Who gets hurt?
Is Illegal Immigration a victimless crime?
Part 3
Monday, August 03, 2009
By Carl Braun
Examiner.com
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IIlegal aliens hold a surprising number of US jobs.
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San Diego, CA---In Parts I & II of this series we have established that crossing our borders illegally, is in fact a crime according to US Code Title 8 Section 1325. Additionally, I addressed the issues of illegal immigration crime and its impact on the community, including how immigrant on immigrant crime is violent and often unreported.How does this crime of crossing our borders illegally affect the economy, the American worker and the taxpayer during good times and bad? Well, during good times the impact is still there, we just do not notice it as much, which is precisely how, given the economic boom over the last seven years or so, the impact has gone somewhat unnoticed and has spiraled out of control. For verification one only need to look at the fiscal condition of California.
As the economy began to seriously falter in 2008, warning bells went off and the impact on the American worker became more and more apparent. In employment for example the competition for jobs across all industries and career fields increased as the number of available jobs declined markedly and the number of layoffs soared.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center there are estimated to be 11.9 million illegal aliens in the United States, 76% of whom are Hispanic and 59% of those are Mexican. Asian illegal immigrants total 11% and those from the Middle East are less than 2%. Central and South America send us the remainder. In 2008 Pew estimated that approximately 8.3% of the workforce on average are Illegal Aliens with California, Arizona and Nevada topping 10% each.
As an occupation, farming leads the pack with 25% of all farm workers illegally in the United States. This however is misleading because as a percentage of the overall illegal population and not just the percentage of farm workers, only about 4% of the total are engaged in farming or agriculture. Ninety–six percent of those working are employed elsewhere. In the construction industry nearly 17.3% are illegal (up from 10.2% in 2003). Building, grounds keeping and maintenance jobs are nearly 1 in 5 held by illegal aliens. Production jobs are 10% and persons illegally in this country even hold 10% of the managerial and technical jobs. The latter, being mostly as a result of overstayed visas and not border fence jumpers.
So much for the argument that illegal aliens are only “doing the jobs Americans won’t do. Fact is in many cases they are “doing the jobs Americans used to do.” US unemployment in June 2009 was roughly 14.7 million people. If the Pew numbers are remotely accurate it would mean a large number of illegal aliens (nearly impossible to determine exactly) are holding jobs in construction, hospitality, production and even managerial roles that could be employing Americans. This is not a new phenomenon. The GAO or Government Accountability Office wrote a report during a previous period of high unemployment where we had 6 million illegal aliens in this country, many of which were presumably working, while 7.8 million Americans were unemployed. The year was 1977.
What about impact on wages? Ah yes, wages have been severely depressed by illegal workers who are willing to do the jobs for considerably less money. Take for example the case of James D, a construction and heavy equipment operator in the Sacramento area, which for 30 years earned as much as $30 per hour in his trade. Today he is lucky to get $18 per hour ($37,000 per year) and even that is more than what illegal workers are paid in the construction industry. He must travel as far away as Indio, CA to get the work (about 500 miles). Builders will hire these illegal workers through temp agencies or simply pick them up on the street corner saving the workmen’s comp costs and temp firm overrides as well. The taxpayer picks up the tab for those workers hurt on the job. As noted, employment for illegal construction workers has nearly doubled since 2003. Where did those jobs come from? That would be, in part, American workers who were displaced and couldn’t or wouldn’t work for the lower wages.
How do illegal aliens get these jobs? The term undocumented immigrants couldn’t be more misapplied. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, illegal aliens in this country are well documented…with your identities. They can gain employment in the US illegally one of at least four different ways. They can go to work for a company that fudges the paperwork (if there is any) or pays them off the books. They can steal your identity and use your social security number to gain employment. The E-Verify program goes a long way to stopping this sort of fraud right in its tracks but only a small but growing number of employers use it. The illegal worker can apply for a TIN or Tax Identification number for Foreign Workers but few reportedly do that as they are afraid the IRS will turn over their info to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement or ICE. Have no fear; the IRS doesn’t care where it gets tax money from as long as it gets it. They don’t have a mechanism for reporting illegal workers nor it seems do they have a way of stopping fraudulent Earned Income Tax Credit claims frequently used by illegal aliens to get refunds. In Tax year 2007, per a report by CNS News, the IRS gave out $12.1 billion in fraudulent claims.
In an April 2008 USA Today article the writer presents a case that illegal workers pay their way in taxes and social security but even he must concede:
“The {Social Security Administration} agency estimates that for 2005, the last year for which figures are available, about $9 billion in taxes was paid on about $75 billion in wages from people who filed W2 forms with incorrect or mismatched data, which would include illegal immigrants who drew paychecks under fake names and Social Security numbers.”
He further states that while Social Security taxes were paid, the total amounts to about $9 billion or $1.5% of all taxes paid into SSI that year and that the illegal alien receives no benefit from these funds. Really? Don’t social security receipts go into the General Fund? The same repository that pays out all other government benefits?
It is estimated that benefits, in the form of social services, education, medical and Aid To Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) amounts to between $60 billion and $100 billion annually. Not all of this is paid by the Feds however. Here in California the bill is roughly $10 billion though the Governor, seeking to allay our fears, stated recently the cost is ONLY $2-$4 billion each year. Whew…for a second there I was really scared.
According to Taxpayer Revolution, 84 hospitals, 65 emergency rooms and more than 70 acute care hospitals have closed in California in the last 10 years. There was $8.6 billion in unreimbursed emergency care costs in 2007 alone. Then there are the hidden costs. How much does AFDC send to Mexico each month to mothers of anchor babies with US citizenship? Millions? Then you have the US Congress moving a health plan out of committee yesterday that has of all things, free healthcare for illegal aliens. Oh it does not actually state, “Illegal Aliens get free healthcare,” it just very quietly omits the fact that you are not required to prove citizenship to get the government benefit. Do they think we are idiots? Event though Congress doesn’t actually read the bills they sign, WE DO.
Beam me up Scotty. This can’t be happening.
Back in CA, in a state with a $28 billion annual deficit it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where savings could be made. Government here though would rather close parks, furlough or fire state workers, cut education, health, police and fire workers than touch that political third rail. Most will tell you their hands are tied. State law mandates these non-citizens receive benefits. Last I checked they write the State laws and CA is alone in the level of benefits it provides to non-citizens. Big surprise that most illegal aliens choose to live here, with CA illegal population being double that of the #2 State Texas at 2,209,000.
It would be unfair to place all of our economic woes at the doorsteps of illegal aliens but a reasonable person has to look at these numbers and wonder just what would our state and national economy look like if there weren’t millions of well documented illegal aliens in this country driving down wages, taking jobs from Americans and/or living off the public dole. Some do pay income taxes, albeit with your SSN and all pay sales, gas and other state taxes but then again they do place a burden on the infrastructure where much of those dollars go. There is some public benefit and some illegals are good hard working people that do pay taxes. Unfortunately the ranks of these individuals are painfully thin and sadly every one of them committed a crime(s) to get where they are. Does their contribution outweigh the expense and the crime(s)? Is the contribution somehow better than native-born Americans who don’t take government benefits and have not committed any crimes? Well if you ask the millions of unemployed or underemployed Americans who have lost their jobs to illegal workers I suspect you would get a variety of answers and few of them would side with the well-documented illegal worker.
California is different; there is no doubt about it. There are many lessons to be learned here but no one it seems, especially State politicians, are paying attention in class. They are goofing off in the back with their buddies while the State goes up in flames. Their answer is more taxes and more burdens on the citizen. How much more can we take? It is already the most heavily taxed amongst all the other fifty in the Republic and maybe that has a bearing on the discussion. Then again, we have more mouths to feed, even if they are physically located in Mexico.
For more info: Read Kim Dvorak's article today on the backdoor push for amnesty.
Read Part 1 of the Series
Read Part 2 of the Series
Carl Braun is an analyst for the Homeland Security Policy Institute Group and he's logged 5,000-plus hours on the border. He has written several books including his most recent on Border Insecurity, “Above All Else”
. Contact Carl at Carl.Braun@BPAUX.org.
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For further information please refer to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
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