Immigration can speed economic recovery
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– Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. –
It’s welcome news that President Obama will turn his attention to immigration reform this year, as was announced on Wednesday by Deputy Assistant to the President Cecilia Muñoz. Economic recovery will happen more quickly if both high- and low-skill immigrants are permitted to enter the United States and work legally.
Two years ago, when Congress was considering comprehensive immigration reform, both President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers and the Congressional Budget Office, headed by Peter Orszag, an economist closely identified with the Democratic Party, estimated that the benefits of additional immigrants outweighed the costs. If Congress allowed more immigration, then American taxpayers would come out ahead financially.
Yet, after Congress refused to pass President Bush’s plan to allow most undocumented workers to receive work visas and wait in line for citizenship, the Bush administration’s immigration policy deteriorated into a series of arbitrary raids on different companies, rounding up undocumented workers and deporting them, in many cases separating husbands and wives, parents and children.
We can do better. Although the unemployment rate reached 8.5 percent last month, the jobs are going to come back, and, as has been the case in the past, native-born Americans will want jobs that are different from those of immigrants, according to economics professor Giovanni Peri of the University of California at Davis.
Congress needs to overhaul immigration law and create an expanded temporary worker program with a path to citizenship, along with more verification to prevent workers from working illegally, and monitoring of tourists and students so that they do not overstay their visas.
A rational immigration policy would have numerous advantages:
- Undocumented workers would pay taxes to federal and state governments rather than to grey-market check cashing services.
- Payments for health care through insurance could be collected more easily, rather than burdening hospital emergency rooms with immigrants without health insurance.
- Foreigners who want to work here could pay the government for visas rather than pay smugglers for unsafe, illicit transportation.
- Improvements in security. Legal visas and bank accounts would make it far easier to identify and track potential terrorists, dubious financial transactions, and those who simply overstay visas.
A rational immigration policy would solve several real problems the United States faces with regard to immigration. The international economy is tremendously dynamic; our immigration system is not. Temporary workers must spend months applying for admission, and due to the pile-up in April of every year, may not even get a visa.
Few low-skilled workers have a legal and reliable method to enter this country and work legally, and few Americans want to do the jobs, such as fruit picking and cleaning, that these workers want to pursue. And even high-skilled workers trained at U.S. colleges and universities, often at taxpayer expense, might have to wait years and spend thousands of dollars to become permanent residents of the nation.
Mr. Obama might want to consider transferring the authority of setting quotas from Congress to the Labor Department. The Labor Department already has the presumptive authority to judge whether demand for foreign labor is justified, through its foreign labor certifications. If the Labor Department is allowed to determine whether or not a foreign worker would displace a native one, it could also be allowed to calculate visa quotas.
High-skilled workers educated in America ought to be able to stay; otherwise, our investment in their education becomes lost to another country. If the Labor Department determines that a foreign worker would not displace Americans, that worker should not be barred from entering the country due to an arbitrary quota. And people who want to enter this country in order to work in jobs Americans are not willing to take ought to have an easy, legal way to do so.
Mr. Obama has the opportunity to craft a sensible and dynamic immigration system. All Americans should wish him success.
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A “rational immigration policy” would be one where we enforce the laws already on the books, deport those who are in this country illegally and stop using the word “undocumented workers”. They are criminals despite your opinion or position on the subject.
The “jobs Americans don’t want” is a fallacy and myth wrapped in a far left ideological lie. And if there are a few jobs Americans don’t want why not look at why? improve the working conditions and wages to the required level and people will want those jobs.
People like you would rather see illegal immigrants working to pay taxes than make those industries relying on such slave labor change their HR policies and wage structure to employ Americans who need jobs. I personally feel that those who share your opinion are traitors to citizens of this country who want fair wages and stable employment. Your ideology wreaks of disdain your fellow Americans and unfortunately you’re too blind by your cause to be embarrassed.
“Bush administration’s immigration policy deteriorated into a series of arbitrary raids on different companies, rounding up undocumented workers and deporting them, in many cases separating husbands and wives, parents and children.
We can do better.”
Yes, we certainly can. We can continue to enforce the laws on the books in this nation without prejudice and with more diligence such as shutting down corporations profiting through the use of illegal labor. Economic recovery in America will only occur when Americans have jobs, not foreigners.
I believe this journalist should simply say she is for free immigration.
No need to figure out some weird reason to let foreign people enter.
Any other comment is a nonsense in my opinion.
When it comes to economic recovery the answer is not amnesty. Many native Americans are struggling right now and you would like to kick the door open to more of the same. Run away population in is a concern for our world and our nation. American’s are tired of falling for the banana in the tail pipe trick. I believe Pres. Obama will experience a grand opposition in any attempt to grant amnesty.
How the heck does Amnesty for criminals help the economy?
How does Amnesty get 13,000,000 unemployed Families back to work?
How does Amnesty stop the flow of illegals into this country?
The answer is Amnesty hurts this nations citizens and the American unemployed and it will only encourage more illegals to come to this nation like the misguided Amnesty of 1986!
http://www.numbersusa.com
This is another form of slavery.You cannot be so naive as to think this isn’t wrong.A decent livable wage must be paid for ANY job.Wealth must be more fairly distributed.Years of disparity have destroyed the American dream.To encourage action like this will welcome revolution.Maybe this would be a good thing.Every house needs a good cleaning out once in a while.
I do not believe Ms. Roth would feel the same way if one of these immigrants were a journalist and successfully took her job away from her for lower wage than she was paid. Then she would loose her house and starve like the rest of us unemployed.
I hope people like her get a “taste” of their own “do do”
Its always about the money, isn’t it. No thought at all about laws that are intentionally ignored because they happen to serve someones special interest group or their personal “feelings”. No thought at all about the millions of Americans who haven’t realized the “American dream” for themselves yet, just more competition for the American worker. These pseudo intellectual policy people don’t care at all about American citizens, they only care about what serves their purpose. They’re willing to reward the millions of law breakers with legality, which just encourages more illegality because it establishes the precedent and they can justify law breaking because “its good for the economy”. What they REALLY want is another voting block and cheaper labor. They willing to make American residency and citizenship the cheapest in the world because it serves their agenda, in the mean time, your children’s future is sold to the lowest bidder. Its not the late 19th or early 20th century anymore. We don’t need more people to work in heavy industry at low wages. We want the best and the brightest, but were taking the lowest and most dependent.
The census for births was released just last week. It showed that there were more Americans born in this country than at any other time in history. Way more than is needed to replace the population. What about their futures? Will they get the country that was passed on to you?
88% of the people in American DON”T WANT THIS TO HAPPEN. But the socialist don’t care what you want, they only care about what they want.
Welcome to the United Corporate / Socialist States of Mexico.
Well written Todd. I agree with most everything you said but I’d like to add that another reason the illegal immigrant is willing to take these low wage jobs is because they tend to go against the traditional American lifestyle of a one-family residence. Instead they opt to live with siblings, nieces, nephews, etc oftentimes placing 8-15 people in homes that were designed for 4-5. But how else can they afford to live in America with the wages they are being paid? They can’t, which is why the employers need to stop being greedy and pay what Americans are willing to accept for “low skill” positions.
Also, the immigration laws are VERY biased. I married a woman from a foreign country and spent thousands of dollars and countless hours filing the proper paperwork to get my wife to the US legally. It then took over one year to process and approve the visa. And because not many tourist visas are issued to residents of my wife’s country, I now have a slew of close relatives that are not able to visit my daughter.
So, my blood boils when I hear comments like this:
“Bush administration’s immigration policy deteriorated into a series of arbitrary raids on different companies, rounding up undocumented workers and deporting them, in many cases separating husbands and wives, parents and children.”
Stop blaming the government for separating families and trying to engage the emotions of naive, ignorant Americans. Each and every immigrant (regardless of legal status) makes a conscious choice to leave their families or risk being separated from their families.
Oh yeah, I forgot.
Legalizing millions of law breakers also means that these people have more rights then you. If you or I break a law, we get the punishment that the law describes. They break the law, live on the benefits that this country has to offer, then get rewarded with legal status because they are more important to politicians and corporate interests than you or I. Ms. Furchtgott-Roth should spend some time living in the real world where people have to compete for jobs, produce as expected or be fired, and be responsible for themselves and others. I’d like to see how long she would last having to produce more then just some wonky policy paper where there is no downside for her being wrong.
These fools conflate the economy with the country. Two different things. We can pack in a billion people here to “grow” the economy, but the country will resemble Mexico on steroids.
“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” – Adam Smith, economist and ethicist
Everything you need to know about immigration and what to do about it humorously told.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBw1nUlf3 8I
(Roy Beck and NumbersUSA are the “gumball” heroes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7WJeqxuO fQ
After every American has realized the American dream, then we’ll consider immigration.
Another fine propaganda piece by Furchtgott-Roth. The American dream has died with “free” trade, outsourcing, robotics, building American corporate facilities overseas and tolerance of illegal immigration. What American in their right mind wants a middle class, minimum or sub-minimum wage job which is worth less than it was 30 years ago? How can an American compete with a few billion workers around the world who will work for $2-$3 a day?
It’s a great worldwide labor leveling pushed by corporate interests while they work for even more tax cuts, both personal and corporate.
Goodbye America. Hello U.S. Banana Republic. It’s as certain as the sun rising with world-wide corporations running the world and its governments.
The author states, “Legal visas and bank accounts would make it far easier to identify and track potential terrorists. . .” What would prevent a potential terrorist from entering the country illegally and continue living here without documentation? Any changes to the system will aid those interested in obeying the law.
I would desire stricter employment laws requiring some demonstration that there is, in fact, no US citizen interested or qualified to perform a job. If the minimum-wage jobs paid sufficiently to allow an individual to support his or her family there might be more US citizens interested in the jobs that are currently considered “unwanted.”
This lady is absolutely loyal to Israel and the Jewish interests, and cares not for the USA, workers, or US voting majority will.
I wonder if Diana Furchtgott-Roth ever had to worry about getting laid off, or does she have lifetime tenure like many other academics? I wonder if she ever had to face wage competition in a shrinking labor market where real wages have been at best flat, or are her skills developing deep theories she congers up at the Hudson Institute so in demand that she has no fear of an economy shrinking under her feet. In the real world, people think about these things.
Maybe she should get a real job and see what its all about.
We cannot pick and choose which laws to obey or which may be applied to us (ourselves) as individuals or members of sub-groups.
We cannot ignore the laws we do not like and only follow those we do, nor should we encourage or promote this behavior in others.
What this person, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, is doing is actually advocating exactly that. Yet, the whole concept is kindred to things such as racism, cronyism, favoritism and pure and simple bigotry. It is a separate privilege from which only others may benefit and it is fundamentally illegal at its core.
This article is so hopelessly and completely wrong that it defies description. How could someone write such preposterous nonsense and attempt to claim any credibility?
I have a challenge for you Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth: we each (you and I) may pick one law to choose to ignore (and revoke), one law the suppression of which would affect only a sub-group of people now living in this country. It seems quite obvious that you have already decided to ignore several laws; immigration, residency, entry and border laws, smuggling, etc. I however will only choose to ignore (and revoke) the law of “citizenship based on birth-soil” (14th Am.). No more will persons be citizens of the USA simply by being born in this country. From now on, you are a citizen by birth if and only if your parents are USA citizens. That is the law I choose to ignore and to revoke.
Do we have a deal Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth ? Will you help to overturn the 14th Amendment ? If you do, I will support your laughably specious arguments to overturn the plethora of laws you appear to want eliminated or revoked. 1 each, yours and mine.
Laws we don’t like? NO! … Laws we do like? YES!
Is this how it is to be Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth ?
Before you get started – this is not the same thing as fighting a Civil War to end the horrors of slavery. This is not about civil disobedience to protest laws on abortion, Selective Service or draft, etc. This is about choosing to ignore laws so that a small group may gain special and anomalous benefits. Don’t you dare try to equate freeing slaves to allowing foreign nationals to break a plethora of the USA’s laws. I sincerely hope that not even an intellectual charlatan such as yourself would stoop so low.
I support the immigration reform and I hope it will happen this time around. The few who are against it in this country are a loud ignorant minority whom will have to just suck it up this time.
Prosecute and punish all who live here and don’t obey ALL our laws, or our laws become meaningless.
Barack Obama ran on a platform of comprehensive immigration..and WON!
GOP voters nominated John McCain, who also endorsed comprehensive immigration reform. Why didn’t GOP voters nominate an immigrant flame thrower like Tom Tancredo, Mitt Romney, Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, etc?
Latino voters are THE reason he won Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/cross_t abs/2008/11/the_gops_growing_latino_prob le.html
Florida ALONE is reason enough to court Latino voters. The GOP is not a viable national party without Florida.
The coasts plus Florida (not to mention Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada) guarantees Obama re-election in 2012…and a lasting Democratic majority.
Will Growing Number of Latino Voters Turn Texas into a Blue State?
http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=634300 6&page=1
As a society, we should make an effort to structure work in a way that makes it palatable. I have a friend in his 60′s who told me that as kids they were permitted to leave school in the fall to pick apples. Now we make certain that our kids remain in school so that they are fully indoctrinated in the corporate system. One feature of this system is the formation of “think tanks” that support big agribusiness with the white papers that they “produce.” Mainstream media is indoctrinated as well and prints these same white papers without the caveat: “Beware! This article was “produced” by a big agribusiness flack!”
I agree with most posters. I would suggest that we do a few things before we even consider changing our laws.
First, prior to deportation, all illegals should be fingerprinted and have their DNA recorded in a federal database accessible by ALL law enforcement in ALL jurisdictions. There is no way we can know if these people are wanted for solved or unsolved crimes committed in the U.S.
Second all of their aliases should be recorded with the other info, including criminal records from here and their country of origin, again accessible to all law enforcement.
Third, if they were using a social security number, that number, along with the name it was used under, should be forwarded to credit reporting agencies, to see if it was used to create a parallel person. If yes, the detainee should be held over for id theft charges and, in addition to jail, fined the amount of money the actual owner of the SS# will have wrongly reported due to their actions, be it credit card balances, mortgages, etc. Their credit accounts should be automatically flagged for their protection and the illegal one monitored by the FBI for further activity and prosecution if any exists.
In the interim, the only law that should be changed is the amount of the fine for hiring illegals, any discretion allowed the INS or the courts should be removed, jail and asset seizure should be required if fines are not paid or a payment plan is not worked out or falls into default. A second offense results in seizure of the business. Period.
Then and only then, can we talk reform.
“native-born Americans will want jobs that are different from those of immigrants”
I always wondered where they got this data from. In spite of numerous raided businesses losing the majority of their workers, never did I hear of one of them going under because they couldn’t find anyone to replace their illegal staff.
Somehow I don’t think they hired more illegals. I think they found native-born Americans who were willing to do the work, for possibly an increase in pay over what their illegal counterparts were earning.
Ever see a news story written from this angle?
It seems to me exceedingly irresponsible to advocate an increase in immigration while we are in the grips of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. Liberal economist Paul Krugman has argued that low wage and illegal immigrants create downward pressure on wages (that’s why Americans won’t work those jobs) and put a strain on social services. He further argued that low wage and illegal immigrants do not significantly benefit the American economy. Shouldn’t we find jobs for the unemployed who are already here before offering them to immigrants?
Hello nail, meet coffin…
So much for the Obama administration. A man that would bow to fake, fascist royalty has no clue.
No country can survive with an unbalanced amount of immigrants coming into the country. When we are losing hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans every month, admitting over a million illegal immigrants, assuming they are all going to get jobs, will further unbalance the financial stability of our country and put more people out of work.
This is easily understood by a middle schooler.
Everyone who complains about the COST of keeping immigrants in the US should advocate abolishing all welfare and government-funded social services.
Everyone who complains about terrible WAGES and living conditions should advocate abolishing the federal reserve and the criminal inflationary policies of the government. With natural money circulating we will not have massive boom and bust cycles or out-of-control inflation that forces two or more breadwinners to seek income while abandoning the children to the care of the state schools or unsupervised homes. With stable prices and incomes from natural money (not paper money) Americans CAN afford to pick apples or build widgets to till their heart is content and keep a decent standard of living while they are at it.
At the end of the day immigration is basically about employment, therefore only individual employers/companies should be in charge of hiring anyone they want – immigrant or local. The Feds will never know the appropriate number of immigrants to allow or deny from entry. Only individual companies in each individual community/city can allocate that number of workers efficiently. This efficient allocation will keep our economy running at it’s optimal level. Too many or too few immigrants allowed to join our economy will only hurt our productive capacity. It is IMPOSSIBLE for the Feds to every get that number right.
If there’s no work and no welfare then folks will just have to go home to their native country. If they come and add value to our economy (without committing theft or violence) then they deserve a right to stay.
“Mr. Obama” – more than once.
That’s President Obama to you Diana. Pretentious arrogance does not exclude you from the mandate of using the correct title.
is this person righting this on something. what person who gets a free pass amnesty will work in a field. the only reason they do is because they cant work legally if all of a sudden these employers are made to pay minimum wage will get rid of them and hire more illegals . who will work for less. we have almost ten million workers out of work and it may take years for the jobs to come back this will only start chain migration they have no plans to stop the inflow because they think that they can import a vote and taxes this must be stopped enforce the law stop chain migration then deal with talk about some sort of a immigrant plan
America doesn’t need anymore people. All we get out of more immigration is more politicians. I wish Reuters would remove this lady from their blogs.
This is just another example of our democrat administration trying to buy more votes. I’m looking forward to the howling of Obama’s supporters as more and more of them lose their jobs-perhaps then they’ll begin to wise up.
i keep hearing the crying of separating familys but a country that drive its people away like Mexico because of the way it treats its people they are the ones separating familys by its human rite violations so instead of dealing with this our government with its lack of backbone will not stand up to a tyrant Calderon but instead bows to him and helps him separate even more family we support tyrants and drug lords gang bangers killers and criminals a lot of the arms the drug lords get are sold by the Mexican military guns that our government funded rumor has the drug lords have been offered black hawk helicopters on the black market
If immigration can speed economic recovery,
why no other countries do that?
It’s so disturbing to me, to hear/read all those hateful discriminatory comments. USA should be a civilized country. Americans “should act like one”
We are not a superior race. Europeans are full of immigrants and culturally rich. Where does all the hate come from?
You go take a landscaping job, clean bathrooms for $5 and then you will have something to talk about.
Instead of asking so much from your country, be willing to give something instead. Maybe that’s what USA needs.
People are People!!! No matter of their background, national origin or language. It’s in the constitution the your American forefathers signed. Read it!!!
We’ve heard the conservative position loud-and-clear. How about a perspective from a liberal environmentalist. The population of the country has grown by 50 million people over the last 25 years, largely through immigration. That’s 50 million people that need houses, cars, toilet paper, and everthing else. Millions of acres of farmland paved over. Billions of tons of coal burned to make the extra electricity. More rivers depleted and polluted.
If this is how Ms. Roth thinks growth should work, I strongly disagree.
The billion dollar border fence is a waste of money. It will stop low skilled immigrants taking the low paying jobs. But the high paying service jobs like software programming, web design, accounting, legal are going to be outsourced anyway, through the Internet. If labor cannot move freely around the world as capital, then we don’t really have a market economy.
Wow, I can’t believe this. Let’s do the “witch hunts” and burn them all! This makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Let’s focus on 12mil “illegal” people already integrated in our economy instead on 280mil or more workers who trully taking our jobs away! overseas i.e.: customer service workers in India, cheap manufacturing labor in China and list goes on. For example, I am a graphic designer, my work is taken away every day because someone in Philipines can design a magazine page for $10. I can’t, it takes me at least 3 hours to do it and I can not live on $3.30 / hour or less! They can! All you doing is finding someone to blame for our nation’s miserable economy. Even if you think you are right and you manage to deport all illegal people from US you will find out that it did not make any difference! The difference can be only made when our government blocks job outsourcing into the undeveloped countries exploiting their cheap labor and using them as slaves! Holocaust seemed similarly as a good idea at the time but now we all know what a horrible atrocity it was! Do not make the same mistake again! Gather more objective information before you shoot!
I am happy to see that all my thoughts and opinions have already been stated. We are a nation founded on logic, not emotion. All your claims play merely on emotions and wishful thinking. There is no factual evidence to support anything you say. Competent thought disproves your argument.
The vast majority of the people coming in are working age. They don’t come to start getting unemployment benefits or social security, or wait around for plush jobs, or live off their parents. We should stop worrying about foreigners depriving U.S. citizens of jobs they don’t want. Stopping employers from offering low-wage jobs attractive to immigrants will be about as easy as stopping Americans from consuming illegal drugs provided by the cartels. The immigration procedures have been made so onerous and time-consuming that they provide an incentive for desperate people seeking work to simply enter illegally. If they start off illegally, how can we expect them to honor all other U.S. laws? We need to make it far easier for those wanting to work to get here and stay here as long as they want to, provided only that they work. If they need health care, they’ll find more of it back home, and much cheaper than here.
Jeff..I like this quote
Each and every immigrant (regardless of legal status) makes a conscious choice to leave their families or risk being separated from their families.
The republicans want the illegals here for cheap labor. The democrats want them here for their votes. It does not matter what the American public wants. (The public no longer controls the bureaucrats in Washington, they control us). The “American” dream died decades ago. There is no dream only existence. Both parents work and pay high taxes which go to places like Iraq, Afghanistan and 2.8 billion dollars in aid for the Pakistani military in addition to the civilian aid–1.5 billion dollars a year for five years and this is only a sample. Obama did not inherit Pakistan’s problems, nor are we at war with them, that is his decision. I don’t think Obama had math at his mighty Harvard. The only math knowledge he has is that he can control anything with enough money. Is it the modern American dream, to bust your ass for a fool. Oh, and don’t forget the ghettos. Like he told Joe the plumber, we must spread it around. If the Mexicans will work for $5.00 a day then we are all obliged to do the same. If we don’t then we are labeled as capitalist. The American dream. Spread it around so that those on welfare are making more than those who support them.
it does not sound to me like the majority of voters are for this and its seems like an equall amount of democrats and republicans feel the same now if we could only find a common ground on our other problems but one thing at a time
Mr Obama this is not the change that we asked for. Remember, it’s not only hispanic Americans that voted for you. With millions of unemployed Americans you are going to do this Please help us. Stop talking and we need your help Disappointed with Obama.
If you are worried about someone with a 3rd grade education who doesn’t speak English taking your job, you really need to take stock of what you have done with the opportunities you have been given so far.
Separating someone else’s family isn’t going to improve your life very much.
No amnesty for foreign invaders. End the flood of cheap foreign labor that is depressing our wages. Require all applicants be screened by the E-Verify program.
Hussein Obama will lose this fight.
No one is buying this lying propganda. There are millions of Indians in the country illegaly working as software engineers, test managers, project managers etc etc. These are jobs that pay 6 figures and Americans want them. You have also failed to mention the millions of people that are trying to get in legally. We have immigration quotas for a reason.If we need more then raise the quota but do not allow people that start out breaking the law to be rewarded, this will only encourage more to break the law. You are so dead wrong! And, if it is allowed, I suspect many Americans will vote the Democrats out of office.
The majority of economists and evidence does show immigrants are good for our economy. Most Americans agree that we need to pass comprehensive immigration reform. It’s too bad the rapid and xenophobes are hurting our country by standing in the way of progress.
“It will stop low skilled immigrants taking the low paying jobs. But the high paying service jobs like software programming, web design, accounting, legal are going to be outsourced anyway, through the Internet. If labor cannot move freely around the world as capital, then we don’t really have a market economy.”
Did it just dawn on you that the market economy is failing miserably? Those low-wage paying jobs are at that wage level precisely because the nation has been flooded with uneducated, unskilled, ignorant labor by the advocates of labor flexibility and unregulated capital flows and investment instruments.
When India removes the LAWS on its books making it ILLEGAL to hire AMERICANS there, then come back and talk to me about “free movement of goods and people”.
BTW, Wal-Mart has been banned from opening in India because it would put 21 million native Indian retailers out of business. How’s that for “protectionism”?
It seems “free movement of goods and people around the world” applies to some countries, but not to others.
To paraphrase Orwell, “Some countries are more global than others”.
Oink. Oink.
According to a 2007 U.N. and International Labor Organization study, Americans are ranked #1 in world worker productivity. Most other studies rank workers from India at 124th among all nations. People are just people? I don’t think so.
Perhaps importing 4 million workers ranked 124th in productivity and replacing workers ranked #1 in productivity by the millions – in jobs “no one wants to do” – such as, say, SOFTWARE is the cause of our problem.
Where are the millions of imported workers from Japan, Germany and Australia? They are obviously highly skilled engineers -especially Japan. Why are we only importing 3rd world workers.
Name one invention or new industry created by India or China and given to the world.
California has the highest foreign-born population of any state in the U.S. but it also has the worst state economy in the U.S. Logic then tells us that immigrants do not help the economy.
“native-born Americans will want jobs that are different from those of immigrants”
Who, exactly, did they think was doing those jobs before illegals took them away?
Why is there no mention of AMERICANS and what they want. Americans, by a landslide, DO NOT WANT MORE ILLEGALS. Job competition is fierce enough.
H Warren
The problem is twofold. On one end, it’s professionals coming on H1 visas and like, displacing American professionals and depressing pay for the ones still working/looking for work. On the other end, the flow of uneducated, unskilled, mostly not even speaking the most basic English immigrants, mostly over porous Mexican border, who then take low paying menial jobs no American would take.
The answer to the first part: there’s no lack of qualified professionals, particularly in my field (IT). There’s though a severe lack of qualified IT professionals willing to work for $18/hour on 1099 with no benefits whatsoever. I know the number – that’s what was paid the guy I had to “transfer knowledge” to before I was laid off a few years ago. No new laws actually needed – just enforce the existing ones about the bona fide effort the employer must make to fill the position with an American or Green Card holder before applying for H1. Tricks like posting the job with the pay level way below the prevailing rate, or requiring to fluently speak the language of the country from which, incidentally, the H1 worker is recruited, should not be allowed.
Here’s the answer to the second part (no American would take low paying menial job). Millions of Americans spend years on welfare rolls. Cut the welfare – and all of a sudden these jobs will become attractive. The only exception should be made for welfare recipients who are studying in a course that may increase their chances for meaningful employment.
In case there is a real shortage of labor in certain area, the ways to bring in workers on temporary work visa should be figured out. But temporary must mean exactly that – not a step to the Green card.
And as for accommodating illegal immigrants – what part of the word “illegal” is hard to understand? The only accommodation should be deportation. Or jail, if they broke other laws in addition to illegal entry.