Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

It’s 1-1 on the Immigration Front

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by

James A. Bacon
in

It’s one ball and one strike on the immigration front. The State Crime Commission has wisely backed away from pushing a 1,000 person jail exclusively for illegal immigrants. Yet supervisors in Prince William County have unanimously approved a county crackdown of what they see as the big wave of illegal immigration.

Kudos to the SCC. The jail idea was a looney throw-back to some of Virginia’s social atrocities ranging from Massive Resistance to the eugenics movement. Officials apparently realized that the need may not really be there given the highly squishy nature of how many illegals are really here.

Darts to Prince William. Their acts will spark racial profiling and will send a very unwelcoming message to all recent immigrants, whether they are properly documented or not. That is, of course, if the board’s decision survives legal challenges. Handling immigrants is, after all, the federal government’s job.

The PWC board really needs a refresher course in the American way. They need to learn about the American traditions of welcoming newcomers and fair play. The U.S. was built in large part by immigrants, save for contributions by Native Americans. If you have traveled abroad, as I have, you sense a special respect for the U.S. because it has welcomed the poor, downtrodden, etc. This has been the overall history, despite such missteps as the anti-Catholic Know-Nothing movement, anti-Semitism and anti-Asian movements of the Far West.

Other counties such as Loudoun that have seen an influx of foreign-born residents are watching closely to see what will happen in Prince William. The yeah-hoos might be happy, but PWC will get a black eye as needed foreign-born workers here legally shun PWC and ones already there shut down their businesses. Look for massive county legal bills, especially after one cop too many stops a driver because he looks dark-skinned or somehow “un-American.”

That brings up something personal. I once worked in the Soviet Union as a U.S. news correspondent. When I drove anywhere the police constantly were waving me over because my license plates identified me as an American. Legally, they could hold me for up to three hours for DWA (“Driving While American”). After that, they’d have to charge me with something real. And I had all the official accreditations I needed.

What makes the PWC act especially shortsighted is that the world’s economy is more global than ever. Some of the brightest minds creating wealth in the New Flat World are from Mumbai or San Salvador and not merely Manassas. If I were an executive of a major foreign corporation looking for a North American headquarters ( such as, maybe, Volkswagen), would I choose Prince William? Maybe not any more, since I wouldn’t want my native born company officials and employees being rousted by local cops and bureaucrats all the time. I’d have too many other choices of places where we’d be more welcome.

Peter Galuszka

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24 responses to “It’s 1-1 on the Immigration Front”

  1. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    The PWC BoS approved a resolution but only committed a small minority of funding required to carry out the provisions of the resolution. In many ways, the PWC BoS managed to find a lose-lose endpoint. They got plenty of negative national publicity where they looked like racists (true or not – that’s how much of the national media attention looked) and they don’t have enough money to accomplish much of anything.

    Meanwhile, the anti-immigration crowd in PWC seems to have a very difficult time explaining why the horrible immigration-related problems they constantly cite are not making Arlington County or the City of Alexandria miserable. They claim that Fairfax County is an immigration fiasco just waiting to happen and think that Loudoun County is basically on their side. But they never quite address Arlington County – which has had loads of immigration (I assuse some legal and some illegal) for decades. Arlington has not disintigrated economically or become a hotbed of illegal-immigrant fueled crime.

    As usual in Virginia, the facts are missing.

    The farmers in Colorado have asked for a state-wide guest worker program for farm labor. They say that they can’t stay in business without the illegal laborers.

    An Arkansas study concluded that the total of all immigration (legal and illegal) provides a small economic benefit to the state.

    Meanwhile, PWC has volitile BoS meetings lasting until 2:00 AM replete with street scuffles between pro-immigrant and anti-immigrant factions. The anti-illegal crowd portrays an image of people who got to PWC as part of a “white flight” and now wonder if they fled far enough.

    On the matter of immigration, PWC looks bad and is making all of Virginia look bad.

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Contributions by Native American?

    Don’t you mean something more like extortion from Native Americans? This was the earliest example of newcomers moving in, and then changing the zoning codes.

    (Well, OK, We bought and paid for Manhattan in a square deal, agreed to by both sides.)

    🙂

  3. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    RH:

    Peter Minuit acquired Manhattan in 1626 for $24 worth of beads and trinkets.

    Had the Native Americans sold the trinkets for $24 and then deposited the money in a bank account at 6% annual interest they would now have:

    $105,134,658,313.48

    That’s almost enough money to run for a seat on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and win against a developer-backed incumbent.

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    As I’ve indicated, I’m in the middle on immigration — I’d like to see vigorous enforcement against employers of illegal aliens, which would make a huge difference. If and when borders are secured, we could open the market to guest workers, who obtain permission outside and not inside the US. I’m impose a payroll tax enforced by taxpayer suits to fund the added cost of social service caused by the importation of poverty and low-skilled workers.

    Having said that, I strongly disagree with Groveton that there are no significant costs for ordinary people because of illegal immigration and anchor babies. Fairfax County Public Schools incur huge costs because of these children. Most, but certainly not all, of the NCLB costs are related to these children. For the last four years, FCPS has spent an average of $81 million annually in NCLB compliance costs — but still failed the grade.

    What else would $81 million have bought for Fairfax County Schools, transportation, cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, etc.? $81 million is also almost four cents on the Fairfax County real estate tax rate.

    Pete, the contractor; or Eduardo, the landscaper; or Marianne, the innkeeper, need dirt cheap labor. But what about the average Fairfax County resident? I suspect she/he would rather have had the $81 million to spend on other needs than educating the children of Pete’s, Eduardo’s or Marianne’s illegal aliens. I also believe that these ordinary people don’t care what the Freddie Hiatt’s of the world think of them. They live in real worlds, not the fantasy land of the MSM.

    I’m not sure how I would have voted if I had been on the PWC Board of Supervisors, but pretending that illegal immigration is valuable to the average person in Virginia is simply wrong.

    TMT

  5. CG2 Avatar
    CG2

    The Prince William Board of County Supervisors has over promised and inevitably will under deliver, not a good political situation.

    There is no way that the Board will be able to fully fund the programs approved in the resolution. They have trapped themselves in a situation in which they are limited by no-tax promises and Latino flight (more than white flight) has crashed the housing market and led to business closings with a resultant down turn in sales tax revenues, loss in recordation taxes, etc as well as inevitably decreasing assessments and real estate tax revenues.

    And, they can’t live up to the expectations that they’ve created … that overcrowding, the urbanization of the suburbs resulting in decreasing socio-economic status and increasing crime, the depreciating value of the aging housing stock, perceived quality of life violations, student success issues … all will be “cured” magically by making the County inhospitable to “illegals.”

    For one thing, no matter how the advocates for the resolution try to explain that “it isn’t about ethnicity it’s about legal status”, that’s not the way the advocates for the “crack down” are “heard” by people of color and language minorities who have strong informal and formal networks of communication nationwide. Yelling that this “feeling” isn’t valid doesn’t make it go away as so many people made clear in their testimony against the resolution on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

    Moreover, the Board members haven’t prepared the county residents for the economic downturn the County now inevitably faces and its long term effects. Nor have they factored into the budget the costs of litigating the lawsuits that already have been filed.

    No matter how you try to ignore the demographic reality of the future of this Commonwealth and this country, the fact is that we are more dependent on foreign labor than foreign oil. 50% of the folks in our engineering schools are foreign born. 85% of Virginia farmers say that they’d be out of business without foreign labor.

    Guys, we have an aging native-born population that simply hasn’t produced the offspring needed to fill the many nurses assistant and other service jobs we will need as we age out.

    Bottom line is that we’ve got to find a comprehensive solution that recognizes our dependence on immigrant workers and addresses the realities of the market place while securing our borders.

    And, no matter how many times you try to make this a populist “little people vs. big business issue (Lou Dobbs current schtik),” which can be fixed simply by beating up on businesses who employ workers illegally, you can’t change the facts of who and how many children us native born folks have had who will be 18 or older in 2015, when it is estimated that there will be a 10,000,000 person gap between the number of jobs available and the number of native born Americans ready, willing and physically and mentally able to fill them.

    All the Prince William Board of County Supervisors did on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning was assure that the County will not be seen as a good place to locate a business or raise your kids for the foreseeable future, because no one wants to move to a community riven by ethnic/racial/religious strife regardless of which side of the divide you are on.

    A more reasoned and responsible approach would have focused local efforts on addressing quality of life issues and assuring effective community policing while demanding a real solution from Congress.

    But, that approach wouldn’t have offered the opportunity to inflame fears as a turnout motivator in this election cycle.

    What will be interesting now is to see if this extreme action by the Board provokes what usually follows … a backlash by moderates and other reasoned voters who see this action simply as a “bridge too far.”

    More than 2000 people showed up on Tuesday night to see what the Board did and more than 300 testified of which it was estimated 2/3rds were against the proposed resoluton. Emotions are now very high on both sides, and emotion is what ultimately drives voter turnout.

    Tuesday, November 6th will be interesting indeed.

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Peter Galuszka responds:

    Deena Flinchum details cases where illegal immigrants have taken jobs away from U.S. citizens or legal immigrants. Here’s one more. In August federal authorities raided Virginia-based Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C. about 80 miles south of Raleigh. Of the hundreds of workers at the plant, about 218 were arrested for allegedly falsifying immigration documents.
    I’m not arguing in favor of illegal immigration, just perspective. In the Smithfield Foods case and in most of Ms.Flinchum’s examples, the jobs are in high unemployment, rural areas. They tend to involve low-end, low pay unskilled or semi-skilled work. In Virginia, one place to start looking for illegals might be the poultry processing facilities in the Shenandoah Valley and other rural areas.
    My point is that Prince William County is a low-unemployment, middle to upper-middle class sleeper suburb of the Washington D.C. area. Jobs tend to be government, military, related support or somehow highly-skilled intellectual. Please show me evidence to the countrary, but I have trouble seeing PWC being awash in illegal turkey workers. Are there any turkey plants in PWC?
    Why, then, the anti-illegal campaign and all the ugliness that will follow?

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Peter Galuszka aagin. Make that 28 not 218 workers arrested in SMithfield Foods in Tar Heel ,N.C. Sorry for the typo.

  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Peter – just a couple of comments and questions.

    Why is acceptable to have open borders on labor or to “grandfather” those illegal aliens who have been here for X period of time, when we don’t accept open borders on imports that violate intellectual property laws or forgive those who have purchase illegal knock-offs? If it’s OK to grant amnesty to illegal workers, why is the entertainment industry permitted to go after those who have illegally downloaded songs, movies, etc.? Knock-off copies of Microsoft software? Open borders means open borders, or just in the case of immigration.

    What about taxes? If we permit some of those who have immigrated illegaly to stay, why not permit some of those who cheat on their taxes to retain the proceeds? Why can Pete’s construction company pick amnesty for its labor force and not let Ed or Sally pick amnesty for taxes?

    Who do you think should pay the added “social” costs associated with the presence of illegal aliens, undocumented workers, their children and other relatives?

    I don’t disagree with everything that you write, but no one supporting the general amnesty approach supported by the President and the liberals in Congress ever seem to address these types of fundamental questions. Are we dealing with raw power? I have more power than you, so I get my way on immigration?

    TMT

  9. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    The education costs are an interesting issue.

    No doubt that anyone on the lower economic rungs (illegal or otherwise) pays anywhere close to actual costs via their property taxes as an owner or a renter.

    So.. Fairfax and Prince William cannot have “too much” .. affordable housing or else it will overwhelm the high-dollar property tax payers.. who essentially subsidize education for everyone who lives in a home worth less than 400K or so.

    So the “illegal” issue threatens to unravel the current funding paradigm.. because if “too many” lower paid people actually find a place to live in Prince William then the tipping point is reached on school funding…

    that’s my take.. and I’ll fully admit that I might to full of you know what… in some folks eyes.

  10. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    This issue – immigration – always brings out the most erudite and literate commentary.

    I’ll try to follow in the path of the commentaries that have preceeded.

    First – is the issue illegal immigration, immigration or both? I think it’s both. The same people who claim that they only oppose illegal immigration (not legal immigration) are also the “first in line” to oppose any amnesty program or guest worker program. I think that immigration bothers them and illegal immigration really bothers them. However, as far as I am concerned, immigration is the key question, not illegal immigration specifically. If large scale immigration is good for the US then we should make it easier to do legally. If large scale immigration is bad for the US then we should make it hard to do legally.

    Immigration (both legal and illegal) has social costs. TMT, if I implied otherwise I was inarticulate. Education costs are particularly evident. Many immigrants come to the US to take low wage jobs. They were poor in their countries of origin. Their children (at almost any age) are either poorly educated or not educated at all. There is a significant cost to bring these children “up to speed” relative to American – born children their own age. There is also a significant cost to educate children who don’t arrive in the US able to speak English.

    Yet the question of economic impact is more than just a question of costs. There is also the question of benefits. Immigrants clearly add to the labor force, reduce the costs of labor and make American products more cost competitive. They also pay taxes (just about always for legal immigrants and often for illegal immigrants). They serve in the armed services of the United States.

    Many economic studies of the immigration question find that immigrants provide an economic benefit (after accounting for costs). The Rockefeller Study of Arkansas found this. Despite what the anti-immigration people say, economists overwhelmingly believe that immigration is economically good for America:

    “The Economic impact of illegal immigrants in the United States depends on whether taxes paid by illegal immigrants and their contributions to the economy make up for the government services which they use, as well as the economic input of the immigrants themselves and the cost of externalities such as added strain on public health that they may add. Those who find that immigrants, including illegal immigrants, produce a negative effect on the US economy often focus on the difference between taxes paid and government services received, while those who find positive economics effects focus on added productivity and lower costs to consumers for certain goods and services.[1] Economists themselves overwhelmingly view immigration, including illegal immigration as a positive for the economy.[2] Chauncy Lennon of Harvard and another paper by Borjas, Grogger, and Hanson”

    In fact, there is economic evidence that even illegal immigration is a source of economic benefit to the US. However, and this is very important, the overall economic benefits to the US are not evenly distributed among the ecomomic classes in America. Richer people tend to benefit while poorer people tend to be hurt.

    ” Paul Samuelson, a Nobel prize-winning economist from MIT, concurs asserting that there is no unitary, singular effect, good or bad, that arises from illegal immigration, but instead a variety of effects on Americans depending on their economic class. Samuelson posits that wealthier Americans tend to benefit from the illegal influx, while poorer Americans tend to suffer.”

    “Research by George Borjas, Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at Harvard University, shows that the average American’s wealth is increased (albeit by less than 1%) by illegal immigration. The effect on wages for middle class individuals was an overall wealth increase. However, illegal immigrants had a long-term reduction of wages among American poor citizens during the 1980s and 1990s by 4.8%[28].”.

    “Most Americans would not see any wage increases if illegal immigrants disappeared. However, high school drop outs would expect to see an average of 25 dollar a week raise if illegal immigrants disappeared. On the other hand, they would also see an increase in the costs of goods and services[14]. Illegal immigrants are thought to have disproportionately affected certain groups of American citizens such as black and Hispanic poor.”.

    “Professor of Law Francine Lipman writes in a 2006 paper in the peer-reviewed journal Tax Lawyer of the American Bar Association Section of Taxation that the belief that undocumented migrants are exploiting the US economy and that they cost more in services than they contribute to the economy is “undeniably false”. Lipman asserts that “undocumented immigrants actually contribute more to public coffers in taxes than they cost in social services” and “contribute to the U.S. economy through their investments and consumption of goods and services; filling of millions of essential worker positions resulting in subsidiary job creation, increased productivity and lower costs of goods and services; and unrequited contributions to Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance programs.”

    Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States

    I have seen study after study after study that analytically demonstrates immigration (including illegal immigration) is good for the US overall (economically speaking). I have never seen a single analytical study demonstrate that immigration is overall bad for the US (economically speaking).

    However, the huge moral question of the impact of immigration to Americans on the lower rungs of the economic ladder needs to be addressed. As currently implemented, our immigration policies help the United States even while hurting our most economically vulnerable citizens.

  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I think Groveton is right on this.

    I offer my usual solution. Immigration is good for the U. S over all, it is bad for some people on the lower rungs. Find out who benefits, and have them give enough money to those damaged to make up the loss.

    If, after the payments, immigration is still good for the U.S. then who can complain?

    After all, some of those on the lower rungs will now have more and better opportunities, even if they have to compete with more people to get them.

    Let the building codes take care of safety issues, and make the zoning code ensure there is enough housing at each price point.

    RH

  12. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    very excellent analysis and commentary.

    My concern is that people who are employed and who do not get benefits are ticking time bombs in terms of taxpayer liabilities – downstream.

    If someone works for a minimal salary that does not afford them enough to obtain health care nor put away enough for retirement – eventually they will not be able to provide for their own needs.

    Yes, right now, we get low priced landscaping, roofing, apples, vegetables but when these folks get sick.. they go to emergency rooms for triple dollars that gets passed directly to the folks who do have insurance. How cheap are those apples when you add in that cost?

    Maybe those apples should cost what they’d cost with fairly-paid labor.

    And that’s the problem I have with the immigration issue – illegal or otherwise but clearly there are predatory employers who prefer illegals because they cannot complain about work conditions or a lack of benefits.

    And this is why I think we should go after the employers and the “illegal” part will take care of itself.

    And I agree with Groveton with respect to folks saying that it is the “illegals” that they’re opposed to and I suspect that .. that is little more than shorthand for opposition to those of a different color and culture…

  13. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Ray & Groveton – who pays for the added “social” costs that are incurred because employers of illegal immigrants aren’t providing benefits; because we are importing (only in part) a criminal element; etc.?

    How about a study for the value to the US economy if we also removed import restrictions on intellectual property or knock-offs of tangible products? I can think of several businesses that I could probably enter successfully if we had open borders in this area. If it’s OK for the construction industry to ignore immigration laws, why can’t I ignore laws protecting intellectual property?

    Finally, a major issue being ignored is that, in the event we were to legalize those who are here illegally, the many predatory employers in the market would immediately begin importing more illegals. Then we have a legalized group of largely unskilled and uneducated people entitled to protections and benefits who would be cast aside for ever cheaper labor from the new illegal class coming into the US.

    We need to start enforcing the laws on the books. We don’t need massive door-to-door raid; going after employers vigorously to the point of putting them out of business and business owner in jail, when appropriate, will begin solving the problem through attrition. Once we control the borders and can protect personal identification, we can work on a fair — and that also means to the workers — guest worker program. Nothing works absent aggressive enforcement against business.

    TMT

  14. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    This is all about cheap labor – what I call near-slave labor.

    We fought a civil war over cheap labor.

    We imported asians and Europeans as slave labor.

    and instead of going after the folks who want the slave labor – we go after the victims.

    I think as long as we continue to demonize the victims and not the real culprits – the predators that we ought to be ashamed.

    If we outlaw empoyment of illegal workers – this will become a non-issue – but as long as ordinary people think the “problem” is the folks forced into servitude.. we won’t get on to fixing the real problem.

  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Jobs tend to be government, military, related support or somehow highly-skilled intellectual. Please show me evidence to the countrary, but I have trouble seeing PWC being awash in illegal turkey workers. Are there any turkey plants in PWC?”

    No, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t many workers who don’t fall into the categories you name above. An excellent example is construction workers. In the most recent building boom, the builders made lots money, the real estate agents made lots money, some sellers made lots money, but wages for construction workers fell. I’ll bet that PWC as well as many other parts of NoVA was awash in illegal construction workers during this time. When I moved to Blacksburg in 2002, VT was building extensively. I saw more young black construction workers at these sites in two years than I saw in NoVA in the last five I lived there. BTW African-Americans make up about 4 percent of the population down here.

    “First – is the issue illegal immigration, immigration or both? I think it’s both.”

    If it isn’t both, it should be. I came to this issue from the left as an environmentalist. The US is the third largest country in the world in population and the only first world country that is growing at a steady clip. The reason for that growth is massive immigration. Forget oil; in some parts of the country we are running out of water.

    CIS recently noted: If immigration continues at current levels, the nation’s population will increase from 301 million today to 468 million in 2060 — a 167 million (56 percent) increase. Immigrants plus their descendents will account for 105 million (63 percent) of the increase.

    That 105 million are NEW immigrants and their descendants. Try sustaining THAT.

    Illegal immigration should be halted to the degree that it can be. Legal immigration should be cut back and the best place to start is extended family reunification, which is the single largest source of legal immigration. Certainly anybody allowed to come to the US legally should be allowed to bring immediate family – spouse and minor children. Grown children, siblings, and parents are another matter.

    “I have never seen a single analytical study demonstrate that immigration is overall bad for the US (economically speaking).”

    And is the US nothing more than an economy? Of course not. It’s an environment, a citizenry, and a culture. Economic reasons alone should not trump these other aspects of the US, especially when the economic benefits accrue mainly to the immigrants themselves and a better-off minority. It’s no accident that income inequality has been increasing in the US along with massive immigration.

    Deena Flinchum

  16. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “clearly there are predatory employers who prefer illegals because they cannot complain about work conditions or a lack of benefits.”

    Like I said, find out who benefits and have them pay for ALL the additonal costs borne by others.

    If it works out for them and is still a net social benefit, who can complain?

    If it doesn’t work out, guess what? aApples will cost what they should cost.

    RH

  17. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Larry:

    Haven’t we already outlawed the employment of illegal workers?

    And isn’t the problem that we find we can’t afford to enforce the law?

    RH

  18. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Ms. Flinchum:

    I feel that I must remind you again – you can’t tell whether a person is legally in the uS by the color of their skin. The “black people” you see on construction sites around Blacksburg could be illegal aliens. Mexico, the Caribbean and South America is full of people of African Heritage.

    Here’s a picture of the famous Brazilian soccer player Pele – what “color” is he?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pele

    If you saw Pele on a construction site in SW Virginia – would you assume he is an American because of his color?

    Everybody is right about going after the employers. If you want to close our borders you have to dry up the demand for illegal aliens. Jail terms would work a whole lot better than fences. However, immigration is almost certainly an economic positive for the US and substantially curtailing immigration will hurt us economically.

    Is the US just an economy. No. However, John Steele Gordon makes a fantastic case as to the importance of relative national wealth to the US in his book, “An Empire of Wealth”. I woulod suggest reading it.

    http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Wealth-History-American-Economic/dp/0060093625

    If we enforced the laws we already have we would have far fewer illegal aliens. No doubt about it. However, successive presidents going back the sainted Ronald Regan have “looked the other way” on the enforcement of our immigration laws. They have done this because they know that the American economy needs two things from abroad in great quantity:

    1. Oil
    2. Labor

    Every western country (except Japan) seems to have figured out the economic benefit of importing cheap labor. The Arabs flok to France, the Turks are long term guest workers in Germany the Indians and Jamacians are everywhere in England.

    TMT – I kind of understand your point on intellectual property but only kind of. I guess you feel that American citizenship is a kind of intellectual property right that I received when I was born in the US all those many years ago. That citizenship has value and that value is diminished when non-citizens are allowed into the US to take jobs and receive benefits that we supposed to be reserved for those of us citizens. We’d prosecute people who make illegal copies of software because that copying reduces the value that the rights holder to the software has. Illegal immigration reduces tyhe value that the rights holder to US citizenship has.

    Am I on the right track?

  19. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    ….”Haven’t we already outlawed the employment of illegal workers?”

    yup.. and right now it works the same way that red lights work without cameras to record the violators…

    and the employers know this… and guess what.. if you are an employer with illegals.. and you think the Feds are coming.. you just tell those guys not to show up anymore… presto, changeo…no documentation.. no problemos

  20. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Groveton – my point is that and more. If I make software or Ford trucks, I have a right to stop illegal copies from being sold in the U.S. I am subject to competition from other legal software companies, GM, Toyota, Honda, etc.

    But if I’m a carpenter, hotel maid, etc., I should be subject to competition from other similarly skilled people who can lawfully work in the U.S. But why should I be subject to competition from
    who can be replaced by illegal immigration? Why a double standard?

    Another point for my comparisons is one related to simple respect for the law. I’ll not argue that I or most others never have skirted a law or regulation. Few of us have never driven 35 MPH in 30 MPH zone. But I suspect that most of us don’t steal or break into our neighbor’s house, but do file our income tax. Most business operators don’t cook the books. I think we want it that way.

    I strongly suspect that the Thomas Donahues of the Chamber of Commerce, who are arguing for open borders/mass amnesty, would strongly object to an elimination of intellectual property laws, because of the negative impact on American business and investors.

    How can you justify supporting some laws, but not others? If you or I can choose wholesale disregard of some laws, why can’t others chose their own laws to ignore.

    We need aggressive enforcement of our immigration laws, most especially, but not exclusively, against business that violate them. Then we can craft a fair system of potential immigration law changes for the future.

    TMT

  21. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “But why should I be subject to competition from
    who can be replaced by illegal immigration? Why a double standard?”

    replaced by cheaper labor that has no benefits.

    so then that establishes not only a “minimum wage” but no benefits as your competition – and that, in turn, pulls down the levels above it.

    But the same thing is happening with NAFTA and globalization.

    It’s not just the hour wage that sends textile and furntiture jobs overseas – it’s health care and retirement benefits.

    Basically – business in this country is seeking the cheapest labor – without benefits. Physically in the US, it’s illegals and other jobs gets sent overseas to labor that does not have benefits.

    This is what makes this issue so potent in my view.

    There are a lot of folks out there who do not have a college education and whose options for a job that provides medical insurance are rapidly disappearing because the “competition” will work without benefits.

    I’m starting to think that NAFTA and Outsourcing are …. not in the best interests of the lower or even the middle class in this country.

    If you are in the upper class, NAFTA and outsourcing are a way to increase your wealth even more but there is no “trickle down” – not that there every was ..

    what do others think?

    Is the “illegal” issue really about some bigger issues?

    and he’s something that is hard to believe…a correct me if I’m wrong but does our military hire illegals?

  22. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “I feel that I must remind you again – you can’t tell whether a person is legally in the uS by the color of their skin. The “black people” you see on construction sites around Blacksburg could be illegal aliens. Mexico, the Caribbean and South America is full of people of African Heritage.”

    Groveton, I am well aware of this. I read, I went to “school”, and I am not stupid. If I had driven past construction sites with numerous Hispanic workers and a splash of blacks workers, I would have drawn the same conclusions that you have. However, these were black workers working in primarily white work crews (9th CD = 93.3% white, 3.8% black, 1.1% Hispanic). Tell me, what would you assume? Would only black illegal aliens congregate in SW VA with a black population of less than 4%? Somehow I doubt it.

    Deena Flinchum

  23. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Interesting article in WaPo this morning:

    “Latinos Take Business Elsewhere”

    …illegal immigrants and the many legal immigrant relatives and friends who live with them have been moving out of Prince William ….”

    …” many immigrants think that all Latinos will be subject to random sweeps”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/21/AR2007102101725_2.html

  24. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Outsourcing versus Domestic Employment of Illegal Aliens.

    Larry, one might argue that the employment of illegal aliens in the domestic market has a worse impact on the society that outsourcing jobs overseas because of the impacts of the former on government spending and taxes.

    If Company A employs 100 people and then fires them because it has moved those jobs overseas, society experiences a loss of jobs, income, taxes, etc., along with a probable increase in the need for social spending by government to deal with the now-unemployed. Presumably, there is some gain as the outsourced services can be purchased domestically at a lower cost. Since the economy is not static, the impacts will change over time as the unemployed find other work, probably mostly as lower pay.

    But if Company A were to fire the same 100 US employees and replace them with 100 illegal immigrants, for example, the impact on the economy would be mixed. One hundred citizens are negatively affected by their layoffs, at least intially. However, we see some benefits from the newly employed illegals and, presumably, lower prices for whatever Company A produces.

    But now we have the potential for as many as 200 people needing government services as the initial 100 people are joined by the new 100 people. Moreover, recent history suggests that many of the new people, especially those with children, will be more expensive to serve with government services.

    While one would need actual numbers to determine the exact impact, I would think consideration of the impact on government suggests illegal immigration might be more costly than outsourcing jobs overseas.

    Does this make sense?

    TMT

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