2008 Woodie Awards
The Immigration Debate: Old Rhetoric, New People
Julia Reed
Issue date: 4/13/06 Section: Opinions
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The debate over immigration is not new. Nativism is as old as the Constitution, and while it may go quiet from time to time, it has never been successfully eradicated. One hundred years ago, Slavic coal miners were "the problem." One hundred fifty years ago, it was Irish factory workers and/or the Chinese immigrants building the railroad. The populations have changed, but the rhetoric hasn't. Immigrants, illegal and otherwise, are accused of taking American jobs, lowering the standard of living for workers and refusing to assimilate. I say that's faulty reasoning, and it's faulty today more than ever.
Most illegal immigrants do not pose a threat to the American job market. The Department of Labor estimates that the U.S. economy will add five million new jobs this year, and there will not be enough Americans to fill them. Furthermore, most illegal immigrants work as unskilled labor, doing the back-breaking work that most Americans won't. Yet immigrants are often criticized for filling gaps in the labor market. Much of this is, and always has been, centered around the fact that illegal immigrants often are forced to accept lower wages for their work, do not belong to unions and will not make a fuss if employers impose substandard conditions on them for fear of drawing attention to themselves and being deported. If that's why you think illegal immigrants pose a threat to America, then you are aiming at the wrong target. Immigrants don't control these conditions, employers do. The companies that hire immigrant workers and then drive down wages by paying those workers less hurt the labor market. Turning illegal immigrants into felons, as current proposals suggest we do, will not fix this problem. Neither would guest worker programs that offer no path to citizenship, the original proposal of President Bush. Rather, guest worker programs provide employers with an endlessly renewing pool of labor that is incredibly easy to exploit. Laborers will have no kind of protection and no ability to organize before their guest worker permit is up. Thus, wages and conditions, not just for illegal aliens, but for all workers in this country, will only go down further. It's not the immigrants' faults. You don't need to protect the jobs of the working class from the immigrants, you need to protect these low-skilled jobs from unethical and greedy American employers.
Most illegal immigrants do not pose a threat to the American job market. The Department of Labor estimates that the U.S. economy will add five million new jobs this year, and there will not be enough Americans to fill them. Furthermore, most illegal immigrants work as unskilled labor, doing the back-breaking work that most Americans won't. Yet immigrants are often criticized for filling gaps in the labor market. Much of this is, and always has been, centered around the fact that illegal immigrants often are forced to accept lower wages for their work, do not belong to unions and will not make a fuss if employers impose substandard conditions on them for fear of drawing attention to themselves and being deported. If that's why you think illegal immigrants pose a threat to America, then you are aiming at the wrong target. Immigrants don't control these conditions, employers do. The companies that hire immigrant workers and then drive down wages by paying those workers less hurt the labor market. Turning illegal immigrants into felons, as current proposals suggest we do, will not fix this problem. Neither would guest worker programs that offer no path to citizenship, the original proposal of President Bush. Rather, guest worker programs provide employers with an endlessly renewing pool of labor that is incredibly easy to exploit. Laborers will have no kind of protection and no ability to organize before their guest worker permit is up. Thus, wages and conditions, not just for illegal aliens, but for all workers in this country, will only go down further. It's not the immigrants' faults. You don't need to protect the jobs of the working class from the immigrants, you need to protect these low-skilled jobs from unethical and greedy American employers.