Immigration

With the Obama Administration About to Take-on the Issues Relating to Comprehensive Immigration Reform (“CIR”), Here are a Few Talking Points to Meet the Opposition:


OK folks, let’s try this Comprehensive Immigration Reform (“CIR”) thing again. Maybe the third time (or is it the fourth time, it’s easy to lose count of losses) will be a charm. Gird your loins for the high volume screaming of the hysterical Nativists, because they are gearing up for a real fight this time. The reason they scream like a telemarketing commercial by the late pitchman, Billy Mays, is because they have something to sell you. Their best-selling product is fear, and they have become practiced salesmen. That doesn’t mean that we must buy the myth-based product they are pushing. So let’s set the mythical pins up and then knock them down, courtesy of the Immigration Policy Center, the research and policy arm of the American Immigration Council. The American Immigration Council (formerly the American Immigration Law Foundation) was established in 1987 as a tax-exempt, not-for-profit educational, charitable organization by the leaders of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). The Council is dedicated to changing how Americans think and act towards immigrants and to advancing fundamental fairness and due process under the law for immigrants.

MYTH: Most Americans Don't Want CIR! The economic downturn has a lot of people murmuring that now is not the right time for CIR. But, the opinion polls show otherwise. Before you throw your hands up in defeat when you hear someone repeat this myth, consider responding with these quick mythbusting facts!

FACT: By consistently strong majorities, Americans want a fair, common sense plan to fix our broken immigration system. In 2009 as in previous years, voters want the President and Congress to advance an immigration plan that legalizes the undocumented workforce and requires them to pay taxes; levels the playing field for workers and employers; and restores the rule of law. The same was true in the run-up to the 2008 elections, when swing voters chose candidates who offered practical solutions to the broken immigration system over those who offered just empty rhetoric.

FACT: 71% of Voters Preferred That Illegal Immigrants Become Legal Taxpayers. An overwhelming margin of voters, 71% to 26% believed that illegal immigrants should take steps to become legal taxpayers. 71% of respondents also believe that those illegal immigrants should not be forced to leave and were not responsible for taking American jobs. [America’s Voice, Benenson Strategy Group Poll, 5/14/09]

FACT: Majority of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Moderates, and Conservatives Supported Legalization. The Washington Post polling showed that support for legalization of undocumented immigrants was high despite political affiliation. 70% of liberals, 68% of Democrats, and 59% Republicans and Independents alike supported an amnesty program. [ABC News, 4/30/09]

MYTH: Immigrants increase the rate of crime and make our cities more dangerous

FACT: Robert J. Sampson, Chair of the Sociology Department at Harvard University, writes in the Winter 2008 edition of the American Sociological Association's Contexts magazine, that "immigration-even if illegal-is associated with lower crime rates in most disadvantaged urban neighborhoods." Sampson draws in particular on his years of fieldwork in 180 Chicago neighborhoods, as well as police records, to conclude that "first-generation immigrants (those born outside the United States) were 45-percent less likely to commit violence than third-generation Americans, adjusting for individual, family, and neighborhood background."

FACT: Rubén G. Rumbaut, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine, and co-author of the IPC study which CIS attempts to debunk, describes the many sources of data which dispel the myth of immigrant criminality. Writing in an April 2009 report from the Police Foundation, Rumbaut observes that "both contemporary and historical studies, including official crime statistics and victimization surveys since the early 1990s, data from the last three decennial censuses, national and regional surveys in areas of immigrant concentration, and investigations carried out by major government commissions over the past century, have shown instead that immigration is associated with lower crime rates and lower incarceration rates."

FACT: The July 6, 2009, edition of the conservative magazine Reason features an article entitled "The El Paso Miracle ," which notes that "by conventional wisdom, El Paso, Texas should be one of the scariest cities in America" given its poverty, its large population of less-educated immigrants (many of whom are unauthorized), and its location just across the border from the "super-violent" Mexican city Ciudad Juarez. Yet El Paso "is one of the safest big cities in America." The article observes that this "may not be an anomaly at all. Many criminologists say El Paso isn't safe despite its high proportion of immigrants, it's safe because of them."

MYTH: Immigration is a Drain on the Economy and a Threat to Native-Born Workers

FACT: The truth is just the opposite. As documented by the Fiscal Policy Institute, immigration has, in fact, been a vital force in the American economy. Even in tough times, immigrants boost or replenish the labor pool and inject entrepreneurial energy that opens businesses and creates jobs. Using data from the Census Bureau, the report looks at 25 major cities, from Los Angeles to New York to Miami to Seattle, and proves that immigrants more than pull their weight. 

In New York - including suburbs - immigrants make up 28% of the population and are responsible for 28% of the economic activity. Miami is 37% immigrants; they produce 38% of that's city economic output. In L.A., the numbers are 35% and 34%. The pattern holds even for smaller cities such as Cincinnati and Minneapolis. With the 25 cities providing half of the U.S. gross domestic product, even in tough economic times immigrants contribute mightily to the well-being of their adopted country. 

The report found that immigrants are more likely than their U.S.-born counterparts to be of working age, defined as 16 to 64. While they make up 20% of the people in those 25 big cities, they compose 24% of the labor force. And work they do, in high-end and low-paying jobs and everything in between. One-fourth are managers or professionals - executives, doctors, attorneys, engineers, teachers, artists. Another quarter are in technical, sales and administrative support. Twenty-one percent hold service jobs, ranging from cleaners and guards to cops and firefighters. Some 30% are blue-collar workers. Beyond that, 22% of the money brought in by people who own their own businesses was earned by immigrants. In some small cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland, the immigrants' share of proprietors' income was double their proportion in the population. Actually, a newly released study by the Immigration Policy Center confirms that immigrants are not responsible for job losses among Americans. In fact, there is no real displacement relationship between the inflow of immigrant workers and native-born employment. This confirms earlier studies by CATO Institute, the National Immigration Law Center, and the Pew Hispanic Center, which arrived at similar conclusions. Earlier this year, the Black Immigration Network also dispelled myths about the negative consequences of immigration on African Americans. Even former Chairperson of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, has testified in Congress that actual estimated wage suppression and fiscal costs are relatively small and illegal immigration has made significant contribution to the growth of the American economy.

Even though the number of legal and illegal immigrants in the United States has risen strongly since the early 1990s, the size of the economic underclass has not. In fact, by several measures the number of Americans living on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder has been in a long-term decline, even as the number of immigrants continues to climb. Other indicators associated with the underclass, such as the crime rate, have also shown improvement. The inflow of low-skilled immigrants may even be playing a positive role in pushing native-born Americans up the skills and income ladder.

The arrival of low-skilled, foreign-born workers in the labor force increases the incentives for younger native-born Americans to stay in school and for older workers to upgrade their skills. Because they compete directly with the lowest-skilled Americans, low-skilled immigrants do exert mild downward pressure on the wages of the lowest-paid American workers. But the addition of low-skilled immigrants also expands the size of the overall economy, creating openings in higher-paid occupations such as managers, skilled craftsmen, and accountants. The result is a greater financial reward for finishing high school and for acquiring additional job skills. Immigration of low-skilled workers motivates Americans, who might otherwise languish in the underclass, to acquire the education and skills necessary so they are not competing directly with foreign-born workers. The shrinking of the native-born underclass contradicts the argument that low-skilled immigration is particularly harmful to African-Americans, who are disproportionately represented in the underclass. By each of the three measures above—poverty, income, and educational attainment—the number of black American households and individuals in the underclass has been declining. Native-born blacks have been moving up along with other native-born Americans as immigrants have been moving in.

Clearly, the larger the number of immigrants, the greater the economic activity. But the reverse is also true. Shutting the borders and throwing out those who have built productive lives here would do untold damage to the country. Maintaining the United States as an immigrant-friendly nation is essential to our economic health.  COPYRIGHT BY AUTHOR -- 2009

This article is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is published and distributed with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional service.  It is submitted for publication by the author with the understanding that each individual case is different, and this article is not a formal legal opinion and should not be relied upon as advice by the author in a particular legal situation.

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