15,000 cross arms, and we still have 28,000 vines we have to put in," he says.
And Hammond says once all the work is done, he will need only three field hands instead of 40.
Martin, the economist, says farmers have to move in that direction if they're going to compete with countries like Turkey and China.
"The ultimate goal is if we are going to have a competitive agriculture 20 years hence we have to compete on something other than wages," he says.
Though he concedes that to do that U.S. agriculture will look a lot different in the next two decades.
It will consist of larger mechanized fields and less small-time family farms.
ttp://www.npr.org/templates/story/story ... Id=9766514