Weekly Immigration Update; Immigration reform; CIS; Center for Immigration Studies; Comprehensive Immigration Reform; Nativists

Another Reason Why Immigration Reform Should Pass This Year: We Are All In Agreement

I have written before about the Center for Immigration Studies, CIS, recognized as part of a hate group network, as anti-Hispanic and self-describedly anti-immigrant.  Their latest study, covered by the CQ Weekly, finds that - even in this time of economic crisis - wages actually rose at packing plants after immigration raids.  What does this tell us? It does not tell us that raids are a good idea, but rather, this conclusion gets to the point that a legal work force is a higher paid, more secure work force - and this is good for all workers and business owners.  It tells us that not only is immigration reform the right and humane thing to do, but it is in the best interest of all American workers in order to further elevate the wages and conditions of all our work force.  Per CIS, after the raids:

"Swift also has recruited a large number of refugees who are legal immigrants," to replace its undocumented work force; and "at the four facilities for which we were able to obtain information, wages and bonuses rose on average 8 percent with the departure of illegal immigrants...There is a widespread perception among union officials, workers, and others in these communities that if pay and working conditions were improved, it would be dramatically easier to recruit legal workers (immigrant and native)."

I never thought I'd say this, but CIS's findings demonstrate that we are actually all in agreement! "Conservative" and "liberal," "anti-immigrant" and "pro-immigrant," and everyone in between - we all want to look after our workers' and our businesses' best interests to improve the U.S. economy.  This study demonstrates that legalizing all our work force and having sufficient (realistic) legal channels for workers is the best way to ensure the best wages, bottom line. The study's author, Jerry Kammer, says that unscrupulous employers will never go along with higher wages without the threat of enforcement - "There's always new guys coming in willing to work for less," he says.  So then we're in agreement - we have to fix our broken immigration system; let's pass comprehensive immigration legislation that legalizes all our workers, that sanctions bad-actor employers, provides an earned path to citizenship, and provides sufficient legal channels to address economic demand for workers in the future. Based on this report, there is no legitimate policy (or political) reason why the status quo makes more sense than comprehensive immigration reform.

Syndicate content