Border bogeymen

Rocky Mountain News ^ | 4/22/06 | Eduardo Porter

[Dane]

California may seem the best place to study the impact of illegal immigration on the prospects of American workers. Hordes of immigrants have rushed into the state in the past 25 years, competing for jobs with the least-educated among the native-born population. The wages of high school dropouts in California fell 17 percent from 1980 to 2004.

But before concluding that immigrants are undercutting the wages of the least fortunate Americans, perhaps one should consider Ohio. Unlike California, Ohio remains mostly free of illegal immigrants. And what happened to the wages of Ohio's high school dropouts from 1980 to 2004? They fell 31 percent.

As Congress debates an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, several economists and news media pundits have sounded the alarm, contending that illegal immigrants are causing harm to Americans in the competition for jobs. Yet a more careful examination of the economic data suggests that the argument is, at the very least, overstated. There is scant evidence that illegal immigrants have caused any significant damage to the wages of American workers

Snip

In addition, as businesses and other economic agents have adjusted to immigration, they have made changes that have muted much of immigration's impact on American workers. For instance, the availability of foreign workers at low wages in the Nebraska poultry industry made companies realize that they had the personnel to expand. So they invested in new equipment, generating jobs that would not otherwise be there. In California's strawberry patches, illegal immigrants are not competing against native workers; they are competing against pickers in Michoacan, Mexico. If the immigrant pickers did not come north across the border, the strawberries would.

[Dane]

Have at it people. This is a much more complex issue than people think, but what the hey if you wish to do such things such as restrict the growth of the poultry industry in Nebraska, that's your right, just as it was for karl marx to write his communist manifesto and promote central economic planning.

[peyton randolph]

Poor timing for your illegals love-fest.

Check out this guy doing a job Americans just won't do...hijacking planes.
 

[speekinout]

Thanks for posting. It's good to read an article with some balance.

[catholicfreeper]

What makes you think that guy was an illegal. Its possible but the article doesn't say.

[Lurker]

Anyone who doesn't demand in immediate end to illegal immigration is in aiding and abetting the flesh trade.

It's sad to see a pro-slavery contingent here on FR. It really is.

L

[Dane]

Poor timing for your illegals love-fest

Uh so? Whackos come in all ethnicities, such as british born richard reid.

But nice try in your anti-hispanic jihad.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

It is necessary for the long term good of the US for relatively uneducated citizens (read high school or below) to get relatively well paying semiskilled jobs. If you have ever worked in a steel mill, there were hundreds if not thousands of them available to a person that did not mind getting dirty when they worked.

The job should pay enough so the worker can buy a car, a house, and to be able to raise and feed his family. We are not talking super skilled 5 and 9 sigma well educated individuals, we are talking persons of average intelligence that want to work. This is an initial condition for national greatness.IMHO

[catholicfreeper]

I think we all want to end illegal immigration. The issue is the process to do that.

[Dane]

The job should pay enough so the worker can buy a car, a house, and to be able to raise and feed his family.

That kind of central planning was tried in the old Soviet Union, all it did was bring misery to all.

[peyton randolph]

What makes you think that guy was an illegal.

---

The hyphenated surnames, i.e. the fact that he uses both his father and mother's surnames in that order.

It is common, if born in the U.S., for kids of hispanic immigrants to retain the mother's surname (if at all) by using it as their middle name.

This guy, in contrast, has a first name, a middle name, and then uses both his father's and mother's surnames in that order. Means at a minimum he was born south of the border. This creates a high probability that he's an illegal.

[tophat9000]

But nice try in your anti-hispanic jihad.

Really and if the illegals were not hispanic but any other nationality(take your pick) we would all just love it....BS....

[Dane]

BTW, peyton how come all silent about al-queda protege, john walker lindh.

[jocon307]

"Ohio remains mostly free of illegal immigrants."

Please, we are awash in them, from stem to stern, from sea to shining sea. I'd like to see some stats that Ohio, or anywhere else is "mostly free" of illegal immigrants.

And, otra vez, what part of ILLEGAL do people not understand?

[Lurker]

We already have a 'process' We already have the laws. Find them and deport them. It's just that simple.

Anyone who says this is a complicated issue is akin to a bank robber saying that stealing from banks is a 'complicated issue'.

It's not. It's real frigging simple. It's illegal to cross our borders without checking in at a designated point.

It's illegal to cross our border with the intent to gain employment.

It's illegal to hire those who have illegally crossed our borders. It's illegal to use false documents to gain employment.

What part of 'illegal' do you find to be too complicated to understand? Or do you somehow support those who trade illegally in human flesh?

L

[peyton randolph]

But nice try in your anti-hispanic jihad.

---

One can be anti-illegal without being anti-hispanic. Try again, Señor.

[Jim_Curtis]

But before concluding that immigrants are undercutting the wages of the least fortunate Americans

Only a liar or an imbecile would argue against the fact:

Employers don't need to raise wages if there is a never ending flow of new workers willing to accept the slave wage.

[Dane]

Anyone who says this is a complicated issue is akin to a bank robber saying that stealing from banks is a 'complicated issue'.

Huh I didn't know that picking food or building buildings was the moral equivalent of robbing banks.

[TheLion]

Ping!

[peyton randolph]

peyton how come all silent about al-queda protege, john walker lindh.

---

Not silent. Irrelevant to this issue. Illegals do not contribute positively to the U.S. either from a national security or economic standpoint. You are trying to cloud the issue by claiming ethnic discrimination is at work as opposed to opposition to illegals...the overwhelming majority of whom happen to be hispanic.

[Dane]

Employers don't need to raise wages if there is a never ending flow of new workers willing to accept the slave wage.

Huh, minuteman leader chris simcox is going to use free labor to build his fence.

Oh that's right, I forgot, building a fence using free labor, good, growing food or building buildings at market wages, bad.