<DOC>
[109th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:29655.wais]
REID-KENNEDY BILL: THE EFFECT ON AMERICAN WORKERS' WAGES AND EMPLOYMENT
OPPORTUNITIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
AUGUST 29, 2006
__________
Serial No. 109-129
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
______
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., Wisconsin, Chairman
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
LAMAR SMITH, Texas RICK BOUCHER, Virginia
ELTON GALLEGLY, California JERROLD NADLER, New York
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California ZOE LOFGREN, California
WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
CHRIS CANNON, Utah MAXINE WATERS, California
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
BOB INGLIS, South Carolina WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
RIC KELLER, Florida ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
DARRELL ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
MIKE PENCE, Indiana DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
STEVE KING, Iowa
TOM FEENEY, Florida
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
Philip G. Kiko, General Counsel-Chief of Staff
Perry H. Apelbaum, Minority Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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AUGUST 29, 2006
OPENING STATEMENT
Page
The Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in
Congress from the State of Wisconsin, and Chairman, Committee
on the Judiciary............................................... 1
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 2
The Honorable John N. Hostettler, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Indiana, and Member, Committee on the
Judiciary...................................................... 4
WITNESSES
Dr. Steven Camarota, Director of Research, Center for Immigration
Studies
Oral Testimony................................................. 7
Prepared Statement............................................. 8
Mr. Ricardo Parra, Midwest Council of La Raza
Oral Testimony................................................. 15
Prepared Statement............................................. 17
Dr. Vernon Briggs, Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations,
Cornell University
Oral Testimony................................................. 31
Prepared Statement............................................. 33
Dr. Paul Harrington, Associate Director, Center for Labor Market
Studies, Northeastern University
Oral Testimony................................................. 41
Prepared Statement............................................. 44
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Letter from the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc.,
submitted by the Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a
Representative in Congress from the State of Wisconsin, and
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary........................... 66
Letter from the American Immigration Lawyers Association,
submitted by the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative
in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member,
Committee on the Judiciary..................................... 68
Prepared Statement of the Kentucky Coalition for Comprehensive
Immigration Reform and the Central Kentucky Council for Peace
and Justice.................................................... 70
REID-KENNEDY BILL: THE EFFECT ON AMERICAN WORKERS' WAGES AND EMPLOYMENT
OPPORTUNITIES
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TUESDAY, AUGUST 29, 2006
House of Representatives,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
Walnut Rooms 1 and 2, Evansville Auditorium and Convention
Center, 715 Locust Street, Evansville, IN, the Honorable F.
James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The Committee on the Judiciary will be
in order and the Chair notes the presence of a quorum for the
purposes of taking testimony.
Before Members begin their opening statements, first let me
welcome all of you to this fourth field hearing on the subject
of illegal immigration. And the purpose of this series of
hearings is to examine the challenges our Nation currently
faces with regard to illegal immigration and the impact that
the Reid-Kennedy Bill, passed by the Senate, will have on the
problem if it will become law.
I am Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, the Chair
of the House Judiciary Committee. With us today are Congressman
John Conyers of Michigan, who is the Ranking Democratic Member
on the Committee; Congressman John Hostettler of Indiana, who
is the Chair of the Subcommittee on Immigration, which since
2003 has had 49 separate hearings on the subject of illegal
immigration and its impact on American society and the economy;
and Congressman Steve King of Iowa.
This is a very emotional topic and people have strong
opinions on both sides of the issue. I'd like to remind the
audience before we begin this hearing and hear testimony that
the Rules of the House of Representatives, under which this
hearing is held this morning, specifically prohibit the
audience expressing either approval or disapproval of what is
said either by the witnesses or by the Members of the Committee
when they ask questions of the witnesses.
Now I know that there are going to be a lot of things that
are going to be said today that all of you in the audience
either strongly approve of or violently disagree with. But one
of the purposes of these hearings, as well as functionality of
our democratic system of Government, is that people have
respect for opinions that they do not agree with. And the Rules
of the House specifically give me as Chair the authority to
enforce them that prohibit expressions of support or
opposition.
So I'd ask all of you to please do not force me to bang the
gavel or worse, as this hearing proceeds.
Today's hearing will focus on the effect that immigration
has had on the wages and employment opportunities of American
workers, and specifically the impact that the amnesty and the
vast expansion of future immigration provided by the Reid-
Kennedy Bill would have.
In fiscal year 2005, over a million immigrants received
green cards allowing them to reside and work in the United
States lawfully and permanently. And under current law, almost
19 million immigrants will receive green cards over the next 20
years.
Evidence presented at a previous hearing before the
Subcommittee on Immigration raised the possibility that current
immigration has already adversely affected the job prospects of
native-born Americans. Specifically, it showed that between
March 2000 and 2004, the number of unemployed adult U.S.
natives increased by 2.3 million, while the number of employed
adult immigrants has increased also by 2.3 million, half of
whom entered the United States illegally.
Testimony also showed that occupations with the largest
immigrant influx tended to have the highest unemployment rate
among natives and that native-born workers who were in the most
direct competition with the new immigrants lost jobs at the
highest rates.
If the Reid-Kennedy Immigration Bill were enacted into law,
in addition to providing amnesty to an estimated 14.4 million
illegal immigrants, it could allow an estimated 55 million
other immigrants to enter the United States and work in a
variety of American jobs over the next 20 years, legally.
Additionally, the Congressional Budget Office estimates
that even with the increases in legal immigration provided by
the Reid-Kennedy Bill, an average of 780,000 immigrants would
still enter illegally in each of the 10 years following its
enactment.
Congress would fail in its responsibility to American
workers if it were to act on such a proposal without first
giving full consideration to how such massive increases in
immigration would affect the wages and job prospects of United
States citizens and of lawfully admitted aliens who are already
here. And that is why we are here today.
I look forward to hearing from our panel and hope that
their testimony will help inform lawmakers and the public on
the impact that the expanded levels of immigration proposed by
the Senate Bill would have on American workers.
I would now yield to the gentlemen from Michigan, Mr.
Conyers, for an opening statement.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you very much, Chairman Sensenbrenner,
and good morning to the rest of the distinguished Committee
that's here, our excellent witnesses that have come from
sometimes long distances, and the full room of citizens who
have joined us for this hearing. I think that's very good and
very commendable.
We've had a number of these hearings within the last 6
weeks, but the Bush Administration has been in office for 6
years and the Republicans have controlled the Congress for over
10 years, but we are only now holding our first hearings
addressing the critical need to fix our broken immigration and
border security systems. Why now? Because it is an election
year and I think that the Majority fears losing control of the
House of Representatives.
The House and the Senate passed their bills on immigration
reform and border security months ago. Under regular order, we
should be appointing conferees and engaging in the process of
reconciling the two bills. However, in a substantial deviation
from normal practice, the House Republican leadership has
instead decided to call a series of multi-Committee, multi-
State hearings on the Senate Bill. Consistently, they have
sought great fanfare and publicity for their supposed border
security initiatives. But consistently, they have refused to
fund these promises and have failed to carry out the security
measures for which they seek public acclaim.
For example, we recently found out that the President's
plans to deploy the National Guard to the border is far behind
schedule and with less than half the troops deployed than the
President promised would happen by this past June, troop levels
will not be fulfilled on time and the extra protection the
President promised will not be realized.
These developments make it even more apparent that these
immigration hearings may be described as being mostly for show
and even worse, they may derail an opportunity for real reform.
We have learned, for example, that four and a half years after
9/11, the Bush Administration still does not have any control
over the borders. We learn that the Bush Administration has
made no effort to conduct workplace enforcement on immigration
laws. We've learned that the Majority has rejected many
opportunities to strengthen our borders with increased staff
and funding for necessary security measures. And we've learned
that the Majority has, what seems to me, no realistic plan for
resolving the problems of 11 million unlawfully present
immigrants.
Now if the Bush Administration had properly secured the
border, we would not be facing the security issues of 11
million unknown people in our country. If the Bush
Administration had enforced the workplace laws, we wouldn't
have over seven million undocumented aliens working in the
United States. If the Majority party had funded the 9/11
Commission's recommendations on conducting proper oversight,
this Committee would not be touring the Nation talking about
what to do; we would be in Washington hammering out a
compromise, as we were elected to do.
We don't need another misguided plan to distract the
American public from the bills that have passed the House and
Senate. Nor do we need these road show hearings to show the
American public that we need to do something. We all know that.
Now is the time to go to work, get it done. We must roll up
our sleeves and get to work on solving the problem created by
the Bush Administration instead of spreading fear of immigrants
and driving further wedges between our citizens.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the time for making my
opening statement.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the Subcommittee Chair, the gentleman
from Indiana, Mr. Hostettler.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to
thank you, Mr. Chairman, once again for coming to Evansville,
coming to southwest Indiana, and holding these hearings. I also
want to welcome my colleagues, Mr. Conyers from Michigan and
Mr. King from Iowa, to the Eighth District. I appreciate your
willingness to take time out to come to Indiana to talk about
this very important issue.
This is an issue that is going to take much work and we are
about that hard work of putting legislation in place that will
benefit all American citizens. And this is part of that work.
There is a sense among many Americans that the job
opportunities they and parents once enjoyed are no longer
available to them and their children. For those on the lower
rungs of the economic ladder, the very availability of the
American dream seems to be in question.
Today, we will examine the impact immigration is having on
these issues and what further effects the Reid-Kennedy Bill
would have. We will hear from the authors of two studies that
have both concluded that all of the increase in employment in
the United States over the last few years has been attributable
to large increases in the number of employed immigrants, while
the number of employed natives has actually declined.
The first study was conducted by Dr. Steven Camarota of the
Center for Immigration Studies. Dr. Camarota analyzed Census
Bureau data and concluded that between March 2000 and March
2004, the number of native-born adults with jobs decreased by
almost half a million, while at the same time the number of
foreign-born adults with jobs increased by over 2.2 million.
Thus, all of the almost 1.8 million net increase of adults with
jobs went to foreign-born workers.
The second study, also relying on census data, was
conducted by Professors Andrew Sum and Paul Harrington and
other researchers at the Center for Labor Market Studies at
Northeastern University in Boston. They found that total
civilian employment increased by over 2.3 million over the
period from 2000 to 2004 and that the number of foreign-born
workers who arrived in the U.S. in this period and were
employed in 2004 was about 2.5 million. Thus, the number of
employed native-born and older immigrant workers--and older
immigrant workers--decreased by between 158,000 and 228,000
over the 4 year period. The authors concluded that ``For the
first time in the post-World War II era, new immigrants
accounts for all the growth in employment over a 4-year period.
At no time in the past 60 years has the country ever failed to
generate any net new jobs for native-born workers over a 4-year
period.''
Both these studies yield astounding and alarming results.
Native-born Americans have not seen an increase in employment
in recent years. In fact, the number of jobs they hold has
decreased. At the same time, the number of employed immigrants
has risen substantially.
What are the implications of these findings? I will let the
authors of the studies relate their conclusions in detail, but
let me quote them in summary. Dr. Camarota concludes that ``By
significantly increasing the supply of unskilled workers during
a recession, immigration may be making it more difficult for
similar American workers to improve their situation.'' He also
finds that ``The fact that immigration has remained
consistently high suggests that immigration levels simply do
not reflect demand for labor in the country. Immigration is
clearly not a self-regulating phenomenon that will rise and
fall with the state of the economy.''
Dr. Harrington's study concludes that ``Given large job
losses among the Nation's 20 to 24 year olds with no 4-year
degree, Black males and poorly educated native-born men, it is
clear that native-born workers have been displaced in recent
years.''
Reading these two studies, I reach the troubling conclusion
that our Nation's immigration policy has not operated in the
best interest of America's workers, at least over the last few
years. It appears that the flow of immigrants, both legal and
illegal, seems to pursue its own independent course, oblivious
to whether we are experiencing good times or bad. For
struggling American workers, current immigration levels can
prove challenging during good times. In bad times, they can be
devastating.
The Reid-Kennedy Bill would greatly exacerbate these
negative effects. Not only would it grant amnesty to the vast
majority of illegal aliens currently in the United States, but
it would add on top a guest worker program bringing in 200,000
more unskilled foreign workers a year, and would triple legal
immigration already at one million persons a year.
I would like to make one final point. Congress cannot
enforce our immigration laws.
[Audience comment.]
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The Committee will be in order. Would
you please be seated.
[Continued audience comment.]
Mr. Sensenbrenner. May I ask law enforcement to remove the
person from the room.
[Continued audience comment.]
[Audience commenter was removed.]
[Applause.]
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Again, the Chair would remind members of
the audience that the Rules of the House of Representatives are
very clear in prohibiting interruption of the proceedings, how
the proceedings go on, with statements or comments or
expressions either in support of opposition to any of the
things that are said either by the witnesses or Members of the
Committee. And the Chair will not hesitate to enforce the
rules, as he has just done.
The gentleman from Indiana will conclude.
Mr. Hostettler. Mr. Chairman, under the U.S. Constitution,
the enforcement of the laws of the United States, under article
2 is the sole prerogative of the Administration, the executive,
the President. To the extent that Administrations of both
parties have, for the past 20 years, failed to enforce laws
against the employment of illegal aliens, they have contributed
to the current dire situation for America's workers. And that's
why we are here today.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. I thank the gentleman.
Let me introduce the witnesses before the Committee today.
Vernon Briggs, Jr. is a Professor of Industrial and Labor
Relations at Cornell University. His research has embraced such
subjects as minority participation in apprenticeship training,
direct job creation strategies, Chicano employment issues and
immigration policy in the American labor force. In addition to
the extensive publications of his research, he has served as a
member of the National Council on Employment Policy and on the
editorial boards of such professional journals as the
Industrial and Labor Relations Review, the Journal of Human
Resources, the Texas Business Review and the Journal of
Economic Issues.
Dr. Steven Camarota is Director of Research at the Center
for Immigration Studies in Washington. He has testified
numerous times before Congress and has published many articles
on the impact of immigration in such journals and papers as the
Social Science Quarterly, the Washington Post, the Chicago
Tribune and National Review. Dr. Camarota writes regularly for
the Center for Immigration Studies on a broad range of
immigration issues, including his recent reports on labor,
Social Security, immigration trends and border and national
security. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in
Public Policy Analysis and a Master's degree in Political
Science from the University of Pennsylvania.
Paul Harrington is Associate Director for the Center of
Labor Market Studies, or CLMS, and Professor of Economics and
Education at Northeastern University in Boston. At the CLMS,
Dr. Harrington conducts labor market research at the national,
State and local levels on a broad range of issues including
immigration, higher education performance, workplace
development and youth and families. Dr. Harrington and the CLMS
were the first to estimate the sharp increase in the number of
undocumented immigrants during the 1990's. He has earned his
Doctor of Education degree at the University of Massachusetts
at Boston and holds Master's and Bachelor's degrees from
Northeastern University.
Ricardo Parra is a writer, who resides in Indianapolis,
active in the civil rights movement throughout many years and a
long time community leader and advocate. He is the past
director of the Midwest Council of La Raza, which was based at
the University of Notre Dame, and served a 10-State area of the
midwest. Mr. Parra is also a past member of the Indiana
Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Today, he works for the Social Security Administration and is a
member of the Chicago Region Hispanic Action Committee and the
American Federation of Government Employees, Local 3571, where
he has served as Fair Practices Coordinator.
It is the general practice of this Committee to swear in
all witnesses. I would like to ask each of the witnesses to
rise and raise your right hands and take the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Let the record show that each of the
witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Without objection, all Members opening statements may be
included in the record at this time, and also without
objection, the full written testimony of each of you will be
placed in the record at the time you testify orally.
I would like to ask each of the witnesses to confine their
oral remarks to 5 minutes or so and the Chair will be a little
bit flexible in enforcing when the red light goes on on the
timers, so that Members of the Committee will have as much time
as possible to answer questions.
Dr. Camarota, why don't you go first.
TESTIMONY OF STEVEN CAMAROTA, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, CENTER FOR
IMMIGRATION STUDIES
Mr. Camarota. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for inviting me.
When we talk about immigration and illegal aliens, the
first point I would like to make is that it is not only silly
to argue that illegal aliens only do jobs that American don't
want, it's demonstrably untrue. Of the 470 occupations as
defined by the Census Bureau, virtually none are majority
immigrant, let alone majority illegal alien. If there really
were jobs that only immigrants do, there should be occupations
that are almost all immigrant. Such occupations don't exist.
It is true that most Americans are more educated and thus
don't compete with illegal aliens who overwhelmingly are people
with only a high school degree or who failed to graduate high
school. But there about 17 million native-born Americans in the
labor force who either lack a high school education or have
only a high school degree and work in a high immigrant
occupation. And these are the individuals adversely affected.
Now what's the impact of immigration on American workers?
Well, an important recent study in the Quarterly Journal of
Economics showed that immigration reduced the wages of all
workers in the United States by about 4 percent in recent
years. But for the poorest 10 percent, the reduction was about
7 percent.
My own research has shown that for each 1 percent increase
in immigrant composition of a low-wage job, wages for natives
in that occupation declined by about .8 percent. So if there
were a 20 percent increase, that would imply that maybe wages
are down by about 16 percent in that occupation. I should say
if immigrants were 20 percent.
Now lower wages for low-income workers should mean higher
profits for employers or maybe lower prices for consumers. But
because the poorest 10 or 15 percent of workers are paid so
little to begin with and account for such a small fraction of
economic output, the gains to employers or to consumers is very
tiny; or in the words of the Nation's top immigration
economist, the gains for America are minuscule for making the
poor even poorer.
Now why do illegals reduce wages? The main reason is not so
much that they work for less. Instead, it's basic economics--
increase the supply of something, in this case less educated
workers, you lower its price. And wages and benefits are the
price employers pay for labor. This means that if you let
illegal aliens stay, you have not solved the fundamental
problem of the increase in the supply of such workers.
Now some people think we have a labor shortage and point to
the unemployment rate of 5 percent. However, a national
unemployment rate of 5 percent is irrelevant to the illegal
immigration debate because unemployment is 18 percent among
young natives 18 to 29 years of age, who have not completed
high school. And for Blacks in this age group without
education, it's 35 percent. And this is as recently as May of
this year. Unemployment is 10 percent for young natives, again
18 to 29, with only a high school degree. And for Blacks in
that age group, it's 16 percent. Unemployment is also 19
percent for native-born teens, age 15 to 17, and it's 28
percent for native-born Black teens. And these figures don't
include the enormous growth in the number of less educated
natives who have given up looking for work altogether and don't
even show up now in unemployment figures. There is simply no
evidence that we have a labor shortage at the bottom end of the
labor market.
Wages for workers with little education have either
stagnated or declined. The share of such workers who were
offered benefits like healthcare from their employers has
declined. The share of less educated Americans who are not even
looking for work and have left the labor force altogether, as I
said, has risen. If there really was a shortage, employers
should be bidding up wages and offering ever greater benefits
packages and drawing more people into labor force. There is
actually only one piece of evidence that that there is a labor
shortage of less educated workers. And that is testimonials
from employers. That's it. All the other data the Government
collects shows exactly the opposite.
The only way one can justify allowing large numbers of less
educated immigrants in is if one thinks the poor in this
country are overpaid.
Let me make one final point. Some observers think that we
need large scale immigration because we're an aging society and
there won't be enough workers in the future, or even maybe now.
But demographers, the people who actually study human
population, agree that immigration has very little impact on
the aging of American society. For one thing, immigrants age
just like everyone else. In the 2000 census, the average age of
an immigrant was 39; the average age of a native was 35. The
Census Bureau has concluded ``Immigration is a highly
inefficient means for changing the ratio of workers to everyone
else.''
Those that want to let illegal aliens stay or double or
even triple legal immigration from its current one million a
year, at least have to understand that what the Senate Bill
does will come at the expense of the poorest and most
vulnerable Americans.
Thank you.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Mr. Parra, why don't you go next? Press
the red button to turn the mic on. When you're ready, I'll push
the button to start the timer.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Camarota follows:]
Prepared Statement of Steven A. Camarota
INTRODUCTION
Few government policies can have so profound impact on a nation as
immigration. Large numbers of immigrants and their descendants cannot
help but have a significant impact on the cultural, political, and
economic situation in their new country. Over the last three decades,
socio-economic conditions, especially in the developing world, in
conjunction with U.S. immigration policy, have caused 25 million people
to leave their homelands and emigrate legally to the United States.
Additionally, the Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that
the illegal alien population grows by 400,000 to 500,000 each year.\1\
The current influx has caused an enormous growth in the immigrant
population, from 9.6 million in 1970 (4.8 percent of the population) to
36.2 million (12.1 percent of the population) today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ See ``Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population
Residing in the United States: 1990 to 2000'' available at http://
www.uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/publications/Ill--Report--
1211.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As in the past, immigration has sparked an intense debate over the
costs and benefits of allowing in such a large number of people. One of
the central aspects of the immigration debate is its impact on the
American economy. While the number of immigrants is very large, as I
will try to explain in this paper the impact on the overall economy is
actually very small. And these effects are even smaller when one
focuses only on illegal aliens, who comprise one-fourth to one-third of
all immigrants. While the impact on the economy as a whole may be tiny,
the effect on some Americans, particular workers at the bottom of labor
market may be quite large. These workers are especially vulnerable to
immigrant competition because wages for these jobs are already low and
immigrants are heavily concentrated in less-skilled and lower-paying
jobs. In this paper I will try to explain some of the ways immigration
impacts natives and the economy as a whole.
FIVE REASONS IMMIGRATION CAN IMPACT WAGES
Immigrants Might Work for Less. For the most part, the research
generally indicates that a few years after arrival, immigrant wages are
very similar to those of natives in the same occupation with the same
demographic characteristics. This may not be true in all places and at
all times, but in general it seems that only newly arrived immigrants
undercut native wages. This is probably true of illegal aliens as well.
While immigrants as a group and illegals in particular do earn less
than native-born workers, this is generally due to their much lower
levels of education. In other words, immigrants are poorer than
natives, but they generally earn wages commensurate with their skills,
which as a group tend to be much lower than natives.
Immigrants Are Seen as Better Employees. There is certainly a lot
of anecdotal evidence and some systematic evidence that immigrants are
seen as better workers by some employers, especially in comparison to
native-born African Americans. It is certainly not uncommon to find
small business men and women who will admit that they prefer Hispanic
or Asian immigrants over native-born blacks. This is especially true of
Hispanic and Asian employers, who often prefer to hire from within
their own communities. We would expect this preference to result in
lower wages and higher unemployment for those natives who are seen as
less desirable.
A study of the Harlem labor market by Newman and Lennon (1995)
provides some systematic evidence that employers prefer immigrants to
native-born blacks. Their study found that although immigrants were
only 11 percent of the job candidates in their sample, they represented
26.4 percent of those hired. Moreover, 41 percent of the immigrants in
the sample were able to find employment within one year, in contrast to
only 14 percent of native-born blacks. The authors concluded that
immigrants fare better in the low-wage labor market because employers
see immigrants as more desirable employees than native-born African-
Americans. I have also found some evidence in my work that in
comparison to whites, there is an added negative effect for being black
and in competition with immigrants.
The Threat of Further Immigration. While no real research has been
done on this question, the threat of further immigration may also exert
a significant downward pressure on wages. To see how this might work
consider the following example: Workers in a meat packing plant that
has seen a sudden rise in the number of immigrant workers will very
quickly become aware that their employer now has another pool of labor
from which he can draw. Thus, even if immigrants remain a relatively
small portion of the plant's total workforce, because of our relatively
open immigration policy, the potential of further immigration exists.
Therefore, native-born workers curtail their demands for higher wages
in response to the threat of more immigration and this in turn holds
down wages beyond what might be expected simply by looking at the
number of immigrants in an occupation or even the country as a whole.
Immigration Increases the Supply of Labor. By far the most
important impact immigration has on the workforce is that it increases
the supply of labor. Based on the March 2005 Current Population Survey,
there were almost 21 million adult immigrants holding jobs in the
United States.\2\ However, they are not distributed evenly across
occupations. In 2005, 30 percent of immigrants in the labor market had
no high school education, and for those who entered in the preceding
five years, 34 percent lacked a high school degree. In comparison, only
8 percent of natives in the work force did not have a high school
education. Overall, immigrants comprise 15 percent of the total
workforce. But they are 40 percent of those without high school
diplomas in the work force, while accounting for 12 percent of workers
with more than a high school education.
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\2\ Figures for 2005 are from ``Immigrants at Mid-Decade: A
Snapshot of American's Foreign-born Population in 2005, which can be
found at www.cis.org/articles/2005/back1405.html.
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The occupational distribution of immigrants also shows their high
concentration in jobs that require relatively few skills. In 2005,
immigrants made up 6 percent of persons in legal services occupations
(primarily lawyers and support staff), and 9 percent of individuals in
managerial jobs. In contrast, they comprised 34 percent of workers
doing building clearing and maintenance, and 26 percent of construction
laborers. This means immigration has increased the supply of the some
kinds of workers much more than others. As a result, any effect on the
wages or job opportunities of natives will likely fall on natives
employed in less-skilled and low-paying occupations. Given that they
face much more job competition, it should not be surprising that less
educated workers generally have a less favorable view of immigration.
In contrast, more educated and affluent workers who generally have a
more favorable view of immigration tend to see immigrants as only
``taking jobs Americans don't want.''
Workers not in Competition with Immigrants. If immigration reduces
wages for less educated workers, these wages do not vanish into thin
air. Employers now have more money either to pay higher wages to more
educated workers or to retain as higher profits. The National Research
Council, in a 1997 study entitled ``The New Americans,'' estimated that
immigration reduced the wages of workers with less than a high school
degree by about 5 percent. These workers roughly correspond to the
poorest 10 percent of the workforce. But this reduction caused gains
for the other 90 percent of workers equal to one or two tenths of one
percent of their wages. The impact on educated workers is so small
because workers at the bottom end of the labor market earn such low
wages that even a significant decline in their wages only generates
very modest gains for everyone else.
For reasons explained in greater detail in the NRC report, the
aggregate size of the wage gains for more educated workers should be
larger than the aggregate losses suffered by Americans at the bottom of
the labor market, thereby generating a net gain for natives overall.
The NRC's findings mean that the wages of workers without a high school
degree are $13 billion lower because of immigration, while the wages of
other natives are roughly $19 billion higher, for a net gain of $6
billion. Of course, as a share of their income the losses to less-
educated natives are much larger than the gains to other workers. And
as share of the total economy the gain is extremely small. The two
Harvard economists who did the NRC's labor market analysis argued that
the benefit to natives, relative to the nation's $8 trillion economy at
that time, is ``minuscule.'' \3\ However, it should also be noted that
while the effect on natives overall may be minuscule, the immigrants
themselves benefit substantially by coming here.
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\3\ 3George Borjas and Richard Freeman's New York Times Opinion
piece can be found at http://ksghome.harvard.edu/GBorjas/Papers/
NYT121097.htm .
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Empirical Research
Attempts to measure the actual labor market effects of recent
immigration empirically have often come to contrary and conflicting
conclusions. Studies done in the 1980s and early 1990s, which compared
cities with different proportions of immigrants, generally found little
effect from immigration.\4\ However, these studies have been widely
criticized because they are based on the assumption that the labor
market effects of immigration are confined to only those cities where
immigrants reside.
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\4\ Altonji, Joseph G. and David Card. 1991. ``The Effects of
Immigration on the Labor Market Outcomes of Less-skilled Natives'' in
John M. Abowd and Richard B. Freeman editors, Immigration, Trade and
Labor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Borjas, George. 1984. ``The Impact of Immigrants on the Earnings of
the Native-Born,'' W.M. Briggs and M. Tienda, Editors, Immigration:
Issues and Policies, Salt Lake City: Olympus.
Borjas, George J. 1983. ``The Substitutability of Black, Hispanic and
White Labor. Economic Inquiry, Vol. 21.
Butcher, Kristin F. and David Card. 1991. ``Immigration and Wages:
Evidence from the 1980s,'' The American Economic Review Vol 81.
Impact of Immigration Is National Not Local. The interconnected
nature of the nation's economy makes comparisons of this kind very
difficult for several reasons. Research by University of Michigan
demographer William Frey \5\ and others, indicates that native-born
workers, especially those natives with few years of schooling, tend to
migrate out of high-immigrant areas. The migration of natives out of
high-immigrant areas spreads the labor market effects of immigration
from these areas to the rest of the country. There is also evidence
that as the level of immigration increases to a city, the in-migration
of natives is reduced.
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\5\ Frey, William H. 1993. Race, Class and Poverty Polarization of
US Metro Areas: Findings from the 1990 Census, Ann Arbor, Mich.:
Population Studies Center.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frey, William H. 1996. ``Immigration, Domestic Migration, and
Demographic Balkanization in America: New Evidence for the 1990s,''
Population and Development Review. Vol. 22.
In addition to internal migration patterns, the huge volume of
goods and services exchanged between cities across the country creates
pressure toward an equalization in the price of labor. For example,
newly arrived immigrants who take jobs in manufacturing in a high-
immigrant city such as Los Angeles come into direct and immediate
competition with natives doing the same work in a low-immigrant city
like Pittsburgh. The movement of capital seeking to take advantage of
any immigrant-induced change in the local price of labor should also
play a role in preserving wage equilibrium between cities. Beside the
response of native workers and firms, immigrants themselves tend to
migrate to those cities with higher wages and lower unemployment. In
short, the mobility of labor, goods, and capital as well as choices
made by immigrants may diffuse the effect of immigration, making it
very difficult to determine the impact of immigration by comparing
cities.
The National Research Council. One way researchers have attempted
to deal with the problems associated with cross-city comparisons is to
estimate the increase in the supply of labor in one skill category
relative to another skill category brought about by immigration in the
country as a whole. The wage consequences of immigration are then
calculated based on an existing body of literature that has examined
the wage effects of changes in the ratio of skilled to unskilled
workers. The National Research Council (NRC) relied on this method in
its 1997 report entitled The New Americans.\6\ The report was authored
by most of the top economists and demographers in the field of
immigration. The NRC estimates that immigration has had a significant
negative effects on the wages of high school dropouts. The NRC
concluded that the wages of this group, 11 million of whom are natives,
are reduced by roughly 5 percent ($13 billion a year) as a consequence
of immigration. Not a small effect. Dropouts make up a large share of
the working poor. Nearly one out of three native workers living in
poverty lacked a high school education. The wage losses suffered by
high school dropouts because of immigration are roughly equal to the
combined federal expenditures on subsidized School Lunches, low-income
energy assistance, and the Women Infants and Children program.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Edmonston, Barry and James Smith Ed. 1997. The New Americans:
Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration, Washington
D.C.: National Academy Press.
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Center for Immigration Studies Research. My own research suggests
that the effect of immigration may be even greater than the estimates
in the NRC report.\7\ I compared differences across occupations
nationally and found that the concentration of immigrants in an
occupation does adversely affect the wages of natives in the same
occupation. My results show that immigrants have a significant negative
effect on the wages of natives employed in occupations that require
relatively few years of schooling, accounting for about one-fifth of
the labor force. In these occupations, a 1 percent increase in the
immigrant composition reduces the wages of natives by 0.8 percent.
Since these occupations are now on average 19 percent immigrant, my
findings suggest that immigration may reduce the wages of workers in
these occupation by more than 10 percent. It should also be added that
native-born blacks and Hispanics are much more likely than whites to be
employed in the adversely impacted occupations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Steven Camarota 1998. ``The Wages of Immigration: The Effect on
the Low-Skilled Labor Market,'' Washington D.C.: Center for Immigration
Studies. Camarota, Steven A. 1997. ``The Effect of Immigrants on the
Earnings of Low-skilled Native Workers: Evidence from the June 1991
Current Population Survey,'' Social Science Quarterly, Vol. 78.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other Research on Wages. Harvard professor George Borjas, who is
regarded as the nation's leading immigration economist, found in a
study published in 2003 by the Quarterly Journal of Economics that
between 1980 and 2000, immigration reduced the average annual earnings
of native-born men by an estimated $1,700 or roughly 4 percent.\8\
Among natives without a high school education, who roughly correspond
to the poorest tenth of the workforce, the estimated impact was even
larger, reducing their wages by 7.4 percent. The 10 million native-born
workers without a high school degree face the most competition from
immigrants, as do the eight million younger natives with only a high
school education and 12 million younger college graduates. The negative
effect on native-born black and Hispanic workers is significantly
larger than on whites because a much larger share of minorities are in
direct competition with immigrants.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ For a technical version of Dr. Borjas research see http://
ksghome.harvard.edu/GBorjas/Papers/QJE2003.pdf, for a less technical
version see www.cis.org/articles/2004/back504.html .
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While most of those adversely affected are less educated workers,
Borjas's research indicates that the impact of immigration is
throughout the labor market. The results for more skilled workers are
particularly important because few of the immigrants in this section of
the economy are illegal aliens, yet the effect is the same--lower wages
for natives. This new research strongly indicates that the primary
reason immigration lowers wages is not that immigrants are willing to
work for less, rather lower wages are simply the result of immigration
increasing the supply of labor.
Impact on Employment. While most research has focused on wage
effects of immigration, some work has also found an impact on
employment. A 1995 study by Augustine J. Kposowa found that a 1-percent
increase in the immigrant composition of a metropolitan area increased
unemployment among minorities by 0.13 percent.\9\ She concludes, ``Non-
whites appear to lose jobs to immigrants and their earnings are
depressed by immigrants.'' A 1997 report published by the Rand
Corporation, entitled ``Immigration in a Changing Economy: California's
Experience,'' and authored by Kevin McCarthy and Georges Vernez (1997)
estimated that in California between 128,200 and 194,000 people were
unemployed or withdrawn from the workforce because of immigration.
Almost all of these individuals either are high school dropouts or have
only a high school degree. Additionally, most are either women or
minorities.
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\9\ Kposowa, Augustine J. 1995. ``The Impact of Immigration on
Unemployment and Earnings Among Racial Minorities in the United
States.'' Racial and Ethnic Studies, Vol. 18.
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Impact on Employment post-2000. More recent work done on
immigration also suggests that immigration may adversely impact native
employment. A report I authored for the Center for Immigration Studies
early this year showed that only 9 percent of the net increase in jobs
for adults (18 to 64) went to natives between 2000 and 2005, event
though adult natives accounted for 61 percent of the increase in the
overall size of the 16-to-64 year old population. Looking at adult
natives with only a high school degree or less, the number of these
less-educated natives not in the labor force, which means they are not
working or looking for work, increased by 1.5 million between 2000 and
2005. At the same time, the number of adult immigrants (legal and
illegal) in the labor force with only a high school degree or less grew
by 1.6 million. Of perhaps greatest concern, the percentage of adult
natives without a high school degree who are in the labor force fell
from 59.1 to 56.3 percent between 2000 and 2005 and for natives with
only a high school degree it fell from 78.2 to 75.4 percent.\10\ In
total there are 11.6 million immigrants in the labor force with only a
high school degree or less, about half are illegal aliens.
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\10\ The report entitled ``Dropping Out: Immigrant Entry and Native
Exit From the Labor Force, 2000-2005'' can be found at www.cis.org/
articles/2006/back206.html.
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Data collected since Katrina still shows no improvement in labor
force participation for either native-born dropouts or those with only
a high school degree. Only unemployment among native-born dropouts has
improved, but not for natives with only a high school degree. The
decline in less-educated adult natives (18 to 64) in the labor market
does not seem to be the result of more parents staying home with young
children, increased college enrollment or early retirement. The workers
themselves are not the only thing to consider, nearly half of American
children (under 18) are dependent on a less-educated worker, and 71
percent of children of the native-born working poor depend on a worker
with a high school degree or less. The findings of our 2005 employment
study are very consistent with research on this subject. Andrew Sum and
his colleagues at Northeastern University have also published several
reports showing that all or almost all job growth from 2000 to 2004
went to immigrants.
A recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center found no consistent
pattern with regard to native employment between states that
experienced a large influx of immigrants and states that had relatively
few immigrants. Two key points need to be made about this report:
First, as already discussed, it is not at all clear that one can
measure the impact of immigration by looking at local labor markets.
Second, the report does not focus on trends among persons under age 30
or 35, who have seen the biggest decline in employment in the last 5
years. In fact, Pew only looks at workers 25 year and older. Thus many
of he workers most effect are excluded by Pew, and the rest are lumped
in with older workers whose employment has not declined significantly.
Benefits of Immigration
Of course, it is important to realize that wage losses suffered by
the unskilled do not vanish into thin air. As already discussed, the
NRC estimated that the gain resulting from the wage loses suffered by
the unskilled is equal to about one or two tenths of one percent of our
total economy. Thus, additional unskilled immigration can be justified
on the grounds that it creates a very small net benefit for the country
as a whole, though it is harmful for unskilled workers. There is some
debate about the net benefit of immigration. A 2002 study published by
the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), entitled
``Technological Superiority and the Losses from Migration,'' found that
there is no economic gain from immigration. In fact the loss to all
natives totals nearly $70 billion dollars. But it must be remembered
that neither the NRC study or NBER study takes into account the
benefits to immigrants.
Impact on an Aging Society
Some observers think that without large scale immigration, there
will not be enough people of working age to support the economy or pay
for government. It is certainly true that immigration has increased the
number of workers in the United States. It is also true that immigrants
tend to arrive relatively young, and that they tend to have more
children than native-born Americans. Demographers, the people who study
human populations, have done a good deal of research on the actual
impact of immigration on the age structure. There is widespread
agreement that immigration has very little impact on the aging of
American society. Immigrants age just like everyone else; moreover the
differences with natives are not large enough to significantly alter
the nation's age structure. This simple fact can be seen clearly in the
2000 Census, which showed that the average age of an immigrants was 39,
compared to 35 for natives.\11\
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\11\ These figures and ones on aging that follow can be found in a
2005 report by the Center for Immigration Studies entitled,
``Immigration in an Aging Society: Workers, Birth Rates, and Social
Security,'' which can be found at www.cis.org/articles/2005/
back505.html .
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Another way to think about the impact of immigration on the aging
of American society is to look at the working-age population. In 2000,
66.2 percent of the population was of working-age (15 to 64), but when
all post-1980 immigrants are not counted, plus all of their U.S.-born
children, the working-age share would have been 65.9 percent in 2000.
Immigration also does not explain the relatively high U.S. fertility
rate. In 2000, the U.S. fertility rate was 2.1 children per woman,
compared to 1.4 for Europe, but if all immigrants are excluded the rate
would still have been 2.0. Looking to the future, Census Bureau
projections indicate that if net immigration averaged 100,000 to
200,000 annually, the working age share would be 58.7 percent in 2060,
while with net immigration of roughly 900,000 to one million, it would
be 59.5 percent. As the Bureau states in the 2000 publication,
immigration is a ``highly inefficient'' means for increasing the
working age share of the population in the long-run.\12\ Census
projections are buttressed by Social Security Administration (SAA)
estimates showing that over the next 75 years, net legal immigration of
800,000 a year versus 350,000 would create a benefit equal to only 0.77
percent of the program's projected expenditures.
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\12\ 12See page 21 of the Census Bureau's ``Methodology and
Assumptions for the Population Projections of the United States: 1999
to 2100.'' The report can be found at www.census.gov/population/www/
documentation/twps0038.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course, it must be emphasized that immigration does not make the
country older. In fact, the impact is slightly positive. But, one can
advocate less immigration secure in the knowledge that it will not
cause the population to age more age rapidly. There is no doubt that
the aging of the nation's population will create very real challenges.
But the level of immigration is almost entirely irrelevant to this
problem. America will simply have to look elsewhere to met these
challenges.
Policy Discussion
Knowing that low-skilled natives are made poorer or their
unemployment increased by immigration does not tell us what, if
anything, we should do about it. The extent to which we take action to
deal with the wage and employment effects of immigration depends on how
concerned we are about the wages of less-skilled natives. A number of
scholars have argued that the inability of low-skilled workers to find
work and earn a living wage contributes significantly to such social
problems as welfare dependency, family breakup, and crime. One need not
accept all the arguments made in this regard to acknowledge that a
significant reduction in employment opportunities for the poorest
Americans is a cause for real concern.
Help Workers But Leave Immigration Policy Unchanged. If we wish to
do something about the effects of immigration, there are two possible
sets of policy options that could be pursued. The first set would
involve leaving immigration policy in place and doing more to
ameliorate the harmful effects of immigration on natives in low-skilled
occupations Since the research indicates that the negative impact from
immigration falls on those employed at the bottom of the labor market,
an increase in the minimum wage may be helpful in offsetting some of
the wage effects of immigration, though doing so may exacerbate the
unemployment effect. Most economists think that the minimum wage tends
to increase unemployment. Increasing the minimum wage and keeping
unskilled immigration high, may make this problem even worse.
Another program that might be helpful in assisting those harmed by
immigrant competition is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). There is
little doubt that the Credit increases the income of low-wage workers.
However, in addition to the high cost to taxpayers, the Credit may also
hold down wages because it acts as a subsidy to low-wage employers.
That is, employers have less incentive to increase wages because
workers are now being paid in part by the federal government. Cutting
low- and unskilled immigration, on the other hand, has no such down
side for less-skilled workers nor is it costly to taxpayers. Moreover,
the Credit only increases earnings for those with jobs, it does not
address increased unemployment among the less-skilled that comes with
immigration. Finally, it is not clear how much increasing the minimum
wage or the EITC would be helpful in dealing with the decline in labor
force participation among less educated natives discussed above.
Reducing Unskilled Legal Immigration. The second set of policy
options that might be enacted to deal with this problem would involve
changing immigration policy with the intent of reducing job competition
for natives and immigrants already here. If we were to reduce unskilled
legal immigration we might want to change the selection criteria to
ensure that immigrants entering the country will not compete directly
with the poorest and most vulnerable workers. At present, only about 12
percent of legal immigrants are admitted based on their skills or
education. Since two-third of permanent residency visas are issued
based on family relationships, reducing the flow of low-skilled legal
immigrants would involve reducing the number of visas based on family
relationships. This might include eliminating the preferences now in
the law for the siblings and adult children (over 21) of U.S. citizens
and the adult children of legal permanent residents. These changes
would not only reduce low-skilled legal immigration immediately, they
would also limit the chain migration of low-skilled immigrants that
occurs as the spouses of those admitted in the sibling and adult child
categories petition to bring in their relatives.
Reducing Unskilled Illegal Immigration. In addition to reducing the
flow of low-skilled legal immigrants, a greater allocation of resources
could be devoted to controlling illegal immigration, especially in the
interior of the country. About one half of the immigrants working in
such occupations as construction, building cleaning and maintenance,
and food processing and preparation are estimated to be illegal aliens
according to my own analysis and research done by the Pew Hispanic
Center. A strategy of attrition through enforcement offers the best
hope of reducing illegal immigration. The goal of such a policy would
be to make illegals go home or self deport. The former INS estimates
that 165,000 illegals go home each year, 50,000 are deported, and
25,000 die. But some 800,000 to 900,000 new illegals enter each year so
there is a net growth of 400,000 to 500,000 a year.\13\ If America
becomes less hospitable to illegals, many more will simply decide to go
home.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ See Footnote 1.
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The centerpiece to interior enforcement would be to enforce the law
barring illegals from holding jobs by using national databases that
already exist to ensure that each new hire is legally entitled to work
here. In 2004, only four employers were fined for hiring illegals. The
IRS must also stop accepting Social Security numbers that it knows are
bogus. We also need to make a much greater effort to deny illegal
aliens things like divers licenses, bank accounts, loans, in-state
college tuition, etc. Local law enforcement can play an additional
role. When an illegal is encountered in the normal course of police
work, the immigration service should pick that person up and deport
him. More agents and fencing are clearly needed at the border as well.
Conclusion
As discussed above, the impact of immigration on the overall
economy is almost certainly very small. Its short- and long-term impact
demographically on the share of the population that is of working age
is also very small. It probably makes more sense for policymakers to
focus on the winners and losers from immigration. The big losers are
natives working in low-skilled low-wage jobs. Of course, technological
change and increased trade also have reduced the labor market
opportunities for low-wage workers in the Untied States. But
immigration is different because it is a discretionary policy that can
be altered. On the other hand, immigrants are the big winners, as are
owners of capital and skilled workers, but their gains are tiny
relative to their income.
In the end, arguments for or against immigration are as much
political and moral as they are economic. The latest research indicates
that we can reduce immigration secure in the knowledge that it will not
harm the economy. Doing so makes sense if we are very concerned about
low-wage and less-skilled workers in the United States. On the other
hand, if one places a high priority on helping unskilled workers in
other countries, then allowing in a large number of such workers should
continue. Of course, only an infinitesimal proportion of the world's
poor could ever come to this country even under the most open
immigration policy one might imagine. Those who support the current
high level of unskilled legal and illegal immigration should at least
do so with an understanding that those American workers harmed by the
policies they favor are already the poorest and most vulnerable.
TESTIMONY OF RICARDO PARRA,
MIDWEST COUNCIL OF LA RAZA
Mr. Parra. Members of the Judiciary Committee, thank you
for allowing me to speak and inviting me, and also thanking the
public to be present to witness the hearing here. My name is
Ricardo Parra.
I would like to get directly into the subject about the
impact on U.S. workers. I'm sure that in keeping with the theme
of the field hearing, ``The Reid-Kennedy Bill: The Effect on
American Workers' Wages and Employment Opportunities,'' some
will represent studies that undocumented immigrants are
impacting American workers. At the end of this report, you will
find recent studies that dispute those claims.
For example, the study ``Growth in the Foreign-Born
Workforce and Employment of Native-Born,'' Pew Hispanic Center,
August 10, 2006. This report shows that rapid increases in
foreign-born populations at the State level are not associated
with negative effects on employment of native-born workers.
Also, new data released by the Census Bureau August 15
accent the magnitude to which immigration continues to fuel the
expansion of the U.S. labor force. The study ``Growth and Reach
of Immigration,'' Rob Paral, Immigration Policy Center, August
16, 2006.
Earlier in June, 500-plus economists, including five Nobel
Laureates--Thomas C. Schelling, University of Maryland; Robert
Lucas, University of Chicago; Daniel McFadden, University of
California, Berkeley; Vernon Smith, George Mason University;
and James Heckman, University of Chicago indicated immigration
was an economic plus, saying ``the gains from immigration
outweigh the losses.''
Fact: Immigrant labor is needed to fill jobs in the U.S.
that older, more educated American workforce is not willing to
fill, especially at the low wage and poor working conditions
many unscrupulous employers offer. Currently, there are
approximately nine million undocumented workers in the U.S.
filling important gaps in the labor market. There is
substantial evidence that their presence in the labor force
creates jobs and strengthens local economies. Fact is
undocumented immigrants contribute to the process of wealth
creation.
So here we have the hearings, the field hearings. Many
people say it's a lot of spin and I think we have to stop the
spin. We can do better. The American people want Congress to
stop the spin and work on real issues to real problems, like
the broken immigration system. But instead of sitting down to
negotiate with the Senate over workable immigration reform,
House leaders are stalling and conducting an anti-immigrant
road show. They want to portray all immigrants as criminals and
terrorists, to manufacture support for their ``get-tough'' and
``get-tough only'' approach to immigration reform. But the
American people won't buy it. They want Congress to get back to
work and to come up with real solutions that is fair and
practical: a comprehensive immigration reform bill that
recognizes reality, rewards work, and restores the rule of law
to immigration.
To enforce our immigration laws, we need to make them
enforceable. Our broken immigration system is a complex problem
that needs a comprehensive overhaul. We've been implementing
piecemeal measures for 20 years, which have made the system
more complex, but not more controlled. ``Seal the border'' is a
sound bite. ``Enforce our laws'' is a sound bite. Comprehensive
reform is a solution, and only by changing our laws to meet
economic need and family ties will we be able to restore
control and order to our system.
``Enforcement-only'' or ``enforcement-first'' is the status
quo, more of the same, and a prescription for failure. For the
past 20 years, we have tried enforcement-first and enforcement-
only. The result has been a spectacular failure. People
smuggling has become big business. Fake document merchants have
plenty of customers. Unscrupulous employers have a large pool
of exploitable workers. Families stay separated for years.
Hundreds die in the desert each year. There are 12 million
undocumented immigrants and counting and Americans all across
the U.S. are angry at the Government's failure. In light of all
this, calls for more of the same do not make sense. Illegal
immigration happens because we have jobs or loved ones on this
side of the border and an insufficient number of legal visas
for these workers and family members. We must deal with
reality.
Proposals that ignore the 12 million undocumented
immigrants in our midst are not serious proposals No reform
proposal can be taken seriously if it assumes that undocumented
immigrants will simply go away if we get tough enough. It also
does not make sense to treat those workers as hardened
criminals. They're already part of our workforce and have U.S.
citizen and legal resident family members. Making them into
criminals would only drive them further underground and we
would know even less about who they are. A much better solution
would be to bring them out of the shadows so that we can find
out who they are, put them through background checks and
security screening, make sure they are all on the tax rolls and
make them earn their citizenship over time by learning English,
keeping a clean record and continuing to contribute to our
country.
Proposals that pretend we don't need immigrant workers are
also not serious proposals. Let's get real. We have jobs on
this side of the borders and workers clamoring to fill them on
the other side.
Time to wrap it up? Okay, thank you very much.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you, Mr. Parra.
Dr. Briggs.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Parra follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ricardo Parra
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
TESTIMONY OF VERNON BRIGGS, PROFESSOR OF INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR
RELATIONS, CORNELL UNIVERSITY
Mr. Briggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Press the red button so the mic works.
Mr. Briggs. Oh, yes.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. My
comments may seem glib but the support is in the lengthy
testimony, so I hope people have a chance to read it carefully.
Also, when I use the term ``American worker'' that means not
only native-born Americans, but it also means those people who
are naturalized citizens, people who are permanent resident
aliens and those who are legally allowed to be here. So when I
use ``American workers,'' it is not something that I am simply
trying to distinguish between foreign-born and native-born, it
includes them.
Immigration reform is the domestic imperative of our time,
but only in the past 41 years in which this issue exploded. It
was totally unexpected, there was nothing--no anticipation was
ever given to what happened, the explosion of mass immigration.
It wasn't supposed to happen; it did happen. And that should be
a warning when we take action in terms of legislation, it has
had enormous unexpected consequences. We ought to be very
careful on what we enact, that ought to be an overriding
lesson.
With respect to impact of immigration, the one place where
immigration is most significant is on the labor force. As
Samuel Gompers, the former President of the American Federation
of Labor, many years ago wrote, ``Immigration is, in its most
fundamental aspect, a labor issue.'' Immigrants, regardless of
how they come into the country or how they're admitted, usually
go directly into the labor force, as do their spouses and their
children, no matter what criteria we admit them in. So that the
labor market is the ultimate test of what the impact of
immigration is all about.
Today, we have 12 million illegal immigrants in the
country, about 500,000 a year adding to that number. This is in
addition to the six million illegal immigrants who have been
given amnesty by seven different amnesties since 1986. It is
incredible when you think of this. In addition to the illegal
immigration we have today, you've given seven amnesties to six
million others.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 started the
process of granting amnesties. It enacted a system of employer
sanctions that were supposed to largely stop the future flow.
But it was quickly realized that employer sanctions had severe
problems. Without a reliable and verifiable identification
system in place, fraudulent documents were easily obtained.
Likewise, there was no internal enforcement--none, and very
little inside the country at the work sites. And at the
borders, vastly inadequate resources in manpower was provided
to manage border entry.
Consequently, for many employers, they came to view
violations of IRCA as simply risk-free, who cares. And as far
as illegal immigrants, why not come, no one is going to stop
you if you do try. So them came.
The main reasons--this is what I want to emphasize--that
employer sanctions were enacted--and I have testified before
Congress for 25 years on this issue strongly--was to protect
the American worker from competition for jobs from people that
are not even supposed to be in the country, much less in the
labor force, period.
The point is often overlooked that when we do an
immigration reform, the existing shortcomings must make getting
those who have violated the law out of the labor force as well
as including those who might come in the future. That's
critical to it.
Presently, there are over seven million illegal immigrants
in the labor force. But it's not just the high number that, as
I've said, has importance. Overwhelmingly these illegal
immigrants are poorly skilled and poorly educated. Estimated
about 83, 84 percent have only a high school diploma or less,
of the illegal immigration population. This means it's only a
small portion of this labor force.
Comparisons with State levels or national levels are
totally irrelevant. Illegal immigrants compete with the poor
and the low wage sector of the labor market. That's the people
who carry the burden and that's the ones that public policy
should be concerned about.
Tragically, the most economic disadvantaged in the economy
and the ones who needed the protection the most are the ones
who bear the direct competition by illegal immigrants. Worse
yet, in this bitter competition at the bottom of which there
are 34 million low wage workers in the United States--34
million of them--it's these persons who are bearing the
competition of the illegal immigrants. And in this competition,
the game is rigged. The illegal immigrants will always win in
the competition for jobs--always. No matter how hard the
American workers, as defined, citizens and native-born, try,
they're going to lose in that competition. Illegal immigrants
will accept low wages, long hours, work and not complain under
deplorable conditions and violation of labor laws. They will do
this consistently because their orbit of comparison is the
wages and working conditions in the country which they come
from, which are always worse than they are here in the United
States no matter how bad they are in this country.
So many American workers come to prefer illegal immigrants,
they want illegal immigrants if they can get them. And it's
simply wrong to say that illegal immigrants take jobs that
American workers will not do. The reason American workers will
not do these jobs for the same low wages, long hours, bad
working conditions that illegals will and they would not have
to if the illegal immigrants weren't there. These jobs would be
performed but they'd be performed by people with better
standards of living. That's the whole purpose of it.
In the low skilled labor market, American workers know that
employers typically consider workers as being dispensable. The
work may be actually essential that these people do, but in the
low skilled labor market, it doesn't matter who does it. As
long as someone can be found to do the work, there's no reason
for an employer to improve the terms of employment. The tragedy
for low skilled American workers is that the permissive
immigration policy has enabled a growing pool of illegal
immigrants who are not only willing to work under deplorable
working conditions, but are actually grateful for the
opportunity to work under these awful conditions. There are now
tens of thousands of jobs, as documented in studies cited in
the paper, for which no American worker needs to apply, they
will not be hired. The employers prefer the illegal immigrants
and if they're there, that's what they want.
So American workers are being harmed and it's the low wage,
low skill, the lowest production of our Government who have the
greatest impact. Getting illegal immigrants out of the labor
force is as important as keeping the future illegals out.
In addition to the adverse impact on American workers, the
presence of illegal immigrants on these terms has led to
exploitation, massive exploitation. The literature is rampant
with examples of extortion, physical abuse, human slavery, wage
kickbacks, child labor, sexual harassment, job accidents, sweat
shop working conditions. All of this because we have allowed
and tried to make excuses for illegal immigration. We need to
get illegal immigrants out of the labor force.
I see my time has expired. I haven't got to the Senate Bill
2611, but I will if you'll give me a question later.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you very much, Dr. Briggs.
Dr. Harrington.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Briggs follows:]
Prepared Statement of Vernon M. Briggs, Jr.
``We should be careful to get out of an experience only the
wisdom that is in it--and stop there, less we be like the cat
that sits on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot
lid again--and that is well; but also she will never sit down
on a cold one anymore.''--Mark Twain
Immigration reform is the domestic policy imperative of our time.
The revival of the phenomenon of mass immigration from out of the
nation's distant past was the accidental by-product of the passage of
the Immigration Act of 1965.\1\ Immigration had been declining as a
percentage of the population since 1914 and in absolute numbers since
1930. In 1965, only 4.4 percent of the population was foreign born--the
lowest percentage in all of U.S. history and totaled 8.5 million people
(the lowest absolute number since 1880). There was absolutely no
intention in 1965 to increase the level of immigration. The post-World
War ``baby boom'' was on the verge of pouring a tidal wave of new labor
force entrants into the labor market in 1965 and would continue to do
so for the next 16 years. Instead, the stated goal of the 1965
legislation was to rid the immigration system of the overtly
discriminatory admission system that had been in effect since 1924. But
as subsequent events were to reveal, this legislation let the ``Genie
out of the jug.'' Without any warning to the people of the nation, the
societal changing force of mass immigration was released on an
unsuspecting American economy and its labor force. By 2005, the
foreign-born population had soared to 35.5 million persons (or 12.1
percent of the population) and there were over 22 million workers in
the labor force (or 14.7 percent of the labor force).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ For a discussion of how the ``unexpected'' came to be, see
Vernon M. Briggs Jr., Mass Immigration and the National Interest,
(Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, Inc. 2003), Chapter 10.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clearly, the overarching conclusion from the experiences of the
past 41 years is that, when it comes to immigration reform, legislative
changes should only be taken with great caution. While there is common
agreement that the existing system requires major changes, the need for
reforms should not be seen as an opportunity to introduce a myriad of
dubious provisions--each of which has significant labor market
implications--simply to placate the opportunistic pleadings of special
interest groups.
Immigration is a policy-driven issue. Policy changes make a
difference. Any changes should be to the benefit of the nation--
especially the welfare of its existing labor force. For as America's
most influential labor leader, Samuel Gompers, observed in his
autobiography: ``Immigration is, in all of its fundamental aspects is a
labor problem.'' \2\ For no matter how immigrants are admitted or by
what means they enter the United States, most adult immigrants
immediately join the labor force following their entry as do today many
of their spouses and, eventually, most of their children. Immigration
has economic consequences, which political leaders need to take into
account when making any policy decisions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Samuel Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor, (New York:
Dutton, 1925), Volume 2, p. 154.
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``the hot stove-lid'' issue: illegal immigration
The underlying reform issue that must be addressed before any
others is illegal immigration. It makes no sense to debate remedies for
deficiencies and/or additions to the extant immigration system when
mass violations of whatever is enacted are tolerated year after year
after year. The accumulated stock of illegal immigrants is believed to
number between 11.5 to 12 million persons.\3\ The annual additional
flow is estimated to be between 300,000 to 500,000 persons. Many
believe these estimates are too low. Worse yet, these numbers exist
despite the fact that over 6 million illegal immigrants have been
allowed to legalize their status as the result of seven amnesties
granted by the federal government since 1986.\4\ No other element of
immigration reform has any claim of priority over the enactment of
measures to end this scourge to effective policy implementation. The
hemorrhage of illegal immigrants has not only made a mockery of the
nation's immigration laws, it has seriously undermined the public's
confidence in their own government's ability to secure its borders and
control the nation's destiny.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Jeffrey Passel, ``The Size and Characteristics of the
Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S.'' Research Report,
(Washington, D.C.: The Pew Hispanic Center, 2006), p.1.
\4\ The legalization programs have been: The Immigration Reform and
Control Act (2.7 million adjustments in two separate amnesties);
Section 245i rolling amnesties in 1994 and its legislative extension in
1997 (578.000 adjustments); the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central
American Relief Act of 1997 (1 million adjustments); the Haitian
Refugee Immigration Fairness Act of 1998 (125,000 adjustments); the
Late Amnesty Agreement of 2000 between President William Clinton and
Congressional leaders to allow 400,000 illegal immigrants adjustments
because, it was alleged, they should have qualified for one of the IRCA
amnesties of 1986; and the Legal Immigration and Family Equity Act of
2000 (900,000 adjustments).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite the fact that the issue of illegal immigration had been
identified soon after the Immigration Act of 1965 was passed, it took
Congress another 21 years to finally confront the issue. It did so with
the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA).
This legislation made it illegal for an employer to hire a non-citizen
unless that person had specific authorization to work (i.e., they were
a permanent resident alien of the United States or they held a specific
non-immigrant visa that permitted them to work under specific terms for
a temporary time period). A scale of escalating civil penalties coupled
with the potential of criminal penalties for serious repeat offenders
was established.
IRCA also granted a general amnesty to most illegal immigrants
living in the country since January 1, 1982 and an industry-specific
amnesty to most illegal immigrants who had worked in the perishable-
crop sector of the agricultural industry for at least 90 days between
May 1, 1985 and May 1, 1986. These amnesties were deemed necessary
because, prior to the passage of IRCA, our immigration policies were
seen as being ambiguous as to their intentions relative to the working
rights of illegal immigrants. While it was illegal for illegal
immigrants to enter the country without inspection or to work in
violation of the terms of an otherwise legal non-immigrant visa, it was
not illegal for a U.S. employer to hire them. IRCA ended this legal
hypocrisy with its new provisions regarding employer sanctions. They
became effective the instant that President Ronald Reagan signed the
legislation on November 6, 1986.
Previously, legislation to enact employer sanctions had been
introduced by the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of
Representatives and was passed in 1971 and 1972 only to die both times
in the U.S. Senate. The proposal was resurrected and included as part
of a legislative package proposed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. He
had correctly identified illegal immigration as being a critical labor
market problem and included employer sanctions as part of his
legislative remedies to correct this mounting malady. Congress,
however, was hesitant to accept such a bold change in the status quo
and believed that it would be better to address the problem of illegal
immigration in the context of a comprehensive effort to reform of all
aspects of the nation's embattled immigration system. To aid them in
this task, Congress created the Select Commission on Immigration and
Refugee Policy, chaired by the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh who was President
of Notre Dame University at the time. It was requested to study all
aspects of the nation's immigration system and to make any
recommendations for changes it deemed necessary. When the Select
Commission made it final report in early 1981, it identified illegal
immigration as the primary cause for the immigration system to be ``out
of control.'' The Select Commission concluded that the ``centerpiece''
of the nation's efforts to enforce its immigration laws should be
employer sanctions. Ultimately in 1986, Congress and the President
agreed and they were enacted as part of IRCA. By this time, efforts to
pass ``comprehensive'' immigration reform had been abandoned when those
efforts failed in both 1982 and 1984 (likewise, refugee reforms had
already been pealed-off for separate legislative action in 1980). But
amidst a continuing public outcry demanding action on illegal
immigration, a strategy of ``piecemeal'' reform was adopted in 1986 by
congressional leaders--with illegal immigration identified as being the
most egregious problem that needed to be addressed first--and it proved
to be successful.
Experience quickly revealed, however, that IRCA had serious
weaknesses. Without a reliable and verifiable worker identification
system in place, fraudulent documents are easily obtained which meant
that enforcement efforts can be--and are--widely circumvented. Vastly
inadequate resources were provided to manage border entries and to
patrol the vast border space between entry points. Internal enforcement
away from the border and at worksites was and still is virtually non-
existent. As a consequence, illegal immigrants continue both to enter
surreptitiously or to overstay and violate the terms of legal visas. As
a result, violations of the employer sanctions provisions of IRCA
were--and still are--viewed as being ``risk-free'' actions by many
employers. In 2004, only three employers nationwide paid criminal fines
for violating the law. Perversely, those employers who seek to follow
the law are often placed at a distinct competitive disadvantage in
their hiring decisions with those employers who flaunt the law.
As for the illegal immigrants themselves, those apprehended at or
near the border are typically simply returned to Mexico, if that is
their nationality. They then repeat their efforts to enter illegally
and continue to do so until eventually they succeed in avoiding
capture. Those who are apprehended and are not of Mexican origin are
usually released and told to report to a hearing at some distant date
(which few ever do). The same has been often the case away from the
border. Because there is a chronic shortage of detention facilities
nationwide and as detention is costly, those apprehended away from the
border are likewise usually released and either told to report to a
future hearing or to agree voluntarily to leave the country on their
own (few do either). If it were not for the human tragedies involved,
the entire federal enforcement process to date would be script for
comedy.
But the fundamental reason to rectify the shortcomings of IRCA are
associated with the reasons why employer sanctions were deemed
necessary in the first place: to protect the American worker (defined
here and hereafter as being the native born workers; all foreign born
persons who have become naturalized citizens; those non-citizen workers
who are permanent resident aliens; and those foreign nationals who have
been granted specific non-immigrant visas that permit them to work for
limited time periods in the country) from having to compete for jobs
with persons who are legally not supposed even to be in the country and
absolutely not supposed to be in the labor force.
It is estimated that there are 7.2 million illegal immigrants in
the labor force in 2005 (or about 4.9 percent of the nation's labor
force).\5\ But it is not the total number--even though it is very large
and no doubt undercounted due to the great difficulty obtaining
reliable data on any illegal activity--that is the crucial concern.
Because illegal immigrants tend to be disproportionately concentrated
in certain segments of the nation's labor market, their direct impact
is quite specific. The 2000 Census reported that 58 percent of the
adult foreign-born population had only a high school diploma or less.
Undoubtedly the educational attainment level of illegal immigrants is
even worse than this bleak Census finding that is the product of our
entire immigration system. Consequently, there is no doubt that most
illegal immigrants are poorly educated, unskilled and often do not
speak English. Of necessity, therefore, they seek employment in the low
skilled occupations in a variety of industries. In the process, they
artificially swell the labor supply in those occupations and industries
and depress the wages of the low skilled American workers who also work
in these sectors.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Passel, p.2.
\6\ George J. Borjas, ``Increasing the Supply of Labor Through
Immigration: Measuring the Impact on Native-Born Workers,''
Backgrounder, (Washington, D.C., May, 2004).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If permitted to compete for these jobs with American workers, the
illegal immigrants will always win. This is because they will do
anything to get the jobs--accept lower than prevailing wages; work
longer hours; work under dangerous and hazardous working conditions;
and live in crowded and sub-standard housing. They will accept
conditions as they are and are less likely to report violations of
prevailing laws pertaining to work standards, anti-discrimination and
sexual harassment--even if they know these laws exist (which many do
not). No American worker can successfully compete against them--nor
should they--when the rules of the game are who will work the hardest,
for the longest, and under the worst conditions.
As a consequence, the illegal immigrant worker becomes the
``preferred worker'' for employers. It is not that ``American workers
will not do certain jobs;'' it is that they will not do the jobs under
the same terms that illegal immigrants often will--nor should they. As
for the illegal immigrants, they willingly work under these adverse
conditions, because their orbit of comparison is with the conditions of
work in their homelands. Literally, it does not matter how bad the
working conditions are in the United States as they are invariably far
better than they were where they come from. Sometimes it is simply the
fact that it is possible to get a job at all that distinguishes the
state of economic opportunity in the United States from their previous
experiences in their countries of origin.
Thus, illegal immigrants will always be willing to work in any job
they can find. Low skilled American workers (as defined above), on the
other hand, know that low wages and bad working conditions are
associated with jobs where employers typically consider individual
workers as being dispensable. The work may be essential, but who does
it is not important. As long as someone can be found to do it, there is
no need to make the job attractive or to compete actively to get some
one to do it. The availability of a pool of illegal immigrants who are
more than willing to do fill these jobs means that wages do not have to
be increased or do working conditions need to be improved. Moreover,
employers have found illegal immigrants so attractive that they often
use those who they do hire as a network to hire their relatives and
friends when they need replacements or additional employees. As a
consequence, there are thousands--probably tens of thousands--of jobs
in which employers will not hire American workers.\7\ They do not want
them and, given the alternative of illegal immigrants, they do not
recruit or hire American workers. All of this is illegal, of course,
but who is keeping the illegal immigrants out?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ E.g., see Elizabeth Bogen, Immigration in New York, (New York:
Praeger, 1987), p. 91.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In this context, it is important to know that there are more than
34 million low wage workers in the U.S. labor force (those earning less
than $8.70 an hour--a wage that will about meet the minimum poverty
threshold for a family of four) who are in the low skilled sector of
the labor market.\8\ Overwhelmingly, most of these workers are American
workers (as defined above). Also, as the number of illegal immigrant
workers has soared since the year 2000, 3.2 million native born persons
of working age who had only a high school diploma or less have dropped-
out of the labor force.\9\ Presumably, they have found it more
rewarding to seek public benefits to support themselves or chosen to
pursue illegal activities to support themselves. Unfortunately, it is
these low skilled American workers who bear most of the burden of
competing for the jobs on the lower skill rungs of the nation's
economic job ladder with illegal immigrants.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Eileen Appelbaum, Annette Bernhardt and Richard Murnane, Low
Wage America, (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2003).
\9\ Steven A. Camarota, ``Dropping Out: Immigrant Entry and Native
Exit from the Labor Market, 2000-2005,'' Backgrounder, (Washington,
D.C.: Center for Immigration Studies, March 2006).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the Council of Economic
Advisers to the President during the Clinton Administration found that
``immigration has increased the relative supply of less educated labor
and appears to have contributed to the increasing inequality of income
within the nation.'' \10\ Subsequent research has documented the
obvious. In a study released in late 2005 by the National Bureau of
Economic Research that analyzed the explanations for the dramatic rise
of family income inequality in the United States that has occurred
since 1968 (i.e., roughly the same period that spans the revival of the
current wave of mass immigration), it found that ``for the lower half
of the income distribution, . . . changes in labor supply'' was one of
the ``principal causes of the growing distance between the poor and the
middle-income families.'' \11\ Thus, immigration in general but illegal
immigration in particular is unquestionably a major explanation for
this worrisome and dangerous societal trend.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Council of Economic Advisers, Economic Report of the
President: 1994, (Washington, D.C. Government Printing Office, 1994),
p. 120.
\11\ Chulhee Lee, ``Rising Family Income Inequality in the United
States, 1968-2000: Impacts of Changing Labor Supply, Wages and Family
Structure,'' NBER working Paper No. 11836, Abstract.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Massive numbers of illegal immigrants such as those now in the U.S.
labor force--and the prospect that many more will continue to come
until the magnet of finding jobs is turned-off--has opened wide the
door for human exploitation. The literature is rampant with case
studies and reports that document that the portion of the labor market
where illegal immigrants work is infested with of the use of extortion
and brute force (by human smugglers which is a thriving criminal
enterprise), human slavery (workers bound to human smugglers until
their fees are paid off), wage kickbacks (to employers of illegal
immigrants as well as to labor contractors), child labor, sexual
harassment, job accidents (especially by illegal immigrants who cannot
read safety warnings or who lie about their past work experiences and
are injured or killed in jobs that they really do not know how to do),
and the growth of ``sweat shop'' manufacturing.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ E.g., see Peter Kwong, Forbidden Workers: Illegal Immigrants
and American Labor, (New York: The New Press, 1997); Luis Urrea, The
Devil's Highway, (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2004); and Ted
Conover, Coyotes: A Journey Through the Secret World of America's
Illegal Immigrants, (New York: Vintage Books, 1987).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thus, there is nothing romantic about the nation's failure to
enforce its immigration laws no matter how often or vocal pro-immigrant
advocacy groups try to spin and to rationalize the issue. Indeed, the
indifference paid by many of our national political leaders, the media,
and many elite leaders of business, labor, religious, civil rights, and
civil liberties groups to these exploitive conditions represents a
decidedly seamy side--the dark side, if you will--of our democracy.
In addition to the adverse workplace impact of illegal immigration,
there are other corrosive effects on the social fabric that are also
linked to illegal immigration. Among these are: adult illiteracy, child
poverty, school dropouts, unvaccinated children, violent street gangs,
crime, and persons without health insurance to mention only some of the
concerns that are reasons themselves to act.
THE LESSONS FROM ``EXPERIENCE''
Illegal immigration is the primary issue that immigration reform
must embrace. Not only is it a cause itself of significant harm to the
economic well-being of the most needy members of the American populace,
but it also adversely affects the broader society itself. Hence, there
is little reason to believe that other policy reforms can be beneficial
as long as the integrity of the entire system is in question. There are
three steps that must be taken: 1. The employment sanctions system must
be made to work (e.g., a program to verify social security numbers must
be made mandatory immediately and steps taken to establish a national
counterfeit-proof worker identification card be undertaken and
implemented as soon as possible; internal enforcement at the worksite
to validate that employees are in fact eligible to work must become a
routine matter; fines for violations of the employer sanctions system
must be increased as must be the criminal penalties for repeat
offenders). 2. Enforcement must become a reality (by both deed and
publicity, the message must be made clear: illegal immigrants will not
work in the United States--those apprehended will be deported and those
who hire them will prosecuted to the full extent of the law; more
detention facilities, manpower, and resources must be devoted to
enforcement). 3. There must be no amnesties--now or in the future--for
those illegally in the United States (American workers are being harmed
by the presence of persons in the labor force who are not supposed to
be there; getting those who are now here out of the labor force is as
important as keeping future illegal immigrants from entering it; talk
of amnesties only raises the hopes of those here that they can stay and
of others outside the country to keep coming because, if an amnesty is
provided again, it will likely be done again in the future--that is the
wrong message).\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Olga R. Rodriguez, ``Migrants Rush for Border Anticipating
Guest Worker Plan,'' Ithaca Journal, (Associated Press story), (April
13, 2006), p. A-2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As there is no debate over the fact that the nation's immigration
laws are not being enforced, ``experience'' indicates that fact alone
is one of the primary reasons why illegal immigration not only
continues over the years but gets progressively worse. Until the
nation's immigration laws are made enforceable and are enforced,
``wisdom'' dictates that the reform process should ``stop'' here.
THE ``COLD'' STOVE-LID ISSUE: S.2611
With the exception of the provisions pertaining to enforcement
issues, most of the provisions of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Act of 2006 (S.2611) neglect the earlier experiences that should have
been learned with the passage of IRCA in 1986. The proposed legislation
also contains provisions that have staggering implications for the
future of the size and composition of the nation's labor force and
population. Given the scale of the numbers involved, the effects of
such massive changes themselves deserve careful scrutiny independent of
being linked to the controversial subject of illegal immigration. The
passage of IRCA, as discussed earlier, was supposed to have brought an
end to the issue of illegal immigration. Based on the assumption that
it did, the Immigration Act of 1990 was passed which dealt with the
next step in ``piecemeal reform:'' legal immigration. Based on the
premise that the ``backdoor'' to the American labor market was closed
(i.e., illegal immigration), the Immigration Act of 1990 sought to open
the ``front door (i.e., legal immigration) by raising the annual level
of legal immigration to about 675,000 persons a year plus refugees. But
the premise proved to be false and by the mid-1990s the U.S. Commission
on Immigration Reform (CIR), Chaired by Barbara Jordan (a former member
of Congress but by then was a Professor at the University of Texas at
Austin) was recommending that the level of legal immigration be reduced
back to about its pre-1990 level of about 550,000 persons a year
(including refugees).
As the findings of the Jordan Commission became public through a
series of interim reports, Congress and the Clinton Administration did
tinker with the issue of illegal immigration with the passage of the
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.
But none of the real needs--such as a requirement for employers to
verify the authenticity of social security numbers or the need for a
verifiable worker identification system--were included in the 1996
legislation. Likewise, all the Commission's recommendations for
significantly reducing the annual level of legal immigration and making
major changes in the admission categories were simply ignored This was
despite promises by both the President and congressional leaders that
they would come back to these issues after the 1996 election. It never
happened, of course. Had the major recommendations of the Jordan
Commission been accepted, the immigration mess that nation has today
could have been largely avoided.
Unfortunately, S.2611 shows no awareness of any of the findings,
insights, and recommendations of CIR. This is despite the fact that its
reports are the most politically impartial and carefully researched
study of immigration that the nation has ever had. In sharp contrast,
S.2611 seems to be the product of the wish list of every pro-
immigration special interest group in Washington. None of its major
provisions show the slightest awareness of any of the research on what
is wrong with the existing immigration system and what can be done to
reform it. Concern for the anticipated impact on the income, wages and
employment opportunities for American workers of such massive changes
in prevailing immigration policy is scant.
Estimates of the overall numbers of immigrants who will be admitted
under S.2611 over the next 20 years are all over the place. They have
ranged from 28 million to as high as 61 million and almost everywhere
in-between.\14\ The variation occurs, understandably, because many of
the provisions require assumptions that simply cannot be known in
advance by anyone. Human beings are involved and how they respond
individually and collectively to legislative prompts, permissions and
restrictions can never be known in advance for certain. Thus, much of
what is proposed is a voyage into uncharted waters with respect to what
may happen. If the scale of persons involved were small, the
uncertainty would not matter much; but this is not the case. The
estimated numbers are huge and the accompanying margins of error of
analysis are large. The human consequences of a mistake that could
flood the low skilled labor market and swamp the nation's social safety
systems are enormous and could be disastrous to the nation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Robert Rector, ``Up to 61 Million Immigrants Might Flow into
the U.S. Under Proposed Reform,'' and Stuart Anderson, ``After
Analyzing Data, Foundation Finds 28 Million a More Likely Figure''
Rocky Mountain News, (July 1, 2006), pp.10C-11C.
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By any stretch of the imagination, if the entire bill were enacted
in it present form, the number of immigrants admitted should at least
triple (to at least 53 million persons) over what would be the case if
the law was left unchanged (about 18 million) over the next 20 years.
These figures, however, do not allow for any continuation of illegal
immigration over these years (which is, of course, unrealistic) and it
omits some groups who may also benefit but are simply impossible to
estimate in advance--e.g., parents of those who eventually become
naturalized citizens and, therefore, have the right to enter in
unrestricted numbers.
Most of the ``new'' immigrants would enter as a result of the
amnesty provisions and what is called ``guest worker'' provisions of
the legislation. About 10 million of the estimated 12 million illegal
immigrants in the country would be eligible to benefit. Those who have
been illegal for 2-5 years (about 1.8 million persons) can apply for a
newly created H-2C visa entry card for a so-called ``guest worker''
program at specific ports of entry. After four years in that status (or
sooner if their employer applies on their behalf), they can apply for
permanent resident alien status but all of this time they may work in
the U.S. labor force. For those illegally in the country more than 5
years (7.7 million persons), they can apply immediately (i.e., they are
placed on a ``glide-path'') for a permanent resident card and will
receive it as soon as the backlog of applicants can be processed.
Meanwhile, they too have immediate legal access to the U.S. labor
market. Lastly, there is also a special agricultural workers program,
or ``blue card'' program, (for 1.1 million illegal immigrants working
in the agricultural industry, about 830,000 of whom would be eligible
under the other two amnesties but will probably choose this one because
it has a much faster and cheaper way to become a permanent resident
alien). This means that about 2 million illegal immigrants (those here
less than 2 years) are the only ones who are supposed to leave or be
deported if apprehended.
Most of the beneficiaries of these amnesties are already in the
country and most who of working age are presumably employed or trying
to be. Most are believed to be employed in the low skilled sector of
the economy. By allowing them to stay and to legalize their status
means they will be able to more easily move between jobs and employers
so that the many American workers who presently compete with illegal
immigrant workers cannot expect any relief. But to make matters worse,
as they move around freely and legally, other unskilled workers in
other geographical areas, occupations and industries may who have not
competed with them in the past may now be impacted. Over time, these
newly entitled workers are permitted to legally bring their immediate
family members with them, it can be expected they too will gradually
enter the low wage labor market too--some legally but others illegally
if they come early. Even these estimates of behavior are likely to be
underestimated since it is likely that there will be extensive fraud
associated documentation of eligibility for the different categories
and family relationships plus the certainty that illegal immigration
will add even more. Moreover, as these persons become eligible to
become naturalized citizens, their extended family relatives and their
family members become eligible to immigrate. Over the next two decades,
the percentage of the population who will be foreign born will soar to
levels never before experienced in the country (certainly over 20
percent) as will the percentage of foreign born in the labor force hit
unprecedented heights (perhaps as high as 24 percent).
Thus, if S.2611 is enacted, the only thing that can be said for
sure is that the number of unskilled workers is going to swell
enormously. This does not portend well for much in the way of upward
wage pressure for those many American workers on the bottom of the
economic ladder and it means the competition for low skilled jobs will
be brutal. Rather than have market forces improve wages for low skilled
American workers (if the illegal workers were removed from the labor
market as current law says they should), market forces can be expected
to keep wages for low skilled workers low (and probably falling in real
terms). This means that they will have to hope that state and federal
minimum wages levels are increased to circumvent the market and it is
increasingly likely that, as their numbers swell, state and local tax
payers are going to be called-on to subsidize these low wage workers
who are not going to be able to earn sufficient incomes by working to
cover housing, health, and living expenses for themselves and their
family members.
These amnesty programs, if enacted, will guarantee the there will
be no shortage of low wage workers for the next 20 years--especially if
illegal immigration continues to supplement the ranks of the low
skilled pool. But there can be no parallel guarantee over these years
that there will be a sufficient increase in demand for low-skilled
workers whose unemployment rates are already among the highest in the
nation. There is absolutely no evidence of a generalized labor shortage
of low skilled workers or any signs of wage-induced inflationary
pressures associated with shortages for such workers. Indeed, if ever
there was a prescription for the resurrection of the Marxian notion of
the existence of ``a reserve army'' of the poor and unemployed to keep
wages depressed for the vast number of low skilled workers for those
with jobs over the long run and to make this nightmare a reality, this
legislation is it.
Likewise, at the other end of the wage scale, the proposal to
dramatically expand the H-1B program for workers in specialty
occupations has nothing to do with illegal immigration. But, it too has
much to do with special interest lobbying for skilled labor that will
be cheaper than if these industries have to compete for such workers
among an exclusively American worker pool. The basic question is: why
should the government use public policy to keep the wages of American
workers lower than they would otherwise be or even to provide
opportunities for employers of such skilled labor to avoid hiring or to
replace American workers? The existing H-1B program is fraught with
charges of hiring and layoff abuses. These concerns are associated with
whether or not the program is designed to keep starting level wages low
and, also, whether it is also used as a means to discriminate against
older workers who, if retained, would command higher wages. It also
conjures up opportunities for abuse associated with the issue of
``indentured servitude.'' If the visa holder is intending to try to use
it as a means to ultimately legally immigrate to the United States
under the employment-based admission category, he often needs his
employer to certify that he is needed and that qualified American
workers are not available. There is no indication at the moment of any
shortage of these skilled workers and it would be highly preferable, if
there were to be one, that support be given by Congress to invest in
the American youth and American training institutions to meet such a
labor demand. There is no reason to expand this controversial program
at a time when the public's attention is focused on the issue of
illegal immigration.
And, of course, all of this assumes that the immigration bureaus in
the Department of Homeland Security can adequately administer these new
programs while keeping up with all of their other service and
enforcement duties. These bureaus are already the most over worked,
under staffed and, relative to the importance of their duties, the most
under funded agencies in the entire federal bureaucracy. It is simply
inconceivable that these bureaus could administer these added duties in
anything near a competent manner, even if they tried. It would be far
cheaper and far more effective to simply staff-up and fund-up the
enforcement divisions and tell them to do what the law currently
requires. The greatest beneficiaries of this simple mandate would be
the low-skilled American worker.
``REAL'' COMPREHENSIVE REFORM
The title of S.2611 is The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act but
the legislation itself is not ``comprehensive'' at all. The logical
starting point of any such effort would be the final report of the U.S.
Commission on Immigration Reform (CIR) that was issued in 1997. CIR was
concerned that the existing system pays virtually no attention to the
labor market in its design. For the vast majority of immigrants, their
human capital attributes play no role on their eligibility to
immigrate. Whatever human capital attributes most immigrants bring to
the United States is purely an accidental benefit to the nation. Far
too many bring far too little. The ``chain-migration'' where by the
admission of one person triggers an entitlement to the multiple entries
of a myriad of family members only compounds the pattern
Unfortunately, as the data on the foreign-born population shows,
many have low levels of educational attainment, are poorly skilled, and
are non-English speaking. To reduce this outcome, CIR proposed that the
level of legal immigration be reduced--not increased. To accomplish
this feat, it recommended the deletion of most of the extended family
admission categories of the current system that provide an eligibility
claim for entry if one member of the family immigrated to the United
States and naturalized. Specifically, CIR proposed that the categories
that admit adult unmarried children of U.S. citizens; adult married
children of permanent resident aliens; and the adult brothers and
sisters of U.S. citizens all be eliminated. Doing so would greatly
reduce the chain-migration features of the present system which is the
major reason that human resource attributes play such a small role in
determining the eligibility of most of those who are legally admitted.
It is also a principle reason why the accumulating family reunification
effects of S.2166 are so massive and so worrisome. They would entitle
the potential admission of so many persons with low human capital
endowments.
In this same vein, CIR also recommended the termination of the
diversity admission category. The diversity lottery pays scant
attention to any of the human capital attributes of who those it
renders eligible to enter (as long as the ``winners'' have high school
diplomas). Furthermore, CIR recommended that no unskilled workers be
admitted under the employment-based admission category. It recognized
that the nation already has a surplus of unskilled workers and
certainly did not need to admit any more. CIR was emphatic in
concluding that there should be no guest worker programs for unskilled
workers and only such programs for skilled workers under very
restrictive terms. No where in their findings did they recommend any
amnesty for illegal immigrants. Instead, they made numerous
recommendations to rid the labor market of their presence.
The findings of the Commission on Immigration Reform were the
product of six years of careful study that was backed up by numerous
public hearings, consultations with experts and research studies--
including the work done by a panel created by the National Research
Council. Comprehensive immigration reform should begin with CIR's
recommendations. There seems to be no awareness in the provisions of
S.2611 of any of CIR's work which leaves one wondering where did these
anti-American worker ideas come from?
CONCLUDING COMMENT
Until it can be demonstrated the United States is willing and
capable of enforcing its immigration laws, illegal immigration will
continue with all of its negative impacts on American workers and
corrosive effects on American society. Keeping illegal immigrants from
entering the country without inspection or violating the terms of a
legal visa and removing those in the county from the labor force is the
prerequisite for all serious immigration reform efforts. Accomplishing
this does not mean that amnesties should be given to those already here
as a way to make the problem disappear. Such political sophistry--as
``experience'' has shown--only encourages more to come and, as shown,
has enormous population and labor force consequences associated
with family reunification rights of those granted legalization. More
importantly, however, amnesty will do nothing to help the American
workers and American taxpayers who are adversely affected by the
presence the 12 million illegal immigrants currently here.
With Labor Day 2006 only a few days away and given the location of
this hearing, a paraphrase of the words of a famous Indianan--Knute
Rockne--seems most appropriate for a conclusion: ``Let's win one for
the American Worker.'' Make enforcement of our immigration laws a
reality. ``And stop there.''
TESTIMONY OF PAUL HARRINGTON, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR
LABOR MARKET STUDIES, NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
Mr. Harrington. Thank you, Chairman Sensenbrenner, it's a
privilege to come before the Committee today.
During the last 5 years, new immigrants have accounted for
an overwhelming share of all the employment growth in the
Nation--that has occurred in the Nation. Native-born adults and
established immigrants have been unable to capture much of the
new employment opportunities that have been created in the U.S.
since 2000. Total number of employed persons, age 16 and over,
in the United States between 2000 and 2005 rose by 4.835
million. A total of 4.134 million new immigrants were employed
by 2005. That means that 86 percent of the entire rise of
employment that occurred over the last 5 years in the United
States has been concentrated among people that came into the
United States from overseas between 2000 and 2005. So new
immigrants have accounted for all that employment growth.
Among men, new immigrants accounted for the entire rise in
employment, as the total number of employed men in the Nation
increased by 2.665 million, while number of employed new
immigrant males, immigrant males that came into the country
after 2000, rose by 2.76 million. For the first time since
World War II, there has been no gain in employment among
native-born men over a 5-year period.
Employment growth among new immigrants was heavily
concentrated among those under the age of 35. Approximately
two-thirds of the increase in the new immigrant employed
workforce, or about 2.7 million workers, took place among those
16 to 34.
Many of the young immigrants were very close substitutes to
native-born young workers--tend to be male, tend to have low
levels of educational attainment. By subtracting the number of
new immigrant workers in each group from the change in total
employment by age, we can estimate the change in the number of
employed native-born workers and established immigrants in each
group in the United States. Over the last 5 years, the total
number of young people employed in the country under the age of
35, who are native-born, fell by 4.2 million. There were 4.2
million fewer 16 to 34 year old native-born teens and young
adults employed in the United States in 2005 than there were in
2000. However, there are 2.7 million more 16 to 34 year old
foreign-born workers who came into the United States over the
last 5 years, who have been employed. Very powerful evidence,
in my mind, of substitution occurring in the job market.
When you ask yourself, well, is this a demographic factor,
have we simply got fewer young people, native-born young
people, residing in the United States. The answer is no. The
size of the teen and young adult population has expanded by
about 1.8 million over the last 5 years. There reason why
employment among young teens and young adults in the United
States has declined is because their employment rate has
fallen. Employment referring to the sheer people in the working
age population that have a job.
So back in 2000, the number of 16 to 19 year old males that
worked in the United States was about 45 percent, about 45
percent of all males 16 to 19 had a job. By 2005, that share
had fallen to 36 percent, a relative decline of one-fifth in 5
years, a historically low rate of teen employment in the United
States. For females, the rate feel, for 16 to 19 year olds, the
rate fell from 46.8 percent down to 39.5 percent, a 16 percent
relative decline in employment rates. Across the board, for 16
to 19, 20 to 24, 25 to 30--29 year olds--we see extraordinary
losses in employment rates.
So what we see happening here is the substitution of
foreign-born for native-born workers is very heavily
concentrated among the youngest people in the United States and
people with lower levels of educational attainment.
Diminished access to employment for teens and young adults
has important economic and social consequences. Working at an
early age is a developmental activity akin to developing basic
skills or occupational proficiencies in a school setting.
Building work experience helps enhance the productive abilities
of young adults along dimensions that are not typically
addressed in classrooms. Students who work more at younger ages
participate in the labor force at higher rates as adults, are
less likely to experience a bout of unemployment as adults and
if they do become unemployed, find work more quickly than those
with little or no work experience. Early work experience can
increase the earnings of individuals over their lifetime
between 25 and 30 percent when they become young adults. So the
power of early work experience is extraordinarily important.
Multi-varied analysis of employment status of teens and
young adults, we conducted using America's community surveys,
found that the employment probabilities of young workers were
substantially negatively affected by the level of new immigrant
worker inflows into a State, contrary to the findings of the
Pew study. These negative impacts tended to be larger for young
subgroups, for men than for women, for in-school youth than for
out-of-school youth and particularly for Black and Hispanic
males relative to their White counterparts. Employers were
substituting new immigrant workers for young native-born
workers. And the estimated size of these displacement effects
we found to be quite large.
Last topic I want to talk about has really got to do with
the hiring of new immigrants and how I believe that this has
really had some important long-term impacts on the structure of
labor markets and industrial relations, employer-employee
relations in the United States. Fewer new workers, especially
private sector wage and salary jobs are ending up on formal
payrolls of employers.
This particular economic recovery has been very weak. We
have not generated plenty of jobs in the United States over the
last 5 years. In fact, if you go back and look by historical
standards, in the first 4 years of recovery, the average rate
of new job creation is about 11.5 percent relative to previous
periods. During this recovery, the rate is only 2.5 percent. So
it has been a very sluggish employment growth. What's happened
is that over time, rather than creating regular wage and salary
jobs where we have Social Security, unemployment insurance and
other kinds of tax reporting occur, we're generating large
numbers of jobs off the books. And you see these in places like
Lowe's and Home Depot, in parks, in shopping lots, and they're
informal labor pools. Back in the great Depression, we used to
call them shapeups. And these are fundamentally undermining the
industrial relations system in the United States. They are not
a repeal of labor laws, they're a nullification of labor laws.
There are no wage and hour laws in those shapeups. There are no
occupational safety and health laws in those shapeups. As
Professor Briggs says, there is simply exploitation there.
Thanks so much for your attention.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Harrington follows:]
Prepared Statement of Paul E. Harrington
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you very much.
Members will be recognized under the 5-minute rule. That
applies to us as well as to the witnesses, and the Chair will
recognize himself first.
There have been a lot of questions asked why there is no
Conference Committee between the Senate and the House. The
House passed its bill in December and sent the papers to the
Senate. The Senate passed its bill in May and failed to send
the papers to the House. And the only way a Conference
Committee can be set up under the rules of the Congress is for
the second House to have the papers and to move to send the
bill to conference. So it can't be done in the House of
Representatives because the Senate, for reasons of their own,
didn't send the papers over.
Now one of the problems in the Senate Bill is that it
raises about $50 billion in new taxes. The Constitution is
quite plain in stating that tax legislation has to originate in
the House of Representatives and that means if the Senate tries
to pass a new tax in the Senate Bill, the House just sends it
back with a blue slip stating that the Constitution has been
violated. And that's what would happen if we did get the
papers, because the Senate was told before they passed their
bill that there was a Constitutional problem, and they kept the
taxes in anyhow.
Now I'm one of those that believes in market economics. The
free enterprise system is based on market economics and the
market works. And I think it is a given fact that illegal
immigrants will work for less money than citizens or legal
immigrants who have green cards, which are work authorizations.
I also believe very strongly that there's no job an American
won't do if they're paid enough. And I believe that the
testimony of all four of you, at least expressly or implicitly,
states that Americans will take those jobs if they're paid
enough.
So the issue of exploitation of employers of the illegal
immigrant workforce is one of the engines that drives the
magnet to bring illegal immigrants across the border, because
there are jobs available. The 1986 immigration reform bill made
it an offense for an employer to hire an illegal immigrant. But
the verification system, Mr. Parra, as you very correctly
state, has been based upon fraudulent documents, Social
Security numbers that are made up, those that are obtained
through identity theft, documents that you can buy very close
to any college campus, but it does say you're over 21 if you
buy them there, but otherwise, on street corners.
One of the things that the House-passed bill contains is a
computer verification of Social Security numbers. So if
somebody is using a made-up number or one that has another name
on it, the computer would flag that and tell the employer. Do
you support that system in the House Bill, Mr. Parra?
Mr. Parra. I'm not familiar with that in the House Bill, I
know about the Senate and what they're trying to get done and
what they're trying to accomplish. And that has a much more
comprehensive----
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Well, let me explain in this area,
because this is the key to dealing with the problem that we're
talking about at the hearing today. The House Bill requires the
verification of new employees within 2 years. And it's going to
take that amount of time to get the Social Security
Administration's database up to snuff to be able to do that.
The House Bill also requires the verification of existing
employees within 6 years. The Senate Bill doesn't do that.
Now the effect of not verifying existing employees is that
a current illegal immigrant employee would be able to keep
their job forever, but worse, in my opinion, that employee
would become an indentured servant because they would not be
able to get a new job because their bad Social Security number
would end up being caught when they applied for a new job. So
the Senate Bill ends up having all the illegal immigrants who
are working now essentially becoming indentured servants.
Do you think that's right?
Mr. Parra. Sounds like a pointed question to me.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Okay. Well, I just want to be clear.
Mr. Parra. I think that that wouldn't be right. But, you
know, I'm thinking that the Senate has either incorporated that
in its planning and that you need to work together with the
Senate.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Well, the reason the Senate did that is
that they've bought the Chamber of Commerce line on that,
because they're the ones that are making out from exploiting
the labor of illegal immigrants.
Now the House Bill, that I've been criticized for being too
harsh on, also increases the fine for the first offense of
hiring an illegal immigrant from $100 per illegal immigrant to
$5000 per illegal immigrant. Now $100, you know, is part of the
cost of doing business nowadays. If a fine is to be effective,
it's got to be high enough to act as a deterrent. Do you
support increasing the fines for people who hire illegal
immigrants?
Mr. Parra. Again, whether that--how does that compare with
the Senate? I really think that, Mr. Sensenbrenner, you need to
talk to the Senate and work together on this on a bipartisan
basis.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Oh, I understand.
Mr. Parra. --work together on this.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. My time has expired. The gentleman from
Michigan, Mr. Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm thrilled with this hearing. We find out that, first of
all, the Chamber of Commerce doesn't get it. I thought they
usually sided with my Republican friends, but that's not
happening.
And then I look at the title of the Bill, the Reid-Kennedy
Bill. Well, friends, Mr. Reid is not a cosponsor, Mr. Kennedy
is; but I was just handed a list by staff of the cosponsors of
this legislation that came out of the Senate. And outside of
Kennedy, there are five Republican Senators that support it--
Senator Brownback, Senator Graham, Senator Hagel, Senator
Martinez and Senator McCain. It started out the McCain-Kennedy
Bill and Mr. Reid is finally getting some credit that he
doesn't deserve in this case.
Now there's something else that's beginning to pique my
curiosity. There are 23 Republican Senators that apparently
don't understand what my Chairman has been laboring to get them
to get through their noggins for many, many months, including
the senior Senator from Indiana, Chairman Hostettler, Senator
Lugar, voted for this Bill. Thirty-six Republicans voted for
this Bill that is being a subject of examination.
Now I had the idea that you had, shouldn't we just get in
touch with Bill Frist, Dr. Frist, the Majority Leader in the
Senate, Republican, or Mitch McConnell, the Whip in the Senate,
from Tennessee, Republican? We've had all these hearings around
the country, why don't we just meet with them and say look,
fellows, this may come as news to you but when you pass a bill
in the House and then you pass a bill in the Senate and there
are differences, you have a conference. Now this was pretty
advanced legislative procedure--you have a conference and you
work it out.
Let me just ask the witnesses, would you have any objection
if that initiative were taken and that they would come together
and they would agree? Mr. Parra, what do you think?
Mr. Parra. I think it's an excellent idea and I think
that's what the people want, they want progress on this and
they want you to work together.
[Applause.]
Mr. Conyers. I said that there were 36, there were only--
there are not that many Republican Senators that supported it,
there was only 23.
Dr. Camarota, what is your view about us coming together in
that spirit?
Mr. Camarota. Let me answer it this way----
Mr. Conyers. Well, wait a minute, I don't want you to
answer it that way, I want you to say yes or no.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Conyers. I've only got 5 minutes.
Mr. Camarota. Is this like have I stopped beating my wife
yet?
Mr. Conyers. No.
Mr. Camarota. I think the answer--the bottom line is----
Mr. Conyers. I need to get an answer.
Mr. Camarota. --the number of people who think it's a good
idea to triple legal immigration and grant legal status to 12
million----
Mr. Conyers. Okay.
Mr. Camarota. --is very small outside of Washington.
Mr. Conyers. Stop. You didn't answer the question.
Dr. Briggs, let me try you. In the spirit of friendship and
bipartisanship, I come here to help get something done in the
Congress; what do you think, could we possibly get together and
begin to work these things out? I wouldn't mind all of you
witnesses coming to the conference, they're not secret
conferences, and help advise the Senators and the House Members
what they should do. What do you think?
Mr. Briggs. Well, ultimately of course it has to happen and
it will happen some day, that you all will come together. So I
mean it's----
Mr. Conyers. But I mean sooner rather than later. I'm not
talking about ultimately. I mean----
Mr. Briggs. I would like to see a bill passed this year.
I'd like to see it emphasize enforcement. I have very little
support for 2611 and that's in my testimony that I didn't get
to. But obviously you're going to come together 1 day and the
sooner the better.
Mr. Conyers. Right. Look, somebody is going to have to give
up something. And let me just ask Mr. Harrington and I will
give up my time, Mr. Chairman. What do you think, sir?
Mr. Harrington. Well, Congressman, I would simply say this,
I come from a State where the entire Congressional delegation
is Democratic and if you give me a chance and let me work them
over a little bit, then we can have the hearing after that.
Mr. Conyers. Well, that's cool, that's what we do all the
time, that's wonderful.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Hostettler.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Briggs, you have been very prominent in the labor
movement over many decades. I don't think we got an opportunity
to elaborate completely on your bona fides, but that would be a
fair assessment of your career, would it not?
Mr. Briggs. I hope so, yes.
Mr. Hostettler. Well, thank you. And you mentioned a quote
by Samuel Gompers and I'd like to elaborate on that because
while there was a lot of discussion about the Chamber of
Commerce and employers that utilize illegal aliens at much
lower cost, which is a very significant concern for all of us,
there is the other side of this, in that there have been
strange bedfellows made in this.
Mr. Briggs. Yes.
Mr. Hostettler. So let's look at the quotes that I have for
you. In 1981, the AFL-CIO declared ``Illegal workers take jobs
away from American workers and they undermine U.S. wages and
working conditions.'' Isn't that what you understand the
position was back during the Hesburgh Commission?
Mr. Briggs. Absolutely.
Mr. Hostettler. Okay. But they have evolved in their
opinion, and recently, 20 years later, John Sweeney, President
of the AFL-CIO, said this, ``The only thing that is just is a
general amnesty.'' And a general amnesty means what?
Mr. Briggs. Basically those illegal immigrants here will be
allowed to stay.
Mr. Hostettler. Every one of them, correct?
Mr. Briggs. Their status will be legal.
Mr. Hostettler. A general amnesty. So the Chairman--the
President of the American Federation of Labor, Congress--CIO,
AFL-CIO, Industrial Organizations, has said recently that we
need a general amnesty, is your understanding, even outside
this quote?
Mr. Briggs. Yes.
Mr. Hostettler. On November 16, 2004, more recently, he
said ``Undocumented workers already in this country and their
families should be provided permanent legal status through a
new legalization program.''
Next slide, please. AFL-CIO spokeswoman Kathy Roeter, I
believe is her name, summed it up, ``We are always looking for
opportunities for people to join unions. That's our number one
reason for working with immigrants.''
Carl F. Horowitz, Director of the Organized Labor
Accountability Project said ``A grant of lawful permanent
resident status to as many illegal aliens as possible would
mean more dues collections and benefit plan contributions.''
And then summing it up very appropriately I think is Mike
Garcia of the Service Employees Union who said, ``We will lead
the Nation in the fight for legalization.''
And so a cross--fairly well a cross section of labor,
including the very upper echelon of the AFL-CIO, is pushing
very hard for a general amnesty and a legalization of the
millions of illegal aliens here for, in their own words,
expanded dues collection and benefit plan contributions.
Remember, Dr. Briggs, the last time we got together, the
Democrat Minority had brought forward a representative from the
Cato Institute.
Mr. Briggs. Yes.
Mr. Hostettler. Do you remember that?
Mr. Briggs. I sure do, I'll never forget it.
Mr. Hostettler. And your testimony was very intriguing, I
have it before me here. But as we talk about strange bedfellows
in this debate and we talk about the Democrat Minority calling
Cato Institute at one similar hearing and today there's La Raza
testifying for them--fairly divergent opinions, are they not--
--
Mr. Briggs. Yes.
Mr. Hostettler. --on a wide variety of issues?
Mr. Briggs. Yes.
Mr. Hostettler. Then you have the Chamber of Commerce, who
opposed the House Bill, we have the AFL-CIO, who is calling for
a general amnesty, not just individuals that are covered by the
Senate Bill. In fact, the AFL-CIO is a little squeamish with
the Senate Bill, are they not?
Mr. Briggs. Yes, I think they oppose some of the guest
worker provisions.
Mr. Hostettler. Right, because there are actually
restrictions in the Senate Bill.
Mr. Briggs. Yes.
Mr. Hostettler. I won't say that too loudly because they're
not significant restrictions, but there are restrictions.
And so there are these strange bedfellows that would,
politically speaking, if you looked across the gamut, it would
be, we might say, a no-brainer, for legislation similar to the
Senate to be put into law. Would you not agree?
Mr. Briggs. Yes.
Mr. Hostettler. But there is this obstacle, is there not?
Mr. Briggs. Yes.
Mr. Hostettler. And that obstacle is the Republican
Majority in the House of Representatives at this point, is it
not?
Mr. Briggs. Well, not all the Democrats supported the
Senate Bill.
Mr. Hostettler. That's an excellent point, there's a lot of
Democrats up for reelection this time and there are a lot of
Democrats that did not support the bill.
But given the wide spectrum of support ideologically, from
the AFL-CIO to the Chamber of Commerce, from Cato to La Raza,
amnesty would almost be a given, if not for the obstruction of
the Majority in the House of Representatives who want
enforcement only at this time; is that not true?
Mr. Briggs. Well, I don't know if it's obstruction, I mean
a lot of these people, as I said in my written testimony, like
the AFL-CIO, it's the leadership that's pushing this. I don't
think the rank and file, I have a lot of contact with people in
unions, I teach in the School of Labor and Industrial Relations
and you see them all the time, and they don't support what the
leadership does on these issues.
Mr. Hostettler. And we will continue to be an obstruction.
Thank you.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Iowa, Mr. King.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank the
witnesses for their testimony here as well.
I'd direct my first question to Mr. Parra. In your
testimony, you list five Nobel Laureates, but in your testimony
you say that they contend that immigration is an economic plus.
But many times in your testimony, you don't define the
difference between legal and illegal immigration and it appears
that in this testimony, that's the case. Could you let us know
as to whether the five Nobel Laureates are speaking to illegal
immigration or speaking to legal immigration?
Mr. Parra. Yes, sure.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Please turn the mic on.
Mr. Parra. I think they're speaking about immigration,
because I think when you talk about illegal--in terms of how do
you define this, how do you record it even in the census, how
do you know, because a person that's undocumented or illegal
may not show up as being undocumented.
Mr. King. Then there----
Mr. Parra. Now on the question of legal immigration, I
think the same thing happens in other aspects of what's
discussed here. Oftentimes, legal immigrants don't have the
same rights as Americans.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Parra, my clock is ticking here.
But I would submit that this testimony on legal immigration is
not so relevant to our discussion here because we're talking
about illegal immigration. That's been the issue.
I would take us back over to Dr. Camarota. Do you have any
numbers as to the percentage of illegals that are actually
employed in the workforce, Dr. Camarota?
Mr. Camarota. Most people think it's about six to seven
million of the roughly 12 million. The rest are children or
people who take care of young children or people who just don't
work. And that's a typical sort of employment rate.
Mr. King. Between 50 and 60 percent perhaps then?
Mr. Camarota. Yeah, 50 to 60 percent hold a job, yes.
Mr. King. Okay, and then Mr. Parra's testimony says nine
million of 12 million illegals are working. Do you have any
scenario in the workforce that would indicate that 75 percent
of the illegals are employed?
Mr. Camarota. No, I think Pew came out--and I basically
came about 6.5 million, they say about seven of the 12, and I
think that's what most people think,
Mr. King. And Mr. Parra, I just ask this broader question,
I think it's a broader question that is seldom asked and even
more rarely answered, and that is, is there such a thing as too
much immigration? And you could answer that in both categories,
legal and illegal.
Mr. Parra. It depends on the supply and demand situation in
the country. It also depends on the globalization that's
occurring and also the growth and what job growth is happening
in the country. And those would be the things the Chamber of
Commerce looks at and other people look--economists look at in
terms of when they decide that yes, immigration is A-plus, that
it is not a loss.
Mr. King. Can there be too much immigration, can a Nation
take on more immigrants than they can possibly assimilate or
accommodate into an economy?
Mr. Parra. You have to look at your economy and the growing
economy.
Mr. King. Is that possible though?
Mr. Parra. Yes, if your economy needs that; yes.
Mr. King. The answer then is yes?
Mr. Parra. It depends on the economy.
Mr. King. But the answer is yes that a Nation can take on
too many immigrants to assimilate or----
Mr. Parra. The question ``too many,'' what is too many? How
much are too many?
Mr. King. That is the question to you, Mr. Parra.
Mr. Parra. Where is the cutoff?
Mr. King. And I would submit----
Mr. Parra. If you base it on politics, too many may be
three.
Mr. King. I'll direct this question then back Dr. Briggs,
please.
Mr. Briggs. Of course, it's interesting in economics, you
have to be very careful, when economists talk about economic
benefit. Most of the economic benefits that come from
immigration; in fact all of them, are wage suppression. Wages
are driven down and usually that's what's seen as a benefit.
Now that's a benefit sometimes when seen from an economist's
standpoint; it's not a benefit when you look at it for workers,
public policy is there designed to drive down the wages of
working people. Sometimes when people talk about the economic
benefits, that's generally the benefit that they're driving at,
but it's certainly--that's why we have immigration laws, so you
can't take on too many people and immigration was found
originally to be a threat to the public policy in the United
States, that's why we started regulating it. You don't want to
have open borders and let the market simply determine it
independently.
Mr. King. Thank you. Dr. Harrington.
Mr. Harrington. Sir, the answer is particularly--I think
there's two ways to think about this. One, what is the basic
business cycle condition, you know, in the economy. In the last
5 years, our job generation capacity has been quite poor,
that's why we've seen the substitution of foreign-born for
native-born workers in recent times.
I think the second thing is that as Steve Camarota pointed
out in his earlier paper, this tremendous occupational mismatch
out there where we've flooded the bottom of the labor market
and it has pushed down wages and caused exploitation of
workers.
So to me, the evidence is overwhelming that, yes,
absolutely, we have by far too big an inflow.
Mr. King. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr.
Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is a first rate panel of witnesses. I'm very proud of
all of you. Many of you have testified on this subject before
in the Congress.
What do you think is going to happen to these hearings now
that we've already passed a bill, the Senate has already passed
a bill. We're conducting an extraordinary procedure which I
have never been a part of before. What do you think is going to
happen with these hearings? Because we've had one very
important suggestion made, that we contact the Majority Leader
and the Whip, the Republican leaders of the Senate, and say
please, gentlemen, when you pass a bill in one house and they
pass it in the other body, you go to a conference, so couldn't
we get to a conference. What do you think, Dr. Briggs? You've
got as much seniority as anybody around.
Mr. Briggs. Well, as I say, I think this issue is
desperately important. In my testimony I say it's an
imperative. I think it is the domestic issue. The Iraq War may
be an international issue of the Nation, but this is the
domestic issue. And I deeply feel it has got to be addressed.
Yes, I would like to see action, I'd like to see--but I don't
want to necessarily see anything happen. What I tried to say in
my testimony is I wish that Congress would start with the
Jordan Commission findings, which I think is the best study
ever done of immigration, the most impartial, and may I point
out that five members of the Jordan Commission were Democrats
and four were Republicans, and they said the level of
immigration was too high in 1997, it needed to be cut back by
35 percent. No amnesty, no guest worker programs.
Mr. Conyers. But can't we just start a conference and
continue these discussions? I mean you've been a witness to
conferences before, this is not brain surgery or anything
complex. I mean you've got to move to the next step.
We could hold these hearings and fill up the libraries with
hearings. Here we are in this great State in this small city.
Just think of how many other places we could go and have some
really great hearings on this. But none of it, I don't think,
is going to amount to much until we get to the conference. And
I know you hope that we get there and do something
constructive.
Now let me ask one question here that has been bothering me
and I want to get it in right away. How do we get these 11
million illegals to leave? What's the best plan? How are we
going to round them up, because some people have talked about
attrition, well that would be 50 years, I don't know. We can't
wait for attrition to kick in. But what about self-deportation?
What is the likelihood of these millions of folks rumbling
around underground economy, what's the likelihood of them
coming forward and say okay, you got me. You passed the House
Bill and it says that we've got to report to be deported, we
also were made felons in the process. What do you think the
likelihood is of 11 million people coming out of the shadows to
get kicked out and sent back to wherever they came from?
Mr. Briggs. Well, the testimony--the purpose is and what
the law is to get them out of the work site and if you get them
out of the work site, that is the focus. And then----
Mr. Conyers. Okay, so we're not going--we're going to leave
them here?
Mr. Briggs. No, no. Well, I'm not saying people----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Briggs. Look, that's the law right now. The law is they
don't work. If people want to stand on the street corners and
look at Americans----
Mr. Conyers. Are you familiar with the fact that the House
Bill suggests that they don't stick around after they come off
their job, that they get back to the borders or further. I've
got a problem with that.
Let me try this with you, Mr. Parra. What's the process
that you think might be helpful? Do you think that they will
self-deport?
Mr. Parra. No, I don't think people will self-deport.
Mr. Conyers. Do you think anybody would self-deport?
Mr. Parra. I don't think anybody would self-deport.
Mr. Conyers. Out of all 11 million, wouldn't a few hundred
come forward and confess, plead for mercy? You don't think so?
Mr. Parra. No.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Hostettler.
[Applause.]
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Camarota, can you give us an idea of how many illegal
aliens self-deport every year?
Mr. Camarota. Yeah, it looks like about 150,000 people go
home on their own each year and about 50,000 illegal aliens are
deported each year, so about 200 right now.
Mr. Hostettler. So three times as many self-deport as are
deported forcibly?
Mr. Camarota. Yes, that's according to INS estimates, yes.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you. And so self-deportation happens
by the hundreds of thousands, given the fact that there are
millions of jobs in America that some suggest American won't
do.
So if we take the motivation away from these individuals by
aggressively enforcing the immigration laws, the Center for
Immigration Studies has suggested that--in a study recently,
that attrition, that leaving and going to the job that they had
in the place that they left--because we actually heard
testimony in San Diego that, according to one professor that's
done decades of research in this, that in fact the unemployment
rate of individuals coming into the United States to get a job
is actually between four and 5 percent over the decades of
studies that he's done. The unemployment rate in those
individuals before they come to America for a job is better
than the unemployment rate in the United States. Is that----
Mr. Camarota. Right. There's this mistaken notion that
everyone is fleeing desperation.
Mr. Hostettler. Yeah.
Mr. Camarota. But all the research shows most people who
come actually already had a job, they just wanted higher wages,
which is perfectly understandable. But the point about
attrition through enforcement is that people do have a life to
return to, that is, the job they used to have.
Mr. Hostettler. Not only the job, but in many cases their
families.
Mr. Camarota. Are often still there.
Mr. Hostettler. So if they don't have a job in America
because we're aggressively enforcing the law and they left a
job in their native country, it's highly likely that they will
in fact self-deport to be reunified with their family and to
reacquire a job in the economy that they left.
Mr. Camarota. It's a perfectly reasonable assumption, sure.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you.
Let me ask you, Dr. Camarota, what will happen to illegal
immigration levels if we pass a second round of amnesty similar
to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986?
Mr. Camarota. Well, I mean, the available evidence suggests
that we'll just supercharge illegal immigration. See, there's a
mistake about how people think about immigration, it's driven
largely by networks of family and friends. The larger legalized
population in the United States, this creates even greater
contact and a greater draw back in the home community. Most
people don't just wake up in the morning and say I think I'd
like to go to America. Typically they have a friend, a brother,
a sister, a cousin who says I can get you a job, I know how to
get an apartment. If you legalize all the illegal aliens here,
not only will you convey to everyone that America just doesn't
take its laws seriously, but also you will create a whole new
set of networks that would then draw millions more into the
United States. And that's exactly what happened last time.
Legal immigration is double what it used to be and the number
of illegal aliens in the United States is probably close to
triple what it was when we had our last amnesty, because of
this phenomenon.
Mr. Hostettler. And it's not just from individuals from
Mexico or Central or South America, the number of other than
Mexicans, OTMs, that are coming across the border is
accelerating substantially, is it not, over the last few years?
Mr. Camarota. Yes. Obviously the largest share come from
Latin America, but illegal immigration--you know, we have
hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens from Asia, the Middle
East and so forth, yes.
Mr. Hostettler. And so if the word goes out that a second
round of amnesty has been delivered, won't that fuel not only
illegal immigration into our country from people indigenous to
south of the border, but it will send a message to the rest of
the world that if you come here from eastern Europe, from Asia,
from fill-in-the-blank, that if you make it to Mexico, then you
can make it into America and ultimately be rewarded with a path
to citizenship and at least a good job.
Mr. Camarota. Yes, because you want to get in line for the
next amnesty, of course.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you very much.
Dr. Harrington, I want you to once again stipulate--
reiterate the points you made with regard to net new jobs
created over the last 5 years for native-born men.
Mr. Harrington. Yeah, for native-born men over the last 5
years, all the--there has been no employment increase among
native-born men between 2000 and 2005. The number of native-
born men in 2005 that have a job has actually declined relative
to its figure in 2000. That all the gains we had in male
employment were among recent immigrants, that is, recent
immigrant males that came into the United States after 2000.
Mr. Hostettler. And that's historic.
Mr. Harrington. That's historic----
Mr. Hostettler. That's unprecedented?
Mr. Harrington. This is unprecedented in the history of
American labor markets.
Mr. Hostettler. Thank you very much. I yield back the
balance of my time.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The gentleman from Iowa, Mr. King.
[Applause.]
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'll direct my first question to Dr. Harrington. Do you
have any numbers, Dr. Harrington, on percentage of dropout
rates for American students and the trend of that over the last
say couple of decades?
Mr. Harrington. Yes, sir, we did some work for a group
called the Business Round Table in Washington, D.C. where we
estimated the overall size of the dropout population in the
United States and we estimated that the status dropout rate for
people age 16 to 21 in the U.S. is about 30 percent, ranged
somewhere between 25 and 30 percent. The Manhattan Institute in
New York City, using an entirely different methodology, also
estimated a dropout rate in the United States of 25 to 30
percent.
Mr. King. I saw that on the news one morning a couple of
months ago and it was an astonishingly high rate and when I
reflect back on what that means about those American students
that are dropouts from high school and what their opportunities
are if the low skill jobs are being swallowed up exclusively or
statistically at least exclusively, by the influx of uneducated
illegals.
Another question that I would direct, I think to you, Dr.
Harrington, is do you have an opinion on what's essential work?
And I think of it in these terms, if wages are being driven
down and I can think in terms of a constituent I have that has
a 24-row planter and he's as technical as you can be and he
markets on the internet, he's an ag producer and he bought land
in Brazil and he has 96 one-row cultivators down there, 96
people with a hoe, that he pays $3.00 to $4.00 a day. I've
watched him use technology in Iowa, and cheap labor parks his
equipment in Brazil. This phenomenon of non-essential work,
when you have people that will work for say $3.00 to $5.00 an
hour, to pick a number, is there more work that gets done
that's hired that wouldn't be done otherwise, that people would
either do themselves or let go? And how much of this percentage
of work that's being done by illegals in this country is
essential versus some non-essential work?
Mr. Harrington. Well, I think the evidence is pretty clear
on this, that at the very bottom of the labor market, the
contribution to output and GDP is quite low because the wage
rates are low. So by definition, it's just not a very
productive job. And it means a couple of things, it means that
firms are slower to engage in technological innovation because
they substitute low wage labor for more sophisticated
technologies. That may, in the long run, actually inhibit
productivity in the U.S.
But the second thing that happens is we're just seeing a
lot of growth in off-the-books jobs, they're not really jobs. I
was speaking to a construction worker and he said to me there's
plenty of work out there, but not many jobs. And that means
we're creating this whole informal, illegal sector of the
economy that's really undermining work. And I would consider
all that not only inessential, I would consider that illegal
and immoral.
Mr. King. I just paint a scenario here in a broader
picture, what's a country to do? I firmly believe that we
should establish an immigration policy designed to enhance the
economic, the social and the cultural well-being of the United
States of America. And that should be the mission for every
country, for that matter and it has to be----
[Applause.]
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The Chair has to remind the audience
again about the rules about expressing support or opposition to
what's said. Please follow them.
The gentleman from Iowa.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd ask you to look at this Nation as an overall economic
vehicle that we have as essentially a huge lifeboat with about
300 million people in it. And you need people to row and people
to bail and people to chart the course and somebody to cook the
means, folks out there that essentially put their hands to the
task of helping to drive this economic engine. And I look also
across this 300 million people and out of them, we have 9.3
million between the ages of 16 and 19 who are simply not in the
workforce, there are another 4.3 or so million on welfare,
there are another--oh, let's see, there's a number between 65
and 70, there are about 4.5 million not in the workforce, kind
of our vigorous senior citizen age there. When you add it all
up including retired, you have 77.5 million non-working
Americans. If you take the retirees out of there and pick that
age, that vital age between 20 and 65, you're over 60 million
non-working Americans. Now what kind of a Nation, if we were
rowing this lifeboat along and we decided we needed some more
people at the oars, and that's a questionable issue listening
to this testimony this morning, but we pull across another
continent somewhere and say let's load some more oarsmen on
here because we need them versus take some people out of
steerage, out of those 77.5 million that are not contributing
to this economy and put them to the oars, put them to bailing,
what's that mean to the overall picture of our economy when
you're bringing on more people when you've got 77.5 million
people not working in America? And I direct that to Dr.
Camarota, please.
Mr. Camarota. Right, and the trends look terrible. The
share of less educated workers holding a job has declined
dramatically in recent years. If all jobs went to the
immigrants, it wouldn't necessarily be all bad news if the
native pool was shrinking. It's actually growing and yet what's
happening is these people are leaving the labor force entirely.
So to stay with your analogy, now they're becoming increasingly
dead weight. And that can't be good to have a lot of young men
in particular standing around on street corners idle.
Mr. King. Dr. Briggs, quickly, please.
Mr. Briggs. Well, I would certainly agree with that, but
please also remember that all these entry level jobs, almost
all of us at some time work in those entry level jobs, I
certainly did. And these entry level jobs are not jobs that are
just for low educated persons. Many people, teenagers, young
people, that's how you begin. I set pins in a bowling alley,
they don't do that any more, thank God. But that was how you
start, that starts you on the trail of work and you've got to
have access to so-called low income jobs, whether you're rich
or poor. Many people work in this labor market, it's not just
the low income people who are perpetually there. They are very
important and I'm deeply concerned with, but a lot of people
get their entry level work experience in these low entry level
jobs and that's the way they gradually escalate themselves up
to a worker, a full time worker.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The Chair will recognize himself now to wrap up the
hearing.
Mr. Conyers and I were in the Congress in 1986 when the
Simpson-Mazzoli Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed.
And I voted against it because I didn't think it would work.
And I think in 20 years experience, a no vote was the correct
one.
The linchpins of the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill were to give
amnesty to the illegal immigrants who were in the country at
that time and then to prevent more illegal immigration by
setting up the employer sanction system.
Well, the amnesty was hugely successful and a lot of it was
based upon fraudulent documents, according to then Attorney
General Edwin Meese. And employer sanctions were never
enforced.
And I think what this hearing has done today is to
emphasize that there is going to be no immigration reform bill
passed that will be effective, whether it's the Senate Bill or
the House Bill, unless employer sanctions are enforced. And
that means having a verifiable system to flush out the bad
documents. It also means increasing the fines on those
employers who do hire illegal immigrants, so that the fines are
high enough to act as a deterrent. And with the House Bill and
the $5000 apiece fine that I've referred to earlier, all you
need to do is to have a couple of raids of employers who have
500 or more illegal immigrants. That's a $12.5 million fine and
that will make front page news in every newspaper in the
country and start acting as a deterrent to people doing that in
the future.
I hear an awful lot about why the bill hasn't gone to
conference. That's the Senate's fault, it's not our fault. And
I said that earlier as well. The Senate also adopted a 124-page
amendment in the middle of the night right before they passed
the bill. And I'm one who believes that the best disinfectant
is sunlight and there's not a heck of a lot of sunlight in
Washington, D.C. and there's a lot more sunlight in Evansville
and in Dubuque and in El Paso and in San Diego than there is in
Washington, D.C. And frankly, that's why we're having these
hearings here.
The testimony that we've heard today has not been given in
the Senate or the House, about the devastating impact of
illegal immigration on employment, particularly on employment
of low skilled people who are just entering the labor force.
The illegal immigrants are taking their jobs away. And we
really can't complaint about youth crime and drugs and all of
the other illegal and bad social activities unless we provide
jobs for the kids who are getting out of our schools, hopefully
with a diploma, but including those that are not.
And I'm one who believes that it's better to pass no bill
than a bad bill. The Senate Bill, in this respect, which I
think is the linchpin of any effective immigration reform law,
is sorely lacking because it doesn't deal with the issue of the
bad actors who are employing illegal immigrants, largely off
the books and paying them substandard wages and in many cases
exploiting them.
I would hope that that's something that people of good
will, whether they're for or against either of our bills, will
agree on. And I think if we don't deal with this issue, we're
going to end up striking out and having another problem that
will be even worse that the country will have to face.
And I'm opposed to amnesty. I think amnesty is wrong
because it awards somebody with citizenship eventually who has
broken our law, in some cases to the detriment of those
potential immigrants who wish to comply with our law, but we've
had seven amnesties since 1986. If amnesty was the answer,
those seven amnesties would have ended up solving the problem
and we wouldn't be here today and I'd be on my boat in the lake
west of Milwaukee in Wisconsin rather than working here in
Evansville, Indiana.
But I'm also deeply concerned about the fact that the
Senate Bill does goofy things like requiring people in private
sector employment to pay amnestied illegal immigrants more than
native workers and also the business of retroactive Social
Security benefits of illegal benefits who used fake Social
Security numbers to get jobs, which will be an 80 to 100
billion dollar hit on the Social Security trust fund that I
think all of us realize is not all that healthy.
So I'd like to thank our witnesses today. I'd like to thank
all of you for coming to listen to this hearing as well as my
colleagues from near and far who have come to participate. I've
learned a lot at this hearing, I hope that all of you, whether
you're on this side of the dais or the other side of the dais,
have also learned a lot.
So thank you again for participating in a very constructive
hearing.
Mr. Conyers. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Yes.
Mr. Conyers. Could I ask unanimous consent that the
American Immigration Lawyers Association letter be included in
the record.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Without objection. And without
objection, the Committee stands adjourned.
[The material referred to is published in the Appendix.]
[Whereupon, at 11:31 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Letter from the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc., submitted by
the Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Wisconsin, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
Letter from the American Immigration Lawyers Association, submitted by
the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
Prepared Statement of the Kentucky Coalition for Comprehensive
Immigration Reform and the Central Kentucky Council for Peace and
Justice
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
<all>