“Millions of undocumented people in the U.S. should be given a path to legal status after the country finds a way to stop illegal immigration”
But, but....Janet Napalitano AND John McCain both insist the border IS secure!!! What complete idiots....if a country will NOT deport illegal aliens, why shouldn’t they ALL come???
BTW, many ‘progressives’ don’t agree.
Some ‘progressives’ understand the situation better than the GOP leaders.
Liberals Examine Immigration Reform
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Progressives for Immigration Reform has released a new policy brief: “The Economic Impacts of Mass Immigration into the United States and the Proper Progressive Response.” The publication was authored by Philip Cafaro, an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University with a long history of progressive political activism. This study examines the impact that uncontrolled immigration has on America’s poor and argues that Democrats need to address their plight rather than swelling their ranks by importing less-skilled, low-wage foreign labor. The article reveals that current immigration policies widen income inequalities and concentrate immigration’s harms upon those Americans least able to afford them.
Among the article’s key findings:
* Increased immigration has swamped American labor markets with less-skilled, less-educated workers, driving down wages for working-class Americans.
* Government data show that when adjusted for inflation, average wages in some industries with high numbers of foreign workers are 45% lower than in 1980.
* Among the biggest economic losers of current high levels of immigration are poor Americans, ethnic minorities, and older immigrants. There is no evidence of a labor shortage at the lower end of the labor market.
* Current immigration policies further economic inequality in the United States.
“In today’s economic environment when many Americans are suffering from unemployment, job displacement and stagnant or declining wages, liberals should strive to set immigration at levels that work FOR America’s poorest citizens, rather than against them,” says Professor Cafaro. “Although the United States is a wealthy nation that can and should do its best to help the world’s poor, basic fairness requires that we address the needs of America’s poor before increasing the economic and wage competition they already face.”
This publication can be accessed at: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/liberals-examine-immigration-reform-78758672.html
Thanks for the link.
The only thing the article did not address is that not all illegals compete at the lower economic end of the hob market. It is disgusting easy for a visa overstay (guest worker, student, or just visitor) to morph into an illegal alien worker competing with and suppressing the wages of American professionals. There also never has been a worker shortage on the higher end of the market either.
The unfortunate reality is that the real reason wages have crashed for the bottom wrung of American workers has less to do with illegal immigrants and more to do with software productivity. That’s not popular to admit, but it’s the truth.
Here’s what I mean:
If I were running my companies twenty years ago and, let’s say a customer placed an order, I’d have to have someone physically in a storefront, take payment, check inventory, ring up the sale, reorder the product, and then enter all of the records into the accounting system. There is a lot of time, process, and payroll that I’d have to cover.
Today, the customer shops from home. Their order is sent directly to the database, which adjusts the inventory figures, calculates the profit, charges the credit card, moves the money to the bank account, places the drop-ship order with the vendor, and then puts the completed record into the accounting system with no employee help along the way.
That means lower prices for the consumers, and higher profits in the company’s pockets. The savings come from jobs that are no longer necessary.
Peter Drucker warned us decades ago that the world was going to split into knowledge workers and the destitute, blue-collar workers that wouldn’t be able to support themselves as their role became increasingly obsolete. This is being driven by improvements in technology.
No one is talking about this, though. Probably because there aren’t a lot of solutions.