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ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS HERALD |
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ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION - HOW BIG A PROBLEM IS IT? “Law firms say Illegals are needed for jobs Lawyers won’t take”. You will never read that headline. Or, to say it differently, if you ever read such a headline the illegal immigration problem will be on its way to being solved by about a million lawyers storming the political ramparts. Obviously, the headline is absurd because illegal immigrants’ skill-sets (as they say in corporate America’s corner offices) generally don’t include conversance with American law or a license to practice it. If they did, law firms – no fools they – would welcome illegals with open arms, pay them peanuts, and drive their non-partnered associates’ wages into the cellar. (A nice fantasy.) In some parts of American industry, however, illegal immigrants (with their modest skill sets) can easily find employment. They fit in well where the work requires a strong back, hands of varying degrees of skill, and a willingness to work hard for little pay. These include construction, yard maintenance, hotels, restaurants, the food industry, and some retail establishments. Construction and yard service companies are known for employing “day laborers”. Men seeking work hang out in the early morning at known locations, waiting for would-be employers to stop by and do the day’s hiring. In some communities these locations are so busy that residents have begun to complain. Attempts to build day-laborer shelters have produced legal controversy. Day-laborers may or may not need Social Security numbers, taxes, and green cards. “Undocumented” workers are generally paid below the minimum wage, usually in cash. The degree to which employers of day-laborers prefer undocumented workers is unknown, but the pay-differential between legal and illegal workers suggests that the choice is not difficult. Acquaintances in the home construction industry uniformly say their firms hire only legal workers. But they also say their businesses would grind to a halt without illegals, since most subcontractors (plumbing, foundation work, carpentry, masonry, plasterwork, painting, landscaping, etc.) use illegals to a significant extent. “The business is very competitive,” said one builder. “Cheap labor keeps motivation high and costs low. Every worker knows two or three others are waiting to step in if he falters.” But that story is not heard everywhere. Recently we employed a small local firm to build a screened porch on our house. Their price was expensive, but lower than other bids. The four-man crew worked easily and efficiently without an obvious foreman. All were from the western part of the state. There were no foreigners (except one West Virginian). When the general supervisor stopped by to check on progress, I asked him about his crew, expressing some surprise that he didn’t employ illegals. He said they had learned “the hard way” that illegals caused too many problems. In his experience, illegals couldn’t work independently, as his crew obviously could. The last thing you wanted was to redo work. “My guys very seldom make a mistake,” he said, “and if they do, they don’t need me to point it out. Quality work keeps our costs down.” As promised, they did a beautiful job. There were no errors. Admittedly, quality carpentry is not part of your basic illegal-skill-set. Still, many construction subcontractors use illegals. How do they do it? One of my builder-acquaintances gave insight. “Subs who use illegals have a high defect-count,” he said. “But the mistakes are their problem, not ours. If it’s wrong, they have to make it right. Sometimes a whole wall or floor has to be torn out and redone. Often it’s worse, but we don’t pay for it. Somebody is making peanuts by having to redo work.” No one knows how many illegals are fired for mistakes. It’s a tough system. But in plenty of jobs costly mistakes are less likely. Carrying shingles to a rooftop, unloading trucks, digging, or spreading mulch on suburban flowerbeds are ideal jobs for low-skilled illegals with strong backs and willing hands. The point is that illegal alien workers are ubiquitous. You can’t avoid them. OK. So some illegals are filling jobs Americans won’t do (say the experts). Why won’t Americans do them? Because the wages are too low. Legal workers know they can do better. They won’t work for sub-minimum wages. Moreover, some businesses won’t pay legal wage when they know they can get workers who will work for less. Actually, I know something about this. When I was fourteen I had a new girlfriend but no regular income for dates, etc. (My “allowance” was 50¢ a week.) The principal at my school notified me that a local businessman wanted a “good student” to be his stock and cleanup boy, ten hours a week. The pay was $3.75 – not per hour, but for the week. (I think the guy had been paying that since the 1930s.) It worked out to 37.5¢ an hour – low even for 1957. I stayed for two weeks, then found a newspaper-delivery route paying $10 a week. Later, I found better-paying jobs that financed for my education. (I lost the girlfriend to a guy who had a car.) Luckily, my pittance-wage job was not the norm. If all low-level jobs had paid that, I might never have bettered myself. Today, more than just “a few” illegal workers are working for $2 an hour. Adjusted for inflation their wages are far below my old 37.5¢. In Denver a man and his wife are facing prosecution for keeping an Indonesian woman “captive” for four years and paying her $2 a day as a cook, baby sitter and maid. Cornell University Labor Economics Professor Vernon Briggs says, “This [is] like a cancer [eating] at the social fabric. Toleration of illegal immigration undermines all of our labor. It’s a race to the bottom. The one who plays by the rules is penalized.” The New York investment firm Bear Stearns puts the illegal-alien count as high as 20 million. The US government claims it is 8.5 million, but Bear Sterns analyst Bob Justich says illegals don’t respond to US Census Bureau forms. He believes illegal aliens hold between 12 and 15 million jobs in the USA (about 8%). This keeps wages for unskilled jobs depressed. The Pew Hispanic Center says illegals’ average annual family income is $27,400 – 43% below the $47,700 for legal aliens or native families. Many jobs held by illegals are “off-the-books”. This means the government loses at least $35 billion a year in taxes. Some employers withhold taxes for undocumented workers, but don’t bother sending the taxes to Uncle Sam, knowing the workers will never file a return. Thousands of workers also use Social Security numbers which are either false or belong to another person. The SSA generally takes no action on such cases. Some critics claim this is because any action might stop the payment of taxes. It is one of illegal immigration’s “dirty secrets”. Barron’s, a major publisher of financial information, puts the size of the “shadow” illegals economy at $970 billion. (To paraphrase the late Everett Dirksen, “a hundred billion here, a hundred billion there – before you know it you’re talking real money.”) Obviously illegal labor is a beautiful deal for industries that depend on it to keep their labor costs down. The Pew Center reports that hotels and restaurants employ the largest share of illegals, followed by construction, food production and processing, and farming. These industries are at the core of strong resistance to any attempts to step up border security, find and deport illegals already here, or penalize businesses who employ them. With respect to enforcement, they can certainly relax. In August 2005 the Government Accounting Office reported that work-site arrests were down from 2,849 in 1999 to 445 in 2003. Civil notices of intent to fine employers for hiring illegal workers went from 417 in 1999 to only 4 in 2003. This, the GAO adds, is not due to better compliance with the law – indeed, poorer compliance is indicated – but to replacement of the Immigration and Naturalization Service by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in 2003. The latter’s focus shifted from civil fines for employment violations to investigations of national security sites. This begins to explain why illegals are pouring across our borders, a million per year – perhaps more. Short of a completely reformed and energized federal effort, there is no possibility of stanching the flow. Many politicians say the task is hopeless, and that we must accept increasing numbers of illegals because the country needs them. (Relax and enjoy it, in other words.) Others refuse to accept the status quo. A California border-activist named Jim Gilchrist recently ran as a dark-horse candidate in a special primary election for US Representative in one of California’s most solidly Republican districts. Coming from nowhere, he won 14% of the vote for his American Independent Party. His presence on the ballot caused other Republican candidates to lean toward better border-protection and stricter enforcement of immigration laws. Political strategists say Mr. Gilchrist’s candidacy pushed immigration concerns onto the “front burner”. The “burner” imagery is apt, because the heat is being turned up all over the country on illegal immigration. While the issue used to be localized to California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas and Florida (where illegals are 7-10% if workers), experts say illegals are now heading for the high growth and affordable housing of the West and South. The DC area, Utah, Washington, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Georgia and the Dakotas also have significant illegal alien populations. The Pew Center lists thirty-one states in which illegals comprise at least 4.1% of the work-force. The situation has finally caught the ear of President Bush (whom I have sometimes accused of being tone-deaf on illegal immigration). In recent high-profile speeches, Mr. Bush has promised a “comprehensive” solution to the illegal immigration problem. (He said “comprehensive” so many times in one speech that a national talk-show host sounded a gong on his show every time any caller or guest said the word.) Mr. Bush is late to the game, but better late than never. He still wants to issue work-permits to illegals already here. Some critics call this “amnesty”. Others say the plan will never work, since it would require “permitted” workers to return to their home countries after five years. “No illegal worker will step forward if he knows he will eventually be sent back home,” said one observer. He also doubted that border-protection would magically improve, dismissing Mr. Bush’s promises of tighter security as a “snow-job for Bubba” – i.e., empty promises for GOP hayseeds worried about illegals depressing their wages. Of course, there is more to the illegal immigration problem than economics. Malicious outsiders can easily slip across our southern border disguised as workers and concealed among the thousands coming in every day. Student and temporary work visa programs are notoriously lax – little effort being made to locate individuals who have overstayed their visas. These programs were abused by some of the terrorists who made the 9/11 attacks. In some states illegals vote because no one checks whether their documents are valid. Education and health care for illegals and their families cost billions a year – most of it paid by states. The whole gigantic mess now threatens to become a political football instead of a serious problem that must be addressed seriously by serious people. My assessment is that the American people are reaching the breaking point. Mr. Bush’s promises will not be enough. If he wants credibility on the issue, he will first have to show us he is serious about stopping the flow of illegals, despite what “business” wants. Their economic interests are not the only ones. Once the borders are stabilized, we can consider what to do about people already in the country illegally. Paying them legal wages would be a good first step, I think. No more shadow economy.
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