As a part of President Obama's campaign to advance the Democrat's health care legislation, he has publicly stated that illegal immigrants will not receive coverage under it. This is misleading since President Obama knows full well that whether or not a new health care bill is passed most illegal immigrants will continue to receive free health care coverage under present federal law as they have since 1986.
In addition, the Congressional Research Service, the research arm for the U.S. Congress, refutes (in a report entitled "Treatment of Noncitizens in H.R. 3200" dated August 25, 2009) the President and other Democrats who insist that House draft of the health care reform bill, America's Affordable Health Care Act of 2009, (H.R. 3200) does not cover illegal immigrants: "H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitizens participating in the Exchange -- whether the noncitizens are legally or illegally present or in the United States temporarily or permanently." It is true that illegal immigrants would generally not be required to participate and they would not be eligible for subsidies based on income; althugh there is no enforcement mechanism for the latter. To view a copy of this Congressional Research Report see the Center for Immigration Studies website: www.cis.org/articles/2009/CRS_Report_on_HR3200.pdf
For a detailed review of HR3200 see Steven A. Camarota, "Illegal Immigrants and HR3200: Estimate of Potential Cost to Taxpayers" Backgrounder, September 2009 at the www.cis.org website.
By the terms the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 all hospitals with emergency rooms are compelled to treat, and hospitalize if necessary, all who enter their emergency rooms irrespective of the ability to pay for services rendered and irrespective of citizenship status. In this way most of our illegal immigrants, being both poor and uninsured, have their health care paid for without limit by our public and private hospitals across the country. Hospitals receive little or no reimbursement from the federal government for providing such services to illegal immigrants who do not pay (see blog of August 19 – Martin Memorial Medical Center Case – for more detail regarding this). In some cases the financial burden from treating immigrants has contributed to hospital closures.
By his actions President Obama has consistently favored easy treatment for the illegal immigrants working and living in this country and favors amnesty for nearly all. Every now and then he talks tough on immigration in order to throw a smoke screen over his real intentions which may be found, for example, in his administration’s unilateral decision to stop taking deportation action against “law-abiding” illegal immigrants who are living and working in this country in defiance of federal law. In addition to living and working here illegally, most immigrants also commit identity fraud for such purposes as helping to obtain jobs or drivers licenses thereby causing headaches for Americans whose identity was assumed (see "Illegal, But Not Undocumented," subtitled "Identity Theft, Document Fraud, and Illegal Employment" by Ronald W. Mortensen. This piece can be found as a June 2009 Backgrounder at the Center for Immigration Studies website http://cis.org/).
This Obama immigration policy has been manifested by public statements and the newly stated policy of going after employers of illegal immigrants without any attempt to detain and deport the illegal workers of those employers. At the same time, it seems likely that few large employers of illegals will ever be prosecuted since most relied on worker-supplied documentation which demonstrated a right to work in the U.S.
Most illegal workers who lose their jobs as a result of an employer crackdown will not give up all of the advantages of living in the U.S. and voluntarily return to their home countries where jobs are hard to find and lower paying. Instead they will find other U.S. employers who will hire them, including smaller employers who may hire them off the books, or they will find work as independent contractors. An estimated 50 percent of illegal immigrants currently work off the books or as independent contractors who most likely do not report their income.
For more information related to the Obama administration’s immigration policies see the July 9 blog entitled “Kinder, Gentler Obama Immigration Policy.”
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Martin Memorial Medical Center Case
By the terms of a 1986 federal law, illegal immigrants (and uninsured citizens) cannot be denied hospital “emergency” medical care. In practice, this has meant that all hospitals (public and private, profit and nonprofit), fearing lawsuits, examine and treat all who enter their emergency rooms and admit them to the hospital if necessary whether or not such patients have any ability to pay for the services rendered. In some cases the required hospital care can cost millions of dollars and can go on for years. For many hospitals this is a substantial financial burden as well as a burden on the citizens of the community which the hospital serves.
In a widely watched case, on July 27, 2009 a jury in Stuart, Florida found that a local hospital, Martin Memorial Medical Center (located in Martin County, Florida), did not act unreasonably when it chartered a plane at a cost of $30,000 and sent a seriously brain-damaged illegal-immigrant Guatemalan patient to a medical facility in his home country in 2003 after treating him from 2001 to 2003 at a cost of $1.5 million. The jury reached its decision in about one day of deliberations following a three week trial in which Martin Memorial was the defendant in a civil case. This case highlights the Catch-22 problem hospitals have with those indigent patients for whom hospitals receive little or no reimbursement for medical expenses: they cannot legally discharge the patient if the patient still needs medical care and there is no rehab facility or other hospital facility in this country or in the patient’s home country who will agree to take the patient. This Martin Memorial case may be the first to test the legality of cross-border transfers without the consent of patients or their guardians.
Following the jury’s decision the hospital’s chief executive praised the decision and decried the failure of politicians to provide reimbursement to hospitals for unpaid immigrant medical care. Moreover, he noted that: “Unfortunately none of the proposed national health care reform bills currently being debated in Washington address the issue.”
Details related to this case and some general comments about similar hospital cases may be found in Deborah Sontag, “Immigrants Facing Deportation by U.S. Hospitals,” New York Times (August 3, 2008) and Deborah Sontag, “Jury Rules for Hospital That Deported Patient,” New York Times (July 28, 2009).
The following is from the April, 2009 testimony of a representative of Martin Memorial given before a committee of the Florida legislature:
“I am Carol Plato. I am from Martin County, and I am Director of Corporate Business Services for Martin Memorial Medical Center. I just have a brief couple of stories to tell you about. In 2001 we had a Guatemalan, an illegal patient, in our hospital. He was there from 2001 until 2003. He had over $1.5 million in healthcare services. We forcibly returned him to his home country of Guatemala at our own cost of $30,000. You ask why am I telling you about a case that happened in 2003? Because today that case is not over; we have spent and are spending up to a quarter of a million dollars in legal fees because his family here in the United States is suing us because they think it was inappropriate for us to return this illegal patient to his home country. Currently, as of today, I have a patient from Mexico who has been in my hospital for 760 days. He has severe brain damage, he has no family, no friends. His charges to date for almost 2 years is $1.5 million and we have contacted the Mexican Consulate four times; we have contacted Immigration, and nobody will help us return this patient to Mexico. We are even willing to spend our own $30,000 to return this patient. We can’t get anyone to help us with that. . . . One of the major problems that healthcare institutions have today that you need to be aware of is ongoing care. If somebody comes into our emergency rooms, we don’t turn them away, but if somebody comes into our emergency room and they have renal failure, and they require dialysis -- right now I have six patients, illegal, undocumented patients that we are seeing every 3 days for renal dialysis. For all of this that I’ve talked to you about, we have received no reimbursement. This obviously affects all of us in this room, our healthcare costs are severely affected by this. I also would like to end with pointing out that a large percentage of the babies born in our facility are from illegal parents.”
Chairman:
“Thank you. I do have one quick question from Representative (?)”
Representative:
“Sorry, I know there are a lot of speakers. Ma’am, when you know that they are illegal and come to your hospital, do you report them to the federal authorities to come get them?”
Carol Plato:
“We have tried and we have been told on numerous occasions that they are only interested if a crime has been committed. And from what I understand it seems like they are not even interested then.”
Representative:
“So the fact that they are illegal is not enough crime.”
Carol Plato:
“Correct”
As noted in Brian Grow and Robert Berner, “Fresh Pain for the Uninsured,” BusinessWeek, December 3, 2007: “When they don’t get paid immediately, hospitals typically recover around 10 cents on the dollar owed, even when they hire collection specialists.” The underlying theme of this article as suggested by its title is that “a growing number of hospitals, working with a range of financial companies, are squeezing revenue from patients with little or no health insurance.” Thus uninsured or underinsured American citizens may have to pay hospitals something after using hospital services, depending on their ability to pay. In the cases of illegal immigrants who have no financial resources or who give hospitals fictitious names and addresses, hospitals are not likely to recover any money at all for services rendered.
Most illegal immigrants do not have health insurance and pay very little in taxes because their incomes are so low and because an estimated 50 percent work “off the books,” and therefore pay no income or social security taxes at all. Moreover, many illegals have parented children here giving rise to still more health bills as well as public education expenses which average about $8000 per pupil per year in public schools. In addition, our poor immigrants access various forms of public assistance and other public services. Most assistance or public services used by immigrants or their families are paid for by citizen taxpayers.
In the case of health care, hospitals receive little or no state or federal reimbursement for immigrant use of hospital services which means that hospitals must pass on these costs through in higher charges to paying patients, primarily users with some form of health insurance, or close their doors. Consequently, users or their employers end up paying more for health insurance policies and/or face higher deductibles and co-pays as a direct result of the unpaid medical expenses of illegal immigrants and their children. In 2007 the passthrough of unpaid hospital expenses was estimated to cost each insured Californian about $455 per year (see an op-ed written by the chief executive of Scripps Health in San Diego County, Chris Van Gorder, “Health Care – The Governor’s Plan,” San Diego Union - Tribune, March 2, 2007). In this same op-ed it is noted that financial pressures contributed to the closure of 65 emergency rooms and 70 acute care hospitals in California during the previous decade. In the words of C. Duane Dauner at the time he was president of the California Hospital Association: "Emergency rooms and hospital doctors are forced to subsidize the lack of immigration enforcement by the federal government." Quote from: Julia Preston, “Texas Hospitals’ Separate Paths Reflect the Debate on Immigration,” New York Times, July 18, 2006.
To date most of the illegal immigrant users of unreimbursed hospital medical services likely work and live in the U.S. and have low incomes and few asssets. Many are working off the books or as independent contractors without health insurance. Others work part-time or are otherwise not covered by any employer health plan.
In the future we may see increasing numbers of non-citizens with serious illnesses visit the U.S. for the primary purpose of obtaining free high quality health care unavailable to them in their own countries. Given the ease of entering the U.S. legally (for example, as tourists, to visit relatives, or for educational or business purposes) or illegally, given our existing law requiring hospitals to treat all who enter their emergency rooms, and given the desperation of seriously ill people of little means in the many countries with inadequate or non-existent health care systems for the poor, it is to be expected that over time we will become the medical salvation for increasing numbers of the world’s poor – all at the expense of American hospitals and American citizens.
Still another set of users of unpaid and unreimbursed hospital medical services are pregnant women who come to the U.S. to have their childbirth within a higher quality medical situation than is available to them in their home country. An additional attraction to these women is the knowledge that under American law any childbirth within the U.S. conveys to the newborn automatic American citizenship irrespective of the status of the parents.
In a widely watched case, on July 27, 2009 a jury in Stuart, Florida found that a local hospital, Martin Memorial Medical Center (located in Martin County, Florida), did not act unreasonably when it chartered a plane at a cost of $30,000 and sent a seriously brain-damaged illegal-immigrant Guatemalan patient to a medical facility in his home country in 2003 after treating him from 2001 to 2003 at a cost of $1.5 million. The jury reached its decision in about one day of deliberations following a three week trial in which Martin Memorial was the defendant in a civil case. This case highlights the Catch-22 problem hospitals have with those indigent patients for whom hospitals receive little or no reimbursement for medical expenses: they cannot legally discharge the patient if the patient still needs medical care and there is no rehab facility or other hospital facility in this country or in the patient’s home country who will agree to take the patient. This Martin Memorial case may be the first to test the legality of cross-border transfers without the consent of patients or their guardians.
Following the jury’s decision the hospital’s chief executive praised the decision and decried the failure of politicians to provide reimbursement to hospitals for unpaid immigrant medical care. Moreover, he noted that: “Unfortunately none of the proposed national health care reform bills currently being debated in Washington address the issue.”
Details related to this case and some general comments about similar hospital cases may be found in Deborah Sontag, “Immigrants Facing Deportation by U.S. Hospitals,” New York Times (August 3, 2008) and Deborah Sontag, “Jury Rules for Hospital That Deported Patient,” New York Times (July 28, 2009).
The following is from the April, 2009 testimony of a representative of Martin Memorial given before a committee of the Florida legislature:
“I am Carol Plato. I am from Martin County, and I am Director of Corporate Business Services for Martin Memorial Medical Center. I just have a brief couple of stories to tell you about. In 2001 we had a Guatemalan, an illegal patient, in our hospital. He was there from 2001 until 2003. He had over $1.5 million in healthcare services. We forcibly returned him to his home country of Guatemala at our own cost of $30,000. You ask why am I telling you about a case that happened in 2003? Because today that case is not over; we have spent and are spending up to a quarter of a million dollars in legal fees because his family here in the United States is suing us because they think it was inappropriate for us to return this illegal patient to his home country. Currently, as of today, I have a patient from Mexico who has been in my hospital for 760 days. He has severe brain damage, he has no family, no friends. His charges to date for almost 2 years is $1.5 million and we have contacted the Mexican Consulate four times; we have contacted Immigration, and nobody will help us return this patient to Mexico. We are even willing to spend our own $30,000 to return this patient. We can’t get anyone to help us with that. . . . One of the major problems that healthcare institutions have today that you need to be aware of is ongoing care. If somebody comes into our emergency rooms, we don’t turn them away, but if somebody comes into our emergency room and they have renal failure, and they require dialysis -- right now I have six patients, illegal, undocumented patients that we are seeing every 3 days for renal dialysis. For all of this that I’ve talked to you about, we have received no reimbursement. This obviously affects all of us in this room, our healthcare costs are severely affected by this. I also would like to end with pointing out that a large percentage of the babies born in our facility are from illegal parents.”
Chairman:
“Thank you. I do have one quick question from Representative (?)”
Representative:
“Sorry, I know there are a lot of speakers. Ma’am, when you know that they are illegal and come to your hospital, do you report them to the federal authorities to come get them?”
Carol Plato:
“We have tried and we have been told on numerous occasions that they are only interested if a crime has been committed. And from what I understand it seems like they are not even interested then.”
Representative:
“So the fact that they are illegal is not enough crime.”
Carol Plato:
“Correct”
As noted in Brian Grow and Robert Berner, “Fresh Pain for the Uninsured,” BusinessWeek, December 3, 2007: “When they don’t get paid immediately, hospitals typically recover around 10 cents on the dollar owed, even when they hire collection specialists.” The underlying theme of this article as suggested by its title is that “a growing number of hospitals, working with a range of financial companies, are squeezing revenue from patients with little or no health insurance.” Thus uninsured or underinsured American citizens may have to pay hospitals something after using hospital services, depending on their ability to pay. In the cases of illegal immigrants who have no financial resources or who give hospitals fictitious names and addresses, hospitals are not likely to recover any money at all for services rendered.
Most illegal immigrants do not have health insurance and pay very little in taxes because their incomes are so low and because an estimated 50 percent work “off the books,” and therefore pay no income or social security taxes at all. Moreover, many illegals have parented children here giving rise to still more health bills as well as public education expenses which average about $8000 per pupil per year in public schools. In addition, our poor immigrants access various forms of public assistance and other public services. Most assistance or public services used by immigrants or their families are paid for by citizen taxpayers.
In the case of health care, hospitals receive little or no state or federal reimbursement for immigrant use of hospital services which means that hospitals must pass on these costs through in higher charges to paying patients, primarily users with some form of health insurance, or close their doors. Consequently, users or their employers end up paying more for health insurance policies and/or face higher deductibles and co-pays as a direct result of the unpaid medical expenses of illegal immigrants and their children. In 2007 the passthrough of unpaid hospital expenses was estimated to cost each insured Californian about $455 per year (see an op-ed written by the chief executive of Scripps Health in San Diego County, Chris Van Gorder, “Health Care – The Governor’s Plan,” San Diego Union - Tribune, March 2, 2007). In this same op-ed it is noted that financial pressures contributed to the closure of 65 emergency rooms and 70 acute care hospitals in California during the previous decade. In the words of C. Duane Dauner at the time he was president of the California Hospital Association: "Emergency rooms and hospital doctors are forced to subsidize the lack of immigration enforcement by the federal government." Quote from: Julia Preston, “Texas Hospitals’ Separate Paths Reflect the Debate on Immigration,” New York Times, July 18, 2006.
To date most of the illegal immigrant users of unreimbursed hospital medical services likely work and live in the U.S. and have low incomes and few asssets. Many are working off the books or as independent contractors without health insurance. Others work part-time or are otherwise not covered by any employer health plan.
In the future we may see increasing numbers of non-citizens with serious illnesses visit the U.S. for the primary purpose of obtaining free high quality health care unavailable to them in their own countries. Given the ease of entering the U.S. legally (for example, as tourists, to visit relatives, or for educational or business purposes) or illegally, given our existing law requiring hospitals to treat all who enter their emergency rooms, and given the desperation of seriously ill people of little means in the many countries with inadequate or non-existent health care systems for the poor, it is to be expected that over time we will become the medical salvation for increasing numbers of the world’s poor – all at the expense of American hospitals and American citizens.
Still another set of users of unpaid and unreimbursed hospital medical services are pregnant women who come to the U.S. to have their childbirth within a higher quality medical situation than is available to them in their home country. An additional attraction to these women is the knowledge that under American law any childbirth within the U.S. conveys to the newborn automatic American citizenship irrespective of the status of the parents.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Illegal Immigration Results In Understatement of U.S. Employment
In the final paragraph below is a letter to the editor of The New York Times regarding an article featuring government data indicating that the private sector of the U.S. economy showed about zero job growth over the last 10 years.
It is not widely recognized that the employment data referred to by the Times and related economic data understate the actual employment numbers due to the substantial increase in our “underground” economy which has resulted in large part from the influx of illegal immigrants in recent years. When jobs go underground they are not included in government employment data or tax rolls. The underground economy includes shadow employees or independent contractors who are doing work which generates income that is not reported to the appropriate governmental agencies.
Employers can save substantial money if they hired employees “off the books.” By hiring “off the books,” an employer can save on the employer’s share of Social Security and Medicare taxes, and federal and state unemployment insurance taxes as well as workers compensation insurance. The employer also saves on any employer contribution to health insurance as well as vacation, holiday, and sick pay that would otherwise be made to an “on the books” employee. The “off the books” employer may also benefit by being able to ignore laws which protect workers in different ways such as laws related to overtime, the minimum wage, the workplace environment, hiring and firing. Many employers have both “on the books” and “off the books” employees, and those who do hire “off the books” tend to be smaller businesses.
Employees also often like “off the books” working arrangements because they can thereby avoid paying social security taxes as well as any state and federal income taxes that may be due. Moreover, by working "off the books" both illegal and citizen employees can qualify for different kinds of welfare with their lower reported incomes. (For an example of billions of dollars of welfare for illegal immigrants with low reported incomes see blog of May 9, 2010 entitled "Child Tax Credits for Illegal Immigrants.") In addition, those workers who are illegal immigrants can thereby avoid having to come up with social security numbers that are not theirs or filing tax returns to claim income tax refunds against withheld amounts. Illegal immigrants, seeking to maintain a low profile, usually agree to off the books employment if it is offered, especially since in other countries such as Mexico working “off the books” is a widespread practice. An estimated 50% of current illegal immigrant workers in the U.S. are working “off the books” or as independent contractors who are not reporting income.1
The honest employers can be doubly penalized by 1) only hiring their employees “on the books,” and 2) only hiring employees who can legally work here (more expensive and perhaps less productive than illegal immigrant alternatives). For many small businesses, the choice is to violate various laws as their competitors are doing or go out of business. Thus illegal immigration is contributing to a significant growth of our “underground economy.”2 Increases in off the books work has a corrupting influence on our economy and society. Increases in off the books work undermines the basic honesty necessary for our tax system to function well and it tends to draw otherwise honest employers and otherwise honest citizen workers into its illegal workings which offer significant financial advantages to both employers and employees.
1 For obvious reasons it is difficult to obtain hard data on the percentage of illegal immigrants “working off the books.” For a discussion of how a 50 percent figure can be arrived at see Steven A. Camarota, “The High Cost of Cheap Labor,” Center for Immigration Studies, August 2004. Mexicans are very familiar with the concept of “working off the books” as that practice is the backbone of their economy’s “informal sector.” A description of the “informal sector” was given in Robert J. Samuelson, “Mexico’s Missing Prosperity,” The Washington Post, June 28, 2006: “It [the informal sector] consists of thousands of small firms – street vendors, repair shops, tiny manufacturers – that theoretically aren’t legal, because they haven’t registered with the government and often don’t pay taxes or comply with regulations on wages and hiring and firing. Almost two-thirds of Mexico’s workers may be employed in the informal sector, according to one rough estimate by the International Monetary Fund. The sector’s size might suggest great entrepreneurial vitality. The trouble is that these firms are small and inefficient. Because they’re technically illegal, they can’t easily get bank loans and can’t grow too large without being forced to pay taxes or comply with government regulations.”
2 See Robert Justich and Betty Ng, “The Underground Labor Force is Rising to the Surface,” Bear Stearns Asset Management, January 3, 2005.
To the Editor:
Re “Job Growth Lacking In the Private Sector” (August 8):
This article of Mr. Norris does not mention negative effect on the reported employment numbers by the growth of the “underground economy.” Tax avoidance by employers and employees and the willingness of illegal immigrants to work “off the books” for small employers or as independent contractors who do not report income have no doubt distorted the statistics quoted in the article. Moreover, it should be noted that when some employers start hiring “off the books” the financial advantages are so great that it puts considerable pressure on their competitors to also do so.
It is not widely recognized that the employment data referred to by the Times and related economic data understate the actual employment numbers due to the substantial increase in our “underground” economy which has resulted in large part from the influx of illegal immigrants in recent years. When jobs go underground they are not included in government employment data or tax rolls. The underground economy includes shadow employees or independent contractors who are doing work which generates income that is not reported to the appropriate governmental agencies.
Employers can save substantial money if they hired employees “off the books.” By hiring “off the books,” an employer can save on the employer’s share of Social Security and Medicare taxes, and federal and state unemployment insurance taxes as well as workers compensation insurance. The employer also saves on any employer contribution to health insurance as well as vacation, holiday, and sick pay that would otherwise be made to an “on the books” employee. The “off the books” employer may also benefit by being able to ignore laws which protect workers in different ways such as laws related to overtime, the minimum wage, the workplace environment, hiring and firing. Many employers have both “on the books” and “off the books” employees, and those who do hire “off the books” tend to be smaller businesses.
Employees also often like “off the books” working arrangements because they can thereby avoid paying social security taxes as well as any state and federal income taxes that may be due. Moreover, by working "off the books" both illegal and citizen employees can qualify for different kinds of welfare with their lower reported incomes. (For an example of billions of dollars of welfare for illegal immigrants with low reported incomes see blog of May 9, 2010 entitled "Child Tax Credits for Illegal Immigrants.") In addition, those workers who are illegal immigrants can thereby avoid having to come up with social security numbers that are not theirs or filing tax returns to claim income tax refunds against withheld amounts. Illegal immigrants, seeking to maintain a low profile, usually agree to off the books employment if it is offered, especially since in other countries such as Mexico working “off the books” is a widespread practice. An estimated 50% of current illegal immigrant workers in the U.S. are working “off the books” or as independent contractors who are not reporting income.1
The honest employers can be doubly penalized by 1) only hiring their employees “on the books,” and 2) only hiring employees who can legally work here (more expensive and perhaps less productive than illegal immigrant alternatives). For many small businesses, the choice is to violate various laws as their competitors are doing or go out of business. Thus illegal immigration is contributing to a significant growth of our “underground economy.”2 Increases in off the books work has a corrupting influence on our economy and society. Increases in off the books work undermines the basic honesty necessary for our tax system to function well and it tends to draw otherwise honest employers and otherwise honest citizen workers into its illegal workings which offer significant financial advantages to both employers and employees.
1 For obvious reasons it is difficult to obtain hard data on the percentage of illegal immigrants “working off the books.” For a discussion of how a 50 percent figure can be arrived at see Steven A. Camarota, “The High Cost of Cheap Labor,” Center for Immigration Studies, August 2004. Mexicans are very familiar with the concept of “working off the books” as that practice is the backbone of their economy’s “informal sector.” A description of the “informal sector” was given in Robert J. Samuelson, “Mexico’s Missing Prosperity,” The Washington Post, June 28, 2006: “It [the informal sector] consists of thousands of small firms – street vendors, repair shops, tiny manufacturers – that theoretically aren’t legal, because they haven’t registered with the government and often don’t pay taxes or comply with regulations on wages and hiring and firing. Almost two-thirds of Mexico’s workers may be employed in the informal sector, according to one rough estimate by the International Monetary Fund. The sector’s size might suggest great entrepreneurial vitality. The trouble is that these firms are small and inefficient. Because they’re technically illegal, they can’t easily get bank loans and can’t grow too large without being forced to pay taxes or comply with government regulations.”
2 See Robert Justich and Betty Ng, “The Underground Labor Force is Rising to the Surface,” Bear Stearns Asset Management, January 3, 2005.
To the Editor:
Re “Job Growth Lacking In the Private Sector” (August 8):
This article of Mr. Norris does not mention negative effect on the reported employment numbers by the growth of the “underground economy.” Tax avoidance by employers and employees and the willingness of illegal immigrants to work “off the books” for small employers or as independent contractors who do not report income have no doubt distorted the statistics quoted in the article. Moreover, it should be noted that when some employers start hiring “off the books” the financial advantages are so great that it puts considerable pressure on their competitors to also do so.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Dairy Farmers Demand More Cheap Labor
The paragraph after this one is a letter sent by this blogger on July 31 to the editor of The Wall Street Journal. For a more extensive discussion regarding immigrant labor in agriculture see the blog of June 22 entitled "AgJOBS bill of Senator Feinstein." In the WSJ article cited below it was mentioned that a 100 dairy farmers flew to Washington to make a case for Congressional help in obtaining more immigrant laborers, i.e. they cannot attract enough immigrants, legal and illegal, at the current wage. Moreover, some are uneasy about having many illegal immigrant laborers among their workers. The farmers would probably like to see 1) an expanded guest worker program (which would allow a specified number of foreign workers to be hired for a specified time period) for the dairy industry and 2) an amnesty for their illegal employees that would require the employees to stay in agriculture for a certain number of years as a condition for receiving amnesty (this is contained in Feinstein's proposed AgJOBS bill discussed in the June 22 blog). The article goes on to say that one dairy industry study finds that 40% of today's dairy labor force consists of immigrants, a big change from 20 years ago when there were few immigrants doing this work. What follows is the letter the editor of the WSJ:
When dairy farmers hire low-wage illegal immigrants or foreign guest workers as described in “Got Workers? Dairy Farms Run Low on Labor” (July 30, 2009), the effect is the same as that of a direct subsidy of the dairy farmers whose profits are thereby higher than if they were forced to pay market wages and benefits. It is an insidious subsidy because its cost is not explicit in the federal budget. Rather its cost is spread across the country in terms of various free or low-cost public services that the low-income immigrant workers receive, including free education for their children and free health care through hospital emergency rooms. Because their incomes are low, these workers pay little in taxes and they reduce the availability of, and money for, various public services for our poor citizens. Furthermore, at some level of wages and benefits dairy farmers would be able to attract capable American citizens to do such work. This is proven by the large number of Americans who currently do such “dirty” jobs as coal mining and garbage collection in return for decent wages and benefits. In general, agriculture is a “sacred cow” whose government subsidies have yet to be reined in by Congress.
When dairy farmers hire low-wage illegal immigrants or foreign guest workers as described in “Got Workers? Dairy Farms Run Low on Labor” (July 30, 2009), the effect is the same as that of a direct subsidy of the dairy farmers whose profits are thereby higher than if they were forced to pay market wages and benefits. It is an insidious subsidy because its cost is not explicit in the federal budget. Rather its cost is spread across the country in terms of various free or low-cost public services that the low-income immigrant workers receive, including free education for their children and free health care through hospital emergency rooms. Because their incomes are low, these workers pay little in taxes and they reduce the availability of, and money for, various public services for our poor citizens. Furthermore, at some level of wages and benefits dairy farmers would be able to attract capable American citizens to do such work. This is proven by the large number of Americans who currently do such “dirty” jobs as coal mining and garbage collection in return for decent wages and benefits. In general, agriculture is a “sacred cow” whose government subsidies have yet to be reined in by Congress.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
U.S. Immigration Law Is Unenforced and Unenforceable – A Case in Point: Obama’s Kenyan Aunt Zeituni
Attending Obama’s Senate swearing-in ceremony in 2004 was a half-sister of his father, Zeituni Onyango, whom Obama had referred to in his memoir as “Auntie Zeituni.” Onyango had sought political asylum in the United States in 2002. In April 2003, an immigration judge turned down the asylum bid and ordered Onyango deported. After a series of appeals, Oyango was again ordered to leave the country in October, 2004. The order to leave was ignored by Onyango with no consequence. This is the usual case for those denied asylum – a 2003 study found that only 3 percent of those denied asylum left the country or were deported (footnote 1).
A spokesperson for the Housing Authority in Boston said that Onyango had been screened and approved for public housing as an “eligible non-citizen” in 2003. The spokesperson went on to say that the Housing Authority receives no notice of deportation orders. Furthermore, the spokesperson noted that although Onyango entered the system under federal guidelines in a federal development, she now lives in a state funded development. State law forbids the authority from asking about immigration status. Thus, the spokesperson said that the federal deportation order has no bearing on Onyango’s eligibility for the state funded project where she was living in 2008.
On April 1, 2009, the same immigration judge that heard her earlier cases gave Onyango 10 months (of living in the United States) to prepare another appeal against the outstanding deportation order. Onyango is one of many immigrants who seek to have their cases reopened, which can occur repeatedly, according to federal immigration officials.
On February 4, 2010 Zeituni Onyango was back before an immigration judge trying to make a case for asylum. She arrived in a wheelchair and her attorney indicated that medical conditions would be part of her case. Once again President Obama through his press secretary indicated he has no involvement in the case. The closed hearing ended without a decision by the judge who can make one in the coming months or continue the case on May 25.
In May 2010 the immigration judge ruled that asylum should be granted in Onyango's case based on his judgement that a return to Kenya might put her in danger. The danger results from the public disclosure of her identity in an unauthorized leak of confidential government information regarding her case three days before the November 2008 presidential election.
After the news of Zeituni Onyango's status surfaced shortly before the presidential election in the fall of 2008, the Obama campaign issued a statement at the time which said that "Senator Obama has no knowledge of her status but obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed."
Other problems that commonly occur with immigrants who are under orders to leave the country are: many of those that voluntarily agree to leave the country never do; and of those that do voluntarily leave the United States or are deported, many subsequently return to the United States as illegal immigrants. Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has testified that of those illegal immigrants in Los Angeles County jails, 70 percent had been previously deported but illegally returned to the United States and were then accused of or had committed a crime. For more on the problems surrounding deportation see Michelle Malkin, "The Deportation Abyss" (subtitled: "It Ain't Over 'til the Alien Wins), Center for Immigration Studies, Backgrounder, September 2002.
References:
Associated Press writers Eileen Sullivan, Elliot Spagat, Rodrique Ngowi, and Jay Lindsay, "Obama's Kenyan Aunt in US Ilegally," AOL News, November 1, 2008.
Judy Rakowski, “2010 Deportation Hearing Is Set for Obama’s Aunt,” Washington Post, April 2, 2009.
Devin Dwyer, "Obama's Kenyan Aunt Seeks Asylum Again, Awaits Ruling on Deportation," ABC News, February 4, 2010.
Associated Press, "Immigration judge blasts leak in Obama'a aunt's asylum case," August 18, 2010.
Footnotes
1 “The Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Removal of Aliens Issued Final Orders,” Report Number I-2003-004, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, February 2003.
A spokesperson for the Housing Authority in Boston said that Onyango had been screened and approved for public housing as an “eligible non-citizen” in 2003. The spokesperson went on to say that the Housing Authority receives no notice of deportation orders. Furthermore, the spokesperson noted that although Onyango entered the system under federal guidelines in a federal development, she now lives in a state funded development. State law forbids the authority from asking about immigration status. Thus, the spokesperson said that the federal deportation order has no bearing on Onyango’s eligibility for the state funded project where she was living in 2008.
On April 1, 2009, the same immigration judge that heard her earlier cases gave Onyango 10 months (of living in the United States) to prepare another appeal against the outstanding deportation order. Onyango is one of many immigrants who seek to have their cases reopened, which can occur repeatedly, according to federal immigration officials.
On February 4, 2010 Zeituni Onyango was back before an immigration judge trying to make a case for asylum. She arrived in a wheelchair and her attorney indicated that medical conditions would be part of her case. Once again President Obama through his press secretary indicated he has no involvement in the case. The closed hearing ended without a decision by the judge who can make one in the coming months or continue the case on May 25.
In May 2010 the immigration judge ruled that asylum should be granted in Onyango's case based on his judgement that a return to Kenya might put her in danger. The danger results from the public disclosure of her identity in an unauthorized leak of confidential government information regarding her case three days before the November 2008 presidential election.
After the news of Zeituni Onyango's status surfaced shortly before the presidential election in the fall of 2008, the Obama campaign issued a statement at the time which said that "Senator Obama has no knowledge of her status but obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed."
Other problems that commonly occur with immigrants who are under orders to leave the country are: many of those that voluntarily agree to leave the country never do; and of those that do voluntarily leave the United States or are deported, many subsequently return to the United States as illegal immigrants. Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has testified that of those illegal immigrants in Los Angeles County jails, 70 percent had been previously deported but illegally returned to the United States and were then accused of or had committed a crime. For more on the problems surrounding deportation see Michelle Malkin, "The Deportation Abyss" (subtitled: "It Ain't Over 'til the Alien Wins), Center for Immigration Studies, Backgrounder, September 2002.
References:
Associated Press writers Eileen Sullivan, Elliot Spagat, Rodrique Ngowi, and Jay Lindsay, "Obama's Kenyan Aunt in US Ilegally," AOL News, November 1, 2008.
Judy Rakowski, “2010 Deportation Hearing Is Set for Obama’s Aunt,” Washington Post, April 2, 2009.
Devin Dwyer, "Obama's Kenyan Aunt Seeks Asylum Again, Awaits Ruling on Deportation," ABC News, February 4, 2010.
Associated Press, "Immigration judge blasts leak in Obama'a aunt's asylum case," August 18, 2010.
Footnotes
1 “The Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Removal of Aliens Issued Final Orders,” Report Number I-2003-004, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, February 2003.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
A Democrat Sees the Light
The source of the following material is “Blame the Employers” from the Review and Outlook section of the July 16 issue of the Wall Street Journal which discusses E-Verify, a federal data base available for employers to verify the hirability of prospective and actual employees.
“A bigger [than rejecting qualified workers] problem with E-Verify is that it doesn’t catch identity fraud. An illegal alien using legitimate documents that don’t belong to him can go undetected…. Several government raids on businesses in recent years have resulted in the arrests of thousands of illegal workers whom E-Verify had approved.” Consequently, employers argue that it is unfair to punish them for unknowingly hiring unauthorized workers. To address these problems, some lawmakers are now calling for initiating a national system of biometrically based identity cards that would permit the government to identify the status of every worker, including Americans.
“New York Democrat Charles Schumer, who is leading immigration-overhaul efforts in the Senate, told an audience last month that biometric ID cards are ‘the only way’ to stop illegal border crossings. ‘I’m sure the civil libertarians will object to some kind of biometric card – although….there’ll be all kinds of protections – but we are going to have to do it,’ said Mr. Schumer. ‘The American people will never accept immigration reform unless they truly believe their government is committed to ending future illegal immigration.’”
Mr. Schumer’s comments are right on the mark in the opinion of this blogger, but it is hard to believe that any liberal democratic administration is really going to do what it takes to shut the door on illegal immigration, or ever do more than close the door a little. For the rest of President Obama's time in office, we will no doubt continue to allow existing and new poor and little skilled illegal immigrants to live and work in the U.S. while continuing to make it much more difficult for highly skilled and highly educated immigrants to join our country and use their talents for the benefit of all citizens. Even if they are eventually shut out of large employers by some biometric-related data base,the disadvantaged immigrants will continue to find work as independent contractors or off the books at small employers.
“A bigger [than rejecting qualified workers] problem with E-Verify is that it doesn’t catch identity fraud. An illegal alien using legitimate documents that don’t belong to him can go undetected…. Several government raids on businesses in recent years have resulted in the arrests of thousands of illegal workers whom E-Verify had approved.” Consequently, employers argue that it is unfair to punish them for unknowingly hiring unauthorized workers. To address these problems, some lawmakers are now calling for initiating a national system of biometrically based identity cards that would permit the government to identify the status of every worker, including Americans.
“New York Democrat Charles Schumer, who is leading immigration-overhaul efforts in the Senate, told an audience last month that biometric ID cards are ‘the only way’ to stop illegal border crossings. ‘I’m sure the civil libertarians will object to some kind of biometric card – although….there’ll be all kinds of protections – but we are going to have to do it,’ said Mr. Schumer. ‘The American people will never accept immigration reform unless they truly believe their government is committed to ending future illegal immigration.’”
Mr. Schumer’s comments are right on the mark in the opinion of this blogger, but it is hard to believe that any liberal democratic administration is really going to do what it takes to shut the door on illegal immigration, or ever do more than close the door a little. For the rest of President Obama's time in office, we will no doubt continue to allow existing and new poor and little skilled illegal immigrants to live and work in the U.S. while continuing to make it much more difficult for highly skilled and highly educated immigrants to join our country and use their talents for the benefit of all citizens. Even if they are eventually shut out of large employers by some biometric-related data base,the disadvantaged immigrants will continue to find work as independent contractors or off the books at small employers.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Some Recent Developments Which Expand Asylum Possibilities
A qualifying asylum seeker is “unable or unwilling to return to his/her country of origin due to persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution.” The processing of asylum requests takes time and involves some subjective judgment on the part of asylum officers or immigration judges.1 Beyond the many abusers of our asylum system, asylum applicants are a potential weakness of our present immigration system since we can only be the home for a small percentage of all people living under harsh regimes who can legitimately claim some form of persecution.
Only a small fraction of all asylum applicants end up being granted asylum.2 The asylum plea may help them avoid immediate deportation on arrival in the United States3 as well as deportation up to the point of time that a final ruling is made on their case for asylum which may be years later, especially if appeals are filed. Nearly all who are denied asylum cannot be located at the time of denial and officially become illegal immigrants at that point in time.4
Two examples of newly considered areas of persecution which foreign women can use as a basis for successful asylum claims relate to 1) being victims or potential victims of female genital mutilation (FGM) and 2) being victims of domestic violence.
Amnesty International estimates 130 million woman worldwide have had some form of FGM, with more than 2 million new cases occurring per year primarily in Africa.5 For the purpose of asylum claims, FGM is now classified as a form of persecution. Recent U.S. court decisions are pointing toward allowing women who have been victims of FGM as well as women who fear becoming victims of FGM to use FGM as a key part of a successful asylum claim.6
The Obama administration recently took steps to make it easier for battered women to gain asylum in the United States. The qualifying conditions include 1) treatment as inferiors, little better than property 2) living in a country where domestic abuse is common and tolerated 3) must be able to show that protection could not be obtained through resort to existing institutions in their country or by moving to another place in their country.7 There are many countries in the world where women are routinely treated poorly and abused. How many of such women will be able to reach the United States and make a plea for asylum remains to be seen.
1 Julia Preston, “Wide Disparities Found in Judging of Asylum Cases,” New York Times, May 31, 2007.
2 From Julia Preston, “Wide Disparities Found in Judging of Asylum Cases”: In 2005, 13 percent of those who appealed with lawyers won their cases. From Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., Mass Immigration and the National Interest, 3rd ed. (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 170: “The vast preponderance of the individuals who file asylee applications never show up for their scheduled interviews with INS officials. They simply fade into the local communities and become illegal immigrants.”
3 From Don Barnett, “The Coming Conflict Over Asylum,” Center for Immigration Studies, March 2002: “About a quarter of asylum petitions are made by those who arrive at a U.S. port of entry without valid documents.”
4 A 2003 study found that only 3 percent of those denied asylum were removed: “The Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Removal of Aliens Issued Final Orders,” Report Number I-2003-004, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, February 2003.
5 Wikipedia.
6 “A Victory for Women,” (editorial) New York Times, June 22, 2008.
7 Julia Preston, “New Policy Permits Asylum for Battered Women,” New York Times, July 15, 2009.
Only a small fraction of all asylum applicants end up being granted asylum.2 The asylum plea may help them avoid immediate deportation on arrival in the United States3 as well as deportation up to the point of time that a final ruling is made on their case for asylum which may be years later, especially if appeals are filed. Nearly all who are denied asylum cannot be located at the time of denial and officially become illegal immigrants at that point in time.4
Two examples of newly considered areas of persecution which foreign women can use as a basis for successful asylum claims relate to 1) being victims or potential victims of female genital mutilation (FGM) and 2) being victims of domestic violence.
Amnesty International estimates 130 million woman worldwide have had some form of FGM, with more than 2 million new cases occurring per year primarily in Africa.5 For the purpose of asylum claims, FGM is now classified as a form of persecution. Recent U.S. court decisions are pointing toward allowing women who have been victims of FGM as well as women who fear becoming victims of FGM to use FGM as a key part of a successful asylum claim.6
The Obama administration recently took steps to make it easier for battered women to gain asylum in the United States. The qualifying conditions include 1) treatment as inferiors, little better than property 2) living in a country where domestic abuse is common and tolerated 3) must be able to show that protection could not be obtained through resort to existing institutions in their country or by moving to another place in their country.7 There are many countries in the world where women are routinely treated poorly and abused. How many of such women will be able to reach the United States and make a plea for asylum remains to be seen.
1 Julia Preston, “Wide Disparities Found in Judging of Asylum Cases,” New York Times, May 31, 2007.
2 From Julia Preston, “Wide Disparities Found in Judging of Asylum Cases”: In 2005, 13 percent of those who appealed with lawyers won their cases. From Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., Mass Immigration and the National Interest, 3rd ed. (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 170: “The vast preponderance of the individuals who file asylee applications never show up for their scheduled interviews with INS officials. They simply fade into the local communities and become illegal immigrants.”
3 From Don Barnett, “The Coming Conflict Over Asylum,” Center for Immigration Studies, March 2002: “About a quarter of asylum petitions are made by those who arrive at a U.S. port of entry without valid documents.”
4 A 2003 study found that only 3 percent of those denied asylum were removed: “The Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Removal of Aliens Issued Final Orders,” Report Number I-2003-004, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, February 2003.
5 Wikipedia.
6 “A Victory for Women,” (editorial) New York Times, June 22, 2008.
7 Julia Preston, “New Policy Permits Asylum for Battered Women,” New York Times, July 15, 2009.
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