Immigrants undervalued
By Daily Bruin Staff
April 25, 2006 9:00 p.m.
The controversy surrounding immigration has captured the
attention and stirred the emotions of the nation. But most people,
particularly those who oppose a path to citizenship for
undocumented immigrants, are uninformed about the role of
undocumented immigrants in the country.
People against the presence of undocumented immigrants in the
United States are quick to point out the supposed negative effect
they have on the economy. They point to a drag on wages and the use
of public services (especially schools) as evidence.
But the effect of immigration on wages is not as great as some
believe. Many supporters of tougher restrictive immigration laws
point to a study by Harvard economists George Borjas and Lawrence
Katz to show that immigrants have displaced unskilled native
workers and lowered their wages.
However, as the New York Times’ Eduardo Porter reported,
both economists acknowledge that the study ignored economic factors
that make the picture less clear and the impact of immigration much
smaller than the study reported.
Meanwhile, the 2005 study “Is the New Immigration Really
So Bad?” conducted by UC Berkeley economist David Card,
states that “evidence that immigrants have harmed the
opportunities of less educated natives is scant.”
The fact that wages have not decreased, despite the high volume
of immigration, and that immigrants are not displacing native
workers may indicate that demand for labor is so great it keeps
wages from falling.
This demand is not likely to decrease soon. Time magazine
reports restaurants expect 15 percent job growth over the next 10
years, but the labor force is only expected to grow 10 percent.
The presence of undocumented immigrants allows companies that
would outsource their work to remain competitive in the
country.
As Cato Institute immigration expert Daniel Griswold told Time,
“A vibrant laborer population could even help create white
collar jobs,” particularly because managerial positions are
needed to supervise firms’ expanding staff.
Currently there is a large movement of immigrants to Southern
states. These states offer few social services but are growing
rapidly and offering more work.
Moreover, “in 2003 over 90 percent of undocumented men
worked,” as reported by the Urban Institute. This “rate
(was) higher than that for U.S. citizens, and even legal
immigrants.” Also, undocumented immigrants make up a larger
share of the U.S. workforce than they do of the U.S.
population.
Finally, most immigrants arrive in the country at a young age,
usually in their 20s, and are thus unlikely to require public
services.
Other arguments are that undocumented immigrants do not pay
taxes and send their earnings back home to foreign countries.
But Time reported that through 2002, undocumented immigrants
paid $463 billion in Social Security and 80 percent of undocumented
immigrants’ earnings stay in the country. The National
Immigration Forum said that immigrants pay about $90 billion a year
in taxes and spend $5 billion in public services.
There have been many attacks on immigrants because of the
supposed inability of immigrants to assimilate. But Card explains
that the children of post-1965 immigrants, who have arrived mainly
from Latin America, have higher education levels and wages than
those of natives, and that even the children of the least-educated
immigrants “have closed most of the education gap with the
children of natives.”
Those who want to punish undocumented immigrants have little, if
any, economic or social reason to do so. Immigrants obviously broke
the law when entering the country, but that only shows how weak
arbitrary laws are against the law of supply and demand.
But immigrants are not just factors of production. They are
people willing to work hard to have a better life. There is nothing
illegal about that.
Rios is a third-year economics student.
