Author: Gordon H. Hanson, Professor of Economics, University of California, San Diego Council on Foreign Relations Press
April 2007
56 pages ISBN 978-0-87609-401-3 (0-87609-401-9) $10.00 Council Special Report No. 26
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Immigration reform is one of the most divisive issues confronting U.S. policymakers. The rise in the number of illegal immigrants in the United States over the past ten years—from five to twelve million—has led to concerns about the effects of illegal immigration on wages and public finances, as well as the potential security threats posed by unauthorized entry into the country. In the past year alone, the governors of New Mexico and Arizona have declared a “state of emergency†over illegal immigration, and President Bush signed into law the Secure Fence Act, which authorizes the spending of $1.2 billion for the construction of a seven-hundred-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
In this Council Special Report, Professor Gordon H. Hanson of the University of California, San Diego approaches immigration through the lens of economics. The results are surprising.
By focusing on the economic costs and benefits of legal and illegal immigration, Professor Hanson concludes that stemming illegal immigration would likely lead to a net drain on the U.S. economy—a finding that calls into question many of the proposals to increase funding for border protection.
Moreover, Hanson argues that guest worker programs now being considered by Congress fail to account for the economic incentives that drive illegal immigration, which benefits both the undocumented workers who desire to work and live in the United States and employers who want flexible, low-cost labor. Hanson makes the case that unless policymakers design a system of legal immigration that reflects the economic advantages of illegal labor, such programs will not significantly reduce illegal immigration. He concludes with guidelines crucial to any such redesign of U.S. laws and policy.
In short, Professor Hanson has written a report that will challenge much of the wisdom (conventional and otherwise) on the economics behind a critical and controversial issue.
Part of the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Series on American Competitiveness.
Read the Economist review.
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The Author
Gordon H. Hanson is the Director of the Center on Pacific Economies and Professor of Economics at University of California, San Diego, where he holds faculty positions in the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies and the Department of Economics. Professor Hanson is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and coeditor of the Journal of Development Economics. He obtained his BA in economics from Occidental College in 1986 and his PhD in economics from MIT in 1992. Prior to joining UCSD in 2001, he was on the economics faculty at the University of Michigan (1998–2001) and at the University of Texas (1992–1998). Professor Hanson has published extensively in the top academic venues of the economics discipline. His current research examines the international migration of high-skilled labor, the causes of Mexican migration to the United States, the consequences of immigration on labor-market outcomes for African-Americans, the relationship between business cycles and foreign outsourcing, and international trade in motion pictures. In recent work, he has studied the impact of globalization on wages, the origins of political opposition to immigration, and the implications of China’s growth for the export performance of Mexico and other developing countries. His most recent book is Why Does Immigration Divide America? Public Finance and Political Opposition to Open Borders (Institute for International Economics, 2005).
CONGRESS BEGINS OVERSIGHT INTO INADEQUATE HEALTH CARE FOR IMMIGRATION DETAINEES
New America Media, Commentary, Tom Jawetz, Posted: Nov 01, 2007
Editor’s Note: Medical care for those in detention suffers from several fatal flaws, sometimes resulting in death for the detainee. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detains nearly 300,000 people each year – approximately one quarter of whom are identified as suffering from some chronic health condition, says Tom Jawetz, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project. The ACLU National Prison Project is a member of the Detention Watch Network, a national coalition of organizations and individuals working to reform the U.S. immigration system. IMMIGRATION MATTERS regularly features the views of the nation’s leading immigrant rights advocates.
Throughout the summer, newspaper reports and editorials have highlighted a growing problem in immigration detention: horribly inadequate medical care that leads to unnecessary suffering and death. This issue lies at the center of one of our country’s most basic principles: that everyone is entitled to fair and humane treatment. Our Constitution guarantees all persons the right to due process, including adequate medical care, when they are deprived of their liberty.
On October 4, 2007, the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law held a critically important hearing to explore this problem. Members of Congress heard testimony from Francisco Castaneda, who was repeatedly denied necessary medical attention for a painful lesion on his ***** during his more than 10 months in immigration custody. When he was released from detention after vigorous advocacy by the ACLU, Castaneda was quickly diagnosed with metastatic penile cancer and underwent immediate surgery to remove his *****. He has since undergone six aggressive rounds of chemotherapy, though his cancer continues to spread throughout his body.
Castaneda was joined at the hearing by his 14-year-old daughter. “She is here with me today because she wanted to support me,†he told members of Congress. “I wanted her to see her father do something for the greater good, so that she will have that memory of me.â€
Congress also heard testimony from critically acclaimed author Edwidge Danticat and June Everett, whose loved ones died in immigration custody. Danticat and Everett testified powerfully about the pain that their loved ones experienced in detention, and their own struggle to become advocates for others now caught in the system.
Hopefully this hearing marks the beginning of congressional oversight into a problem that has been shrouded in secrecy for far too long. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains nearly 300,000 people each year, approximately one quarter of whom are identified as suffering from some chronic health condition. Yet recent reports from the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General and the Governmental Accountability Office confirm that there are nationwide problems with medical care in detention.
The system for providing necessary medical care suffers from several fatal flaws. First, detainees may not receive services such as a biopsy or an MRI unless on-site medical personnel obtain authorization from off-site Managed Care Coordinators (MCCs) with the Division of Immigration Health Services (DIHS) in Washington, D.C. This results in unreasonable delays in medical care, and unjustifiable refusals to provide authorization. In York County, Pennsylvania, where detainees have been housed for years, the deputy warden wrote in a letter to a local ICE officer that DIHS had, “[S]et up an elaborate system that is primarily interested in delaying and/or denying medical care to detainees. There is nothing easy about working with DIHS. If something can be delayed, it is delayed. If it can be denied, it is denied. If something can be made difficult, it is made difficult.â€
Second, the treatment authorization decisions made by the MCCs—who are in fact nurses, not doctors—are made in accordance with deeply flawed policies. Those policies emphasize that detainees primarily receive emergency care only—literally when life or limb are at stake. This is blatantly inconsistent with established principles of constitutional law and basic notions of decency.
The terrible consequence of poor medical care for ICE detainees is that it can result in death. At the October 4 hearing, ICE reported to Congress for the first time that 66 detainees have died in their custody since 2004. Although some of these deaths may not have been preventable, others were undoubtedly the result of poor health care.
This grossly deficient care is inexcusable and immoral. Yet, detention facilities are not regulated and have little oversight, so unfortunately, such treatment is common and goes unchecked. While ICE has issued 38 standards for the treatment of immigration detainees, they are not enforceable regulations. The standards do not apply to detainees held in Federal Bureau of Prisons facilities, and ICE has been incredibly slow to ensure compliance at other facilities. Recently, Assistant Secretary Julie Myers announced that the standards will be replaced by new “Performance Based Standards,†but despite a history of collaborating with NGOs and the public in designing detention standards, ICE has now chosen to work behind closed doors. All the while, detention is on the rise. Privately-run facilities in Raymondville, Texas, and Aurora, Colo., are set to expand their capacity by 1,000 beds each, and new facilities are expected in Florida, Louisiana and Nevada, to name just a few.
Congress must understand that while comprehensive immigration reform may have stalled in the Senate, lawmakers cannot sit idly by while innocent people detained by the federal government continue to suffer unnecessary pain and even death. In order to fix a broken health care system that has caused people to die, Congress must take action.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, chair of the House Immigration Subcommittee, understands what is ultimately at stake here. “This is just another way of murdering people and it cannot be tolerated,†she recently told one newspaper. Now is the time to make sure that other members of Congress get the message and do something about it.
As part of its outreach, Richmond Police officers attend a vigil Oct. 12 for Shawn Ray Lyons, killed on Treehaven Drive in the Southwood community. Photo by Scott Elmquist
As crime increases in the Hispanic community, Richmond Police find a way to reach out.
by Elizabeth Kincaid October 31, 2007 The air smells like chlorine and cleaning product. Outside, it’s raining hard, and everyone’s hair and clothes are wet. Four folding tables dressed up with a red tablecloth offer Buffalo wings, chicken skewers and egg rolls. Most of the food’s untouched.
In Richmond’s Southwood community, about 70 Hispanics have gathered in this stuffy pool house to meet with city police about stemming crime in the neighborhood. Most of the residents who’ve come are interested in acquiring driver’s licenses, asking questions about police procedure and learning more about local laws.
Most of the Hispanics in the room are also illegal immigrants.
Police Chief Rodney Monroe is here, along with the Mexican consul and officials from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, the Catholic Diocese of Richmond’s refugee and immigration service and the city’s Hispanic Liaison Office.
“I think we need to meet more,†Monroe says, “and have our officers come to these meetings more, because the best time to establish a relationship is when things are calm, before something is wrong.â€
While politicians across Virginia and the country pursue all sorts of anti-illegal-immigration measures, such as cutting public services and empowering local police to detain those without U.S. citizenship, the Richmond Police Department’s outreach program has become a model for success. That some 70 illegal immigrants feel comfortable enough to show up here is no small victory.
Political ire isn’t the only barrier. Illegal immigrants are easy targets for crime because they tend to carry large amounts of cash: Not only are employers apt to pay them under the table, but many immigrants are leery of banks. They’re known in many inner cities as “walking ATMs†who are less likely to report violent crime.
The fear of police is well-ingrained in the Hispanic community, says McKenna Brown, director of world studies and a professor of Spanish at Virginia Commonwealth University. It’s not just the political environment and language barriers in the United States that cause this fear, but many immigrants have fled countries where police corruption is rampant.
“It is scary for everyone,†says Cristina Rebeil, a lawyer who represents illegal immigrants at Virginia Poverty Law Center. When criminals target the illegal immigrant population and crimes go unreported, the level of criminal activity only increases. “These criminals think they can’t be caught,†Rebeil says.
The fear of police and frequent crime have also helped fuel a growing gang problem in some Hispanic communities. To protect themselves, these community members take matters into their own hands by forming gangs, which can escalate the violence.
The Southwood meeting is just part of the police effort. The city has tapped federal grants to launch the Richmond Gang Reduction and Intervention Program, which in part targets gang activity in Hispanic communities.
Esther Welch, the Richmond GRIP coordinator, says the U.S. Department of Justice frequently uses the Richmond program as a model of success.
The Southwood area was selected because of its large Hispanic population, high crime rate and the fact that most gangs there are “home grown,†another term for a local gang with a neighborhood affiliation.
To counter the emergence of gang activity in Southwood, the city opened a resource center in July 2006. The center provides health and support resources and works with residents to identify the emerging gangs, and then intervene. It also launched an after-school program for at-risk students.
While crime in the Hispanic community isn’t as pronounced in Chesterfield County as it is in Richmond, police there are also beginning to reach out in a similar fashion.
Chesterfield Police Capt. Dan Kelly says the department routinely hands out refrigerator magnets as well as pamphlets with police phone numbers to Hispanic victims of crime and at Hispanic businesses. The pamphlets also work to reassure Spanish-speaking residents that police officers aren’t out to get them. Recently, Kelly says, a bilingual police officer with the county fielded questions from the Latino population on a local radio station.
“We do not conduct roundups or do anything of that nature, but if someone commits a crime, they will be held accountable just as everyone else,†Kelly says. “We do not have the authority to search for illegal immigrants — that’s just not what we do.â€
It’s not an easy sell. At the urging of the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors earlier this year, county officials released a report estimating the costs of supplying services to illegal immigrants at $2.1 million, not counting public education, and offered solutions for ridding the county of the expense. One solution was a zoning fix to prevent overcrowded homes, a characteristic of the illegal immigrant community, and giving police more authority to detain illegals.
In Virginia, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials even proposed building the country’s first state-run facility to hold only illegal immigrants. Currently, illegal immigrants who are arrested are held in local jails, federal facilities and private prisons.
In April 2006, Congress considered legislation that would legally classify the country’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants as felons. The legislation failed, but not before sending a message to illegal immigrants: The government isn’t your ally.
At Southwood’s community center last week, a crowd forms at the door while latecomers shuffle in from the rain. Hispanic men and women line the walls for the two-hour meeting. A sign-up sheet asking for names, phone numbers and the types of services desired travels down the five rows of folding chairs filled by attentive listeners.
Enrique Escorza, the state’s Mexican consul, speaks fast and passionately to the crowd in Spanish, telling them to obey local laws. He says not to drink and drive and not to attract attention. He tells them to be grateful for the services the police provide.
He says the closeness of police and community is a product of an authentic desire to communicate. In other areas where police try to host meetings with Hispanics, he says, it’s common for only a handful of people to show up.
Richmond Police also have teamed up with the Richmond Outreach Center (ROC) to hold Hispanic citizens academies with sessions on personal safety and crime prevention. No one attended the first Hispanic academy, says Officer GiTonya Parker, who also coordinates the program at ROC. When the police started getting involved, she says, people started to show.
It’s a process that starts with the children, says Lt. Harvey Powers, who at the Southwood meeting hands out a red balloon to a young girl accompanying her parents.
“I can see the change the most with the children,†Powers says. “In communities where Latinos are victims, we are trying to engage. And we have seen in our own reports a decrease in crime such as auto thefts and burglary.†Since the outreach started, Powers says, overall crime in Southwood is on the decline. In the last year, armed robberies are down 43 percent, while overall crime has dropped 8 percent.
Since the outreach started, police also have worked with Hispanic residents in breaking up a prostitution ring in Southwood, not to mention an illegal drug operation. “This tells us where we’re reaching the right people,†Powers says.
Nov 1st 2007 | LITTLE ROCK From The Economist print edition
Where would Arkansas be without immigrants?
THIS week executives from some of Arkansas's principal companies—Tyson Foods, the world's largest meat processor, Alltel, a wireless company, and Stephens, one of the biggest investment firms outside Wall Street—joined ministers, civic leaders and the local American Civil Liberties Union to form the Arkansas Friendship Coalition. The group, led by Steve Copley, a Methodist minister, stresses that states should abide by federal immigration laws rather than try to make their own.
This sudden respect for the wisdom of Washington has been prompted by anti-immigration laws passed in Arkansas's neighbours, Oklahoma and Missouri. Oklahoma's Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, which went into effect on November 1st after a lawsuit failed to stop it, will be one of the most stringent in the country. It imposes tighter screening on employers, essentially barring undocumented workers from getting jobs. Illegal immigrants will also find it harder to get benefits.
Some anti-immigration advocates have begun to push for similar laws in Arkansas. In the state's north-west, where most of Arkansas's Latinos live, four police agencies have signed up with the customs and immigration agency to enforce immigration law more efficiently. Mike Beebe, the Democratic governor, wants state troopers to get tougher too. This sort of thing generates bad feeling, especially since, by one estimate, immigrants—almost all Latino—contribute $2.9 billion directly or indirectly to the state's economy each year.
Between 2000 and 2005 Arkansas had the country's fastest-growing Hispanic population, native and foreign-born. The Census Bureau projects an Arkansas population of nearly 3m in 2010, of which 6% will live in immigrant households. Realising a need, Mexico opened a diplomatic office in downtown Little Rock in the spring.
Of Arkansas's immigrants, 60% (the national average is 54%) are aged between 20 and 45. Their youth suggests that, even more than elsewhere, they may replace retiring baby-boomers in the workforce. Lack of higher education keeps them out of the better-paying jobs, but a report by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation estimates that without immigrant labour, annual revenue from Arkansas's manufacturing industry would probably be $1.4 billion lower.
In answer to critics, the Arkansas Friendship Coalition stresses that it is not putting out a welcome mat for illegals. It just wants federal immigration law to be overhauled, before state governors like Mr Beebe take it into their own hands.
IMMIGRANTS LOSE ATTACHMENT TO HOME COUNTRY OVER TIME
By EUNICE MOSCOSO Cox News Service Friday, October 26, 2007
WASHINGTON — Recently arrived Latino immigrants maintain strong ties to their home countries, but the bonds fade with time as they become more attached to the United States, a study released Thursday found.
The study by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, examined three activities — phone calls, return visits to the home country, and remittances sent back to relatives.
Only 10 percent of Hispanic immigrants engaged in all three over the past two years, the study found.
However, the report also said that most of the immigrants still feel a "core identity" with their home country, even if they have been in the United States for many years.
About one-third of immigrants said they describe themselves as Americans, it said. In addition, almost half said that their "real homeland" is their country of origin.
Roger Waldinger, a sociology professor at UCLA who authored the report, said that it shows that immigrants are in a period of transition, adapting to the United States and putting down roots while still feeling an identity or "sense of self" with their native countries.
"Immigration is a life-changing event, and people don't change their lives overnight," he said. "People are in the middle of this life transformation, but for most immigrants, it's far from complete."
The study comes at a time when the assimilation of immigrants is a hot political topic and several GOP presidential candidates have endorsed making English the nation's official language.
Several of the report findings seem to assuage concerns that immigrants are not adapting to American culture.
The report found that most immigrants have positive feelings about the United States even as they stay in regular contact with friends or family in their home country.
"The very same people who are keeping in touch and trying to remain true to the people and places they have left behind are simultaneously shifting loyalties and allegiances to the U.S., where they see a bright future for themselves and their children," the report said.
In addition, it said that the long-term trend is toward "a steadily deepening commitment to the United States."
The study also found:
— Three-fourths of foreign-born Hispanics call someone in their native country at least occasionally and two-thirds do so at least twice a month.
— Almost a quarter of foreign-born Hispanics say they never or almost never call someone in their home country.
— More than half of immigrants who have been in the United States for less than 10 years are planning to stay for good.
— Slightly more than half of the Latino immigrant population sends remittances to their home countries. The activity is most common among new arrivals. However, a large minority of long-settled immigrants continue to send
money to relatives. Among those who have lived in the United States for 30 years or longer, about one-third continue to send money to relatives.
— Only 15 percent of Latino immigrants report using e-mail to contact friends and family in their native lands.
Victor Vargas works downtown. Construction company officials say it’s wrong to assume Hispanic workers are illegal workers.
SOME HISPANICS LEAVING STATE
Cherokee Builders has been in Oklahoma for 12 years, but a recent "significant problem" is already hurting it and other Oklahoma companies: Work force shortages.
"We used to see a whole bunch of them, Hispanic workers, 10 a week, applying for jobs," said Larry Creekmore, Cherokee Builders executive vice president. "We're maybe seeing one or two per week now."
Creekmore and other Oklahoma businesses have seen Hispanic workers, regardless of legal status, leave Oklahoma recently since the passage of House Bill 1804, a state anti-illegal immigration law.
Creekmore said his firm has always checked the legal status of employees, but said the law about to take effect seems to be affecting more than those for whom it is intended.
Legal Hispanic workers are leaving the state also.
"They're good workers," Creekmore said. "They're as good of a worker as an American, and if he's legal, he has just as much of a right to work as other Americans."
Rumors that there will be massive layoffs around Thursday, when HB 1804 is scheduled to take effect have also caused panic, said Francisco Trevino, executive director of the Tulsa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
"Everybody's worried about losing their jobs," he said. "We've had calls about every three minutes about this law, it's been crazy. Everybody's been worried."
While there is no need to panic, this does not stop people from reacting, said **** Anderson, executive vice president of the Associated General Contractors of Oklahoma.
"Despite the knee-**** reaction of the Hispanic community, I don't believe there will be huge roundups," Anderson said.
He said there are many false rumors among the general public about the estimated 18 percent to 20 percent of construction workers in Oklahoma, who are Hispanic.
Hispanic workers aren't paid in cash to avoid taxes or kept in substandard housing, he said.
"They are hard workers and dependable,'' he said. ''They work from daylight to dark; they get the job done."
Under Tulsa city requirements, all Tulsa Vision Builders work, including the BOK Center, is done by workers who have had their identities and legal status verified, said Bart Boatwright, project director.
He said he thinks the areas that will have the greatest effect are smaller markets with less established contractors and companies.
"In the residential market, the ebb and flow of the business, whether they're busy or not busy, it's not a consistent work force," Boatwright said.
Most customers are not concerned about legal status of workers, but rather quality of work, dependability and business honesty, said Alejo Martinez, owner of All Mexican Roofing and Martinez Painting General Services.
Martinez said he's been living in Tulsa the past 28 years and is a naturalized citizen originally from Mexico. He said this time has helped him get connections to potential workers and establish his business.
"I know so many people, so if I lose one of my roofers who leaves for Mexico, I can always get another," Martinez said.
He said his name "All Mexican Roofers" is a play of the term "All-American," because the business "is mostly just me, and I'm Mexican."
Illegal immigration needs to stop, Anderson said, but Oklahoma should give immigrants the opportunity to work and benefit the state. Otherwise, there will be consequences when businesses are required to check legal status next year.
"You better figure out a gameplan to get these people here legally because if you don't, you will stop construction" in July 2008, Anderson said.
That's when state contractors are required to start checking the status of all employees under the law.
"It would be a shame to let something as petty as this destroy the economy in Oklahoma right now," Anderson said.
Cherokee Builders will not have to move out of state because of HB 1804, said Creekmore, who added that he does not support illegal immigration. However, without a work force, his firm will have to cut back on work.
"They just might feel Oklahoma is not friendly anymore," he said.
LOS ANGELES - A Salvadoran man with terminal cancer is suing the government, claiming he was denied proper medical treatment when he was detained at an immigration facility. Francisco Castaneda, who is facing deportation, filed suit in federal court Wednesday, accusing federal and state agencies of providing negligent medical care.
Castaneda, 35, claims the cancer wouldn't have reached the terminal stage if he'd received proper treatment. His ***** was amputated after he was freed from federal custody in February and he's undergoing chemotherapy.
According to his lawsuit, a doctor first noticed a growth on his ***** in December 2005 while Castaneda was in state prison.
After being released, he was transferred to Immigration and Customers Enforcement custody.
There, he repeatedly sought treatment from medical staff while detained for 10 months, but recommended examinations were never done, the suit claims.
After a biopsy was recommended, a supervising doctor said it was an elective procedure and would not be provided, the suit said. Other physicians or officials at agency headquarters also refused recommendations for a biopsy or surgery.
"Government officials imposed a death sentence on Mr. Castaneda, without benefit of judge or jury, by their failure to provide a simple and inexpensive diagnostic procedure to rule out a life-threatening disease," said his attorney, Conal Doyle. A doctor finally ordered a biopsy in late January, saying Castaneda likely had cancer, but ICE released him 11 days later instead, according to the suit.
ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said she couldn't comment on Castaneda's case, but added, "We take the health and welfare of those in our custody very seriously."
Castaneda eventually had a biopsy and surgery at a Los Angeles County hospital, but the cancer has continued to spread.
While his attorneys said they couldn't explain why Castaneda was freed, the suit speculates the government wanted to avoid paying for the biopsy.
Congress has failed to pass immigration reform, so industries that depend on foreign workers have already been left in the lurch. But Senator Chuck Grassley now wants to make things worse.
Last week Mr. Grassley, the Iowa Republican, slipped an amendment into a spending bill that would tax businesses that hire skilled immigrants an additional $3,500 per visa to a total of $5,000 each. According to the National Foundation for American Policy, this represents a $3.1 billion tax increase over five years on some of America's fastest growing companies.
Companies employing foreign professionals who are here on H-1B visas already pay $1,500 per individual. The fee was originally set at $500 in 1998, but at least past increases have also included a rise in the number of available visas. When Mr. Grassley floated this tax back in April, it would have been part of a Senate bill that lifted the H-1B visa cap by 50,000 and put in place an escalator provision that allowed market demand to determine future increases.
But the Grassley Tax proposed last week includes no such trade-off, leaving the H-1B visa cap of 65,000 per year intact. The need to increase this arbitrary quota, if not eliminate it, is clear. This year, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received approximately 120,000 applications for H-1Bs on the first day they were available.
In addition to the hiring fee, current law already requires H-1B professionals to be paid the higher of the prevailing wage or actual wage paid to Americans in similar positions. So it's not as if U.S. businesses pursue foreign engineers, computer scientists and the like because they're cheaper to employ. Nor are these foreign workers overrunning the country and displacing Americans. In 2006, new H-1B professionals comprised 0.07 percent of the labor force.
Citing anecdotal evidence -- "People have called our office," a spokeswoman tells us -- Senator Grassley says the fee increase is necessary to combat abuse and fraud. But the back wages owed to H-1B hires amounted to just $4.6 million in 2006, down from $5.2 million the previous year. In a $12 trillion economy, those numbers are infinitesimal. Department of Labor investigations reveal that some 90% of violations are paperwork offenses and good-faith misunderstandings.
The Senator also maintains that his tax increase is needed to fund more federal programs for high-achieving U.S-born students, who are notoriously underrepresented in math and science. Leaving aside the dubious notion that the federal government doesn't spend enough money on education, the high-tech industry has already shelled out more than $2 billion to fund scholarships over the past decade. And that's not counting their other philanthropic efforts, nor the state and local taxes these companies pay to support public education.
Mr. Grassley's justifications notwithstanding, the reality is that these skilled foreign nationals help U.S. companies compete globally and keep jobs and innovation inside the U.S. This is especially important when other countries are opening their doors to this human capital. The European Union, which says it's facing a shortage of some 20 million skilled workers over the next two decades, has announced plans to streamline its immigration process to attract foreign talent.
So while even European bureaucrats are wising up to the importance of attracting global talent to keep an economy competitive, a Republican Senator is joining liberal protectionists to move the U.S. in the opposite direction. Go figure. If Congress can't see its way to fix our broken immigration system, the least it can do is not drive more jobs offshore.
• GRASSLEY H-1B TAX WOULD COST BUSINESSES $3 BILLION OVER FIVE YEARS blogs.ilw.com • H-1B Program Will Never Please All itbusinessedge.com
dissidentvoice.org a racial newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice
by Mikel Weisser / November 3rd, 2007
During the recent raging inferno of the Southern California fires, desperate poor families of color once again had to seek solace from an overwhelming natural disaster by huddling into the home of a professional football team and once again were humiliated by our national government. This time, instead of New Orleans’ Lower 9th Black families fleeing Katrina, they were the So-Cal fire refugees, San Diego area farm workers, and the government agency was the INS, La Migra. Just after midnight on Oct. 24th the Border Patrol and local police began rousting families who had barely escaped with their lives to check to see if they remembered to bring their green cards. Anyone Hispanic looking who did not have IDs was ejected from the stadium as agents harassed and detained legal and illegal immigrants alike, as well as other under-documented suspected Hispanics.
This same week New York state governor, Eliot Spitzer, continued to roast in the firestorm of controversy over his decision to join Arizona, Vermont and Washington in the process of licensing foreign nationals driving vehicles in his state, provided they had valid passports from their home countries. Right wing xenophobes, including CNN’s Lou Dobbs, frothed at the mouth vilifying Spitzer as an illegal alien enabler. (It’s worth noting that Dobbs’ repetitiously repetitious use of “arrogant†as an epithet while belittling Sptizer could not help but remind one of the old playground retort about rubber and glue.)
Also that same week GOP wannabe candidate bottom feeder Tom Tancredo tried to gobble up a little attention by narcing out IL senator **** Durbin’s press conference on the DREAM act, a proposal to allow immigrants US citizenship for risking their lives in the military. Ever the loyal patriot, Tancredo called in to tip off the INS that illegals would probably be there. Like so many Republican voters have done, the INS simply ignored Tancredo. But between naps second tier GOP sleeper, Fred Thompson, has recently tried to generate some nativist traction by proposing that cities and states be stripped of their federal funding if they allow illegal immigrants in their midst, suggesting that the fugitive slave act is still alive and well in Tennessee. Even GOP stalwarts acknowledge that kind of law would be a tall order.
And so, in a time when the mainstream media would have you believe that the allowable debate on the immigration issue is A) punish ‘em a lot or B) punish ‘em a lot more, let me offer a suggestion that even Bill Richardson isn’t secure enough in his paperwork to suggest. Let’s make immigration legal. Bring on your tired huddled masses and let’s let them breathe free. America living up to its ideals? Sure it’s a harebrained notion, but hey, this is supposedly a comedy column.
Let me open with a story: long ago and far away I grew up in rural south Texas not far from the Rio Grande border. Illegal immigrants were an extremely visible fact of daily life. The border patrol had guards right on the river and then there is a second perimeter of checkpoints about 50 miles in. The town I grew up in was the last town south of the interior border. As an Anglo in South Texas, that is, in general, 80% Latino, I grew up a minority and spent much time in the company of people who spoke a different language than me. You get used to it and I didn’t think to wonder where the people around me fit along the spectrum from full-blooded US citizens for generations since that land was taken from their great-great-great-great-grandparents in the Mexico-American War 1848, down through second and first generation US citizens, to documented aliens, to illegals who had been there for decades, to those who’d slipped across the river that morning.
It was all business as usual UNTIL, one day in my early 20s when I was looking for work and took a job at a commercial plant nursery. The work was tedious, and the pay was minimum wage, but I knew, or thought I knew the owner, a former professional football player who now hustled himself up a living in a variety of ways, including this nursery. Like I said the work was tedious and, as usual with the manual labor jobs I did plenty of in South Texas, I spent most of my time surrounded by people who didn’t speak English to me except when absolutely necessary. Finally, Friday arrived and we gathered ’round for our paychecks. The owner stepped up on a table, and his foremen gathered closely around him. The owner then waved a fist full of envelopes at us and called out that he would distribute the checks to all workers who could show him their social security cards.
A panic of confusion filled the room as the workers gathered frantically to figure out what he was saying. I too was scared, for even though I remembered the number, I hadn’t seen my actual paper social security card in years, but he called out to me and handed me an envelope without pause. Then he went back to explaining in broken Spanish that there was some sort of law that said he only had to pay people who could prove they were US citizens. The foremen were still working at controlling the crowds when I walked out and never went back.
I had worked the same hours as the other people and had my pay, but it wasn’t because I had a piece of paper in my pocket with a series of numbers on it. And it wasn’t because I was a better worker than those other men who had sweated and strained. I surely was not. It was because of which side of a river I had been born on and, like the others, that man could have gotten away with cheating me if I had been born just 30 miles more South. I was so incredibly ashamed of being a White, Anglo, American, of even being associated in any way with that guy that I winced for years anytime I even had to pass by that nursery.
Nowadays I teach junior high in Western Arizona where the line between one country and another isn’t even a river, just an invisible stripe somewhere in a desert. The school where I now work is 65% Hispanic, including some whose trip across that line is still fairly fresh. In my classes I am currently teaching about the 1920s and we are learning that one of the leading social movements of the time was called the “nativist movement,†essentially a political reform movement based a rallying cry something like “America for us ‘mericans!†a oft recurring slogan in US history; one which every citizen of color clearly understands to translate out to: White People Only. While that is simplified version of the politics of the more mainstream members of this movement it aptly captures the sentiments of their more strident branches like the then recently revived KKK who reviled not only Blacks, but also Catholics, Jews and immigrants of all stripe. It was essentially the same laundry list Hitler would use a decade later to set up his cleansing of Europe. It is worth noting that the KKK is again managing to revive itself on the immigrant issue with new news stories about KKK justifying their hatemongering in Arizona and Alabama because of the threat of “those durned foreigners.â€
It is also worth noting though, that this was not the first such nativist movement to resort to claims of patriotism to their underlying racism. In fact, former massively unpopular president Martin Van Buren made one of his several unsuccessful runs for the presidency in the 1850s with the “Know Nothing†party which championed expulsion of all foreign born residents in America. The 1860s era of this movement was portrayed in the Martin Scorsese film Gangs of New York. At that time the offending immigrant minority were the Irish, whom like immigrants today, were expected to trade military service for citizenship and occasionally shipped right off of one boat (the freighters from Europe) onto the other (the troop transports heading South).
There should be no doubt that immigrants have always and always will have a powerful impact on the country. Just ask the Awaraks what they thought of the Spanish who moved here with that Italian, Columbus. Or the Powhatan of the arrival of the colonists at Jamestown, or the residents along the Rio Grande of the coming of Zachary Taylor or for that matter you could just as well ask the Alaskan mammoths what they thought about the coming of the cavemen.
I personally feel that the changes to the country are inevitable, but, given that political power in this country is a zero-sum game, I don’t see the transition as ever having been, nor likely to be a smooth one. I am convinced that the forecasts are true that, by the middle of this century, providing there is still an America, the dominant ethnic group will be the Hispanic, largely the children of immigrants, just the latter 20th century population explosion was the result of the children and grandchildren of the immigration wave of the early 20th century. Through my mother’s second marriage; I myself am one of those step-grandchildren of “durned foreigners†who didn’t know a word of English when they washed up on Ellis Island.
Way back when, the dire predictions made about that group of immigrants a century earlier did have some truth to them: They didn’t speak the language and so were slow to assimilate and surrender their cultures. There were pockets of intense poverty and the resultant suffering and increased crime. There was also a moral shift in the country from the agrarian fundamentalist society of the American 1800s to the “decadent†cosmopolitan urban society we see today. I expect that all those things, or this century’s variation on them, are in the offing with the current wave of immigrants.
Knowing all this, I think that the problem of immigrants coming to the US from Mexico in illegal ways could best be solved by loosening restrictions, not tightening them. If you really want to end illegal immigration, make immigration legal. Surely any rational person can accept that an immigrant would much rather enter the country through a functional welcoming low-cost official border crossing than by spending his life savings to risk life, limb and jail-time trying to sneak in through the middle of one of the least hospitable deserts on the planet. Surely every one accepts that an immigrant would much rather fill out commonsense paperwork in a language they could read to take a job at a reasonable wage than to have to seriptiously take sub-existence wages in a shadow economy, where one error or one objection could lead not just to firing, but deportation.
I further assert that we might as well make immigration legal since there is no legitimate political will in the US to seriously attempt to end illegal immigration. Intentions of the immigrants aside, just like the “drug problem,†it’s the demand that guarantees the supply. And I am not just talking about nannies, gardeners and maids. Too many “legitimate†American businesses “illegitimately†thrive on the cheap labor they enjoy from keeping immigrants under the table. And it is not just the backyard back-of-the-pickup landscaping companies I’m referring to. We have seen somewhat public scandals involving corporate giants like McDonalds, Swift and Tyson; and those are just the ones that have surfaced. As long as corporations embrace the practice of employing and exploiting immigrant workers, we will never see an end.
I believe that Bush is aware of the importance of the underground economy. His uncharacteristic ineffectiveness on immigration in either direction simply shows me it wasn’t something he wanted to have changed. Certainly his constituents, who are quite clearly not the American people, aren’t in favor of reform.
And so our ideals claiming to be to contrary and our national “leadership†(I told you this was a comedy column) opposing action on it, xenophobes can rant all they want, but we are not likely to see further restrictions on immigration, so why not just make immigration legal. Yes, immigration changes things and not in all ways for the better; but no, I don’t believe that that is a reason to stop it, or to waste political energy and taxpayer money to further fail at stopping it. And please can we take action soon so those creeps on our southern border who call themselves “Minutemen†will stop crowing about their so-called patriotism and have to acknowledge that what they actually are, are bigots with guns.
Instead allowing this stalemate to keep going, couldn’t we just legislate it and improve the lives of the people who suffer due to the oppression designed to keep one group of people poor and scared and another wealthy and callous. Free those who feed us from having to fear the midnight knock at the door and all the Tancredos of the world looking to grub a few votes. Not just amnesty from prosecution, but a reprieve from the persecution immigrants face each day simply to feed their families and inevitably, ours.
Mikel Weisser teaches social studies and poetry on the West Coast of Arizona. He can be reached at weisser@frontiernet.net. Read other articles by Mikel.
This article was posted on Saturday, November 3rd, 2007 at 4:59 am and is filed under Racism, Immigration, Human Rights and Prejudice.
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