We liberals sometimes have a disturbing tendency to ignore unpleasant truths when they conflict with our agendas. On no issue is our perception more blinkered than on immigration. Rather than formulating policy by weighing all the facts we often regard only the benefits of our proposed policies, while ignoring the harm they do. Our current high immigration rates and lax enforcement have clear beneficiaries, but the price for their good fortune is being paid by the poorest, most vulnerable Americans, people who no longer seem to have a voice or advocates in the Democratic party. In this diary I wish to describe more than prescribe. There are many possible ways forward on immigration reform, but I hope we follow a path that acknowledges all the realities.
There are 10 million non-immigrant American workers without a high school diploma, 8% of the non-immigrant workforce (Camarota, 2006) Between 2000 and 2005, 34% of new immigrants had less than a high school diploma and those people compete directly for jobs with less-educated Americans. Camarota estimates that this competition depresses the wages of people in occupations requiring little education (one fifth of all U.S. jobs) by more than 10%. George Borjas estimates that between 1980 and 2000, the wages of non-immigrant men without a high school diploma were reduced 7.4% by immigration (Borjas, 2004). These are already the poorest, most economically disadvantaged Americans, disproportionately minority members.
Poor Americans also suffer increased unemployment as a result of the influx of less-educated immigrants. While demand for unskilled labor has stagnated for decades , businesses have used less-educated, Third World immigrants, legal and illegal, to displace Americans, and particularly black Americans, from the workforce. Borjas et al., (2006) found that from 1960 to 2000, the employment rate for non-immigrant black men fell from 90% to 76%, and for those with less than a high school diploma, from 89% to 56%. We know the social tragedy that has resulted. Black people were not the only victims. For non-immigrant white men without a high school diploma employment dropped from 94% to 76%. Borjas estimates that 20 to 40% of the increase in unemployment among these non-immigrant Americans results from immigration, with the highest percentages pertaining to less-educated black men. The effect of immigration on wages and unemployment of poor Americans is a contentious issue, and some reports on the subject ignore the principles of both economics and statistics to advance political agendas. George Borjas, a Cuban immigrant, is the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at Harvard University. His work is of the highest caliber, and in good academic tradition his papers have addressed the shortcomings of work that is less complete and rigorous in its analysis. Some may not like the conclusions of Borjas and his coauthors, but to argue against them on objective grounds would be a stretch.
For less-educated American workers, the labor market is very much a zero-sum game in which immigrants, legal and illegal, take many of the scarce jobs Americans would otherwise have. Enforcement of immigration laws has ameliorated some of that harm by reducing the impact of illegal immigration. Enforcement imposes hardships on those who are caught, admittedly otherwise decent, hardworking people, but it allows other decent, hardworking people to provide for their families and recover their dignity. Smithfield Packing is a large meat packing plant in North Carolina, where federal workplace enforcement led to the departure of 1500 Hispanic employees. Before, the plant’s workforce had been only 20% black, 2 years later it was 80% black, and the workers recently won union recognition (New York Times 12/13/08). House of Raeford Farms is under indictment for hiring illegal aliens. Franco Ordonez reports (Charlotte Observer 8/12/09) that one of the company’s meatpacking plants in eastern North Carolina has dismissed illegal aliens with false documents. A workforce that was once 80% Latino is now up to 70% black. A similar story was played out at Howard Industries, a manufacturer of heavy electrical equipment in Laurel, Mississippi (Associated Press, 2009). The earlier, systematic replacement of black workers with illegal immigrants is a particularly disturbing aspect of such stories . Businesses have discovered that by replacing one minority employee with another they can again legally discriminate against black workers.
The meatpacking industry illustrates particularly well the effect on less-skilled workers of an almost unlimited supply of less-educated immigrant labor. After a troubled early history, the industry had come to pay middle-class wages and to offer safe and humane working conditions. Then, starting in the 1970s, the industry started to replace well-paid, often union workforces, with immigrant workers, first legal immigrants and now illegal immigrants, at much lower wages (Beck, 1996). In 1980, meatpacking plants paid average wages of $22.31/hr (inflation-adjusted 2007 dollars). In 2007, average wages in the industry had fallen to $11.81, approximately half of what they had once been (Chicago Tribune 12/5/08). Similar stories could be told in other manufacturing industries, the building trades, and custodial services.
Many Americans who work with their hands remain employed, but have slipped from the middle class. Others have been driven from the labor force entirely. I remember learning, as an engineering student in the late 1960s, that factory and construction workers could earn as much as I would. That was a wonderful, egalitarian part of the American dream that we have now lost. Immigration is not the only factor in that loss, but it is a major one.
REFERENCES
Camarota, Steven A., 2006. Immigration’s Impact on American Workers. Testimony Prepared for the House Judiciary Committee, August 29, 2006. http://www.cis.org/...
Borjas, G.J., 2004. Increasing the Supply of Labor Through Immigration: Measuring the Impact on Native-born Workers. Center for Immigration Studies. http://www.cis.org/...
Borjas, G.J, Grogger, J and Hanson, G.H., 2006, Immigration and African-American employment opportunities: the response of wages, employment, and incarceration to labor supply shocks. National Bureau of Economic Research, working paper 12518 http://www.nber.org/...
New York Times, 12/13/2008 Steven Greenhouse. After 15 Years North Carolina Plant Unionizes. http://www.nytimes.com/...
Charlotte Observer, 8/12/09 Franco Ordonez. At House of Raeford, far fewer Latino workers. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/...
Associated Press, 2009. January, 24, 2009. Immigration raid spotlights rift of have-nots. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
Beck, Roy, 1996. The Case Against Immigration: The moral, economic, social, and environmental reasons for reducing U.S. immigration back to traditional levels, chap. 6. W.W. Norton and Co., New York.
Chicago Tribune, 12/5/08 Henry C. Jackson. Raids could force meatpackers to raise worker pay http://archives.chicagotribune.com/...