Undocumented Workers: Not The Only Lawbreakers Hurting The Economy Argumentative Essay

A.J. Delgado (2015) of the Miami Herald recently published an editorial lamenting Miami’s unemployment rate, one of the highest in the nation, and placing the blame largely on the shoulders of the illegal immigrants that come to Miami in droves to seek work as un- or semi-skilled laborers, proclaiming that amnesty for undocumented workers and an expansion of the skilled worker visa program will spell disaster for Florida’s unemployed.
With Delgado providing an unemployment rate of 6.7%, in comparison to a national average of 5.6%, it is undeniable that Miami’s unemployed are struggling even more than the average unemployed American who worries about finding enough work to make ends meet (2015). Delgado asserts that Miami’s unemployment rate correlates to its sizable immigrant population, second only to New York City, which also boasts a high unemployment rate (2015). Delgado acknowledges that this may not constitute irrefutable evidence that immigrants are driving the unemployment rate, but that the correlation warrants serious consideration (2015).
Despite his conviction, Delgado’s argument is supported by nothing more than a few brief statistics on unemployment in Miami and the assertion that the recent drop in unemployment reported by the US Bureau of Labor is due solely to a shift in which unemployed Americans are included or discounted in the tally (2015). Delgado even goes as far as to claim that all net gains in unemployment between 2007 and February 2015 benefited only legal and illegal immigrants, but fails to provide empirical evidence (2015). While he raises a valid point that many Americans who are chronically unemployed and exhausted from long, fruitless job searches have given up looking for full-time work or looking for work at all, are no longer counted by the government as unemployed, this fact is insufficient in justifying Delgado’s insistence that illegal immigrants are the ones to blame, and the only ones benefiting (2015).
While an influx of illegal immigrants is commonly thought to flood the market with cheap labor and lead to a decrease in available un- and semi-skilled labor jobs, it is important to note that neither the illegal immigrant nor the chronically unemployed American seems to possess much control over who is awarded what job, at what pay, under what circumstances, and at what level of legality. There is another aspect to the illegal immigration and jobs debate that is easily forgotten and lost beneath the rhetoric and, often, vitriol, coming from both sides of the aisle. Those debating immigration, from our lawmakers and politicians to our fellow citizens from varying walks of life, are all too quick to forget that the one entity involved in the immigration debate that can prevent illegal immigrants from taking jobs that hard-working Americans need is the employers.
While politicians and citizens alike seek to place blame on failed immigration policies past and present, ‘lawless’ immigrants who they perceive as failing to demonstrate respect for US laws, or increasing crime in immigrants’ home countries, we must remember to constantly and loudly call out the elephant in the room - if employers adhered to lawful hiring practices that ensured that all employees possessed legal status to work in the US, illegal immigrants would have much more difficulty ‘stealing jobs’ from hardworking Americans.
One can certainly understand the appeal of hiring illegal immigrants as employees. Illegal immigrants are functionally exempt from the protections afforded to native or legal immigrants under existing labor laws. An employer faces no consequences for failing to pay minimum wage, limiting the workday to the legal length dictated within a given field, providing benefits to full-time employees, or adhering to any other law that protects employees from exploitation, discrimination, and wrongful termination, let alone protect them from exposure to harmful substances or dangerous working environments. Unfortunately, because there are no consequences for this exploitation, many employers engage in it freely and without repercussion. This exploitation is criminal wrongdoing, plain and simple.
Hiring illegal immigrants is considered a win for many employers, who operate with relatively little oversight from local or federal government. While immigration raids occasionally do take place, such as the raid on Michael Bianco Inc. that arrested 361 undocumented workers as well as the owner and all of upper management (Maguire, 2007), most employers will never be one of the unlucky few to be raided. In cities with large numbers of illegal immigrants, there are simply not enough resources within the local government or law enforcement agencies to closely monitor the hundreds of thousands of large and small businesses that may or may not be hiring undocumented immigrants under the table.
Even more concerning than the lack of protection afforded to illegal immigrants is the risk of retribution from employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, and threaten punitive action such as calling immigration or withholding wages when undocumented employees attempt to advocate for themselves and reduce, avoid, or combat labor exploitation, explains Hyunhye Cho (2013) of San Jose Mercury news. Not only are employers availing themselves of the cheap labor and nonexistent employer healthcare costs that illegal immigrants provide, but some are exploiting them further and fostering an even deeper fear of advocating or reporting offenders to the Labor Bureau amongst a population already living in fear of loss of work or deportation. According to Hyunhye Cho, “in at least half of [union] campaigns involving majority undocumented workforces, employers made threats of calling in immigration” (2013).
The horrific labor exploitation that is permitted to continue in the US is exacerbated by something that cannot be measured numerically - the insidious collective belief that, once an individual crosses the border of their homeland into ‘ours’ without the necessary documentation, that they cease to have rights. Froetch, in her review of the book Exploited: Migrant Labor in the New Global Economy, states that the resentment of illegal immigrants translates to such criminal offenses by employers as “confiscation of passport, denial of food or breaks, sexual harassment or threats” (2007). If one views an illegal immigrant as a malicious criminal whose only intention is to avail themselves of our jobs and our public benefits, it is easier to ignore or dismiss the exploitation of undocumented workers.
Many who stand against comprehensive immigration reform that grants amnesty to undocumented un- or semi-skilled workers as well as work permits see immigrants solely as job thieves, rather than potential job creators. The Immigration Policy Center provides data regarding entrepreneurship among legal immigrants and their impact on the local and state economy, and that data speaks far louder than any of the anxious and unsubstantiated arguments put forth by Delgado.
Consider, for example, that according to the Immigration Policy Center, in the four year periods between 2006 and 2010, immigrants opened 286,144 new businesses (2013). Data from 2010 also busts the myth that immigrants do nothing more than ‘steal’ jobs - 29.7% of business owners in Florida were not born on US soil or as US citizens (Immigration Policy Center, 2013). In 2010, those businesses generated 23.8% of all the state’s income (Immigration Policy Center, 2013). While one might guess argue most of these business are likely the small mom-and-pop establishments bodegas, laundromats, and ethnic cuisine restaurants commonly associated with immigrant entrepreneurs, which are often staffed largely by the entrepreneur, family members, and fellow immigrants, the Immigration Policy Center also clarifies that Miami is home to 7 of the 10 largest, most successful Latino-owned business nationwide (2013). Surely these businesses are employing not just undocumented or legal immigrants, but the hardworking Americans feeling lost in the fray as well.
While the topic of how much amnesty for immigrants will cost the US in expanded health, education, and welfare services, many standing staunchly on the anti-immigration side of the divide fail to mention in the same breath the increase in revenue that will result from previously undocumented and new documented immigrants paying income taxes to the IRS. On the topic of work visas, which Delgado seems confident are nothing more than President Obama’s nod to Big Business and fellow democrats, the Immigration Policy Center (2013) asserts that work visas granted to highly skilled immigrants in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics as well as higher education and energy, contribute to job creation in Florida’s economy and that an increase in individuals accepted through the high-skilled visa program would actually create roughly 18,100 jobs by 2020.
Despite this, there does appear to be some valid cause for concern about the cost of granting amnesty to illegal immigrants. Rector and Richwine (2013) report that, according to their study conducted with the Heritage Foundation, if amnesty is granted to current adult illegal immigrants, due to low educational level and poor job prospects, those granted amnesty at this time will actually cost the nation $592,000 more in lifetime benefits than the nation would receive via the income tax (p. vii). In another piece, Leo Anchodo presents contrasting evidence that asserts that not only do immigrant workers constitute a larger share of the workforce than the actual population of the US, at 12.4% and 11.5%, respectively, but that they also actually generate $145 billion dollars net in income taxes (2010).
These numbers, while alarming and a genuine cause for concern for today’s overburdened taxpayers, do fail to speak to the broader, long-term potential benefit of amnesty. While first generation immigrants often struggle financially and receive government benefits , one can assume that upward socioeconomic mobility is a real possibility for second and third generation children of immigrants who will benefit from significantly improved access to education, quality of education, and thus improved employment opportunities.
While the sea of data available from both sides of the immigration debate can be contradictory and confusing, it is critical that proponents of immigration reform and amnesty continue ensuring that the crime undocumented workers commit by crossing the border, and the economic ramifications of their crime, is not condemned without also acknowledging and condemning the criminal exploitation of undocumented workers. To do so merely reinforces the widespread belief that because illegal immigrants and undocumented workers have committed the crime of crossing the border unlawfully, that they have no rights, no potential to become contributing members of society, and bring no economic benefit to our economy.
Amnesty for undocumented workers and illegal immigrants is one of the easier interventions to prevent exploitation of undocumented un- and semi-skilled laborers by employers, and promote upward socioeconomic mobility. Wherever US immigration policy heads next, one thing is certain: if we fail to expect all parties to act in a lawful manner, the burden of guilt, blame will continue to rest on the burdened, weak and weary shoulders of America’s long-exploited undocumented workers.

References

Achondo, L. (2010). Top 10 Myths About Immigration. Retrieved from
http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/high-school/top-10-myths-about-immigration
Delgado, A.J. (2015, February 10). Immigrants get work permits, Americans get worked up.
Miami Herald. Retrieved from http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article9700994.html
Froetschel, S. (2008). Exploited: Migrant Labor in the New Global Economy [Review of the
book Exploited: Migrant Labor in the New Global Economy]. Yale Global Online. Retrieved from http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/about/exploited.jsp
Hyunhye Cho, E. (2013, April 24). Exploiting immigrants: Labor laws need to protect
undocumented workers, too. San Jose Mercury Tribune. Retrieved from http://
www.mercurynews.com/ci_23091307/exploiting-immigrants-labor-laws-need-protect-undocumented-workers?source=infinite
Immigration Policy Center. (2013) Florida: Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Innovation, and
Welcoming Initiatives in the Sunshine State. American Immigration Council. Retrieved from http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/docs/florida_entrepreneurship_0.pdf
Maguire, K. (2007, March 28). Factory Struggles After Immigration Raid. The Washington Post.
Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/28/AR2007032801392_pf.html