Thread: With driver cards, illegal immigrants will take Oregon jobs: Guest opinion

Opponents of a new law granting driving privileges to illegal immigrants submitted about 60,000 signatures Oct. 13, 2013, to qualify a referendum for the November 2014 ballot. From left are Jim Ludwick, spokesman for Oregonians for Immigration Reform, Lee Vasche, executive director of the Signature Gathering Company of Oregon, Cynthia Kendoll, president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, and Rep. Sal Esquivel, R-Medford. (Yuxing Zheng/The Oregonian)

on January 25, 2014 at 12:41 PM, updated January 25, 2014 at 12:43 PM
By Richard F. LaMountain
oregonlive.com

On Jan. 1, a number of laws took effect that the Oregon Legislature passed in 2013. Thanks to the signatures of 58,000-plus Oregonians, however, the law granting driver cards to illegal immigrants was suspended and referred to the November 2014 ballot.

Though campaign season is months away, the dawn of the new year has brought two powerful arguments against driver cards. The first: Four-and-a-half years after the recession's official end, more than 130,000 Oregonians remain unemployed. The second: Three days after Christmas, some 17,800 of them — those jobless six months or more — lost their extended unemployment benefits.

The nexus between illegal-immigrant driver cards and unemployed Oregonians? Simple: Were not illegal immigrants taking Oregon jobs, many of those Oregonians may not have been unemployed in the first place. And if driver cards take effect, even more Oregonians are likely to be.

Some background: Until mid-2008, Oregon routinely issued eight-year licenses to illegal immigrants, which gave them a convenient means of transit to their jobsites. But that year, a new state law — Senate Bill 1080 — began requiring license applicants to prove legal U.S. presence. As a comprehensive Portland State University study first noted in 2011, almost certainly that law has kept many illegal immigrants from Oregon jobs.

In interviews with hundreds of migrant workers in the state, many here illegally, PSU's researchers found that those "who did not have a driver's license fared worse in the labor market than those who did." They were unemployed more often, worked fewer hours and made less money. "The obstacles and inconveniences of living in Oregon without the use of an automobile may make living in the state less attractive," the researchers concluded, and "operate to reduce the number of undocumented workers."

It is impossible to know precisely how many illegal immigrants SB 1080 has kept from Oregon jobs. But late last year, the PSU study was corroborated by a prominent driver-card advocate: Illegal immigrants, Eddie de la Cruz of Hermiston's Hispanic Advisory Committee told the East Oregonian, are leaving (in the newspaper's words) for "states where they are allowed to drive to work legally."

So SB 1080, it appears, is succeeding. Still, by the recent estimate of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, some 120,000 illegal immigrants hold Oregon jobs. Most of these are low-wage, low-skilled jobs in fields like food services, construction, and building maintenance/groundskeeping. Some deride these as the kinds of jobs "Americans won't do." Statistics, however, reveal the opposite: According to the Pew Hispanic Center, in one recent year 88 percent, 83 percent and 81 percent of the workforces in those three fields were filled by Americans or legal residents.

For many Oregonians, these kinds of jobs provide their families' main incomes; for others, critical supplemental income. For youths new to the job market, they provide experience in adult responsibility. And for many long-term unemployed, such jobs are the likeliest to offer a foot back into the working world.

But what if, in November, voters affirm the driver-card law? Once again, adult illegal immigrants in Oregon will be able to drive legally. This will better enable them to seek and hold Oregon jobs, and attract even more of them to Oregon.

The Oregonian has styled driver cards a matter of "personal freedom" for illegal immigrants. But Oregonians should commit to a different freedom: that of their economically vulnerable fellow citizens to find work without having to compete with people who have broken into our nation. To that end, in November they should reject illegal-immigrant driver cards.

Richard F. LaMountain served as a chief petitioner of the referendum effort to repeal illegal-immigrant driver cards. He lives in Cedar Mill.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/in...egal_immi.html

They are here illegally,there are laws against hiring them and Oregon want them to have a driving card to get to work. Go figure.