OCA - GREATER SEATTLE CHAPTER
Immigration is Necessary to the Future of Our Country
An essay by Richard Bergeon
originally posted December 29, 2007, revised 01/01/2008
Instead of our increasing hand wringing over the "immigration problem" we should be actively printing up signs and posting them at all border entry points - "Immigrants Needed Here."
Our politicians have, once agian, distracted the voters from what is important (like global warming, globilization of the economy, ending the war and mending the Middle East, etc.) and got everyone to focus on a bashing minorities -- in the guise of immigrants. Immigration really shouldn't be an issue. The fact is, we need these immigrants, and we need them now!
Here are the reasons:
Decline in workforce
Over the next twenty years the number of citizens over 65 will rise to 78 million, more than three and a half times the number of immigrants that have entered the country; legally or not. Since the 1940s, an increasing number of females have entered the workforce until now it is unusual for adults not to engage in work. Thus most of these over-65s will be leaving employment creating a vacuum - if the job is goes unfilled.
Declining population
According to Steven Camarota ("Projecting the Impact of Immigration on the U.S. Population, 2007 to 2060"; Center for Immigration Studies, Aug, 2007), the affect of the current level of immigration (1.25 million per year) will have only a small affect on the aging of our population. This is so even though these immigrants tend to be younger and have more children. I would like to take exception to this opinion. Please forgive the rough figuring, but I think the numbers will make the point that we are on the verge of a serious problem if we do not address our immigration issues sanely.
The CIA estimates the actual migrant influx in 2007 to be 918,500. If this number is sustained, there will be a net immigration affect of only 15,6 million immigrants between now and 2024 when the Baby Boomers start to hit 78 - the current average life expectency. If one uses 78 million as the number of Baby Boomers, between 2009 and 2024 we will see an average of 4.9 million deaths per year. In the study Camarota cites the Census Bureau estimate that there are 4.2 million births per year.
In 2003 the National Center for Health Statistics said that 947,000, about a quarter of all births were to foreign born women. Projecting the same rate forward we will see roughly 16 million births to immigrant women between now and 2024. From 2009 to 2024 we may see an even greater net decline in population without immigration remaining at or near its current level. Camarota, is careful to point out that the Census Bureau expects birthrates of Hispanic women - a significant percentage of those now having children - are expected to fall as they achieve greater financial stability.
With a total of only 31.6 million immigrants, and their U.S. born children, we will see a net decline of over 45 million that must be made up by births to non-immigrant women. The birth rate to non-immigrant women was only about three million per year in 2003, and the birth rate for them is dropping as their average age grows. In 2006 the National Center of Health Statistics said births had reached the replacement rate the first time in 35 years. It is highly unlikely that biths will remain at that level if we continue on our course of ejecting immigrants.
Bottom line, if we don't keep immigration at its current level, with the children they bring, we will be dropping in population. Cutting immigration to a third of what it is now will deprive us of 20 million workers. Deporting those that now live here will increase the disparity to perhaps 40 million - 15% of our current population. Such a population decline will impact our economy and might impact such industries as housing, service, and healthcare like a sledge hammer.
Competition for immigrants
There is mounting demand for skilled workforce. Retirements, increasing job complexity, are creating demands for technically trained and skilled and semi-skilled workers which will exceed the present capacity of the U.S. educational system.
Declining population in Europe and Japan is increasing international demand for skilled workers. Lower cost of living factored against increasing wages are encouraging skilled workers to stay home in countries like China, India and the Philippines - our most sources of skilled workers. Europe is actively increasing its campaign for skilled immigrants and already has a program that is much friendlier, and with the rising value of the Euro Vs. the Dollar, more rewarding.
The E.U. streamlined the application process for a “Blue Card,' a two year visa that is renewable. The process takes only one to three months to obtain the card. Compare this to the H-1B three year visa in the U.S. that lasts only three years and are doled out by lottery, and the EB green card which is limited to 140,000 per year and are distributed equally to all countries irrespective of population sizes. “The inflexible country quotas mean that professionals from countries such as China and India are almost always at a disadvantage, finding themselves stuck in a system -- often for five to 10 years -- in which they cannot seek promotions and raises. Spouses and children count against the quota, which has not been raised since 1990. And even though they count against the quota of foreign workers allowed to come here, spouses are inexplicably forbidden to work, no matter their level of education and skill.” (Washington Post, “A Talent Contest We're Losing”, 12/23/2007; pg. B07)
India has just recently disposed of a long standing tradition. It will now honor medical degrees awarded in the U.S. and other countries. The rapidly expanding economies of Asia and South America are potent forces that will assimilate many fine minds that would have been apt to emigrate. There will be every reason for expatriatiots to return home.
Need for Service Workers
The economy of the U.S. is still strong. We have a need for many unskilled and semi-skilled workers, which is attested to by the fact that illegal immigrants are being attracted here. With the large number of retirees in the coming years, the number of care workers needed will rapidly increase. Without an influx of immigrants the demand for workers will drive costs higher putting the many services out of reach of the less affluent retirees.
Many undocumented immigrants work in the service industry clandestinly. They do not appear on the books, and are paid under the table. Should these workers be counted, we would find that there are many more service industry jobs in this country then we currently acknowledge. Bringing these workers into the light would be a blessing. They would earn more, pay more in taxes and reduce the burden on the rest of us for welfare agency services. They would also spend more creating a boost to the economy.
Economic Demands
The agricultural industry has already felt the impact of lower immigration and enforcement of unfriendly immigration laws. Crops are spoiling, and the cost is rising for agricultural products. New York State estimates it will lose $700 million in agricultural products are currently at risk, and that it will have to convert 750,000 acres of farmland (10% of the state's farmland) to less labor-intensive and less profitable crops. It also says that 16,000 that depend on the farm sector may be lost.
A study, conducted by the Fiscal Policy Institute in New York, says that immigrants become part of the communities, learn to speak English, and buy homes. The housing market, already under stress because of the loan fiasco, will soon feel even greater stress as state governments and communities hostile to immigrants push the undocumented aliens out of the country and the documented out of the neighborhoods. Already some communities are experiencing an increase in vacant properties. These departures will impact the rental market and home values in these communities.
Arizona, which will impose loss of business licenses on companies employing illegal aliens after the beginning of 2008, says that it will benefit from “less crime, lower taxes, less congestion, smaller classroom sizes and shorter lines in emergency rooms.” (AP; “Experts: New law driving out illegals”; Amanda Lee Myers; 12/22/2007) The Fiscal Policy Institute says that half the households headed by an illegal immigrant receive welfare, food assistance and children's health benefits. So they might be partially correct, but what will the businesses do when they lose 22 percent of their construction workforce and 37 percent of their service workers because they force families with one or more illegal alien members to leave the state?
The Immigration Policy Center, a pro-immigration think tank, estimates that the net impact of immigration is $37 billion on gross domestic product. They pay more taxes than they use in government services, and most are ineligible for public services. A study by the University of California determined that immigrants use less health services than citizens, and are not disproportionately using those services.
The loss of workers from states which take a harsh attitude toward immigrants may prove decimating. Illegal workers, after all, are not limited to those that crossed the desert or swam a river. They include students, wives and visitors that simply stayed on and took jobs that they were not supposed to have. They include children who have grown up in the U.S. most of their lives and who do not even know they are illegal. They include parents of workers who are U.S. citizens and solid middle or upper-class workers. The Fiscal Policy Institute Study found downstate suburban immigrant workers held large percentages of many occupations:
Registered nurses 29%
Maids & housekeeping cleaners 82%
Grounds maintenance workers 58%
Janitors & building cleaners 43%
Child care workers 41%
Nursing, psychiatric & home health aides 46%
Cashiers 24%
Physicians & surgeons 41%
Construction laborers 49%
Supervisors/managers of retail sales workers 22%
Retail salespersons 17%
Cooks 58%
Accountants and auditors 22%
Secretaries and administrative assistants 11%
Painters, construction and maintenance 71%
Carpenters 36%
Managers, all other 15%
Elementary & middle school teachers 9%
Driver/sales workers and truck drivers 23%
Food service managers 45%
Production workers, all other 63%
Waiters & waitresses 23%
Supervisors/managers of non-retail sales workers 22%
Bookkeeping, accounting & auditing clerks 19%
Supervisors/mgrs. of construction workers 27%
College and university professors 28%
Financial managers 19%
While it is true that probably less than 10 percent of these people have entered the U.S. without permission, it is unknown how many are undocumented or “irregular” immigrants without valid documentation. Many temporary resident visas were issued without an expiration date. Some have a visa that was not properly renewed on time or had an asylum claim rejected. Others married citizens or are because they are dependents of citizens. Still others are often found to be irregular because marriage and family cultures of other their countries of origin are inconsistent with ours, or they simply did not understand the forms and answered the question inappropriately.
Cost of enforcement
Has anyone seen the real cost of immigration enforcement? According to the Immigration Forum, in 2002 we spent $1.6 billion on the Border Patrol and it has expanded since then. It cost us $1,700 for every arrest made, and this does not cover what we are paying for courts, immigration boards, airplane rides for deportees. If we simply multiply the cost by 7 million, the estimated number of undocumented immigrants who have been here for more than five years, it will cost us $1.19 billion to just arrest them!
How we will process them, who will proccess them, where we will house them, and how we will provide food and healthcare for them is a total mystery. If we decide to expel them all we willhave to provide the buses and plane tickets. Oh, and please remember that many of these immigrants will be taking along their children, many will be seniors, some will be infirm, some will be children.
To keep this in perspective, we're only looking at the cost of catching the ones that have laid down roots. What about the other 4 to 5 million that are mobile because they haven't been here that long and are fully capable of returning after we have pushed them out? The Immigration Forum estimated that if we could deport 8-9 million over five years it would cost about $200 billion. That, of course supposes that we guarantee there would be no more undocumented immigrants showing up.
Stereotyping and the Undocumented
While the backlash is strongest against Hispanics, there are other nationalities that will be swept up in the net that is cast too broadly.
It is little known that China simply refuses to take back citizens who emigrated illegally, so they are simply left alone by the U.S. government. Never-the-less these undocumented immigrants will be constantly denied rights to work and access to legal services falling into the legal domain of citizen without a country.
There are the undocumented and irregular immigrants that come from European countries - Ireland estimates that there are 50,000 undocumented Irish in the U.S. If there are that many Irish, a modestly populated country, there are no telling how many other. Europeans are in this country without proper documentation. They will be affected to because we have a 'color-blind” legal system. We need to acknowledge that human beings have been crossing borders for centuries in search of better opportunity.
Authorities are caught in a trap. Either they practice stereotyping -- assume that anyone who speaks English poorly or is a person of color is an probably “illegally” in the U.S., or they must treat everyone to be a suspect and take them into custody if they cannot prove they are properly documented. The upshot of the first is communities that will be driven into poverty by lawsuits. The latter will mean that we will all be forced to carry documentation attesting to our ability to be in the country legally - national identity cards with their attendant loss of privacy. It will be possible to trace our every movement and activity.
Injustice in deportation
Let us not forget those American citizens we are going to deport along with the parents. According to the National Center for Health Statistics there were about 947,000 births in 2003 from foreign born women. One researcher estimated that 42% of these, about 436,000, were to "illegal immigrants." If one assumes that this was an average of the number of births between 2000 and today, we now have 3.5 million citizens age 7 and under who will be affected by the largest deportation effort any country has ever undertaken. Are we going to force other governments to take in all these American citizens? If we do, how are we going to protect those citizens in other all those countries, which, by law we are obligated to do? How are we to help them obtain their basic human rights that our constitution says is their due?
In 2005 the Immigration Forum estimated that there were two million families of unauthorized immigrants that included U.S. citizen children. Hopefully, this lower number of families containing U.S. citizens, whose human rights are going to be infringed, is correct because that will mean fewer citiens who will grow up to hate the country of their birth. Either they will lose the benefit of being raised by parents or be cast out in diaspora unmatched in the last century. Either way they will not be kindly disposed to the country to which they will be free to live in when they become adults. Not only will we be creating an ethical dilemma, we will be exacerbating our security problems.
Forces of Supply and Demand
We are a nation that subscribes to the laws of capitalism, yet we refuse to acknowledge why people come here. We have jobs that do not exist elsewhere. If they did exist elsewhere the people who needed them would go there.
The only thing that laws against immigration do is create an opportunity for crime. Human trafficking would not exist if the people did not have to be smuggled into a country. Undocumented migrants do not have rights. This means they are easily exploited -- denied access to legal and health services, denied human rights in employment situations, and forced to commit illegal actions. They become victims of profiteers and criminals to avoid exposure.
It is strange that we believe there is a fundamental right of all people to emigrate, but we also believe it is a fundamental right that we block them from immigrating. It is right for businesses to lobby for migration to access cheaper labor rates, but wrong for countries to deny people their basic human rights.