Thursday, June 25, 2009
Illegal Immigration Myths
The revised myths and the revised book in its entirety may be found at http://immigrationbook.blogspot.com/
Monday, June 22, 2009
AgJOBS Bill of Senator Feinstein
On May 14, 2009, Senator Feinstein, a faithful servant of California agricultural interests, introduced a revised AgJOBS bill that aids those interests at the expense of U.S. farm workers and taxpayers. The Feinstein bill's main features are 1) an amnesty (route to citizenship) for qualifying existing illegal agricultural workers and 2) changes in U.S. guest worker programs which would expand the use of foreign agricultural guest workers by American farmers. Below are counter arguments to the general thrust of the Feinstein bill.
Part I – Background
Overall, it is estimated that only 3% to 8% (with seasonal variation) of our illegal immigrant work force is currently employed in agriculture today. Immigrant farm labor is concentrated in labor-intensive vegetable, fruit and greenhouse agriculture representing about 20% of the nation’s agricultural sales. The vast majority of our agricultural output involves little immigrant labor.
Today and for many years in the past, fruit and vegetable agriculture in this country has relied heavily on inexpensive illegal immigrant labor, primarily from Mexico. The work is sufficiently grueling for the pay that there is turnover and most new illegal immigrants now bypass it for other types of low-level jobs in the United States that pay at least as much and which have become increasingly available to them. The typical Mexican illegal immigrant no longer wants nor needs to labor in the fields. Consequently, labor intensive agriculture now has some difficulty obtaining the immigrant labor it needs at the wages it wants to pay despite the presence of millions of illegal immigrants in this country and many others arriving daily. One manifestation of the labor shortage is that the fastest growing segment of the farm worker population in California is workers from rural villages in Mexico for whom Spanish is not the primary language (footnote 1).
Part II – Agricultural guest worker programs
All employers need to do to secure federal permission to hire foreign guest workers under the H2A and H2B programs is provide proof that no American wants the job. Once [their] request is granted, companies rely on recruiters of foreigners to do the rest, and the U.S. government stands back. There have been annual ceilings on how many workers can be hired under these programs which has limited their use.
These are questionable low-skilled labor programs because rather than pay what they have to in the U.S. labor market to get the quality of employees they want, companies can just say that they are not getting enough qualified employees at some wage that they would like to pay, which by definition would be a below market wage, and the U.S. government can approve the request on that basis.
Low-skilled guest worker programs deprive Americans at the lower end of the labor pool of employment opportunities and higher wages. Moreover, when foreign recruiters are used to line up the temporary workers in other countries, they may extort fees from the foreign workers who want to sign up for the temporary programs (see, for example, Traci Carl (Associated Press), “U.S. Temporary Worker Program – Poor Migrants Often Extorted by Criminal Network of Recruiters,” Tribune (San Luis Obispo), May 27, 2007; and Nathan Thornburgh/Vass, “How Not to Treat the Guests,” Time, June 4, 2007, and Thomas Frank, “Modern Slavery Comes to Kansas,” Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2009).
There is no compelling reason why businesses should not pay American workers market wages for their labor needs, no matter how seasonal or otherwise temporary. The cheap labor guest worker programs are in essence an off-budget government handout to the employers involved, just as beneficial to them as giving them money grants or contracts out of the federal budget. Politicians may find advancing the guest worker needs of constituents easier than trying to obtain grants or contracts for them as there is little or no Congressional funding required for a new guest worker program or expanding an existing one.
Moreover, costs of guest workers such as any medical expenses or educational expenses for the workers or their families are neither borne by the employers nor the federal government. They are borne by hospitals or state or local government bodies. In essence guest worker programs represent subsidies to the employers who pay neither market rates for the guest labor nor fringe benefits such as health insurance or other expenses normally associated with hiring full-time employees.
In addition to the above flaws, these programs are not in the public interest because they are also a source of illegal immigrants. There is usually nothing to prevent participants from melting into the general population at any time they are working in the United States and many do.
The impact on consumers resulting from cutting off agriculture’s continuous supply of cheap immigrant labor would be surprisingly small! The agricultural labor part of the supermarket price of fresh fruits and vegetables is so little that a 40 percent wage increase for agricultural workers would lead to only a $10 per year increase that an average family would spend on all fresh fruits and vegetables according to Philip L. Martin, Professor of Agricultural Economics at University of California, Davis. (Philip L. Martin, “Guestworker Programs,” Transcript from Panel Discussion at the National Press Club, March 3, 2006. Available at Center for Immigration Studies website.)
The higher fruit and vegetable prices in the absence of illegal immigration would also be limited by some productivity improvements (that will result when the farm owners have an increased incentive to introduce labor saving devices) and some production being shifted to other countries where wages were lower. To the extent the latter occurs, both our country and the low-wage countries would benefit from increased trade. Even now we purchase large quantities of various fruits and vegetables, some seasonally, from many other countries. The 80% of our agricultural output that employs few laborers would be unaffected by the absence of cheap immigrant labor.
In summary, the words of Professor Briggs:
Both CIR [U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform] in 1997 and the earlier findings of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy in 1981 stated unequivocally that there should not be anymore guest worker programs for unskilled workers. Their views reflected those of virtually every scholar who has studied the issue both in the United States and elsewhere. Such programs have uniformly proven to be administratively difficult to enforce; hard to stop once enacted; depress wages for those employed in impacted occupations; stigmatize certain jobs as being only for foreigners; and inevitably generate more illegal immigration. (Quoted from Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., “Real Immigration Reform: The Path to Credibility,” Statement before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, May 3, 2007. The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform was chaired by former member of Congress Barbara Jordan from 1993 until her death in 1996. None of the major recommendations of the Jordan commission were ever acted upon.)
Part III – Illegal Immigrant Agricultural Workers
There is no compelling reason to satisfy labor-intensive industry’s demand for inexpensive immigrant workers by permitting large-scale illegal immigration as our government has done for many years. By gaining the benefits of inexpensive immigrant labor and not paying the associated costs or a higher wage to American citizen employees, employers of illegal immigrants are essentially being subsidized and are beneficiaries of our current immigration policy. Beyond the lost income and job opportunities for our poor, including blacks and earlier Hispanic immigrants, there are the associated costs of poor illegal immigrant employees and their families that are borne directly by various public entities which pay related health, education, welfare, and law enforcement expenses. There also are costs to our citizens, especially the poor, resulting from the diminution of public services and public funds available for them. These are all associated costs of illegal immigrant labor not borne by their employers.
Instead of being allowed access to illegal immigrant labor, why shouldn’t these employers pay higher wages to citizens when faced with labor shortages? In the absence of competing illegal immigrants, the lower end of the American labor force would do the labor intensive work at the higher wages that employers would have to pay. Higher wages would improve the lot of our low-income citizen workers and would result in some productivity improvements from increased mechanization and better utilization of employees.
In addition to providing incentives for increasing productivity, the higher wages which would result from a significant reduction in our illegal immigration would also lead to some production being shifted to other countries where wages were lower. To the extent the latter occurs, both our country and the low-wage countries would benefit from increased trade. The United States would be specializing in the production of what it does best such as high technology and highly mechanized agriculture and trading for the more labor intensive output. In essence, through trade we would be benefiting from the low-cost foreign labor without the laborers coming here and the foreign labors would also benefit from our increased demand for their output. Today, when we purchase the many, many goods in our stores which are produced in foreign countries, both America and the goods-supplying countries are benefiting from trade.
In the past the scenario of rising wages has played out in labor intensive industries in the United States such as the manufacture of shoes and clothing, ending with most production moving out of the country. These industries were not protected by the availability of illegal immigrant labor or special quota immigrant labor and our country has benefited by trading for these labor intensive items instead of producing them. If politicians feel justified in awarding special assistance to fruit and vegetable agriculture, the hospitality industry, meat packers, or any other labor-intensive business they should do it through some form of explicit subsidy (or perhaps tariff, if possible, in the case of agricultural products), not by permitting increased immigration of low-cost laborers which has various hidden costs and consequences not borne by the businesses which are benefiting.
By choosing to not enforce our immigration laws as has been the case for many years in the United States, our government is increasing the profitability of the business employers of illegal immigrants. Like legislating guest worker programs, this is an off-budget way of helping these employers. If a business that has not employed many citizens in recent years suddenly wanted to assemble an American-only work force, not only would it have to pay more on an ongoing basis to attract Americans, market forces would probably require it to pay an extra amount in what might be called a “transition premium” compensation package until our labor market recognized that the new employment opportunity was a permanent one. Raise the wages high enough and not only would businesses get a sufficient number of citizen workers, but they will be able to choose among the applicants.
Of course, from the viewpoint of business, it is a much easier and a much more profitable solution to continue to obtain cheap foreign labor through illegal immigration or guest worker programs. And as we have seen, elected officials are often willing to “go to bat” for their business constituents (completely disregarding their poor laborer constituents) when called on with requests for guest workers or for applying political pressure to have immigration law enforcement deflected.
Again, there is no compelling reason for continuing to satisfy labor-intensive agriculture’s demand for cheap labor with immigrant labor, either by looking the other way with illegal immigrants or by having special immigrant quotas just for agriculture. In the absence of competing new immigrants, the lower end of the American labor force, including earlier Hispanic immigrants, would do the agricultural work at and benefit from the higher wages that employers would have to pay. President Kennedy believed this in the early 1960s when he started the closing down the Bracero program on the grounds that the inexpensive Mexican labor was adversely affecting the wages, working conditions, and employment opportunities of our own agricultural workers. Closing down access to illegal immigrant laborers was a key part of Cesar Chavez’s plan to improve conditions for farm workers through the United Farm Workers union. His advances for farm workers were subsequently undone by illegal immigration. (See Philip L. Martin, “Promise Unfulfilled,” Center for Immigration Studies, January 2004.)
As noted above in the guest worker section, any restrictions in the supply of cheap immigrant labor for agriculture through limitations in guest worker programs or illegal immigration, would have a surprisingly small effect on the retail prices of fruits and vegetables due to the small part of farm labor in the final cost of those outputs. In other words, large percentage increases in the cost of farm labor would have a small impact on supermarket prices. For the 80 percent of U.S. agriculture that is highly mechanized, the effect would be almost nil.
IV – Amnesty for existing illegal immigrant agricultural workers
Before getting into the general negatives of any amnesty for illegal immigrants, it is important to note that the last time there was a major amnesty specifically for farm workers (that amnesty was contained in a part of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 or IRCA) it was the victim of massive fraud (see “Migrants’ False Claims: Fraud on a Huge Scale,” The New York Times, November 12, 1989). Many who failed to meet the minimum residency requirements or who lied about being farm workers were able to use fraudulent documents and/or fraudulent assertions to become legal permanent residents under the amnesty. Altogether it has been estimated that 70 percent of the approximately 3 million who were amnestied by IRCA had applications which were fraudulent in one way or other. (See Otis L. Graham Jr., “Amnesty Repeats Itself,” The American Conservative, June 18, 2007.)
Making millions of counterfeit documents for use in the U.S. is a highly profitable business in Mexico. Proof of farm employment documents will be widely available on streets here for less than $100. And now, as then, the numbers of applicants for any farm worker amnesty will be so large that our bureaucracy will be able to do little more than rubber stamp everything approved. There will be no political motivation to discover fraud and no effective penalty to deter fraud, so another massive fraud is all but a certainty, culminating with many illegal immigrants fraudulently qualifying for citizenship.
It is difficult to justify using an amnesty to both reward people who have broken a number of our laws and allow them to remain in the United States while others are going through the process of obtaining legal immigration papers while living in their countries of origin as required by American law. Moreover, any future amnesty will continue our now established pattern of periodic amnesties. Especially when combined with very limited enforcement of immigration laws within the United States, amnesties only serve to encourage future illegal immigration which anticipates the next amnesty. And the more potential illegal immigrants that believe there will be another amnesty, the more likely a burgeoning illegal immigrant population will make that a self-fulfilling prophecy.
An estimated 80 percent of our current illegal immigrant population is Hispanic with limited education, an estimated 60 percent not having graduated high school. Farm workers are no doubt at the lower end of this spectrum. It makes no sense to make major efforts with massive expenditures to eradicate poverty in this country and at the same time import much more poverty through permitting illegal immigration and amnesty.
Calling on the work of a number of different researchers, Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has gone to some lengths to document the ways in which our illegal immigrant population and their offspring are likely to impose significant costs on our society over many years if a general amnesty were enacted.114 It is expected that government costs of all types over the lifetimes of amnestied immigrants will be substantially in excess of taxes paid.115 (footnotes 114-126 follow this section)
Once amnestied, low-income immigrants can eventually qualify for citizenship116 and thereby access welfare programs that are unavailable to them as illegal immigrants. The fact that Hispanics in the United States have had a history of high welfare use117 contributes to the expectation that Hispanic immigrants legalized by a future amnesty will also come to be characterized as having high welfare usage. The extent of welfare usage of Hispanics in the United States has been attributed to: persistent low incomes related to low educational attainment, high teen birthrates, high rates of births out of wedlock,118 and cultural factors.119 Also once legalized and possessing a social security number, many low-income amnestied immigrants who file income tax returns will qualify for the earned income credit,120 a form of welfare not available to them as illegal immigrants.
Although studies of educational levels achieved by second and third generation Mexicans in the United States show improvements over the educational attainments of the immigrants, they also unfortunately show that educational deficiencies still persist with relatively high percentages dropping out of high school and relatively low percentages attaining college degrees.121 This does not auger well for the overall contribution to the economy of the offspring of amnestied immigrants.
Rector also notes that additional societal costs will result if the newly amnestied immigrants and their offspring adopt the cited high crime rate of Hispanics in the United States.122 The fact that most of our Hispanic immigrants come from countries where corruption and lawlessness are widespread may have an influence on their U.S. crime statistics.123 Illegal immigrants themselves do not have above average crime rates – probably due to a combination of appreciation for their improved economic situation and the knowledge that criminal convictions are the one thing that will get them deported. It is an entirely different story for succeeding generations which have a much higher crime rate. There is evidence that a significant number of the descendents of poor Hispanic immigrants are slipping into the same vicious circle that has trapped too many of our poor citizens: the circle of poverty, low educational attainment, drugs, high numbers of teen births out of wedlock, broken families, gangs, crime, and prison time.124
Following an amnesty, newly legalized immigrants will be able to legally bring into the country spouses and unmarried children who are not present for the amnesty. In addition, by today’s immigration laws amnestied illegal immigrants who are at least 21 years old and who become citizens will be entitled to sponsor parents, siblings and their families, and married children as future legal immigrants, subject to annual limitations on category totals. This can be the start of an extended chain of legal immigration with the spouses of siblings or spouses of married children having entirely different families of their own that they will be able in turn to bring into the United States, all subject to restrictive annual limitations. These relatives will typically have the same low education and skill characteristics of the amnestied immigrants. Moreover, the parents sponsored by amnestied immigrants will be eligible after five years for Medicaid at an average cost of $11,000 per year for the elderly.125 The annual limits on some categories of family-sponsored preferences has led to a current immigration waitlist of an estimated eight million “overseas” relatives of American citizens, many of whom are living in the U.S. illegally today rather than wait outside the country for what is likely to be many years before it will be their turn to enter legally.126
Foonotes
1 According to a 2005 survey of California farm workers conducted by the EPA, the non-Spanish speaking workers from Mexico's rural areas constituted 16 percent to 20 percent of California farm workers. See Sarah Arnquist, “Study Paints New Challenges Concerning Migrants,” Tribune (San Luis Obispo), August 20, 2006.
Footnotes 114-126 for above text
114 Robert Rector, “Amnesty and Continued Low Skill Immigration Will Substantially Raise Welfare Costs and Poverty,” Testimony before the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, August 2, 2006.
115 A study of the National Academy of Sciences estimates that immigrants to the United States who have not graduated high school each cost U.S. taxpayers $89,000 net present cost over their lifetimes without regard to the costs of educating their children. The corresponding number for high school graduates is $31,000 net present cost. For those with a college education the number goes to a positive contribution of $105,000 net present value. See National Research Council, The New Americans: Economic, Demographic and Fiscal Effects of Immigration (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1997), p.334.
116 With an amnesty, qualifying illegal immigrants become legal permanent residents. Requirements for citizenship include living in the United States continuously for five years as legal permanent residents and demonstrating an ability to read, write, and speak English and knowledge and understanding of U.S. history and government.
117 Robert Rector cites Gordon H. Lester and Jan Tin, “Dynamics of Economic Well-Being: Program Participation, 1996 to 1999 Who Gets Assistance?” Household Economic Studies, Current Population Reports, P70-94, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington D.C., January 2004 which shows that for 1999, Hispanics in the United States were almost three times more likely to receive welfare than non-Hispanic whites. Moreover, among families that received aid, the median aid received for Hispanic families was significantly higher than the median for non-Hispanic white families. In addition, Hispanics were more than three times as likely to be long-term welfare program participants than non-Hispanic whites.
118 Hispanic mothers born in the United States had an illegitimacy rate of 50 percent in 2003 (the most recent year of the data used) in contrast to 43 percent for Hispanic immigrant mothers and 24 percent for whites. Data from Steven A. Camarota, “Illegitimate Nation – An Examination of Out-of-Wedlock Births Among Immigrants and Natives,” Center for Immigration Studies, May 2007.
119 Cultural factors were highlighted by George J. Borjas who studied immigrant usage of welfare. Among his observations were that there were “large differences in welfare propensities among national origin groups.” Among the nationalities of households with high welfare usage after at least ten years in the United States with 1998 data were Dominican Republic (58 percent), Mexico (33.6 percent), Cuba (28.6 percent), El Salvador (25.9 percent). By contrast Poland (6.8 percent), India (5.6 percent), were at the low end of the range. Borjas also found that “the longer that immigrants live in the United States, the more likely they are to use welfare….” See George J. Borjas, Heaven’s Door (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), Chapter 6.
120 Income tax filers with incomes below defined levels are eligible for the earned income credit. The maximum credit for filers with two qualifying children for the 2006 tax year was $4,536. The 2006 maximum for filers with no qualifying children was $412. If the earned income tax credit exceeds the filer’s tax liability, the IRS will send the filer a check for the difference.
121 Rector cites Richard Fry and B. Lindsay Lowell, “Work or Study: Different Fortunes of U.S. Latino Generations,” Pew Hispanic Center, May 28, 2002. A different study which shows a lower high school dropout rate for Hispanics also shows that the third generation has a higher dropout rate than the second, both also being significantly higher than the non-Hispanic dropout rates: Pia Orrenius, “Is the U.S. Still a Melting Pot?” Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Southwest Economy, May/June 2004.
122 From Rector: “The age specific incarceration rates in federal and state prisons (prisoners per 100,000 residents in the same age group in the general population) are two to two and a half times higher for Hispanics than for non-Hispanic whites. Relatively little of the higher imprisonment rate of Hispanics seems to be due to immigration violations.” Rector cites Paige M. Harrison, and Allen J. Beck, “Prisoners in 2003,” Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, NCJ 205335, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington D.C. November 2004, table 12. Also cited was Thomas P. Bonczar, “The Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population 1974-2001,” Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, NCJ197976, August 2003.
123 Alan Riding, Distant Neighbors, subtitled A Portrait of the Mexicans (New York: Vintage Books, 2000), 113, states: “Mexican officials find difficulty in admitting – above all to foreigners – that corruption is essential to the operation and survival of the political system. But the system has in fact never lived without corruption and it would disintegrate or change beyond recognition if it tried to do so.” On 116: “In a sense, the fact that corruption continues to flourish in myriad forms elsewhere [in addition to that found in the upper levels of the Mexican government] confirms that the problem is cultural….”
124 See Heather Mac Donald, Victor Davis Hanson, Steven Malanga, The Immigration Solution (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2007). This book extensively documents the social and economic fallout from our current illegal immigration.
125 Robert Rector.
126 Mark Krikorian, “Limit Relatives Rights,” USA Today, June 18, 2007 mentions the eight million estimate. This article also mentions that the failed immigration bill of May/June 2007 proposed to eliminate extended family categories of legal immigration as a tradeoff for amnesty, but only after admitting the millions on the waiting list over the next eight or ten years. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), a staunch immigrant advocate, is quoted as saying of this proposal: “The day it passes, we’re going to put in legislation to try to fix it [restore extended family preferences in legal immigration].” As part of its recommendations, the Jordan Commission proposed that the level of legal immigration be reduced by eliminating some of the family preferences which can give rise to extended chains of legal immigration.
Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act (AgJOBS) -- Features of the Bill
· Undocumented agriculture workers would be eligible for a “blue card” if they can demonstrate having worked in American agriculture for at least 150 work days (or 863 hours) over the previous two years before December 31, 2008.
· The blue card holder would be required to work in American agriculture for an additional three years (working at least150 work days per year) or five years (working at least 100 work days per year), before becoming eligible to apply for a green card to become a permanent legal resident.
· The blue card would entitle the worker to a temporary legal resident status. The total number of blue cards would be capped at 1.35 million over a five-year period, and the program would sunset after five years.
· Before applying for a green card, participants would be required to pay a fine of $500, show that they are current on their taxes, and show that they have not been convicted of any crime that involves bodily injury, the threat of serious bodily injury, or harm to property in excess of $500.
· Employment would be verified through employer issued statements, pay stubs, W-2 forms, employer contracts, time cards, employer sponsored health care or payment of taxes.
· All blue cards would have encrypted, biometric identifiers and contain other anti-counterfeiting protection.
· The bill also would streamline the H-2A seasonal worker program so that it realistically responds to agriculture needs.
· The bill would shorten the labor certification process, which now often takes 60 days or more, and reduce the approval time to 48 to 72 hours.
· The bill also would require that growers first advertise and recruit U.S. workers in the local area by filing job notifications with state employment agencies.
· The Department of Labor would be required to process H-2A applications within 7 days and notify the consulate or port of entry within 7 days of receipt.
· The Adverse Effect Wage Rate would be frozen for three years, to be gradually replaced with a prevailing wage standard.
· H-2A visas would be secure and counterfeit resistant.
Part I – Background
Overall, it is estimated that only 3% to 8% (with seasonal variation) of our illegal immigrant work force is currently employed in agriculture today. Immigrant farm labor is concentrated in labor-intensive vegetable, fruit and greenhouse agriculture representing about 20% of the nation’s agricultural sales. The vast majority of our agricultural output involves little immigrant labor.
Today and for many years in the past, fruit and vegetable agriculture in this country has relied heavily on inexpensive illegal immigrant labor, primarily from Mexico. The work is sufficiently grueling for the pay that there is turnover and most new illegal immigrants now bypass it for other types of low-level jobs in the United States that pay at least as much and which have become increasingly available to them. The typical Mexican illegal immigrant no longer wants nor needs to labor in the fields. Consequently, labor intensive agriculture now has some difficulty obtaining the immigrant labor it needs at the wages it wants to pay despite the presence of millions of illegal immigrants in this country and many others arriving daily. One manifestation of the labor shortage is that the fastest growing segment of the farm worker population in California is workers from rural villages in Mexico for whom Spanish is not the primary language (footnote 1).
Part II – Agricultural guest worker programs
All employers need to do to secure federal permission to hire foreign guest workers under the H2A and H2B programs is provide proof that no American wants the job. Once [their] request is granted, companies rely on recruiters of foreigners to do the rest, and the U.S. government stands back. There have been annual ceilings on how many workers can be hired under these programs which has limited their use.
These are questionable low-skilled labor programs because rather than pay what they have to in the U.S. labor market to get the quality of employees they want, companies can just say that they are not getting enough qualified employees at some wage that they would like to pay, which by definition would be a below market wage, and the U.S. government can approve the request on that basis.
Low-skilled guest worker programs deprive Americans at the lower end of the labor pool of employment opportunities and higher wages. Moreover, when foreign recruiters are used to line up the temporary workers in other countries, they may extort fees from the foreign workers who want to sign up for the temporary programs (see, for example, Traci Carl (Associated Press), “U.S. Temporary Worker Program – Poor Migrants Often Extorted by Criminal Network of Recruiters,” Tribune (San Luis Obispo), May 27, 2007; and Nathan Thornburgh/Vass, “How Not to Treat the Guests,” Time, June 4, 2007, and Thomas Frank, “Modern Slavery Comes to Kansas,” Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2009).
There is no compelling reason why businesses should not pay American workers market wages for their labor needs, no matter how seasonal or otherwise temporary. The cheap labor guest worker programs are in essence an off-budget government handout to the employers involved, just as beneficial to them as giving them money grants or contracts out of the federal budget. Politicians may find advancing the guest worker needs of constituents easier than trying to obtain grants or contracts for them as there is little or no Congressional funding required for a new guest worker program or expanding an existing one.
Moreover, costs of guest workers such as any medical expenses or educational expenses for the workers or their families are neither borne by the employers nor the federal government. They are borne by hospitals or state or local government bodies. In essence guest worker programs represent subsidies to the employers who pay neither market rates for the guest labor nor fringe benefits such as health insurance or other expenses normally associated with hiring full-time employees.
In addition to the above flaws, these programs are not in the public interest because they are also a source of illegal immigrants. There is usually nothing to prevent participants from melting into the general population at any time they are working in the United States and many do.
The impact on consumers resulting from cutting off agriculture’s continuous supply of cheap immigrant labor would be surprisingly small! The agricultural labor part of the supermarket price of fresh fruits and vegetables is so little that a 40 percent wage increase for agricultural workers would lead to only a $10 per year increase that an average family would spend on all fresh fruits and vegetables according to Philip L. Martin, Professor of Agricultural Economics at University of California, Davis. (Philip L. Martin, “Guestworker Programs,” Transcript from Panel Discussion at the National Press Club, March 3, 2006. Available at Center for Immigration Studies website.)
The higher fruit and vegetable prices in the absence of illegal immigration would also be limited by some productivity improvements (that will result when the farm owners have an increased incentive to introduce labor saving devices) and some production being shifted to other countries where wages were lower. To the extent the latter occurs, both our country and the low-wage countries would benefit from increased trade. Even now we purchase large quantities of various fruits and vegetables, some seasonally, from many other countries. The 80% of our agricultural output that employs few laborers would be unaffected by the absence of cheap immigrant labor.
In summary, the words of Professor Briggs:
Both CIR [U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform] in 1997 and the earlier findings of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy in 1981 stated unequivocally that there should not be anymore guest worker programs for unskilled workers. Their views reflected those of virtually every scholar who has studied the issue both in the United States and elsewhere. Such programs have uniformly proven to be administratively difficult to enforce; hard to stop once enacted; depress wages for those employed in impacted occupations; stigmatize certain jobs as being only for foreigners; and inevitably generate more illegal immigration. (Quoted from Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., “Real Immigration Reform: The Path to Credibility,” Statement before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, May 3, 2007. The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform was chaired by former member of Congress Barbara Jordan from 1993 until her death in 1996. None of the major recommendations of the Jordan commission were ever acted upon.)
Part III – Illegal Immigrant Agricultural Workers
There is no compelling reason to satisfy labor-intensive industry’s demand for inexpensive immigrant workers by permitting large-scale illegal immigration as our government has done for many years. By gaining the benefits of inexpensive immigrant labor and not paying the associated costs or a higher wage to American citizen employees, employers of illegal immigrants are essentially being subsidized and are beneficiaries of our current immigration policy. Beyond the lost income and job opportunities for our poor, including blacks and earlier Hispanic immigrants, there are the associated costs of poor illegal immigrant employees and their families that are borne directly by various public entities which pay related health, education, welfare, and law enforcement expenses. There also are costs to our citizens, especially the poor, resulting from the diminution of public services and public funds available for them. These are all associated costs of illegal immigrant labor not borne by their employers.
Instead of being allowed access to illegal immigrant labor, why shouldn’t these employers pay higher wages to citizens when faced with labor shortages? In the absence of competing illegal immigrants, the lower end of the American labor force would do the labor intensive work at the higher wages that employers would have to pay. Higher wages would improve the lot of our low-income citizen workers and would result in some productivity improvements from increased mechanization and better utilization of employees.
In addition to providing incentives for increasing productivity, the higher wages which would result from a significant reduction in our illegal immigration would also lead to some production being shifted to other countries where wages were lower. To the extent the latter occurs, both our country and the low-wage countries would benefit from increased trade. The United States would be specializing in the production of what it does best such as high technology and highly mechanized agriculture and trading for the more labor intensive output. In essence, through trade we would be benefiting from the low-cost foreign labor without the laborers coming here and the foreign labors would also benefit from our increased demand for their output. Today, when we purchase the many, many goods in our stores which are produced in foreign countries, both America and the goods-supplying countries are benefiting from trade.
In the past the scenario of rising wages has played out in labor intensive industries in the United States such as the manufacture of shoes and clothing, ending with most production moving out of the country. These industries were not protected by the availability of illegal immigrant labor or special quota immigrant labor and our country has benefited by trading for these labor intensive items instead of producing them. If politicians feel justified in awarding special assistance to fruit and vegetable agriculture, the hospitality industry, meat packers, or any other labor-intensive business they should do it through some form of explicit subsidy (or perhaps tariff, if possible, in the case of agricultural products), not by permitting increased immigration of low-cost laborers which has various hidden costs and consequences not borne by the businesses which are benefiting.
By choosing to not enforce our immigration laws as has been the case for many years in the United States, our government is increasing the profitability of the business employers of illegal immigrants. Like legislating guest worker programs, this is an off-budget way of helping these employers. If a business that has not employed many citizens in recent years suddenly wanted to assemble an American-only work force, not only would it have to pay more on an ongoing basis to attract Americans, market forces would probably require it to pay an extra amount in what might be called a “transition premium” compensation package until our labor market recognized that the new employment opportunity was a permanent one. Raise the wages high enough and not only would businesses get a sufficient number of citizen workers, but they will be able to choose among the applicants.
Of course, from the viewpoint of business, it is a much easier and a much more profitable solution to continue to obtain cheap foreign labor through illegal immigration or guest worker programs. And as we have seen, elected officials are often willing to “go to bat” for their business constituents (completely disregarding their poor laborer constituents) when called on with requests for guest workers or for applying political pressure to have immigration law enforcement deflected.
Again, there is no compelling reason for continuing to satisfy labor-intensive agriculture’s demand for cheap labor with immigrant labor, either by looking the other way with illegal immigrants or by having special immigrant quotas just for agriculture. In the absence of competing new immigrants, the lower end of the American labor force, including earlier Hispanic immigrants, would do the agricultural work at and benefit from the higher wages that employers would have to pay. President Kennedy believed this in the early 1960s when he started the closing down the Bracero program on the grounds that the inexpensive Mexican labor was adversely affecting the wages, working conditions, and employment opportunities of our own agricultural workers. Closing down access to illegal immigrant laborers was a key part of Cesar Chavez’s plan to improve conditions for farm workers through the United Farm Workers union. His advances for farm workers were subsequently undone by illegal immigration. (See Philip L. Martin, “Promise Unfulfilled,” Center for Immigration Studies, January 2004.)
As noted above in the guest worker section, any restrictions in the supply of cheap immigrant labor for agriculture through limitations in guest worker programs or illegal immigration, would have a surprisingly small effect on the retail prices of fruits and vegetables due to the small part of farm labor in the final cost of those outputs. In other words, large percentage increases in the cost of farm labor would have a small impact on supermarket prices. For the 80 percent of U.S. agriculture that is highly mechanized, the effect would be almost nil.
IV – Amnesty for existing illegal immigrant agricultural workers
Before getting into the general negatives of any amnesty for illegal immigrants, it is important to note that the last time there was a major amnesty specifically for farm workers (that amnesty was contained in a part of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 or IRCA) it was the victim of massive fraud (see “Migrants’ False Claims: Fraud on a Huge Scale,” The New York Times, November 12, 1989). Many who failed to meet the minimum residency requirements or who lied about being farm workers were able to use fraudulent documents and/or fraudulent assertions to become legal permanent residents under the amnesty. Altogether it has been estimated that 70 percent of the approximately 3 million who were amnestied by IRCA had applications which were fraudulent in one way or other. (See Otis L. Graham Jr., “Amnesty Repeats Itself,” The American Conservative, June 18, 2007.)
Making millions of counterfeit documents for use in the U.S. is a highly profitable business in Mexico. Proof of farm employment documents will be widely available on streets here for less than $100. And now, as then, the numbers of applicants for any farm worker amnesty will be so large that our bureaucracy will be able to do little more than rubber stamp everything approved. There will be no political motivation to discover fraud and no effective penalty to deter fraud, so another massive fraud is all but a certainty, culminating with many illegal immigrants fraudulently qualifying for citizenship.
It is difficult to justify using an amnesty to both reward people who have broken a number of our laws and allow them to remain in the United States while others are going through the process of obtaining legal immigration papers while living in their countries of origin as required by American law. Moreover, any future amnesty will continue our now established pattern of periodic amnesties. Especially when combined with very limited enforcement of immigration laws within the United States, amnesties only serve to encourage future illegal immigration which anticipates the next amnesty. And the more potential illegal immigrants that believe there will be another amnesty, the more likely a burgeoning illegal immigrant population will make that a self-fulfilling prophecy.
An estimated 80 percent of our current illegal immigrant population is Hispanic with limited education, an estimated 60 percent not having graduated high school. Farm workers are no doubt at the lower end of this spectrum. It makes no sense to make major efforts with massive expenditures to eradicate poverty in this country and at the same time import much more poverty through permitting illegal immigration and amnesty.
Calling on the work of a number of different researchers, Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has gone to some lengths to document the ways in which our illegal immigrant population and their offspring are likely to impose significant costs on our society over many years if a general amnesty were enacted.114 It is expected that government costs of all types over the lifetimes of amnestied immigrants will be substantially in excess of taxes paid.115 (footnotes 114-126 follow this section)
Once amnestied, low-income immigrants can eventually qualify for citizenship116 and thereby access welfare programs that are unavailable to them as illegal immigrants. The fact that Hispanics in the United States have had a history of high welfare use117 contributes to the expectation that Hispanic immigrants legalized by a future amnesty will also come to be characterized as having high welfare usage. The extent of welfare usage of Hispanics in the United States has been attributed to: persistent low incomes related to low educational attainment, high teen birthrates, high rates of births out of wedlock,118 and cultural factors.119 Also once legalized and possessing a social security number, many low-income amnestied immigrants who file income tax returns will qualify for the earned income credit,120 a form of welfare not available to them as illegal immigrants.
Although studies of educational levels achieved by second and third generation Mexicans in the United States show improvements over the educational attainments of the immigrants, they also unfortunately show that educational deficiencies still persist with relatively high percentages dropping out of high school and relatively low percentages attaining college degrees.121 This does not auger well for the overall contribution to the economy of the offspring of amnestied immigrants.
Rector also notes that additional societal costs will result if the newly amnestied immigrants and their offspring adopt the cited high crime rate of Hispanics in the United States.122 The fact that most of our Hispanic immigrants come from countries where corruption and lawlessness are widespread may have an influence on their U.S. crime statistics.123 Illegal immigrants themselves do not have above average crime rates – probably due to a combination of appreciation for their improved economic situation and the knowledge that criminal convictions are the one thing that will get them deported. It is an entirely different story for succeeding generations which have a much higher crime rate. There is evidence that a significant number of the descendents of poor Hispanic immigrants are slipping into the same vicious circle that has trapped too many of our poor citizens: the circle of poverty, low educational attainment, drugs, high numbers of teen births out of wedlock, broken families, gangs, crime, and prison time.124
Following an amnesty, newly legalized immigrants will be able to legally bring into the country spouses and unmarried children who are not present for the amnesty. In addition, by today’s immigration laws amnestied illegal immigrants who are at least 21 years old and who become citizens will be entitled to sponsor parents, siblings and their families, and married children as future legal immigrants, subject to annual limitations on category totals. This can be the start of an extended chain of legal immigration with the spouses of siblings or spouses of married children having entirely different families of their own that they will be able in turn to bring into the United States, all subject to restrictive annual limitations. These relatives will typically have the same low education and skill characteristics of the amnestied immigrants. Moreover, the parents sponsored by amnestied immigrants will be eligible after five years for Medicaid at an average cost of $11,000 per year for the elderly.125 The annual limits on some categories of family-sponsored preferences has led to a current immigration waitlist of an estimated eight million “overseas” relatives of American citizens, many of whom are living in the U.S. illegally today rather than wait outside the country for what is likely to be many years before it will be their turn to enter legally.126
Foonotes
1 According to a 2005 survey of California farm workers conducted by the EPA, the non-Spanish speaking workers from Mexico's rural areas constituted 16 percent to 20 percent of California farm workers. See Sarah Arnquist, “Study Paints New Challenges Concerning Migrants,” Tribune (San Luis Obispo), August 20, 2006.
Footnotes 114-126 for above text
114 Robert Rector, “Amnesty and Continued Low Skill Immigration Will Substantially Raise Welfare Costs and Poverty,” Testimony before the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, August 2, 2006.
115 A study of the National Academy of Sciences estimates that immigrants to the United States who have not graduated high school each cost U.S. taxpayers $89,000 net present cost over their lifetimes without regard to the costs of educating their children. The corresponding number for high school graduates is $31,000 net present cost. For those with a college education the number goes to a positive contribution of $105,000 net present value. See National Research Council, The New Americans: Economic, Demographic and Fiscal Effects of Immigration (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1997), p.334.
116 With an amnesty, qualifying illegal immigrants become legal permanent residents. Requirements for citizenship include living in the United States continuously for five years as legal permanent residents and demonstrating an ability to read, write, and speak English and knowledge and understanding of U.S. history and government.
117 Robert Rector cites Gordon H. Lester and Jan Tin, “Dynamics of Economic Well-Being: Program Participation, 1996 to 1999 Who Gets Assistance?” Household Economic Studies, Current Population Reports, P70-94, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington D.C., January 2004 which shows that for 1999, Hispanics in the United States were almost three times more likely to receive welfare than non-Hispanic whites. Moreover, among families that received aid, the median aid received for Hispanic families was significantly higher than the median for non-Hispanic white families. In addition, Hispanics were more than three times as likely to be long-term welfare program participants than non-Hispanic whites.
118 Hispanic mothers born in the United States had an illegitimacy rate of 50 percent in 2003 (the most recent year of the data used) in contrast to 43 percent for Hispanic immigrant mothers and 24 percent for whites. Data from Steven A. Camarota, “Illegitimate Nation – An Examination of Out-of-Wedlock Births Among Immigrants and Natives,” Center for Immigration Studies, May 2007.
119 Cultural factors were highlighted by George J. Borjas who studied immigrant usage of welfare. Among his observations were that there were “large differences in welfare propensities among national origin groups.” Among the nationalities of households with high welfare usage after at least ten years in the United States with 1998 data were Dominican Republic (58 percent), Mexico (33.6 percent), Cuba (28.6 percent), El Salvador (25.9 percent). By contrast Poland (6.8 percent), India (5.6 percent), were at the low end of the range. Borjas also found that “the longer that immigrants live in the United States, the more likely they are to use welfare….” See George J. Borjas, Heaven’s Door (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), Chapter 6.
120 Income tax filers with incomes below defined levels are eligible for the earned income credit. The maximum credit for filers with two qualifying children for the 2006 tax year was $4,536. The 2006 maximum for filers with no qualifying children was $412. If the earned income tax credit exceeds the filer’s tax liability, the IRS will send the filer a check for the difference.
121 Rector cites Richard Fry and B. Lindsay Lowell, “Work or Study: Different Fortunes of U.S. Latino Generations,” Pew Hispanic Center, May 28, 2002. A different study which shows a lower high school dropout rate for Hispanics also shows that the third generation has a higher dropout rate than the second, both also being significantly higher than the non-Hispanic dropout rates: Pia Orrenius, “Is the U.S. Still a Melting Pot?” Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Southwest Economy, May/June 2004.
122 From Rector: “The age specific incarceration rates in federal and state prisons (prisoners per 100,000 residents in the same age group in the general population) are two to two and a half times higher for Hispanics than for non-Hispanic whites. Relatively little of the higher imprisonment rate of Hispanics seems to be due to immigration violations.” Rector cites Paige M. Harrison, and Allen J. Beck, “Prisoners in 2003,” Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, NCJ 205335, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington D.C. November 2004, table 12. Also cited was Thomas P. Bonczar, “The Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population 1974-2001,” Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, NCJ197976, August 2003.
123 Alan Riding, Distant Neighbors, subtitled A Portrait of the Mexicans (New York: Vintage Books, 2000), 113, states: “Mexican officials find difficulty in admitting – above all to foreigners – that corruption is essential to the operation and survival of the political system. But the system has in fact never lived without corruption and it would disintegrate or change beyond recognition if it tried to do so.” On 116: “In a sense, the fact that corruption continues to flourish in myriad forms elsewhere [in addition to that found in the upper levels of the Mexican government] confirms that the problem is cultural….”
124 See Heather Mac Donald, Victor Davis Hanson, Steven Malanga, The Immigration Solution (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2007). This book extensively documents the social and economic fallout from our current illegal immigration.
125 Robert Rector.
126 Mark Krikorian, “Limit Relatives Rights,” USA Today, June 18, 2007 mentions the eight million estimate. This article also mentions that the failed immigration bill of May/June 2007 proposed to eliminate extended family categories of legal immigration as a tradeoff for amnesty, but only after admitting the millions on the waiting list over the next eight or ten years. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), a staunch immigrant advocate, is quoted as saying of this proposal: “The day it passes, we’re going to put in legislation to try to fix it [restore extended family preferences in legal immigration].” As part of its recommendations, the Jordan Commission proposed that the level of legal immigration be reduced by eliminating some of the family preferences which can give rise to extended chains of legal immigration.
Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act (AgJOBS) -- Features of the Bill
· Undocumented agriculture workers would be eligible for a “blue card” if they can demonstrate having worked in American agriculture for at least 150 work days (or 863 hours) over the previous two years before December 31, 2008.
· The blue card holder would be required to work in American agriculture for an additional three years (working at least150 work days per year) or five years (working at least 100 work days per year), before becoming eligible to apply for a green card to become a permanent legal resident.
· The blue card would entitle the worker to a temporary legal resident status. The total number of blue cards would be capped at 1.35 million over a five-year period, and the program would sunset after five years.
· Before applying for a green card, participants would be required to pay a fine of $500, show that they are current on their taxes, and show that they have not been convicted of any crime that involves bodily injury, the threat of serious bodily injury, or harm to property in excess of $500.
· Employment would be verified through employer issued statements, pay stubs, W-2 forms, employer contracts, time cards, employer sponsored health care or payment of taxes.
· All blue cards would have encrypted, biometric identifiers and contain other anti-counterfeiting protection.
· The bill also would streamline the H-2A seasonal worker program so that it realistically responds to agriculture needs.
· The bill would shorten the labor certification process, which now often takes 60 days or more, and reduce the approval time to 48 to 72 hours.
· The bill also would require that growers first advertise and recruit U.S. workers in the local area by filing job notifications with state employment agencies.
· The Department of Labor would be required to process H-2A applications within 7 days and notify the consulate or port of entry within 7 days of receipt.
· The Adverse Effect Wage Rate would be frozen for three years, to be gradually replaced with a prevailing wage standard.
· H-2A visas would be secure and counterfeit resistant.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Our Immigration Policies Are Hurting Our Poor
Who are the American winners and losers from our immigration policies that are leading to legal and illegal immigration that is predominately low skilled and little educated? The primary winners are middle and upper income citizens who employ immigrants at low wages – company owners and small employers who have a need for low cost labor, and individuals who employ immigrants directly for purposes such as maids, nannies, and gardeners. The primary losers are our own little-educated citizens who must compete with the immigrants for jobs. In this competition it is they who suffer reduced job availability and lower compensation. Moreover, the benefits of our various social safety net and education programs for our own lower-income citizens are diluted by the addition of large numbers of poor immigrants and their children.
It is a myth that our new immigrants are only taking jobs that Americans won’t do. Prior to the large scale immigration of recent years, it was American citizens who made hotel beds, cleaned office buildings, washed restaurant dishes, labored at construction sites, and provided maid and yard labor for homeowners. As time has passed many immigrants have learned to speak English enabling them to find new low-wage work opportunities such as serving as retail clerks. Americans with little education and students seeking part-time or summer work are having increasing difficulty competing with immigrants for low level jobs. Our immigrants will work harder under worse working conditions and for lower compensation than Americans because the immigrants find the income to be much better than what they could earn in their home countries if they could find employment there at all. In the absence of low wage immigrants, American employers of little educated workers would be forced to pay more in order to obtain needed employees and our low income citizens would thereby be better off with the availability of more job opportunities at higher compensation.
An example of social benefits being diluted by immigrants may be found in public housing. It occurs when immigrants occupy such housing units thereby decreasing the availability to citizens. Certain states and municipalities have gone out of their way to protect illegal immigrants from discovery and have offered them social benefits such as public housing without regard to their illegal presence. For more regarding public housing for illegals see blog of July 30 – “U.S. Immigration Law is Unenforced and Unenforceable – A Case in Point: Obama’s Kenyan Aunt Zeituni.”
Another example of diluted social benefits is to be found in public education. In cities where there has been a significant influx of poor immigrants and their children, many of whom do not speak English, their presence has reduced the quality of public education for the Americans who attend the same schools. In general, a disproportionate amount of teacher time and school resources are devoted to these immigrant students. Moreover, the addition of disadvantaged immigrant children to special programs to help disadvantaged children dilutes the resources available to help the children of the disadvantaged segment of our citizen population. The effectiveness of public schools has sometimes been further handicapped by factors such as the high teen pregnancy rates, high dropout rates, and gang activities which too often characterize the immigrant children of today. Those citizens who can afford to send their children to private schools or live in areas with the better public schools may escape the negative consequences of an influx of immigrant children into a school system. Our poorer citizens usually do not have these options.
In sum, we are making great efforts and spending large amounts of money to eliminate poverty in this country and at the same time we are importing much more poverty which makes it more difficult for our existing low income citizens to improve their lot. It would be good public policy to reduce future legal and illegal immigration by the unskilled and little educated. Such reductions constitute one of the best ways to help our own disadvantaged citizens improve their lives. This is all the more important in times like the present when a serious recession has reduced the availability of all jobs.
It is a myth that our new immigrants are only taking jobs that Americans won’t do. Prior to the large scale immigration of recent years, it was American citizens who made hotel beds, cleaned office buildings, washed restaurant dishes, labored at construction sites, and provided maid and yard labor for homeowners. As time has passed many immigrants have learned to speak English enabling them to find new low-wage work opportunities such as serving as retail clerks. Americans with little education and students seeking part-time or summer work are having increasing difficulty competing with immigrants for low level jobs. Our immigrants will work harder under worse working conditions and for lower compensation than Americans because the immigrants find the income to be much better than what they could earn in their home countries if they could find employment there at all. In the absence of low wage immigrants, American employers of little educated workers would be forced to pay more in order to obtain needed employees and our low income citizens would thereby be better off with the availability of more job opportunities at higher compensation.
An example of social benefits being diluted by immigrants may be found in public housing. It occurs when immigrants occupy such housing units thereby decreasing the availability to citizens. Certain states and municipalities have gone out of their way to protect illegal immigrants from discovery and have offered them social benefits such as public housing without regard to their illegal presence. For more regarding public housing for illegals see blog of July 30 – “U.S. Immigration Law is Unenforced and Unenforceable – A Case in Point: Obama’s Kenyan Aunt Zeituni.”
Another example of diluted social benefits is to be found in public education. In cities where there has been a significant influx of poor immigrants and their children, many of whom do not speak English, their presence has reduced the quality of public education for the Americans who attend the same schools. In general, a disproportionate amount of teacher time and school resources are devoted to these immigrant students. Moreover, the addition of disadvantaged immigrant children to special programs to help disadvantaged children dilutes the resources available to help the children of the disadvantaged segment of our citizen population. The effectiveness of public schools has sometimes been further handicapped by factors such as the high teen pregnancy rates, high dropout rates, and gang activities which too often characterize the immigrant children of today. Those citizens who can afford to send their children to private schools or live in areas with the better public schools may escape the negative consequences of an influx of immigrant children into a school system. Our poorer citizens usually do not have these options.
In sum, we are making great efforts and spending large amounts of money to eliminate poverty in this country and at the same time we are importing much more poverty which makes it more difficult for our existing low income citizens to improve their lot. It would be good public policy to reduce future legal and illegal immigration by the unskilled and little educated. Such reductions constitute one of the best ways to help our own disadvantaged citizens improve their lives. This is all the more important in times like the present when a serious recession has reduced the availability of all jobs.
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