Does anyone have actual numbers on the COSTS of illegal immigration? I see a lot of conjectures thrown out but have yet to see a reliable source for any of this.
I've heard that figure a few times. But what are the cost to taxpayers in terms of social services, medical care, emergency room care, safety net costs come to around? I've heard that number to be anywhere around 40 to 50 billion dollars.
I somehow doubt thats the right. I'm betting it's probably more around something like 20-25.
I have to admit, this protest is starting to kinda piss me off. And here's why. I don't know about the rest of the country, but the majority of illegals down here are from mexico. I live 15 miles from the border.
What doesn't make sense is that these dudes came here illegally and then want to make demands of our government. If you really think the US is fucked up, then leave. I don't even think that sounds harsh, because Mexico is fucked up and they left Mexico to come here. Are we a bunch of racists that hate Mexicans? Fine, then go back to Mexico where everything is awesome. What is irritating is that they are frustrated and pointing the finger at the US govt, when we never said they could be here in the first place, instead of targeting the MEXICAN GOVERNMENT!!! If they can hold all these rallies and get all these people involved and try to change the laws here then why couldn't they do that in mexico in the first place???
Thing is, I love mexicans. I grew up in Bakersfield. I like mexican families. So its not that they are mexican that pisses me off. I just want to get in front of that crowd and yell "your government FUCKED YOU. If you are pissed, take it to YOUR leaders!!!"
Somebody needs to tell me where I am fundamentally wrong here. I agree that immigration reform needs to happen pronto. But I don't think the excuse of "well, we're already here anyways, so just give us citizenship" is working for me.
I'd like to know what legal us immigrants have to think about this whole thing.
what you're saying is logical, dizzy... and i'm not gonna entirely disagree.
but the real reason i was protesting wasn't so much to demand benefits for immigrants... i just think it's wrong that they want to pass a law where illegal immigrants aren't even considered human beings. where a doctor will become a felon in the USA for saving the life of an illegal immigrant... or an employer put in jail for giving an immigrant a job. to deny someone the right to LIFE is just wrong on every level. this mentality is also [in ignorant people's eye] turning people of immigrant cultures into "the enemy". in reality, i'm protesting for MY RIGHTS which are being put in jeopardy... not just theirs.
i just think it's funny how the US goes back n forth between caring about immigrants... anyone remember elian gonzalez?
Mexico has plenty of rich Mexicans who have no need to move to the US. Many of them do pretty well working for US, Mexican, Spanish, or German corporations in their own country. Mexico City also has its own issues with indigenous rights within the country, and there have been massive protests. With many other people, I think these events can be seen as interconnected global issues that are playing out in nations all over the world. You can't take all the benefits of globalization without expecting to adapt to changing realities. NAFTA, the environment, illegal immigrants, all-you-can-eat sushi in Albuquerque, raers on eBay, and yes, productive members of society wanting control over their destiny, these are all realities of the global economy. No way in hell americans can sit around complaining about it when a lot of it was done in order to keep their asses shopping at the mall or watching cheaply made TVs.
He who has the aircraft carriers controls the world economy.
The quickest way to rid the country of illegal immigrants would be to stop consuming per capita 5 times more of the world's resources than anyone else. It's not a foreign political or legislative or law-enforcement problem, it's a consumption problem.
The quickest way to rid the country of illegal immigrants would be to stop consuming per capita 5 times more of the world's resources than anyone else. It's not a foreign political or legislative or law-enforcement problem, it's a consumption problem.
Really? It's thought China has already surpased the US in consumption of most of the major basic commodities used. Just not yet oil. I'm guessing it will surpase the US per capita figure. But not for 20-35 years. Do you see illegal immigration problems in their future aswell?
I've heard that figure a few times. But what are the cost to taxpayers in terms of social services, medical care, emergency room care, safety net costs come to around? I've heard that number to be anywhere around 40 to 50 billion dollars.
And for a second, lets just say hypothetically speaking amnesty was the final outcome of some sorts (Be it full or maybe even fines to be paid). Does anyone not believe that you will end up with millions upon millions more immigrants from all around the world heading towards the United States with a message like that?
1) Not to be a broken record, but overall immigrants contribute more to the American economy then they take out. Where that's the exception is the 5 states the receive the most immigrants: CA, NY, TX, IL, FL.
2) If they do pass some kind of amnesty law there will be an increase in immigration because when these wave of immmigrants become citizens they will most likely put in applications to bring in their family members back home. At least that's what happened in 1986 during the last amnesty.
3) The message of the U.S.? As long as America is the richest country in the world and has itself promoted in movies, TV, music, fashion, etc. etc. etc. immigrants will come here. That's been true since the beginning. Any law pro or con on immigration is not really going to stop that.
P.S. - The number of immigrants that come to the U.S. is not a constant nor is it an ever increasing number. It actually goes up and down and always has since the beginning of America.
I've spoken to very few people here in Texas who actually suggest that illegal aliens should be deported.
The majority of the opinions I've heard on radio, TV and in person is that these folks should just do it legally(I got an earful today from a Canadian co-worker who is pissed that he has to continue to go through red tape some 5 years after he moved here legally).
My thoughts at this time are to grant all current residents amnesty, send every illegal alien prisoner back to their homeland and then stop another single ILLEGAL person from coming into the country until the economy can stabilize and level out with the massive amount of new citizens.
The current process of becoming a leagl citizen should continue as is.
And I do believe it's possible to prevent illegal aliens from coming here...it's just gonna cost some $$$.
BTW....I don't have the power to do any of this so don't get too upset if you disagree.
In the 1920s my great-grandmother Isabella migrated with her parents to Cleveland, Ohio seeking a more prosperous life. At an early age she went to work at her family's store, a smoke shop and grocers, to support her parents and brothers during the Depression. As a young woman, she spent her days scrubbing the cold floors of Cleveland's elite. By night she felt the heat of the press as she laid creases in their tailored shirts and expensive dresses. Isabella worked hard to do the jobs that others would not - the jobs that built America.
Her story represents that of millions of people in the U.S., but don't be fooled; it is no immigrant narrative. Isabella was black, like me, and her story, rendered invisible by the current deliberation on immigrant civil rights, is that of many Black Americans.
There is little question that the current immigration debate, though coded and contrived otherwise, is entirely about race. Yet, the framing made popular by immigrants and their advocates is so hostile to Black people and our American experience that it seems impossible for us to stake a claim with this movement. Today's immigrants will find that without Blacks, and a commitment to challenge racism beyond the reach of immigration policy alone, their movement will lose both its moral authority and the practical victory it hopes to achieve.
The language of today's movement directly evokes a painful history. Immigrants who laid claim in the past to this re-imagined American dream colluded with a system of racism that made the hope of health, safety and happiness an empty promise for Black people. Immigrants on the march today threaten to go the way of the Irish, the Italian and the Jewish: they may pay the price of the ticket for American citizenship by yielding to a racial hierarchy that leaves Blacks at the bottom.
Immigrants and their advocates have gained attention by evoking the narrative of hard-working immigrants making good in the land of opportunity - the American Dream redux - with its attendant contradictions and contrivances. With cries that "immigrants built this country," a favorite calling card, this burgeoning movement at once revoked the history of slaves and their descendants and obscured important truths about power, migration and social mobility in this country. For my great-grandmother, and generations of Black people in this country before and after her, this lie is worse than silence. It is a critical and strategic omission that adds Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans to the annals of American history while relegating Black people to its shadows.
The narrative of the immigrant as the symbol of hard work that leads to opportunity can mean nothing but alienation for Black people precisely because we know this myth is false. Without our labor - not immigrant labor, but slave labor - in the fields and on the march there would be no market brimming with wealth and economic opportunity, nor a tradition of civil and political rights readily available for appropriation and exploitation.
So, listening to the language of immigrant rights in 2006, a sensible Black person might respond with ambivalence. It is difficult to take the cause seriously, much less call it our own. Immigrant rights advocates have the potential to speak broadly, and Black people more than any other group might champion an extension of human rights denied to those on the margins. But instead we are displaced from this movement by coded messages that celebrate a history of anti-black racism. That rhetoric, joined with an under appreciated economic conflict, has generated serious alarm in Black communities that headlines of 'Black/Brown Conflict' have largely missed or mistaken.
Immigration policy has routinely been used to check the mobility of Black people, blocking access to jobs, education and political rights. Whether European immigrants pulled into the economy during the industrial expansion of the early last century, or Asian professionals arriving in the 1970s and 1980s positioned as "model minorities," immigration policy has been crafted to subtly recast and reinforce this country's racial hierarchy. Immigration regulations, like all public policy, set the rules of the game and can predetermine its winners and losers; history has shown through centuries of migration that those rules have worked against working-class Black people. As we struggle for basic rights, every new immigrant group has moved faster and further up the ladder.
But the squeeze Black people articulate in response to the arrival of new immigrants goes beyond laws and regulations. While there is some dispute on how immigration impacts low-wage labor markets where Blacks are disproportionately represented, there is evidence that social and kinship networks in other communities of color directly block Blacks from jobs. Equal opportunity lawsuits are increasingly being brought against employers who "prefer" Latinos to Black workers, giving even more reason to take questions of immigration and racism between communities of color seriously. The result of innocent intentions, like hiring friends and family into much needed jobs, is an insidious form of racism that lurks beneath the current anger and frustration voiced by Black people across the country.
Clearly, there are plenty of reasons for Black people to be skeptical about U.S. immigration policy. The rhetoric of the movement has refused to acknowledge racism in the U.S. beyond a narrow agenda of legalization and vague "worker rights."
The truth is, however, that Black people have been disproportionately supportive of virtually every other movement for human rights at home and abroad. Time and history have shown that the descendents of U.S. slavery do not support violence, oppression or the denial of rights to marginalized groups, least of all people of color. When the nation as a whole is swept up in red baiting, war-mongering and a "with us or against us" war on terror, Blacks overwhelmingLY support civil rights and sovereignty.
Yet our support for immigrant rights remains a murmur of uninspired, politically-corrected muddled statements of "unity," while the rising tide of Black popular opinion is at least seriously concerned about, and at worst flatly opposed to, the legalization of millions of undocumented immigrants.
But times change. If immigrants, from Latin America and elsewhere, want to win something more than the right to a poverty wage job without health care, it's time for them to craft an immigrant rights movement with language and a vision that Black people have a stake in. Incorporating Black folks is not only a moral question; it's really quite practical. New immigrants of color, unlike their European predecessors, should recognize that in passively accepting anti-Black racism in exchange for integration into U.S. culture and economy, they might issue a warrant for the future seizure of their own tenuous rights.
Mexicans, Salvadorans and Dominicans are not Irish, Italian and German. Racism, in its subtle sweep, touches every community of color. While it is true that Black people often end up at the bottom, other people of color, despite the comfort of an idealized immigrant narration, are nowhere near the top.
When my great-grandmother was my age in 1937, this country looked very different. Today, Black people are working harder than ever for less than ever. Working-class Black communities have been wounded by the decline of the American city and leveled by the gentrification of their resurgence. We share these urban landscapes with immigrant families, some here for generations others arriving daily. Our jobs, our schools, our hospital
s, indeed, our lives overlap in a complex web of political, personal and economic relationships. We don't always see our fates as linked, but there is no question that we could. That would require non-immigrants and immigrants alike to look critically at our lived experiences, to think beyond our individual needs and envision the true dismantling of racism that blocks opportunity for us all. Black people are being called on to take that broader view, but it seems unlikely we will add our numbers to a movement that appears to forget our history and seems disinterested in our future.
Perhaps Black people and immigrants should be allies in demanding jobs that we can live on, a health system that cares whether we live or die, and schools that can prepare our kids to take their place as full citizens. It is becoming clear that if immigrant rights advocates do not commit themselves to a broad program of racial justice that includes both legalization and a wider set of structural changes, they won't expand the piece of the American pie we share, they'll simply have to fight us for the biggest part of a very small slice.
Andre Banks is the Associate Director of Media and Public Affairs at the Applied Research Center and the Associate Publisher of ColorLines magazine.
I???m suppose to be grading essays and instead I???m caught up in this shit. Damn you Soulstrut! Damn you!
Anyway, given the limited time I???ve only been able to dig into my newspaper clippings and not surfed the web, but here are some factoids and numbers about immigration, both legal and illegal that I???ve found to add to the debate:
There are 34 million immigrants in the U.S. in 2005 making up 12% of the U.S. population.
According to the Census Bureau 53% of immigrants came from Latin America, 25% from Asia, 14% from Europe and 8% from the rest of the world.
From 1999 to 2004 the number of illegal immigrants to the U.S. passed the number of legal immigrants
Overall immigration however went up and down. It rose during the 1990s, peaked in 2000 and declined since 2001. In 1992 1 million came. In 1997 1.2 million, and rose to 1.5 million in 1999 and 2000. In 2003 1.1 million came. The main reason for the changes has been the U.S. economy. As the economy was booming during the Clinton years immigration went up. When the economy went into a recession at the beginning the Bush years immigration went down. Since the economy has been recovering immigration has been going back up. There seems to be a simple correlation between the number of jobs available in the U.S. and immigration flows.
Legal immigration decreased from 2003 to 2004, while the number of illegal immigrants coming to the U.S. in the 2000s is the same as the 1990s.
Estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. vary between 10-20 million.
Illegal immigrants add 700,000 new consumers to the U.S. each year. Legal immigrants add 600,000.
85% of illegal immigrants are 18-44 years old
The largest legal and illegal immigrant group to the U.S. are Mexicans. They usually come from poor villages and lack skills. Their average income in the U.S. is $27,000.
There is a growing number of upper and middle class illegal immigrants however from other parts of Latin America and Asian countries such as South Korea.
Illegal immigrants make up 50% of U.S. farm workers, up from 12% in 1990 according to the Labor Dept. 25% of meat and poultry workers, 24% of dishwashers, 27% of drywall and ceiling tile installers.
The U.S. Census Bureau found that children of immigrants are wealthier, better educated and more likely to have a professional job, own a home and live in the suburbs than their parents.
California receives more immigrants than any other state in the U.S. An in depth study released in December 2005 called ???The Impact Of Immigration On The California Economy??? by the California Economic Strategy Panel who are appointed by the governors and state legislature found the following about immigrants and CA:
1) 1 in 4 Californians are immigrants, that???s 9.5 million people. Approximately 25% or 2.5 million were illegals. CA has the largest number of illegals in the U.S.
2) Jobs and average wages have increased in the state despite a huge increase in both legal and illegal immigrants to the state
3) California has done better than the rest of the country in the last 15 years in terms of wages, job creation and unemployment despite the large number of immigrants
4) The increase in immigration has strained social services and local governments in terms of education and medical services to the poorest immigrants many of who are illegal. This arises from the fact that 66%-75% of the taxes that all immigrants pay go to the federal government through income and payroll taxes, while state and local governments pay for 66%-75% of their costs.
One day a black friend of mine who was a basketball team mate tore me a new asshole for "Hanging out with those fucking Jamaicans" after he saw me playing cards in the school cafeteria with three Jamaican students.
I was shocked and told him they were good people that I had known since I was a Freshman.
He then went into a rant about how his Father and Grandfather had spent their lives fighting for good jobs, equal pay and overall workers rights and that these GD Jamaicans come over here and work 2 and 3 jobs each for sub-minimum wages and have set the entire African-American race back 50 years.
The majority of the opinions I've heard on radio, TV and in person is that these folks should just do it legally(I got an earful today from a Canadian co-worker who is pissed that he has to continue to go through red tape some 5 years after he moved here legally).
where you're coworker is pissed I am not, yeah legal immigration fucking sucks and the redtape is real bullshit. But I'm not mad at some dude who lives in a house made of scrapmetal for jumping a wall to finally reach his dreams of having a home with a running toilet. Legal immigration sucks and is even harder for those that do the shit work of this country. If some dude is down to risk it go for it. I'm not about to tell someone who can't afford it to sign up for the money pit that is legal immigration. Those people are better off feeding their families. That is also why I'm in favor of a guest worker program, with the option to apply for residency. It provides an affordable and realistic means to legal immigration.
Here's some more info I dug up, mostly about illegals and their impact upon the U.S.
From the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
Illegal immigrants have very little effect upon U.S. wages.
From 1980 to 2000 wages in the U.S. were reduced by 4% by all immigration.
The only group that would see a large increase in pay if illegal immigrants disappeared would be high school drop outs that could see a 3-8% increase in pay. That would average out to about an extra $25/week
Illegal immigrants have very little impact upon unemployment in the U.S.
Even in cities with large illegal immigrant communities like NYC, Chicago and LA they have minimal impact upon wages
A Harvard economist estimated that illegal immigrants overall add about less than 1% to America???s wealth
Immigrants overall have a negative effect upon U.S. born Latinos and blacks because they are more in direct competition with them for work
Pew Hispanic Center findings on illegals:
78% of illegals are from Mexico and Latin America
Less than 25% are young single men. Most are young working families.
Illegals make up less than 5% of the U.S. workforce, mostly work in low skill jobs. 24% of farming, 17% of clearners, 14% of construction, 29% of roofers and dry wall installers, 27% of butchers and food processors, 12% of food preparation
Illegal male workers arriving in the past 5 years earn about $480/wk, legal immigrants $700/wk, immigrants who have become U.S. citizens earn $930/wk
A Harvard economist estimated that illegal immigrants overall add about less than 1% to America???s wealth
So basically, they don't add much but they also don't take much (except in the 5 states you noted before).
The U.S. has roughly 280 million people. Only about 10-20 million are illegal immigrants. They are less than 5% of the workforce. It's not such a big number hence the minimal impact.
I don't want to be too reductionist here but Serg is exactly right:
When the choice comes to abject poverty and a potentially better life in America, people will do a lot of extraordinary things to make that happen. You'd either have to severely depresses wages in America. Or substantially raise living conditions and wages in other parts of the world in order to deter illegal immigration.
Building a fence, in my opinion, isn't enough of a deterrent. Read the recent New Yorker article about illegal Chinese immigrants who come in by sea, either to Canada or directly into America. We're not talking about a night run across the border - we're talking weeks, if not months, at sea. Plus these folks pay upwards $20,000 to get snuck in so they have some source of capital. Now if THOSE folks are willing to make that kind of investment and take that risk, you REALLY think better border patrols will make a difference?
More later
The majority of the opinions I've heard on radio, TV and in person is that these folks should just do it legally(I got an earful today from a Canadian co-worker who is pissed that he has to continue to go through red tape some 5 years after he moved here legally).
where you're coworker is pissed I am not, yeah legal immigration fucking sucks and the redtape is real bullshit. But I'm not mad at some dude who lives in a house made of scrapmetal for jumping a wall to finally reach his dreams of having a home with a running toilet. Legal immigration sucks and is even harder for those that do the shit work of this country. If some dude is down to risk it go for it. I'm not about to tell someone who can't afford it to sign up for the money pit that is legal immigration. Those people are better off feeding their families. That is also why I'm in favor of a guest worker program, with the option to apply for residency. It provides an affordable and realistic means to legal immigration.
Comments
Joel?
I somehow doubt thats the right. I'm betting it's probably more around something like 20-25.
What doesn't make sense is that these dudes came here illegally and then want to make demands of our government. If you really think the US is fucked up, then leave. I don't even think that sounds harsh, because Mexico is fucked up and they left Mexico to come here. Are we a bunch of racists that hate Mexicans? Fine, then go back to Mexico where everything is awesome. What is irritating is that they are frustrated and pointing the finger at the US govt, when we never said they could be here in the first place, instead of targeting the MEXICAN GOVERNMENT!!! If they can hold all these rallies and get all these people involved and try to change the laws here then why couldn't they do that in mexico in the first place???
Thing is, I love mexicans. I grew up in Bakersfield. I like mexican families. So its not that they are mexican that pisses me off. I just want to get in front of that crowd and yell "your government FUCKED YOU. If you are pissed, take it to YOUR leaders!!!"
Somebody needs to tell me where I am fundamentally wrong here. I agree that immigration reform needs to happen pronto. But I don't think the excuse of "well, we're already here anyways, so just give us citizenship" is working for me.
I'd like to know what legal us immigrants have to think about this whole thing.
but the real reason i was protesting wasn't so much to demand benefits for immigrants... i just think it's wrong that they want to pass a law where illegal immigrants aren't even considered human beings. where a doctor will become a felon in the USA for saving the life of an illegal immigrant... or an employer put in jail for giving an immigrant a job. to deny someone the right to LIFE is just wrong on every level. this mentality is also [in ignorant people's eye] turning people of immigrant cultures into "the enemy". in reality, i'm protesting for MY RIGHTS which are being put in jeopardy... not just theirs.
i just think it's funny how the US goes back n forth between caring about immigrants... anyone remember elian gonzalez?
GOOD F*&^%ING POINT!!!
He who has the aircraft carriers controls the world economy.
The quickest way to rid the country of illegal immigrants would be to stop consuming per capita 5 times more of the world's resources than anyone else. It's not a foreign political or legislative or law-enforcement problem, it's a consumption problem.
Really? It's thought China has already surpased the US in consumption of most of the major basic commodities used. Just not yet oil. I'm guessing it will surpase the US per capita figure. But not for 20-35 years. Do you see illegal immigration problems in their future aswell?
1) Not to be a broken record, but overall immigrants contribute more to the American economy then they take out. Where that's the exception is the 5 states the receive the most immigrants: CA, NY, TX, IL, FL.
2) If they do pass some kind of amnesty law there will be an increase in immigration because when these wave of immmigrants become citizens they will most likely put in applications to bring in their family members back home. At least that's what happened in 1986 during the last amnesty.
3) The message of the U.S.? As long as America is the richest country in the world and has itself promoted in movies, TV, music, fashion, etc. etc. etc. immigrants will come here. That's been true since the beginning. Any law pro or con on immigration is not really going to stop that.
The majority of the opinions I've heard on radio, TV and in person is that these folks should just do it legally(I got an earful today from a Canadian co-worker who is pissed that he has to continue to go through red tape some 5 years after he moved here legally).
My thoughts at this time are to grant all current residents amnesty, send every illegal alien prisoner back to their homeland and then stop another single ILLEGAL person from coming into the country until the economy can stabilize and level out with the massive amount of new citizens.
The current process of becoming a leagl citizen should continue as is.
And I do believe it's possible to prevent illegal aliens from coming here...it's just gonna cost some $$$.
BTW....I don't have the power to do any of this so don't get too upset if you disagree.
http://writewhatilike.blogspot.com/2006/05/price-of-ticket.html
The Price of the Ticket
In the 1920s my great-grandmother Isabella migrated with her parents to Cleveland, Ohio seeking a more prosperous life. At an early age she went to work at her family's store, a smoke shop and grocers, to support her parents and brothers during the Depression. As a young woman, she spent her days scrubbing the cold floors of Cleveland's elite. By night she felt the heat of the press as she laid creases in their tailored shirts and expensive dresses. Isabella worked hard to do the jobs that others would not - the jobs that built America.
Her story represents that of millions of people in the U.S., but don't be fooled; it is no immigrant narrative. Isabella was black, like me, and her story, rendered invisible by the current deliberation on immigrant civil rights, is that of many Black Americans.
There is little question that the current immigration debate, though coded and contrived otherwise, is entirely about race. Yet, the framing made popular by immigrants and their advocates is so hostile to Black people and our American experience that it seems impossible for us to stake a claim with this movement. Today's immigrants will find that without Blacks, and a commitment to challenge racism beyond the reach of immigration policy alone, their movement will lose both its moral authority and the practical victory it hopes to achieve.
The language of today's movement directly evokes a painful history. Immigrants who laid claim in the past to this re-imagined American dream colluded with a system of racism that made the hope of health, safety and happiness an empty promise for Black people. Immigrants on the march today threaten to go the way of the Irish, the Italian and the Jewish: they may pay the price of the ticket for American citizenship by yielding to a racial hierarchy that leaves Blacks at the bottom.
Immigrants and their advocates have gained attention by evoking the narrative of hard-working immigrants making good in the land of opportunity - the American Dream redux - with its attendant contradictions and contrivances. With cries that "immigrants built this country," a favorite calling card, this burgeoning movement at once revoked the history of slaves and their descendants and obscured important truths about power, migration and social mobility in this country. For my great-grandmother, and generations of Black people in this country before and after her, this lie is worse than silence. It is a critical and strategic omission that adds Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans to the annals of American history while relegating Black people to its shadows.
The narrative of the immigrant as the symbol of hard work that leads to opportunity can mean nothing but alienation for Black people precisely because we know this myth is false. Without our labor - not immigrant labor, but slave labor - in the fields and on the march there would be no market brimming with wealth and economic opportunity, nor a tradition of civil and political rights readily available for appropriation and exploitation.
So, listening to the language of immigrant rights in 2006, a sensible Black person might respond with ambivalence. It is difficult to take the cause seriously, much less call it our own. Immigrant rights advocates have the potential to speak broadly, and Black people more than any other group might champion an extension of human rights denied to those on the margins. But instead we are displaced from this movement by coded messages that celebrate a history of anti-black racism. That rhetoric, joined with an under appreciated economic conflict, has generated serious alarm in Black communities that headlines of 'Black/Brown Conflict' have largely missed or mistaken.
Immigration policy has routinely been used to check the mobility of Black people, blocking access to jobs, education and political rights. Whether European immigrants pulled into the economy during the industrial expansion of the early last century, or Asian professionals arriving in the 1970s and 1980s positioned as "model minorities," immigration policy has been crafted to subtly recast and reinforce this country's racial hierarchy. Immigration regulations, like all public policy, set the rules of the game and can predetermine its winners and losers; history has shown through centuries of migration that those rules have worked against working-class Black people. As we struggle for basic rights, every new immigrant group has moved faster and further up the ladder.
But the squeeze Black people articulate in response to the arrival of new immigrants goes beyond laws and regulations. While there is some dispute on how immigration impacts low-wage labor markets where Blacks are disproportionately represented, there is evidence that social and kinship networks in other communities of color directly block Blacks from jobs. Equal opportunity lawsuits are increasingly being brought against employers who "prefer" Latinos to Black workers, giving even more reason to take questions of immigration and racism between communities of color seriously. The result of innocent intentions, like hiring friends and family into much needed jobs, is an insidious form of racism that lurks beneath the current anger and frustration voiced by Black people across the country.
Clearly, there are plenty of reasons for Black people to be skeptical about U.S. immigration policy. The rhetoric of the movement has refused to acknowledge racism in the U.S. beyond a narrow agenda of legalization and vague "worker rights."
The truth is, however, that Black people have been disproportionately supportive of virtually every other movement for human rights at home and abroad. Time and history have shown that the descendents of U.S. slavery do not support violence, oppression or the denial of rights to marginalized groups, least of all people of color. When the nation as a whole is swept up in red baiting, war-mongering and a "with us or against us" war on terror, Blacks overwhelmingLY support civil rights and sovereignty.
Yet our support for immigrant rights remains a murmur of uninspired, politically-corrected muddled statements of "unity," while the rising tide of Black popular opinion is at least seriously concerned about, and at worst flatly opposed to, the legalization of millions of undocumented immigrants.
But times change. If immigrants, from Latin America and elsewhere, want to win something more than the right to a poverty wage job without health care, it's time for them to craft an immigrant rights movement with language and a vision that Black people have a stake in. Incorporating Black folks is not only a moral question; it's really quite practical. New immigrants of color, unlike their European predecessors, should recognize that in passively accepting anti-Black racism in exchange for integration into U.S. culture and economy, they might issue a warrant for the future seizure of their own tenuous rights.
Mexicans, Salvadorans and Dominicans are not Irish, Italian and German. Racism, in its subtle sweep, touches every community of color. While it is true that Black people often end up at the bottom, other people of color, despite the comfort of an idealized immigrant narration, are nowhere near the top.
When my great-grandmother was my age in 1937, this country looked very different. Today, Black people are working harder than ever for less than ever. Working-class Black communities have been wounded by the decline of the American city and leveled by the gentrification of their resurgence. We share these urban landscapes with immigrant families, some here for generations others arriving daily. Our jobs, our schools, our hospital s, indeed, our lives overlap in a complex web of political, personal and economic relationships. We don't always see our fates as linked, but there is no question that we could. That would require non-immigrants and immigrants alike to look critically at our lived experiences, to think beyond our individual needs and envision the true dismantling of racism that blocks opportunity for us all. Black people are being called on to take that broader view, but it seems unlikely we will add our numbers to a movement that appears to forget our history and seems disinterested in our future.
Perhaps Black people and immigrants should be allies in demanding jobs that we can live on, a health system that cares whether we live or die, and schools that can prepare our kids to take their place as full citizens. It is becoming clear that if immigrant rights advocates do not commit themselves to a broad program of racial justice that includes both legalization and a wider set of structural changes, they won't expand the piece of the American pie we share, they'll simply have to fight us for the biggest part of a very small slice.
Andre Banks is the Associate Director of Media and Public Affairs at the Applied Research Center and the Associate Publisher of ColorLines magazine.
Anyway, given the limited time I???ve only been able to dig into my newspaper clippings and not surfed the web, but here are some factoids and numbers about immigration, both legal and illegal that I???ve found to add to the debate:
There are 34 million immigrants in the U.S. in 2005 making up 12% of the U.S. population.
According to the Census Bureau 53% of immigrants came from Latin America, 25% from Asia, 14% from Europe and 8% from the rest of the world.
From 1999 to 2004 the number of illegal immigrants to the U.S. passed the number of legal immigrants
Overall immigration however went up and down. It rose during the 1990s, peaked in 2000 and declined since 2001. In 1992 1 million came. In 1997 1.2 million, and rose to 1.5 million in 1999 and 2000. In 2003 1.1 million came. The main reason for the changes has been the U.S. economy. As the economy was booming during the Clinton years immigration went up. When the economy went into a recession at the beginning the Bush years immigration went down. Since the economy has been recovering immigration has been going back up. There seems to be a simple correlation between the number of jobs available in the U.S. and immigration flows.
Legal immigration decreased from 2003 to 2004, while the number of illegal immigrants coming to the U.S. in the 2000s is the same as the 1990s.
Estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. vary between 10-20 million.
Illegal immigrants add 700,000 new consumers to the U.S. each year. Legal immigrants add 600,000.
85% of illegal immigrants are 18-44 years old
The largest legal and illegal immigrant group to the U.S. are Mexicans. They usually come from poor villages and lack skills. Their average income in the U.S. is $27,000.
There is a growing number of upper and middle class illegal immigrants however from other parts of Latin America and Asian countries such as South Korea.
Illegal immigrants make up 50% of U.S. farm workers, up from 12% in 1990 according to the Labor Dept. 25% of meat and poultry workers, 24% of dishwashers, 27% of drywall and ceiling tile installers.
The U.S. Census Bureau found that children of immigrants are wealthier, better educated and more likely to have a professional job, own a home and live in the suburbs than their parents.
California receives more immigrants than any other state in the U.S. An in depth study released in December 2005 called ???The Impact Of Immigration On The California Economy??? by the California Economic Strategy Panel who are appointed by the governors and state legislature found the following about immigrants and CA:
1) 1 in 4 Californians are immigrants, that???s 9.5 million people. Approximately 25% or 2.5 million were illegals. CA has the largest number of illegals in the U.S.
2) Jobs and average wages have increased in the state despite a huge increase in both legal and illegal immigrants to the state
3) California has done better than the rest of the country in the last 15 years in terms of wages, job creation and unemployment despite the large number of immigrants
4) The increase in immigration has strained social services and local governments in terms of education and medical services to the poorest immigrants many of who are illegal. This arises from the fact that 66%-75% of the taxes that all immigrants pay go to the federal government through income and payroll taxes, while state and local governments pay for 66%-75% of their costs.
One day a black friend of mine who was a basketball team mate tore me a new asshole for "Hanging out with those fucking Jamaicans" after he saw me playing cards in the school cafeteria with three Jamaican students.
I was shocked and told him they were good people that I had known since I was a Freshman.
He then went into a rant about how his Father and Grandfather had spent their lives fighting for good jobs, equal pay and overall workers rights and that these GD Jamaicans come over here and work 2 and 3 jobs each for sub-minimum wages and have set the entire African-American race back 50 years.
This is and always will be a complicated problem
where you're coworker is pissed I am not, yeah legal immigration fucking sucks and the redtape is real bullshit. But I'm not mad at some dude who lives in a house made of scrapmetal for jumping a wall to finally reach his dreams of having a home with a running toilet. Legal immigration sucks and is even harder for those that do the shit work of this country. If some dude is down to risk it go for it. I'm not about to tell someone who can't afford it to sign up for the money pit that is legal immigration. Those people are better off feeding their families. That is also why I'm in favor of a guest worker program, with the option to apply for residency. It provides an affordable and realistic means to legal immigration.
From the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
Illegal immigrants have very little effect upon U.S. wages.
From 1980 to 2000 wages in the U.S. were reduced by 4% by all immigration.
The only group that would see a large increase in pay if illegal immigrants disappeared would be high school drop outs that could see a 3-8% increase in pay. That would average out to about an extra $25/week
Illegal immigrants have very little impact upon unemployment in the U.S.
Even in cities with large illegal immigrant communities like NYC, Chicago and LA they have minimal impact upon wages
A Harvard economist estimated that illegal immigrants overall add about less than 1% to America???s wealth
Immigrants overall have a negative effect upon U.S. born Latinos and blacks because they are more in direct competition with them for work
Pew Hispanic Center findings on illegals:
78% of illegals are from Mexico and Latin America
Less than 25% are young single men. Most are young working families.
Illegals make up less than 5% of the U.S. workforce, mostly work in low skill jobs. 24% of farming, 17% of clearners, 14% of construction, 29% of roofers and dry wall installers, 27% of butchers and food processors, 12% of food preparation
Illegal male workers arriving in the past 5 years earn about $480/wk, legal immigrants $700/wk, immigrants who have become U.S. citizens earn $930/wk
So basically, they don't add much but they also don't take much (except in the 5 states you noted before).
The U.S. has roughly 280 million people. Only about 10-20 million are illegal immigrants. They are less than 5% of the workforce. It's not such a big number hence the minimal impact.
When the choice comes to abject poverty and a potentially better life in America, people will do a lot of extraordinary things to make that happen. You'd either have to severely depresses wages in America. Or substantially raise living conditions and wages in other parts of the world in order to deter illegal immigration.
Building a fence, in my opinion, isn't enough of a deterrent. Read the recent New Yorker article about illegal Chinese immigrants who come in by sea, either to Canada or directly into America. We're not talking about a night run across the border - we're talking weeks, if not months, at sea. Plus these folks pay upwards $20,000 to get snuck in so they have some source of capital. Now if THOSE folks are willing to make that kind of investment and take that risk, you REALLY think better border patrols will make a difference?
More later