March 31, 2006
View From Lodi, CA: Who Gains from Unchecked Illegal
Immigration?
By Joe Guzzardi
In September 2003, when I was a
candidate for California governor in the
Recall Gray Davis special election,
El Consilio of Stockton invited me to speak at
its weekly luncheon.
I was happy to have the chance to
address a group of
working class Hispanics about
immigration, an important aspect of my platform.
I believed then, and believe even
more greatly today, that immigration is the nation’s
most pressing social issue.
Toward the end of my talk, I asked
the audience of about fifty people to explain to me in
what specific way they as individuals benefit from
continued, unregulated immigration.
Most had
jobs; did they want more people coming into the
country who would perform those jobs for lower wages?
The majority had children in
public school; did they want
more children competing with their own for precious
teacher time?
Some were
social services recipients; did they think those
services would be available indefinitely and as
abundantly if
more people kept tapping into them?
No one answered my question.
But I think they all knew the
obvious: no one individually gains.
If you own a business in the
service sector or
construction, you want more immigration.
But the average person
loses from unchecked immigration.
Now that the Senate is considering
a massive amnesty and a huge increase in guest worker
programs and special work visas, I’ll ask my question
again: does the proposed Senate legislation work to the
collective good of the American people?
Or is it tailored for special
business interests who will profit handsomely from more
cheap labor.
As
Lodians engage in their own personal debates about
the highly charged immigration bills before Congress,
they should
keep in mind what is generally referred to as
“the high cost of cheap labor.”
I recommend two sources to anyone
who wants to understand what is really at stake.
The first is an August 2004 Center
for Immigration Studies report titled “The
High Cost of Cheap Labor: Illegal Immigration and the
Federal Budget” The second, the Washington
Post’s column by Robert Samuelson, “We
Don’t Need Guest Workers.”
According to the C.I.S. report,
since most of the illegal aliens currently in the
workforce do not have a
high school diploma, they only qualify for
low paying jobs. That translates into low federal
tax payments.
If however those same illegal
aliens were granted amnesty, their salaries would remain
low but, as citizens, they would qualify for many more
government services.
C.I.S. estimates that the current
federal cost of illegal immigration is $10 billion
annually. This total represents a net deficit—taxes paid
vs. services used—of $2,700 per family.
An amnesty would triple the federal
costs to $7,700 per household or $30 billion aggregate.
The report does not include the fiscal burden to state
and local governments.
Samuelson makes the same argument.
His main premise—echoing that of VDARE.COM’s
Edwin S. Rubenstein—is that all the guest worker
proposals are bad ideas because they all result in
importing poverty.
To support his theory, Samuelson
points to the increase in the number of
Hispanic families with income below the poverty line
($19,300 in 2004 for a family of four) has risen 162
percent.
Non-Hispanic whites and blacks in
poverty increased only 3 percent and 9.5 percent
respectively.
Admitting hundreds of thousands of
guest workers annually would add 30 million
residents in a decade, worsen poverty and create greater
inequality.
A couple of closing thoughts are
worth your consideration, too.
First, the federal government has
never been able to effectively administer any kind of
immigration or non-immigration work program.
Previous
guest worker programs were rampant with fraud. No
one ever went home; illegal immigration increased. The
current Senate proposals guarantees more of the same.
Second, the three thousand illegal
aliens who cross into the U.S. daily will keep coming
until our borders are secure.
We’ve tried
amnesty and guest worker programs; they failed to do
what they promised.
The only thing the U.S has never
seriously attempted is
