Thoughts on Immigration

You can’t simply grant amnesty and start over. People don’t stay in the fields. They learn English and move into other jobs, quite often starting businesses within one generation. So, you never run out of the need for new immigrants, and Mexico and Central America have millions of people to step into these shoes.

And now you have Pelosi arguing for new taxes because we have all these new immigrants. Sorry, but you have to help the Mexican govt. keep its citizens there. We will just tax our way into new billions for ever increasing immigrants, as we will spend billions on endless war. It’s easier to get here now. It’s easier to send money home. It’s easier to stay here now, with credit cards and no checking for legality. Sorry, but we created this problem. And granting amnesty isn’t going to make it go away.

But then, I don’t bleed liberal blood like most of you here.

I see your point, Torque. But, the sad thing is, I cannot envision another way of starting over and developing new regulations.

Something needs to be done as soon as possible. I agree with that. I do not endorse illegal activity and coming into this country without the proper credentials is illegal.

There doesn’t seem to be any better solution to the problem. I may bleed bluer blood than some but pragmatism is entirely necessary. We need to fix the problem rather than discuss it into oblivion.

Fix the problem by not giving credit cards to illegals, by deporting those who are illegal and so on. We have the laws. If they want seasonal, temporary work, fine…they can already have it.

“People don’t stay in the fields. They learn English and move into other jobs, quite often starting businesses within one generation.” — which generates taxes and revenue, and contributes to the economy.

Obviously illegal immigration is not optimal, but hysterics and xenophobia won’t fix it (See: Minuteman Project)

And there is a certain validity to the quote in Ms. K’s Post, “these people get onboard things made out of oil drums, orange crates, balsa wood, and cardboard boxes; the cross hundreds of miles of shark-infested ocean, suffer hunger, thirst and exposure, and brave treacherous currents, high seas, and storms just to come to America. I say they’re citizens. …These are the kind of people we want in America!” That goes for crossing deserts on foot too.

Immigrants do contribute to America, even the illegal ones. See Illegal Immigration: Numbers, Benefits, and Costs in California which concludes that there is a net benefit from illegal immigrants:

There is a great deal of disagreement over the costs and benefits of immigrants to the US and California. Studies in the early 1980s in Texas and New York concluded that the taxes paid by immigrants exceeded the cost of providing public services to them, but that the federal government got the surplus of taxes over expenditures, and local governments had deficits. Los Angeles did a study in 1992 that reinforced this conclusion.

Huddle excluded Social Security taxes because, in his view, contributions today need to be offset by the promise of benefit payments to immigrants when they retire. Passel included them because the federal government treats Social Security on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Also, the Urban Institute’s report Immigration and Immigrants: Setting the Record Straight reaches the same conclusion:

Contrary to the public’s perception, when all levels of government are considered together, immigrants generate significantly more in taxes paid than they cost in services received. This surplus is unevenly distributed among different levels of government, however, with immigrants (and natives) generating a net surplus to the federal government, but a net cost to some states and most localities. This misperception regarding immigrants’ net fiscal impact has been reinforced by several highly publicized recent studies that overlook three basic facts about immigration. First, integration of immigrants is dynamic; their incomes and tax contributions both increase the longer they live in the United States. Second, incomes vary considerably for different types of immigrants with legally admitted immigrants, as a group, generally having significantly higher incomes than illegal immigrants or refugees. Finally, the studies do not take into account the indirect benefits of job creation from immigrant businesses or consumer demand.

One of the myths often cited to support the contention that immigrants cost more than they contribute is that they are heavy users of welfare. The facts are very different. When refugees are excluded, it becomes clear that immigrants of working age are considerably less likely than natives of working age to receive welfare. Refugees are explicitly entitled to such benefits on arrival and are, not surprisingly, much more likely than natives to be welfare recipients. Again, the failure to differentiate immigrants according to their legal status contributes greatly to misperceptions of reality and to proposals of potentially ineffective policies.

(And addresses the errors in Huddle’s study, as well:)
According to the most controversial study of those discussed here, the benefits and costs of immigration to the United States in 1992 add up to a total net cost to all levels of government of $42.5 billion. This study, by Donald Huddle, was sponsored by the Carrying Capacity Network, a nonprofit group that advocates major reductions in immigration to the United States. “The Costs of Immigration” (Huddle 1993) uses estimation procedures that include a variety of errors. When these errors are corrected, the post-1970 immigrants in Huddle’s study actually show a surplus of revenues over social service costs of at least $25 billion (Passel and Clark 1994). How did Huddle develop his estimates and why are they so wrong?

I agree Torque. But what do you do when one obtains illegal documentation which allows them to gain access to the things we are trying to limit? And…what if they come over with their own credit cards?

Fantastic post, Melly.

The more I think about illegal immigrants and the tax issue, I cannot help but think about the fact that the illegal immigrant demographic is not one to be earning a significant amount of money to take advantage of tax shelters. Unless paid under the table, taxes will still be deducted from their payroll (and t hey can legally get paid if they have the proper documentation - whether or not said documentation is valid and legal is another ball of wax entirely). So, illegals are contributing to our economy through boring old consumerism.

Another thing that a lot of people are overlooking is the fact that many in the agri industry are suffering from extreme labor shortages because migrant working, field work and things of that nature all fall into the jobs Americans will not do. Crops are rotting on the ground, unable to be picked because there is an insufficient amount of staffing to do the task.

And for anyone who says, “they’re stealing our jobs!” I should like to ask, “Did you incur mounds of debt going to college to pick tomatoes?” Granted, those who lost jobs in the manufacturing sectors probably did not go to college. However, they are probably not going to move from field to field, up and down coast lines depending on what needs to be harvested then.

Interesting to note…when the price of produce skyrockets or people start complaining about our importation of everything from Central and South America, are they going to bitch because we don’t have access to American produce?

They are paying taxes and probably geting refunds, given low wage packets, children…Pelosi herself said that we need new taxes due to immigration. As I said, immigration won’t end. As we put more and more strain on roads, social services, schools, jails, housing…well, you can never have enough money can you? New taxes with a larger base to support is not a net gain.

Anyway, I find it extremely depressing with an ever greater population in the world that we are overcrowding California and other countries so everywhere will be full of pollution and poor quality of life.

And Kang, unless you are the boss in my city, being bilingual will get you the job every time over someone without bilingual skills. And it’s not just knowing Spanish, it’s making the clients comfortable…Stop thinking of Mexican immigrants as coming over to work in the fields. They are coming here to start businesses and send their kids to college, like every other group ofimmigrants.

They are paying taxes and probably geting refunds, given low wage packets, children…Pelosi herself said that we need new taxes due to immigration. As I said, immigration won’t end. As we put more and more strain on roads, social services, schools, jails, housing…well, you can never have enough money can you? New taxes with a larger base to support is not a net gain.

I don’t have a problem with taxes. Never had, never will. Tax the hell out of those here illegally. Make them pay a penalty for breaking the law. I completely support that school of thought.

Anyway, I find it extremely depressing with an ever greater population in the world that we are overcrowding California and other countries so everywhere will be full of pollution and poor quality of life.

California is not the only state contending with a massive influx of immigrants from the Latin American countries, though. Arizona has a massive problem, as does Texas. And…believe it or not…North Carolina.

And Kang, unless you are the boss in my city, being bilingual will get you the job every time over someone without bilingual skills. And it’s not just knowing Spanish, it’s making the clients comfortable…Stop thinking of Mexican immigrants as coming over to work in the fields. They are coming here to start businesses and send their kids to college, like every other group ofimmigrants.

Ok…I have a problem with the dual languages. We need one language and not because English is superior, either. The dual language system is failing law enforcement, education, healthcare and every other form of social service out there.

Two of my immediate colleagues are legal immigrants. They converse in Spanish. This doesn’t bother me in the least. No more than it would irritate me if they were speaking any other language. If nothing else, it’s an incentive for me to learn something new.

However, when it comes time to get down and dirty with respect to business, English is the designated tongue of my company.

Years ago, the hispanics were riding to work, crammed 10 in a van or the back of a pick up truck. Now they own the vans, trucks and the businesses. Where is the harm in that? Why should Mexicans be relegated to certain positions, anyhow?

What we are experiencing is typical of any new demographic coming to America. Jews, Italians, Irish, Pacific Rimmers. Everyone caught a world of shit when they first starting arriving in large numbers. People complained that Pacific Rimmers would take away our jobs. And they did. Just not in this country! Something to remember.

Lastly…going back to my agrarian reference, California is somewhat agrarian, given the amount of produce grown in CA. Just like North Carolina. How many legal Americans are willing to do the work required in the ag industry? Very few. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be such a dire demand for staffing.

It’s next to impossible to round everyone up and send them home. Especially if their children are legitimate citizens, having been born on American soil. There needs to be another solution to the current state of affairs.

What I find most interesting is what would vox populi say if all corporations in America collectively said, “no more abuse of the labour force. pay fair wages to all employees and only use the legal, American workforce.” The average consumer would piss and moan about the cost of goods because no corporation in their right mind is going to narrow their profit margin for the national good. That’s not how free market economics functions.

They are paying taxes and probably geting refunds, given low wage packets, children…Pelosi herself said that we need new taxes due to immigration. As I said, immigration won’t end. As we put more and more strain on roads, social services, schools, jails, housing…well, you can never have enough money can you? New taxes with a larger base to support is not a net gain.

The studies that are done don’t back that up, however. If you read the article and report I linked, the conclusion of net benefit comes from economic contributions made by illegals minus the services they use. That they do use services and resources wasn’t neglected. However the reports geared toward showing how terrible illegal immigrants are and the damage they do to our way of life and how they jeopardize the livelihood of honest-to-God real Americans tend to ignore large chunks of tax paid by illegals like social security. While there may be a problem with the funds being unevenly distributed between the state primarily handling the social services that immigrants are using and the federal government, that does not change the fact that there is a net gain.

There are real problems with illegal immigration, but any financial ones come purely from the ineptitude of government to accept its existence and adjust accordingly.

People do still want to come to America, despite all our current problems. They want it badly enough to risk dying on a makeshift raft between here and Cuba. They want it badly enough to risk dying of dehydration in the desert or heat packed in the back of a truck or being shot by a xenophobic border vigilante. And they want it badly enough to try again if we catch them and send them back. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted that desperately for something. Probably because I’m American.

And, by and large, when they get here they are willing to do shit jobs in crummy conditions because they came here to make a better life not just for themselves but for their families. They want to start businesses and send their kids to college. Good for them. Those are the kind of people who, generation after generation, have been an imminent danger to Our Way of Life and a Burden on Society. Except every couple generations the faces and accents change. Germans, Poles, Italians, Irish, have all been exactly what the Hispanics are now.

The problem in the southwest gets the attention it does because we are incapable of stopping the flow of immigrants over that border. When they came from Europe, there were only so many points of entry, not 2000 miles of border.

I think we all agree that uncontrolled immigration is a problem and it does need to be stemmed, but fantasy-land economics from people with agendas to push don’t help.

Of course we could get gun-toting border patrol robots.

I don’t want a blasted democracy, democracy is the rule by mob, I want what the Founders’ wanted, a REPUBLIC. The United States is suppose to be a republic and not a democracy. I do like the idea of the border patrol robots though, perhaps we can get some Predator drones too that will send a missiles onto unsuspecting migrants.