How are undocumented workers helpful to the US?

The obvious answer are those field workers. Most Americans would not perform such work. It is hard work, and there is no easy-to-get-to restroom.
Another I see at work. When we have a telephone cable that has been damaged underground, we often need to dig up the ground around the problem. These guys come in from a contractor, and they really hustle. They work so hard and so fast it makes ME tired to watch them.

Most are hard-working and want a better life for their families.

They are grateful to this country.

They are positively disposed toward America.

It’s a double edge sword.
First of all, I don’t believe we have an illegal immigrant problem, we have an illegal employer problem. Like marina said, most immigrants just want a decent life for their families. The employers on the other hand, want more profit so they hire cheaper labor.

Supply and demand says that If a business has a product that is not selling, they typically lower the price. Shouldn’t we use the same standard with labor? If an employer can not find someone to do the job, for the salary that is being offered, they should raise the salary being offered, not find an undocumented worker to do the job.

Sure they work hard, but so do the kids in china. It doesn’t mean that letting them do the cheap, dirty work is the right thing to do.
And as far as high food prices go, have you seen the prices lately? They have been rising steadily for quite some time. Undocumented workers and all. The cause is mostly because we keep printing a shit load of money, devaluing our dollar, which makes everything cost more, and has nothing to do with undocumented workers.

By your logic on this subject, shouldnt we just outsource everything to Mexico or China and just stop making everything here so that we can save a few bucks?

I’m not going to list all the reasons, but one is that they pay social security that they will never collect on. They also pay taxes and rarely file a tax return to get their refund. (their income is usually so low that they would be entitled to a refund.) it’s like making a donation to our budget deficit.

The major thing is that the American population is declining at too rapid a rate. If it were not for immigration, there wouldn’t be enough people to do the jobs, even in this economy. This is especially true of the jobs we don’t like to do—the shitty labor and service jobs.

In not too long, the baby boomers—the largest population boom in US history, will be hitting the assisted living centers and nursing homes and whatnot. We are going to need care and it won’t be here. Except for the upper middle class, who might be able to afford ridiculous prices for decent care,

The solution to undocumented aliens is to reduce the barriers to documentation, not to try to keep people out. They aren’t coming any more now that there are no jobs. That could be the other solution—remain in recession.

It is counter-intuitive, but we want immigration. It actually creates more jobs. When we have cheaper stuff, we can focus on more consumption which drives the economy. It doesn’t have to be stuff stuff, either. It can be services. It can be green stuff. It can be knowledge. The less work we have to do to support our basic needs, the more we can do things to enjoy ourselves and lift our spirits and become more self-actualized. In fact, self-actualization can be something everyone does, not just upper middle class people.

But no, we want to keep immigrants out, and keep the shit jobs that no one wants to do here, and in the process, we keep the whole economy down and there are fewer jobs and more poverty. Wealth and the economy grow by freeing people, not restricting them. We need to welcome immigrants because a rising tide raises all boats. We don’t want to tie up our boats when the tide is low. They’ll be swamped when it rises.

So the advantage of undocumented immigrants is that they fuel the economy. They work hard. They pay taxes. They don’t take benefits they are entitled to… or they didn’t when they were entitled to them.

I my previous job, I worked on immigration policy. I did a study on the impact of Medicaid access for immigrants in New York City. At this time the state had eliminated access for legal immigrants. What happened? Health care costs went up! Uncompensated care hit the hospitals a lot harder. It’s counter-intuitive (yet again) but if you pay for health services in a clinic up front, you pay less. If you deny people service, you’ll see them in the ER a few months down the road, and it’ll cost you twenty times as much to care for them. And this isn’t counting the lost productivity.

The economy doesn’t’ work the way a lot of people think. Common sense, with respect to the economy, is nonsense. But people ignore the data and the science and go with their guts. They go with a short term understanding of life. The rest of us get screwed because of that. Oh well. I’m doing ok as it is. But if we freed up the economy, I’d probably we worth twice what I’m worth today. Freeing up the economy means letting people work, not letting corporations run rampant over the environment. Although, on this issue, corporations are probably on the right side, on average.

John Pennington has no comment.

I always get rather annoyed at the “Americans won’t do those jobs” rationalization.

I drive by street corners every single day with Americans standing there with “Laid off, 2 kids to feed, will work for food..” signs.

Bottom line is that those “undocumented workers” are taking jobs that Americans can and should be doing and are often sending many of the US dollars they make doing it back to their country of origin.

Yes, “undocumented workers” do those bottom of the barrel jobs and they work their asses off doing them. Their work ethic is something to respect and is not in question. However, a reason you don’t see Americans doing those jobs has little to do with willingness. The way our current tax/regulatory structure works the people hiring would have to pay things like social security, withhold income tax, comply with OSHA regulations, provide worker’s comp, etc. if they hire an American. It’s just plain cheaper to hire the “undocumented” to avoid having Uncle Sugar make it economically unfeasible to give somebody a job.

We allow over a million LEGAL immigrants into the US every year. That is more than the rest of the world combined. In addition we allow anyone born here to be a citizen (who does that?). There are more than 5 million ‘Anchor Babies’ that became citizens since 2002. We have given up over 12 million ‘Skilled Jobs’ to illegal immigrants. Picking lettuce is not a skilled job. And we have an estimated 23 million Illegal Immigrants in the country.

So what do we get by having 23 million illegal immigrants. Well, we’ve spent $28 billion to incarcerate 450,000 illegal alien criminals since 2008. Illegals have sent over $300 billion to South America since 2001. We’ve spent almost $200 billion to educate over 5 million illegal aliens. And here’s the most ridiculous point, once educated, they are not allowed to work in the US. Talk about a waste. We expect private industry to police the illegal immigrant problem by not hiring illegals. Yet when they do, we fine the employer and turn the illegal back on the street. To collect welfare I guess. Hell we’ve spent almost $400 billion on social services for them.

I see little benefit from having this illegal immigrant problem. We lose jobs and money, we educate workers that can’t work here, and we create an underclass that breeds criminal activity.

And @wundayatta , your scenario in NY is a false strawman. The obvious solution is to eliminate the illegals. Not merely to support them another way.

All workers who perform honest work in exchange for honest money or goods – that is, a voluntary exchange of labor for something of value (which could even be someone else’s labor) – benefit the country. That’s because every voluntary exchange is seen by the participants as a way to exchange “something” – labor, time, goods or other property – that each trading party values differently. The laborer values his time less than the cash or goods he receives, and the payer makes an opposite valuation – and they’re both right.

So each person comes out ahead on the trade.

As long as the effort is spent on goods and other trades that aren’t harmful to the nation as a whole or to “most” of its citizens, then value is created on both sides of the trade. Everyone becomes marginally wealthier.

If the goods or services produced are criminal, such as an assassin hired by one party to kill another, then we lose. But we’re not talking about that special case here; most workers, whether documented or not, come to this country to do “honest work”. We all benefit.

@Jaxk Why don’t you set up a vigilante party?

Jeez, if the solution is so obvious, how come generations of administrations haven’t been able to do it? It’s not like they haven’t all passed laws refusing admittance to those without proper documentation. What is wrong with them? How come you don’t help them out? Oh, maybe you have. Kill the economy. That’s what is making undocumented immigrants go home. Was that your fault? Oh I do hope you say it was.

@Jaxk I propose that we eliminate the “illegals” by allowing anyone who wants to come here to work for whatever their labor is worth. If it works for people going from Massachusetts to Texas, then why can’t it work for people going from Mexico to Texas?

I agree that we don’t want them voting in our elections (which actually seems easier than taking a job), but preventing people from working legally – and as a result paying into our various tax funds – seems utterly ridiculous to me.

@wundayatta

The problem is the uncontrolled border. As long as we treat the border like a game, people will continue to immigrate illegally. As long as they immigrate illegally we will have people such as yourself, that require the rest of us to support them. Reagan tried the citizenship route and it has only made the problem worse. Until we are able to control the border, any solution to the ones that are here, is unworkable.

If what you are looking for is open borders then say that. we can discuss why that’s a bad idea.

@CWOTUS

What you suggest is unrealistic. We can not absorb uncontrolled immigration. There are 7 billion people in the world and the standard of living is better in the US than anywhere else. Hell, being poor in the US is better than most people people can imagine. Compare the standard of living for the poor in the US to Africa or Asia, or S.America. Hell, if you’re living on a dollar a day, standing outside the home depot with a sign, sounds like heaven.

Our schools, hospitals, fire departments, police, etc. simply can’t handle uncontrolled immigration. The social safety nets are already buckling under the strain. If you solution is to eliminate all safety nets, all public services, it’s not going to happen. You could make being poor in the US the same as being poor in Darfur, but I’m not sure that’s an improvement. We need to control immigration and as I said above, we allow more legal immigrants than the rest of the world combined. We need to insure we can absorb those that migrate to the US, lest we deteriorate the entire social structure of the US.

@Jaxk it’s not so unrealistic, really. It’s not as if even a few million people living along the US-Mexico border would make the move if they could. It takes a lot of determination to come this way, even when the land route is open, say from Central America to the US. For most of the billions you’re apparently worried about, they wouldn’t even get to an air or sea port to start the trip.

As it is, we’re already more or less ‘handling’ uncontrolled immigration. There’s friction and stress, obviously, and differences between how various states and cities cope with those frictions and stresses – as well as a huge underground population because of the current illegality. But it could be workable.

@Jaxk I wrote, “The solution to undocumented aliens is to reduce the barriers to documentation, not to try to keep people out.”

We absorbed uncontrolled immigration up until fairly recently—some time in the 20th century. It has kept this country strong.

You seem to think that immigrants get a lot of public benefits. This simply isn’t true. They pay far more in taxes than they receive in benefits. It is a myth that they are all sucking at the public teat. Immigrants tend to be highly self-reliant and resilient. They have to be. They have to really want to be here. In the past it was the difficulty of travel that kept most people away. Today it is the stigma of being an immigrant and the treatment by law enforcement and the general population that present huge barriers to immigration. Only the strongest will stay here, We want these people. We need these people. Desperately.

Well said, @wundayatta. Another fact that people often point to with horror is “foreign remittances”, that is, US cash sent back to the folks in the Old Country. That does nothing but help those of us in this country trying to make our own cash go farther. The day that all of that money is repatriated to the USA will not be a good one for us.

75% of illegal immigrants pay state and federal taxes. Illegal immigrants pay around $7 billion in Social Security. Illegal immigrants contribute more tax dollars than some of the largest US companys (figures from IRS). These guys are propping up your economy.

Frankly, I could give a flying flip whether or not illegal immigrants pay taxes. Bottom line is I would rather see Americans at work than illegals.

@YoBob the reason illegal immigrants are working is because they are willing to do the jobs americans won’t. If americans were working these jobs then there would be no work for the illegals and so no reason to risk coming to the US.

@YoBob Also a more sensible response might be to be upset at the fact companies like GE pay no tax, despite having earnings of $14 billion in 2010.

@wundayatta

Why exactly do we need these people desperately?. No other country on earth needs them desperately why do we? I have no problem with legal immigration, it can actually help. But uncontrolled immigration is absurd.

Historically the immigration was controlled by natural barriers. The vast oceans made it difficult. That no longer limits immigration only the law does.

@CWOTUS

Trying to be kind I will only say your theory on sending money overseas is ridiculous. Money spent overseas helps the economy overseas, not here. You need to look a bit closer at how the economy works. If your theory was correct, all the money we send overseas for oil would be boom to our economy instead of a drain. You’ve got it backwards.

@Jaxk

You’re clearly not understanding what I meant (or what is commonly meant) by the term overseas remittances. I’m not at all talking about what we pay for imported goods. I’m talking about the flow of US currency by “others” for “others”. This is not “money spent overseas” by you or me.

@CWOTUS

You’re clearly not understanding the issue. If money is sent overseas, it gets spent overseas.

@Jaxk

Yes. And that’s a good thing for the rest of us holding US currency.

@Lightlyseared

The idea that illegal immigrants do jobs Americans won’t do is a talking point with little or no validity. Teen unemployment is currently running 25%. Illegals are taking the cashier jobs fast food jobs, cooks, factory, construction and farm, jobs. These are often the starting jobs for the young or jobs that college students use to work thier way through college. The talking point is fallacious.

@Lightlyseared

“the reason illegal immigrants are working is because they are willing to do the jobs americans won’t”

With due respect: Bull F*ing Sh!t

(see my previous comment)

@CWOTUS

How do you come to that conclusion? It does not reduce the money supply. It merely drains it from our economy.

@YoBob

I only wish I were so eloquent.

@SquirrelEStuff Supply and demand says that If a business has a product that is not selling, they typically lower the price. Shouldn’t we use the same standard with labor? If an employer can not [sic _cannot find someone to do the job, for the salary that is being offered, they should raise the salary being offered, not find an undocumented worker to do the job. That is an interesting concept. However, if these jobs US citizens do not want to do , because they didn’t have a _”living wage”, were raised from minimum wage to $12.5 an hour, maybe more, some Americans might get interested. If the labor, or goods coming from that labor cannot support a profit large enough to cover the labor cost, then what?

@wundayatta When we have cheaper stuff, we can focus on more consumption which drives the economy. Is not that a de facto reason for outsourcing? John Q wants a quality widget, but he don’t want to pay X amount of dollars for it, so the only way ACME Widget Co. can get him that widget as cheap as he want to pay, it had to be made in China, Dubai, Hanoi, etc?

@YoBob *I drive by street corners every single day with Americans standing there with “Laid off, 2 kids to feed, will work for food..” signs. Psst Not all them people are really that bad off. Sometimes one of two things are in play, they are doing OK and pulling a ruse to tug at the heart string of sympathetic commuters and shoppers, they are only there to get enough for their next bottle or hit. I know of both. When my neighbor was working construction, they would get off work they went into work early but got off work around 2–3pm. One day he and another friend did not go home directly. While stopped at a mini mart they noticed one of their fellow carpenters in grubby clothes standing with one of those type signs. They asked him the other day if it was him because they seen his vehicle close by. He confessed. He said standing out there 2–3 hours with that sign before dinner would net him $50 on average. At best he was making an extra $800 tax free of the kindness of people driving by. Most people never have work, and if they did, most are indoctrinated not to bring some homeless, broke stranger to your home where all your fine expensive things are. Don’t be fooled, they all are not who you think.

@Jaxk*Well, we’ve spent $28 billion to incarcerate 450,000 illegal alien criminals since 2008.* To me that is a whole different issue. We lock up 100,000s of citizens here who have access to legal jobs, so I don’t see the jobs, or lack of them, to be a major player in how much crime is on American streets.

@Jaxk – Just adding balance as you seem to be doing such a great job at explaining the point of view in well constructed sentences. ;)

@Hypocrisy_Central – It doesn’t matter if the guys on the corner are on the level or not. The bottom line here is that one of the greatest problems facing our nation today is high unemployment, and I would darned sure rather see Americans working than illegals.

@YoBob

Re: Your wish that Americans might work instead of various aliens (disregarding for now their immigration status)

If Americans would (or in some cases “could”) do those jobs, then they would. The fact that we have over 9% “official” unemployment and more people coming here every day to take work attests to the fact that Americans won’t (or in some cases “cannot”) do the jobs. Maybe that’s because the pay is too low or the conditions aren’t right to attract them, but the fact is that if Americans would do the jobs – for the same conditions and wages – then they certainly would have hiring preference, if only for the fact that the employer wouldn’t have to worry about an INS bust, fine, and worker desertion for that reason.

I’d be happy to see more Americans working, too. But when they won’t (or can’t), then I hate to see the work left undone, and all of us getting poorer as a result.

@CWOTUS – I think rather than indicating that Americans won’t or can’t do the jobs, it is more a statement about it being more advantageous for employers to hire the undocumented rather than legitimate workers. Yep, labor laws force employers of those “unwilling” American workers to comply with all sorts of regulatory red tape, whereas you don’t have to bother with that sort of thing for the “undocumented”, and as for humane working conditions, what is the undocumented worker going to do about it, tell the police?

@Hypocrisy_Central

No actually it is not a different issue. The illegal immigrant problem brings the criminal element with it. It really doesn’t matter whether the crime rate is higher or lower than that of the general population, without the illegal problem we wouldn’t have the criminal problem. And as we eliminate the jobs for illegals, as most suggest we should by refusing to hire them, we force them to turn to crime.

@CWOTUS

Your argument is full of holes. Most illegals (the 12 million skilled jobs) have documentation. It’s just fraudulent.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door. ”
― quote on the Statue of Liberty

@Jaxk I really do believe in those words. This nation was built on the backs of immigrants, from the tobacco field laborers, to the Railroads, to growing and delivering the food that feeds this nation today. They aren’t criminals. They are hungry, and they have hungry families. They are also more conservative than you might expect.
I think we need to find a way for them to be allowed to work here. Closing the boarders isn’t a policy, it’s financial suicide. Our nation needs them.

@filmfann

The Statue of Liberty was erected in 1886 (a french gift). The plaque wasn’t added until 1903. 20 years later immigration quotas were imposed. A short life for an impressive quote.

Australia had a similar background, starting out as a penal colony. They encouraged immigration and still do for ‘Skilled’ workers. They will allow 100K to come in on a ‘Skilled worker visa annually.

Uncontrolled immigration is simply no longer viable.

@YoBob The bottom line here is that one of the greatest problems facing our nation today is high unemployment, and I would darned sure rather see Americans working than illegals. Sure, I can go with that. How is the US going to get there? If John Q wants his widget for X amount of dollars, would he pay Y amount more for the same widget because it was made in Colorado instead of Dubai? Some will, but not enough. And when John Q doesn’t buy the US widget and that company goes belly up, now Larry Lunchmeat is out of a job, so he can’t buy widgets he needs from World Wide Widgets. If the Customer base for World Wide Widgets go down because most of its customers in the community worked for ACME Widgets that went belly up, and now the 1,000s that worked there are tightening their belts because they have no jobs, then they are buying from where John Q did, to stretch their dollar. So instead of buying American, they are forced to buy from Dubai like John Q did in the first place.

@Jaxk No actually it is not a different issue. The illegal immigrant problem brings the criminal element with it. It really doesn’t matter whether the crime rate is higher or lower than that of the general population, without the illegal problem we wouldn’t have the criminal problem. Even if all the immigrants were legal there will still be some that will commit crimes. If we sealed the border like the former East Germany I don’t see even half of the prisons shutting down, prison itself is an industry wrought with state sanctioned back alley slavery, but that is another discussion.

They allow employers to hire workers without having to pay any type of employer taxes, such as their share of the Unemployment and Social Security taxes. The employers do not have to provide expense health benefits or any type of insurance coverage.

This keep our consumer prices lower than if they would have hire legal workers.

Here is a great answer elsewhere on this site. There are numerous misconceptions about illegal immigrants that the CBO report addresses.

@cockswain

Interesting post and on the surface it seems to make a good case. But if you think about it just a little, the whole thing begins to fall apart. Your guy spends a lot of time talking about the benefits of illegal immigrants. Building shops or restaurants. We’ll ignore the incomprehensible theory that construction is a job Americans won’t do. But then your guy goes on to promote the idea that we should make them legal. If they become legal any argument that they provide some benefit as illegals, goes away. They immediately become subject to all the wage and benefit structures we have. They just become a huge flood of workers that the system can not digest.

It should also be noted that these basic jobs are typically filled by teenagers. Their first jobs and entry to the employment market. Teen unemployment right now is over 25%, the highest since these records have been kept. Illegals are stripping the teen population from these basic starting jobs.

And lastly, uncontrolled immigration is unsustainable. No country can create jobs at the rate needed for this kind of immigration. Even when the country was growing at a rapid rate, the job creation is not infinite. That is why there are quotas. We need to insure we are creating enough jobs to sustain our population and some immigration, but not infinite.

We’ve been hanging around 10% unemployment for two years now. We’ve extended unemployment for 2 years and Obama is planning to make it 3. You guys are saying we need illegal immigrants to take the jobs and we should open our borders to take even more jobs. Don’t you feel there may be a conflict here. Of course the illegals are taking jobs Americans don’t want because we’ll give them unemployment while they wait for the CEO job they’ve always wanted. We’ll never get out of this mess with this kind of attitude.

Let me ask you this: Did you see anything of value in the post I referred? A lot of the content comes from a CBO report, which I have generally read. Further, I suggest you read on a bit to see that user’s other ideas.

I’d like to find some points of agreement for a change, not just disagreement, so I’m intentionally ignoring your points at the moment. But as food for thought, would contractors be willing to provide as many jobs if not for they availability of cheaper, undocumented labor?

I linked the answer because I thought it was a great one overall. I’m not personally advocating full amnesty across the board. I’m strongly in support of immigration policy reform though. The causes of illegal immigration are what actually need to be addressed, not just attacking the symptoms. If I were in their position, I would emigrate to the US as well. I’m betting you would too. How can that problem be reasonably addressed is a better question, and also the one I linked above.

@cockswain

I fear the basic point in your link is that if a little immigration is good, then a lot must be great. It doesn’t work that way. A quick story. I had an avocado tree in my yard. It was quite big and produced way more avocados than I could use. My gardener would collect all the avocados that fell to the ground and take them home. Hell that benefited both of us. They didn’t litter the ground and he had free avocados, we both benefited. The next year, he began picking the low hanging ones as well as the ones on the ground. A bit of a pain but still OK since with a pole picker I had more than I needed. The following year he brought his kids and a pole picker and cleaned me out. I fired him. A little was good for both of us but a lot was unacceptable.

The point here is that the tree would only produce a so many avocados. Just as we can only expect to create so many jobs. It is not unlimited. So if we want to allow immigrants to take jobs, it can’t be an unlimited flow of immigration to take a limited number of jobs. The system breaks. That’s why we have immigration quotas.

As long as we have a higher standard of living than they do elsewhere, people will want to come here. I would rather not lower our standard of living to deter the immigration.

The last point is the whole concept of ‘Jobs Americans won’t do’. I’ve had some pretty shitty jobs in my time. Especially when I was young (teenager and early 20s). I’ve picked strawberries (wouldn’t recommend that to anyone) because I needed the money. As well as washing dishes and literally digging ditches. These low end jobs are typically the entry into the work force for our youth. With teen unemployment running 25% their entry level jobs are gone and many would like to get them back.

I haven’t heard anyone argue against immigration. Merely arguing to control it. Every country in the world does this for the same reason. We need to be able to control the flow. To do that, we need to control the border. Once that’s done, we can discuss how to handle those that are already here.