Economics
Secretary Solis Continues the Drum Beat for Immigration Reform, But Is Anyone Listening?
originally posted by Travis Packer for Immigration Impact [click here]
Jul 19th
Earlier today, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka discussed the complicated intersection of labor, immigration, and the United States economy. “The immigration system has always been important to the labor movement,” said Trumka. Both Secretary Solis and Trumka advocated for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR)—acknowledging the obvious economic benefits to all U.S. workers—and lamented the fact that Republicans have been unwilling thus far to come to the negotiating table on the issue. The lack of Republican cooperation is surprising, considering a CIR bill would be beneficial to U.S. workers and businesses, and was part of the impetus for Solis and Trumka to come together for the webinar.
Trumka rejected the notion that the border should be secured first, stating that the thirst for cheap labor would trump anything that we can do at the border, and CIR would actually be cheaper and easier than a borders first approach. While he acknowledged that we do need reasonable border security, Trumka warned that continuing as is threatens to make undocumented immigrant workers a permanent underclass, and cuts wages for all workers. Secretary Solis also pointed out that the U.S. is losing billions in tax dollars by not allowing workers to legalize and pay back taxes as well as taxes going forward.
Trumka presented specific solutions that would be present in CIR and stated that every labor union in the AFL-CIO supported this general outline:
- Let undocumented people already here have a pathway to legalization
- Prevent the exploitation of workers, address real shortages through independent commission
- Rational reasonable border control, as well as visa enforcement
- Strict compliance by employers to not hire undocumented workers, as well as a tamper proof ID
- End to guess worker programs.
Secretary Solis outlined her goals for comprehensive immigration reform: Identifying the 11 million undocumented who want to become citizens, performing background checks, making them pay back taxes and possibly a tax penalty, making them learn English, and making them go to the back of the line for citizenship.
Secretary Solis also announced that launch of the “We Can Help Campaign,” which seeks to educate all workers on their rights and protections. The campaign offers a free, confidential outline for any worker to report labor abuses such as under or unpaid wages, workplace safety issues, and other abuse.
On Arizona’s controversial law SB 1070, both commented that they supported the Department of Justice lawsuit. Secretary Solis pointed out that the Administration actually reduced border crossings, and that the government is spending more money on the border now than ever before. Trumka echoed this sentiment, adding that politicians are trying to blame immigrants for the failed economic policies of the last three decades. Both questioned the idea of trying to deport undocumented workers, especially as 85% of that group has one or more legal U.S. citizens in their family.
A caller asked what the Department of Labor and the AFL-CIO were doing to advance CIR, and both hosts commented that without any Republican support at all, it would be difficult to get even a small immigration proposal through both houses of congress. Despite the stagnation of Republicans, however, Secretary Solis and Trumka continued to advocate for both CIR and smaller pieces of legislation like the DREAM Act, calling its failed passage a complete waste of talent and resources, especially since the U.S. spends money to educate these children yet our broken policies won’t let them move on to college or get jobs. Hopefully at least a few of the politicians in Washington were watching the webinar—they owe at least that much to the workers and businesses in their respective districts.
Photo by fkjyt.
Undocumented Youth Pin DREAMs on Congressional Action
originally posted by Michele Waslin for Immigration Impact [click here]
Jul 13th
Every year, undocumented immigrants come to the U.S. along with their young children. These kids grow up in the U.S., speak English, and hang out with their friends just like other American kids. But unlike their classmates, they cannot join the military, work, or pursue their dreams because they don’t have legal status. Every year, roughly 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school, but many don’t apply for college, even when they’re at the top of their class, because they can’t afford it. These hard-working students are not eligible for loans or work study and must often pay high out-of-state or international tuition rates. They often live in fear of detection by immigration authorities. The DREAM Act—which would benefit these students as well as the U.S. economy—proposes to fix these problems, but not without the political will of Congress.
The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, or the “DREAM Act” (S. 729 and H.R. 1751), addresses the plight of young undocumented immigrants who, growing up in the United States, wish to go to college and obtain lawful employment. By providing a path to legal permanent status, the DREAM Act would create a needed incentive for students to stay in school, pursue higher education or join the military.
According to a new report by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), approximately 114,000 potential beneficiaries with at least an associate’s degree would be immediately eligible for conditional legal permanent resident (LPR) status. Another 612,000 potential beneficiaries would be immediately eligible for conditional status because they already have a high school diploma or GED and 934,000 children under 18 could be eligible for conditional LPR status in the future under the DREAM Act.
Experts report that the DREAM Act would have economic and social benefits for the U.S. According to a fact check by the Immigration Policy Center (IPC), the DREAM Act would:
- Provides an opportunity to raise individual wages and the resulting tax contributions. If legalized, these students would get a better education and better jobs and would earn more and pay more in taxes.
- Allow legalized immigrants to invest in the U.S. economy. Removing the uncertainty of unauthorized status allows legalized immigrants to earn higher wages and move into higher-paying occupations, and also encourages them to invest more in their own education, open bank accounts, buy homes, and start businesses.
- Reduce the drop-out rate for immigrant students by creating a strong incentive for undocumented students to remain in school until graduation
- Help universities by increasing school revenues as students who would not normally attend college start to pay tuition.
- Aid military recruiting. According to West Point Professor Lt. Col. Margaret Stock, the DREAM Act “would be tremendously beneficial to the military. It gives the opportunity to enlist hundreds of thousands of high-quality people.”
On the legislative end, the DREAM Act has come up for a vote several times in past years and has garnered as many as 48 co-sponsors in the Senate and 152 in the House; it passed the Senate Judiciary Committee twice; and it received more than 50 votes as a stand-alone bill. Yet it has failed to become law. Some Members of Congress who support DREAM in principle have voted against it because they want to see it pass as part of a broader immigration reform effort and fear that passage of the DREAM Act alone would hamper the possibility of larger reform. For example, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA)—then a Republican, now a Democrat—voted against the bill because he thought it would weaken the chances of CIR, not because he disagreed with the contents of the bill. According to a recent poll, the DREAM Act has garnered public support across party lines with as many as 70% of Americans favoring the DREAM Act.
Recently, many Republicans have come under fire for supporting any form of immigration “amnesty,” including the DREAM Act, and some former supporters have switched their positions. Earlier this May, five immigrants sat in the office of Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and refused to leave, asking him to sponsor DREAM. In past years, Senator McCain was a co-sponsor for the DREAM Act, but became more conservative on immigration issues during his 2008 presidential campaign and continues to do so during his 2010 Senate campaign, where he is facing a primary challenge from the right.
Research has shown that the DREAM Act would be a boon to the economy and the U.S. workforce. Moreover, the DREAM Act create an opportunity for many young people to get on the path to permanent legal status, improve their education, invest in themselves and their communities, and serve their country. But for the DREAM Act to pass, it would likely need the support of both the moderate Republicans who supported it in the past, as well as the Democrats who may be holding out hope for CIR.
Photo by SomewhereinAK.
FAIR’s Loosening Grip on Economic Reality
originally posted by Policy Center for Immigration Impact [click here]
Jul 8th
This week, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) came out with more fuel for the anti-immigrant movement’s fire. Their most recent publication discusses the costs of unauthorized immigration to the United States. As usual, FAIR has put out a highly misleading fiscal snapshot of the costs allegedly imposed on U.S. taxpayers by unauthorized immigrants and completely discounts the economic contributions of unauthorized workers and consumers. Moreover, FAIR inflates their costs in a variety of ways and conveniently ignores any contributions that would offset these costs.
While the publication is long and deals with a wide range of issues that warrant more dissection by credible economic experts, the trade publication Education Week has already begun the deconstruction with an item that sheds light on their misleading claims about providing English language services in schools.
According to the Immigration Policy Center (IPC), FAIR’s report suffers from three fatal flaws:
- The report notes that the single biggest “expense” it attributes to unauthorized immigrants is the education of their children, yet most of these children are native-born, U.S. citizens who will grow up to be tax-paying adults. It is disingenuous to count the cost of investing in the education of these children, so that they will earn higher incomes and pay more in taxes when they are adults, as if it were nothing more than a cost incurred by their parents.
- The report fails to account for the purchasing power of unauthorized consumers, which supports U.S. businesses and U.S. jobs.
- The report ignores the value added to the U.S. economy by unauthorized workers, particularly in the service sector.
In contrast to FAIR’s report, the Perryman Group estimated that if all unauthorized workers and consumers were somehow removed from the U.S. economy, the United States would lose $552 billion in total economic activity (”expenditures”), $245 billion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and 2.8 million jobs.” This doesn’t count the billions it would cost to actually implement a mass deportation program.
Another argument FAIR makes, which makes it hard to glean what their solution would be (if they were really interested in solutions), is the high cost of deporting undocumented workers which FAIR blames on the immigrants themselves. It’s a somewhat circular argument to say that the cost of undocumented immigrants includes the cost of failing law enforcement efforts. So, in essence, FAIR is saying that the deport-them-all approach costs too much money and doesn’t work. Yet their “solution” is to spend even more money on enforcement.
This is not all that surprising. FAIR’s publication is meant only to reinforce their vision of “attrition through enforcement”—hoping that if you make their lives miserable enough they may choose to return home on their own. It is not rooted in an effort to move the immigration debate forward or advance real solutions. However, despite what little credibility FAIR suffers from in the mainstream press, what is most concerning about this report and its corresponding graphic maps with big numbers (the perfect stage prop for nativist state legislators like Russell Pierce and his ilk) is that they will be cited and used by those attempting to pass punitive state legislation. These numbers do not withstand scrutiny and must be challenged.
If FAIR was serious about ending illegal immigration, they would be working hard for immigration reform. That way, the government could stop wasting tax dollars on enforcement programs that don’t work and ensure all immigrants are paying their fair share in taxes.
Photo by Hayley Bouchard.
CEOs and New York Mayor Make Economic Case for Immigration Reform
originally posted by Travis Packer for Immigration Impact [click here]
Jun 24th
While comprehensive immigration reform looks to be stalled until the lame duck session or the beginning of the 112th Congress, chief executives of several major corporations and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg are joining together to form a coalition, “Partnership for a New American Economy,” advocating for immigration reform. Bloomberg stated the group’s intent, saying that “somebody has to lead and explain to the country why [immigration reform] is in our interests.” Although some may question the coalition’s intentions—Fox & Friends is busy trying to distort the coalition’s message as “borders first”—the group of mayors and successful CEOs may actually just want to make the economic case that “if America wants to remain economically competitive,” it needs to have policies in place that allow the world’s best and brightest to succeed and thrive here.
The CEOs include Rupert Murdoch of News Corp., as well as executives from Hewlett-Packard, Boeing, and Disney. Murdoch appeared on Fox News to discuss the coalition. “We’re just going to keep the pressure on the congressmen,” Murdoch said. “I think we can show to the public the benefits of having migrants and the jobs that go with them.” The group plans to publish studies, conduct polls, convene forums on immigration, and pay for public education campaigns.
The group’s stated objectives are to:
- Secure the borders
- Develop an easy system for work eligibility verification
- Hold companies accountable for breaking immigration laws
- Develop a pathway to legal status for all undocumented immigrants
Mayor Bloomberg stated that he believed all 12 million undocumented workers should be given the opportunity for citizenship, and said that any lawmaker who wanted to deport all of them was “living in a fantasy world.”
“I can’t think of any ways to destroy this country quite as direct and impactful as our immigration policy,” he said Wednesday. “We educate the best and the brightest, and then we don’t give them a green card.”
Likely, Bloomberg and his cadre of CEOs realize that comprehensive immigration reform is a benefit to the economy, while letting the current problems stagnate would, as Bloomberg said, be “national suicide.” Walt Disney CEO Robert Iger echoed this statement, calling immigration “our great strength as a nation,” and “critical for continued economic growth.” He continued by reasoning that “to remain competitive in the 21st century, we need effective immigration reform that invites people to contribute to our shared success by building their own American dream.”
Bloomberg addressed unemployment directly on Fox News, stating that “there’s this belief that immigrants take jobs away [from Americans] and that’s just not true.” He also called for a plan to bring in and give legal status to immigrants who were able to come to the U.S., start businesses, and employ American workers.
The group, which collectively run companies making more than $220 billion in annual sales, plans to use television and radio to try to do what others have not been able to, convince Congress to take up and pass comprehensive immigration reform. If the investment, and more importantly, the leadership, is up to the task, it may actually be possible.
Photo by Edward Reed.
SB 1070 “Gets Tough” on Arizona’s Housing Market
originally posted by Seth Hoy for Immigration Impact [click here]
Jun 14th
With only six weeks until Arizona’s immigration enforcement law goes into effect, area housing analysts are already expecting the worst. According to the Arizona Republic, housing experts anticipate that SB 1070 will not only drive illegal immigrants out of the state, but legal residents and potential new homebuyers with them—“departures from a state where growth is the economic foundation.” The resulting exodus will likely spur more foreclosures and create more vacant homes and apartments, which as real-estate analysts point out, will scare off potential homebuyers who fear lower home values. With a budget deficit of $4.5 billion and an economy struggling to get back on its feet, a declining housing market is the last thing Arizonans need.
The Pew Hispanic estimates Arizona’s undocumented population at around 500,000 people—many of whom own homes and pay taxes. But according to Phoenix housing analyst, Mike Orr, many of these homeowning immigrants are expected to leave as a result of the new law:
Estimates are that there are several hundred thousand undocumented aliens residing in Arizona. If the law has the intended effect and these people do leave, then both population and demand for housing will probably decline.
Likewise, many of Arizona’s documented residents are also expected to leave the state thanks to SB 1070. According to the U.S. Census, Latinos make up roughly one-third of all Arizonans (29.7%)—many of whom feel targeted by the new law. According to Jay Butler, director of realty studies at Arizona State University:
The immigration law creates a difficult situation for both legal and illegal residents. Some illegal residents may have planned on leaving the Valley anyway because they can’t find jobs. But I have talked to young Hispanics who are residents and so are their parents and grandparents. And those Hispanics plan on moving to other states because they don’t want to be perceived as second-class citizens.
Real-estate experts are using Arizona’s 2007 employer-sanction law—which made it illegal to knowingly hire an undocumented immigrants in the state—as a point of comparison. According to a report from the Department of Homeland Security, “more than 100,000 illegal immigrants left Arizona in 2008, more than any other state. Metro Phoenix foreclosures and apartment vacancies both jumped that year.”
Unfortunately, a declining housing market is just one of the many negative fiscal impacts of SB 1070. While the cost of implementation alone could reach the hundreds of millions of dollars, the legal fees resulting from lawsuits could also soar into the millions—not to mention the economic boycotts and loss in economic activity (to the tune of $26.4 billion) if all undocumented immigrants were removed from the state.
“The immigration law just piles onto our problems,” said Brett Barry, a Phoenix real-estate agent with HomeSmart. “We are already struggling to find the jobs and keep the schools open to entice new residents.”
As other states consider similar legislation, legislators should also consider the economic consequences. Clearly the problems within our broken immigration system should not be overlooked, but nor should the critical roles immigrants—both documented and undocumented—play in the economic stability of our nation as workers, entrepreneurs, consumers and homeowners.
Photo by Casey Serin.
New Report Sheds Light on Economic Value of Immigration
originally posted by Walter Ewing for Immigration Impact [click here]
Jun 8th
A report released yesterday by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), entitled The Impact of Immigrants in Recession and Economic Expansion, argues persuasively that immigration is a valuable economic resource. The report, by economist Giovanni Peri of the University of California, Davis, finds that “immigration unambiguously improves employment, productivity, and income,” increasing the earnings of native-born workers in the long run (over ten years). However, the report notes that, during times of economic downturn, some native-born workers may be disadvantaged by the presence of immigrants in the short run (over one to two years). The report argues that these negative effects would be mitigated were the United States to create legal limits on immigration that rise and fall with actual labor demand.
According to the report, “total immigration to the United States over the period 1990-2006… caused a 2.86 percent real wage increase for the average U.S. worker.” These wage gains came about primarily “due to an increase in the economic efficiency of production.” As Peri explains in a 2006 report for the IPC:
Immigrants and natives tend to differ in their educational attainment, skill sets, and occupations, and they perform jobs that often are interdependent. As a result, immigrants do not compete with the majority of natives for the same jobs. Rather, they “complement” the native-born workforce—which increases the productivity, and therefore the wages, of natives. Second, the addition of new workers to the labor force stimulates investment as entrepreneurs seize the opportunity to organize these new workers in productive ways that generate profits.
The end result is a bigger economy, a more productive labor force, and generally higher wages.
The MPI report concludes that neither immigrant nor native-born workers benefit from the current U.S. immigration system, in which immigration limits fail to rise and fall with labor demand. As a result, during periods of economic expansion, the rising demand for less-skilled labor is met in large part through unauthorized immigration. The report recommends higher legal limits on both high-skilled and less-skilled immigration when economic times are good, and lower limits when times are bad. This is a critical and common-sense recommendation that many U.S. lawmakers seem unable to grasp.
Photo by Photos8.com
New Report Highlights Economic Gains from Immigration and Immigration Reform
originally posted by Walter Ewing for Immigration Impact [click here]
May 27th
In a report released this week, the New Policy Institute (NPI) synthesizes much of the available research on the ways in which immigration ultimately raises wage levels for the vast majority of native-born workers and benefits the U.S. economy as a whole. The report, entitled The Impact of Immigration and Immigration Reform on the Wages of American Workers, also summarizes a number of studies which have demonstrated the economic gains which would likely flow to all U.S. workers were unauthorized immigrants given a pathway to legal status. The NPI report reinforces the conclusion of a February IPC fact sheet on immigration and the economy that “employment is not a zero-sum game in which workers compete for some set number of jobs. Policies which lift the wages of workers, regardless of where they were born, benefit the entire U.S. economy. Workers who earn higher wages also buy more goods and services from U.S. businesses, and pay more in taxes to federal and state governments, both of which create jobs.”
According to the NPI report, the available evidence suggests that “high levels of immigration have had no adverse effect on the average wages of native-born Americans. In fact, studies indicate that the recent waves of immigration have positive long-term effects on average wages as capital investment rises to take account of the larger numbers of workers.” The report notes that after the legalization program created by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), “wages rose by 6 percent to 15 percent for previously-undocumented male immigrants and by 21 percent for previously-undocumented female immigrants. Those reforms also increased wages of previously legal immigrants. Research also suggests that those reforms led to modest wage gains by native-born Americans.” Moreover, as the IPC demonstrates in a November 2009 study, IRCA beneficiaries experienced significant gains over time as measured by a broad array of socio-economic indicators in addition to wages, including home ownership and education.
The NPI report also finds that, after “taking into account both spending and revenues, immigrants are not a net drain on most state, local and federal budgets. In any year, a handful of states with large numbers of recent immigrants with children incur significant net budget costs, largely from the educational and medical costs associated with the children. At the federal level, however, revenues from immigrants equal or exceed spending on immigrants.” In addition, according to the report, “on a longer-term basis, the lifetime earnings of immigrants, most of whom arrive in America at post school-age and without elderly parents eligible for Social Security and Medicare, are likely to exceed the lifetime government spending they claim.” These contributions are critical at a time when both Social Security and Medicare are facing a tide of red ink as the Baby Boomers retire, leaving the labor force and drawing upon their benefits.
Given the ability of unscrupulous employers to exploit unauthorized workers and drive down wages, particularly in less-skilled occupations, the NPI study also concludes that allowing unauthorized immigrants to earn legal status would raise wages for both formerly unauthorized workers and those relatively few native-born workers with whom they compete for jobs. As the IPC and Center for American Progress estimated in a January 2010 study by Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, the higher personal incomes of newly legalized workers would, over the first three years, increase consumer spending enough to support 750,000–900,000 jobs, and would generate $4.5-$5.4 billion in new tax revenue. Given the high unemployment rates and widespread budget deficits currently afflicting the United States, economic gains of this magnitude are not insignificant.
In short, the NPI report reinforces the findings of numerous researchers that immigration is a net benefit to the U.S. economy and to native-born workers, and that legalizing currently unauthorized immigrants would sustain new jobs and generate new tax revenue at a time when the nation desperately needs both.
Photo by rbbaird.
Can Arizona Afford to Implement S.B. 1070?
Apr 23rd
As the deadline for signing/vetoing Arizona’s immigration enforcement law (S.B. 1070) draws near, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has more than just the moral and ethical implications of the law to consider. The proposed “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act,” a bill that makes it a misdemeanor to fail to carry proper immigration documents and requires police to determine a person’s immigration status, could come with heftier price tag than people may realize. While the Arizona legislature has not yet determined the costs associated with S.B. 1070 (the state legislature failed to attribute a cost in their attached fiscal note), several economic indicators reveal the potential cost of implementation to Arizona taxpayers and the residual consequences of driving unauthorized immigrations out of Arizona.
Gov. Brewer touts a $10 million investment in local law enforcement—federal stimulus money the state received from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. But $10 million is nothing when it comes to the actual cost of implementation—which includes processing fees, jail costs, attorney and staff fees and the additional detention facilities that would need to be built to accommodate the additional inmate flow. In response to a similar Arizona enforcement bill in 2006 (which then Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed), Yuma County Sheriff Ralph Ogden produced a fact sheet which shows the staggering potential cost to law enforcement agencies in Yuma County.
According to the fact sheet:
- Law-enforcement agencies would spend between $775,880 and $1,163,820 in processing expenses;
- Jail costs would be between $21,195,600 and $96,086,720;
- Attorney and staff fees would be $810,067 – $1,620,134;
- Additional detention facilities would have to be built at unknown costs.
And that’s just in Yuma County alone. Yuma County has a population of 200,000 and is only one of fifteen counties in Arizona. The above implementation cost could reasonably be magnified to consider the cost for all Arizona counties.
In addition to implementation costs, Gov. Brewer should also consider the costs of defending the state against potential lawsuits on behalf of legal immigrants and native-born Latinos who feel they have been unjustly targeted. For example, the city of Farmers Branch, TX, passed an ordinance in 2006 (now overturned) which required landlords to verify potential renters’ immigration status. To date, the city has spent $3.2 million in legal fees defending itself since September 2006—and the bill is expected to exceed $5 million by the end of fiscal year 2010. Hazelton, PA, is also engaged in a similar fight over rental ordinances.
This is to say nothing, of course, of the number of immigrants and Latinos who would potentially leave the state due to the new law—taking with them their tax dollars, businesses and purchasing power. Arizona’s budget is already in the hole by more than $3 billion.
According to an Immigration Policy Center (IPC) fact sheet:
- The total economic output attributable to Arizona’s immigrant workers was $44 billion in 2004, which sustained roughly 400,000 full-time jobs.
- Over 35,000 businesses in Arizona are Latino-owned and had sales and receipts of $4.3 billion and employed 39,363 people in 2002.
- The Perryman Group estimates that if all unauthorized immigrants were removed from Arizona, the state would lose $26.4 billion in economic activity, $11.7 billion in gross state product, and approximately 140,324 jobs, even accounting for adequate market adjustment time.
Clearly, implementing S.B. 1070 comes with both large economic and political price tags. But just as Gov. Brewer should consider the economic and political implications of signing this law, so should Congress consider their responsibility in moving forward with immigration reform. At a naturalization ceremony at the White House this morning, President Obama remarked that all Americans will foot bill for our failure to reform our broken immigration system. Arizona’s new law is just the latest reminder of that failure.
Indeed, our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others. And that includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona, which threatened to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.
In fact, I’ve instructed members of my administration to closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation. But if we continue to fail to act at a federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country.
Photo by aresauburn™.
Supporting Immigration Reform in Nevada is More Pragmatic than Political
Apr 19th
In Sunday’s local Las Vegas newspaper, the Review Journal, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reiterated his support for immigration reform and pushed back on the paper’s editorial staff who have long rallied against fixing our broken immigration system. Senator Reid’s reiterated support came on the heels of a speech he gave a week earlier in Nevada where he called for immigration reform to be completed this year and a later comment stating a timeframe for moving legislation. There is, however, more to Senator Reid’s recent support for immigration reform than mere political gains.
Senator Reid wrote:
If we truly want to fix our broken immigration system, and not just score political points, we need comprehensive immigration reform that is tough on lawbreakers, fair to taxpayers and practical to implement … Immigration reform will help us safeguard the rights and wages of American workers and force unscrupulous employers to get on the right side of the law. So long as immigrants working illegally are afraid to report being underpaid, exploited and abused for fear of deportation, American workers will be undercut. We need to require these workers to apply for legal status and become hard-working taxpayers.
Also on Sunday, a poll conducted by the same newspaper cited a statistical split on the issue of whether or not likely Nevada voters supported a path towards citizenship—a split which flies in the face of said editorial staff’s characterization of immigration reform as an “unwanted reform.” Harry Reid didn’t accept the 50-50 split, noting that had the pollsters posed the question in a way that truly characterized his proposal, support would have been higher.
Semantics aside, however, why is Harry Reid rallying for immigration reform now? Is this just a ploy to excite the Democratic base in Nevada—a group he needs to turn out for him in November? Aside from the fact that Reid has always been a strong supporter of immigration reform, he is a pragmatist. He has an understanding of who his constituents are and how they can move the political dial in his state. One might even say he has a better memory than the Democratic administration who was helped over the finish line by the Latino vote last November—particularly Nevada’s Latino vote. Obama defeated McCain among Latino voters by 76% to 22% in Nevada, where 11.6% of the state’s electorate is Latino. Nevada also had one of the greatest increases in the Latino vote in 2008 growing by over 65% (or 47,000 additional voters).
Nevada is a states where the growing political and economic clout of immigrants, Latinos, and Asians is also clear as the desert sky. Immigrants now make up nearly 20% (497,821 people) of Nevada’s population, and 38% of them are naturalized U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote. Immigrants and the children of immigrants now account for nearly 15% of all registered voters in the state.
From an economic standpoint, Latinos account for one-quarter of all Nevadans and wield over $14 billion in consumer purchasing power. At last count, the sales and receipts of businesses owned by Latinos and Asians totaled $3.6 billion and employed more than 25,000 people.
Harry Reid may hope that these communities turn out for him at the polls but he also knows immigrant, Latino, and Asian workers, consumers, and entrepreneurs are integral to Nevada’s economy and tax base. His position on immigration reform, however, is less political than pragmatic. He knows immigrants support job creation and are a strong part of his state’s labor force. While Reid’s supportive stance on the issues they care about is smart politics, it is also good for the long term economic recovery of his home state.
Photo by the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Immigration Reform Raises Revenue, While Enforcement-Only Strategies Throw Tax Dollars Away
Apr 15th
Tax Day is a fitting time to consider the billions of dollars which the federal government wastes each year attempting to put a stop to unauthorized immigration through an “enforcement only” strategy—and the billions of new taxpayer dollars which would flow from comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to legal status for unauthorized immigrants already in the United States. As the IPC points out in a new fact sheet, “we spend huge sums of taxpayer money on immigration enforcement, yet unauthorized immigrants have not been deterred from coming to the United States when there are jobs available.” As a result, enforcement resources are needlessly wasted tracking down unauthorized job seekers and people trying to reunite with family members in the United States, rather than focused on finding individuals who are actually a threat to national security or public safety.
Since Fiscal Year (FY) 2004, the budgets of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—the border-enforcement and interior-enforcement components of Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—have increased dramatically. CBP’s budget grew from $6 billion in FY 2004 to $11.4 billion in FY 2010, while ICE’s budget increased from $3.7 billion to $5.7 billion over the same period. Moreover, since FY 2005, Congress has allocated $2.4 billion to build fences along the southwest border—and another $1.1 billion to build a high-tech network of cameras and sensors known as “SBInet.” However, there is no evidence that the fences actually deter unauthorized immigrants, and SBInet has been plagued by technical glitches, shoddy testing, and missed deadlines since its inception. On March 16, 2010, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano froze SBInet funding, pending the outcome of a comprehensive review of the program.
Despite these ballooning enforcement expenditures, unauthorized immigration continues unabated. Research by Wayne Cornelius at the University of California, San Diego, has found that while unauthorized migrants from Mexico may be caught on their first attempt at crossing the border, they have an almost 100 percent chance of eventual success—particularly if they enlist the services of a coyote, or people smuggler. Moreover, as border enforcement is tightened between ports of entry along the southwest border, more migrants are being smuggled through ports of entry (sealed in a compartment within a vehicle, or as a passenger with false or borrowed documents). Research by Cornelius has also found that unauthorized migration from Mexico has diminished mainly because there are fewer jobs available in the United States.
In contrast to the expensive failure of the enforcement-only approach, comprehensive immigration reform would generate new tax revenue. Granting legal status to currently unauthorized immigrants, for instance, would boost their wages and increase their tax contributions even in the short run. A January 2010 study by Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, conducted for the IPC and Center for American Progress, estimates that during the first three years after legalization, the higher earning power of newly legalized workers “would generate $4.5 to $5.4 billion in additional net tax revenue.” In a related vein, a January 2010 study from the University of Southern California estimates that because unauthorized immigrants earn less than they would if they had legal status, the California state government lost out on $310 million in income taxes in 2009, while the federal government missed out on $1.4 billion.
The alternative to legalization—deportation—would be a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars. A March 2010 study by the Center for American Progress “calculates a price tag of $200 billion to enforce a federal dragnet that would snare the estimated 10.8 million undocumented immigrants in the United States over five years.” And this does not even begin to capture the social and economic destruction that would be wrought on communities and businesses nationwide by attempting to round up millions of men, women, and children.
Video by the Center for American Progress.