Immigration crackdown may boost US job prospects

[peejay 327]

Immigration crackdown may boost US job prospects

More than 9,000 illegal immigrants were prosecuted in March, a big hike from a year ago.

By David R. Francis

from the June 23, 2008 edition

What's needed to discourage illegal immigration into the United States has been known for years: Enforce existing law.

Amazingly, that is happening now – to some degree. This trend may already be shrinking the flood across the Mexican border and have a modest positive impact on job prospects for "native born" Americans during the present economic slump.

Immigration prosecutions reached an all-time high in March, reports the Trans­actional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a data research and distribution group at Syracuse University in New York. Using data from the Justice Department, it calculates that prosecutions were up 49 percent from February and 72.7 percent from March of last year. This highly unusual surge is filling up US detention centers and jails.

March prosecutions numbered 9,360. That's small compared to the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the US. Nonetheless, "It's working," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that would like immigration levels reduced considerably.

The hike in prosecutions stems from an expansion of "Operation Streamline" last year by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Under the effort, undocumented aliens caught by border guards are no longer simply steered into "air-conditioned buses," as Mr. Krikorian puts it, and driven back across the border to try crossing again. Instead, they are charged with crimes and detained.

The most common charge is "reentry of a deported alien." But there are at least nine other crimes, including entry of an alien at an improper time or place. The result is detention until trial, usually before US Magistrate Courts. A typical sentence is one month, and then "removal."

That time under detention, DHS hopes, will deter these aliens from trying again and discourage others from even trying. Border crossings have plunged, especially in areas where those caught are put into lockups. Border patrol apprehensions along the Mexican border were down 17 percent to 347,372 between October 2007 and March 2008, compared with the same period a year previous.

In addition to the border measures, immigration officials have stepped up well-publicized raids on meatpacking firms and other companies hiring undocumented workers. States, including Arizona, also have been cracking down on employers of illegal immigrants, a crime often harder to prove in court than illegal border crossing.

Krikorian guesses that in the past, 800,000 to 900,000 illegal immigrants successfully entered the US every year, and about 400,000 left voluntarily or were deported each year – a net growth of about 500,000 illegal immigrants a year.

If current moves to restrain illegal immigration trim that growth by 100,000 to 200,000 immigrants, it should have some effect on the nation's labor supply, notes University of Chicago economist Jeffrey Grogger. He's coauthor of a paper calculating that a 10 percent increase in the supply of a particular skill group caused by higher immigration prompted a reduction in the wages of similarly low-skilled black men by 4 percent between 1960 and 2000, lowered their employment rate by a huge 3.5 percentage points, and increased their incarceration rate by almost a full percentage point.

So, presumably, fewer low-skilled immigrants could gradually induce more work for low-skilled native Americans.

The weaker economy and labor market should also prove less of a draw for immigrants, mostly undocumented ones, over the next year or two, cutting the flow by "several hundred thousand" per year, reckons a new study by four economists with Goldman Sachs, a prominent Wall Street investment bank. That would reduce labor-force growth by 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points compared with the growth rate in the past few years – and thus the potential for greater economic growth. The Goldman Sachs economists would welcome an increase in the flow of immigrants as a way to absorb the excess inventory of homes troubling the housing industry, and mitigate the "incipient pressures on the federal budget due to the impending retirement of the baby boom generation."

But a study by Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies in Boston attributes the "unprecedented" levels of legal, illegal, and temporary immigration as a factor underlying the "devastation" in the job scene for America's teens and young adults over the past seven years. That's especially the case for males with no schooling beyond high school and youths from low-income families. Summer seasonal jobs as a proportion of all jobs are at the lowest level now in the past 30 years.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0623/p16s01-wmgn.html

[zqt3344 21]

You think? Really? I thought LA RAZA said all our plants and factories and service sector would shut down by now and there would not be enough people to fill the jobs? What a ironic turn of events, guess it blows their liberal break the immigration laws theory out of the water! By the way great post.

Immigration crackdown may boost US job prospects

More than 9,000 illegal immigrants were prosecuted in March, a big hike from a year ago.

By David R. Francis

from the June 23, 2008 edition

What's needed to discourage illegal immigration into the United States has been known for years: Enforce existing law.

Amazingly, that is happening now – to some degree. This trend may already be shrinking the flood across the Mexican border and have a modest positive impact on job prospects for "native born" Americans during the present economic slump.

Immigration prosecutions reached an all-time high in March, reports the Trans­actional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a data research and distribution group at Syracuse University in New York. Using data from the Justice Department, it calculates that prosecutions were up 49 percent from February and 72.7 percent from March of last year. This highly unusual surge is filling up US detention centers and jails.

March prosecutions numbered 9,360. That's small compared to the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the US. Nonetheless, "It's working," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that would like immigration levels reduced considerably.

The hike in prosecutions stems from an expansion of "Operation Streamline" last year by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Under the effort, undocumented aliens caught by border guards are no longer simply steered into "air-conditioned buses," as Mr. Krikorian puts it, and driven back across the border to try crossing again. Instead, they are charged with crimes and detained.

The most common charge is "reentry of a deported alien." But there are at least nine other crimes, including entry of an alien at an improper time or place. The result is detention until trial, usually before US Magistrate Courts. A typical sentence is one month, and then "removal."

That time under detention, DHS hopes, will deter these aliens from trying again and discourage others from even trying. Border crossings have plunged, especially in areas where those caught are put into lockups. Border patrol apprehensions along the Mexican border were down 17 percent to 347,372 between October 2007 and March 2008, compared with the same period a year previous.

In addition to the border measures, immigration officials have stepped up well-publicized raids on meatpacking firms and other companies hiring undocumented workers. States, including Arizona, also have been cracking down on employers of illegal immigrants, a crime often harder to prove in court than illegal border crossing.

Krikorian guesses that in the past, 800,000 to 900,000 illegal immigrants successfully entered the US every year, and about 400,000 left voluntarily or were deported each year – a net growth of about 500,000 illegal immigrants a year.

If current moves to restrain illegal immigration trim that growth by 100,000 to 200,000 immigrants, it should have some effect on the nation's labor supply, notes University of Chicago economist Jeffrey Grogger. He's coauthor of a paper calculating that a 10 percent increase in the supply of a particular skill group caused by higher immigration prompted a reduction in the wages of similarly low-skilled black men by 4 percent between 1960 and 2000, lowered their employment rate by a huge 3.5 percentage points, and increased their incarceration rate by almost a full percentage point.

So, presumably, fewer low-skilled immigrants could gradually induce more work for low-skilled native Americans.

The weaker economy and labor market should also prove less of a draw for immigrants, mostly undocumented ones, over the next year or two, cutting the flow by "several hundred thousand" per year, reckons a new study by four economists with Goldman Sachs, a prominent Wall Street investment bank. That would reduce labor-force growth by 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points compared with the growth rate in the past few years – and thus the potential for greater economic growth. The Goldman Sachs economists would welcome an increase in the flow of immigrants as a way to absorb the excess inventory of homes troubling the housing industry, and mitigate the "incipient pressures on the federal budget due to the impending retirement of the baby boom generation."

But a study by Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies in Boston attributes the "unprecedented" levels of legal, illegal, and temporary immigration as a factor underlying the "devastation" in the job scene for America's teens and young adults over the past seven years. That's especially the case for males with no schooling beyond high school and youths from low-income families. Summer seasonal jobs as a proportion of all jobs are at the lowest level now in the past 30 years.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0623/p16s01-wmgn.html

[SMOKE 1,426]

with american companies down sizing workforces due to the economy & trying to boost the bottom line. i think the sympathy for illegal immigrants (i don't care coz it doesn't affect me position) will start to decline quickly. i also see increasing pressure on washington to enforce the current immigration laws & not try to change them to appease special interest groups.

Edited June 23, 2008 by SMOKE

[symbiosis 0]

with american companies down sizing workforces due to the economy & trying to boost the bottom line. i think the sympathy for illegal immigrants (i don't care coz it doesn't affect me position) will start to decline quickly. i also see increasing pressure on washington to enforce the current immigration laws & not try to change them to appease special interest groups.

when was there ever "sympathy". Just remember, many of our ancestors stepped off a boat and were legally american residents within a few hours. Few had to go through the ####### that is required nowadays (####### we're all in the midst of on behalf of our beneficiaries).

"Give us your poor, tired, huddled masses and we'll club 'em to death. That's what the statue of bigotry says." -- Lou Reed.

[SMOKE 1,426]

with american companies down sizing workforces due to the economy & trying to boost the bottom line. i think the sympathy for illegal immigrants (i don't care coz it doesn't affect me position) will start to decline quickly. i also see increasing pressure on washington to enforce the current immigration laws & not try to change them to appease special interest groups.

when was there ever "sympathy". Just remember, many of our ancestors stepped off a boat and were legally american residents within a few hours. Few had to go through the ####### that is required nowadays (####### we're all in the midst of on behalf of our beneficiaries).

"Give us your poor, tired, huddled masses and we'll club 'em to death. That's what the statue of bigotry says." -- Lou Reed.

i see you've only been on this site a week. trust me there is a lot of "sympathy"-"it doesn't affect me personally so i don't care" towards illegal immigrants around here.

[Nagishkaw 510]

with american companies down sizing workforces due to the economy & trying to boost the bottom line. i think the sympathy for illegal immigrants (i don't care coz it doesn't affect me position) will start to decline quickly. i also see increasing pressure on washington to enforce the current immigration laws & not try to change them to appease special interest groups.

when was there ever "sympathy". Just remember, many of our ancestors stepped off a boat and were legally american residents within a few hours. Few had to go through the ####### that is required nowadays (####### we're all in the midst of on behalf of our beneficiaries).

"Give us your poor, tired, huddled masses and we'll club 'em to death. That's what the statue of bigotry says." -- Lou Reed.

Lucky for them they had a boat. Mine had to walk.

[Heracles 417]

About time. The jobs need to be there for Americans and the people here legally. Especially at a time like this when Americans are losing jobs left right and center.

Edited June 23, 2008 by Boo-Yah!

[peejay 327]

with american companies down sizing workforces due to the economy & trying to boost the bottom line. i think the sympathy for illegal immigrants (i don't care coz it doesn't affect me position) will start to decline quickly. i also see increasing pressure on washington to enforce the current immigration laws & not try to change them to appease special interest groups.

when was there ever "sympathy". Just remember, many of our ancestors stepped off a boat and were legally american residents within a few hours. Few had to go through the ####### that is required nowadays (####### we're all in the midst of on behalf of our beneficiaries).

"Give us your poor, tired, huddled masses and we'll club 'em to death. That's what the statue of bigotry says." -- Lou Reed.

America (and the world) is not the same as it was in the heyday of open immigration to the USA in the 1800's and early 1900's. The America of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries does not exist anymore.

Try getting your free land from the government under the Homestead Act. It ain't going to happen. We live in the present...not in the past. Using tired and outdated cliches from the 19th & 20th century doesn't cut it in 2008. America is a modern, industrial, welfare state and open immigration in unlimited numbers is total insanity.

The USA slammed the door on immigration from 1920 - 1965 for a reason. The notion that the USA should allow the billions of poor in the world to immigrate here now is absurd. It's not reality or very prudent public policy.

Lou Reed is just another rebel without a clue. There are many others in the USA and on VJ. Read American history and learn the facts about US immigration policy and numbers. Immigration policy (legal and illegal) in 21st century America is not normal or sustainable.

[sparkofcreation 0]

About time. The jobs need to be there for Americans and the people here legally. Especially at a time like this when Americans are losing jobs left right and center.

So I take it that you're volunteering to go spend 12 hours a day in 120° weather with no shade, picking chiles in southern New Mexico and Texas? For $7.50 an hour?

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

with american companies down sizing workforces due to the economy & trying to boost the bottom line. i think the sympathy for illegal immigrants (i don't care coz it doesn't affect me position) will start to decline quickly. i also see increasing pressure on washington to enforce the current immigration laws & not try to change them to appease special interest groups.

when was there ever "sympathy". Just remember, many of our ancestors stepped off a boat and were legally american residents within a few hours. Few had to go through the ####### that is required nowadays (####### we're all in the midst of on behalf of our beneficiaries).

"Give us your poor, tired, huddled masses and we'll club 'em to death. That's what the statue of bigotry says." -- Lou Reed.

They underwent an exam before they ever stepped on the boat in the first place. If they were not accepted in the USA the shipping companies paid the fare back. So the shipping lines screened immigrants first.

Illegal immigrants today:

have no background check

have no physical exam

pay no fees

pay little to no taxes

get free medical care

[Ban Hammer 14,302]

About time. The jobs need to be there for Americans and the people here legally. Especially at a time like this when Americans are losing jobs left right and center.

So I take it that you're volunteering to go spend 12 hours a day in 120° weather with no shade, picking chiles in southern New Mexico and Texas? For $7.50 an hour?

is that the going rate?

[Nagishkaw 510]

And the day will come when we see them collecting Social Security.

[aidan80 9]

with american companies down sizing workforces due to the economy & trying to boost the bottom line. i think the sympathy for illegal immigrants (i don't care coz it doesn't affect me position) will start to decline quickly. i also see increasing pressure on washington to enforce the current immigration laws & not try to change them to appease special interest groups.

when was there ever "sympathy". Just remember, many of our ancestors stepped off a boat and were legally american residents within a few hours. Few had to go through the ####### that is required nowadays (####### we're all in the midst of on behalf of our beneficiaries).

"Give us your poor, tired, huddled masses and we'll club 'em to death. That's what the statue of bigotry says." -- Lou Reed.

They underwent an exam before they ever stepped on the boat in the first place. If they were not accepted in the USA the shipping companies paid the fare back. So the shipping lines screened immigrants first.

Illegal immigrants today:

have no background check

have no physical exam

pay no fees

pay little to no taxes

get free medical care

That so called exam was a load of balls, they where just checking for the funk and tossing the stick people back on the boat home! I think they called em coffin ships for a reason did they not? You think the system back then was better than it is now? Get free medical care from where, they in jail? No one else is getting any free medical care! The biggest richest country in the world has a every man for himself medical system and you think "illegals" are getting it free?

There are a lot of undocumented persons out there stuck in a situation where they can't legally adjust their status. I'm sure a lot of these people without documentation couldn't get as much as a visa or afford to file for one to start with. It's kind of like being fcuked if you do and fcuked if you don't, either way you are fcuked and you just have to make the best of it.

[Aubrey 10]

I don't like these threads that dump all illegal immigrants into one category, as if they're all evil and doing no benefit to the country.

Sparkofcreation brings up a good point about farm workers. My ex-husband's family and everyone they knew were farmers. They couldn't get reliable help in town, nor would the government let them legally sponsor their workers. But as this "crackdown" is happening, their workers go home to see their families and increasing are geting caught coming back. These are people who only come as migrants, not as people to stay. They'd happily come legally if allowed to do so. This is one of the only things I've agreed with Prez Bush on in his entire presidency - we need to have a migrant worker program that works. Whether people want to admit it or not, they are the backbone of much of our agriculture.

Yes, we need to stem the influx of illegals, but we are a nation of immigrants and our economy relies on the 10 million illegals in our country. You can't simply deport that many with no effect. I really think we ought to have tighter border security, but also create opportunities for those who wish to come legally to work -- not just in high end fields and movie stars, but at the very least for our migrant farm workers. Then there's the whole "let's make it as slow as possible to bring your family member here" thing which we all see happen on VJ. It's no wonder some people just come on a VWP and hide forever. It's expensive and slow and they reject legitimate people sometimes.

I really don't see immigration as a black and white issue.

[eekee 182]

That so called exam was a load of balls, they where just checking for the funk and tossing the stick people back on the boat home! I think they called em coffin ships for a reason did they not? You think the system back then was better than it is now? Get free medical care from where, they in jail? No one else is getting any free medical care! The biggest richest country in the world has a every man for himself medical system and you think "illegals" are getting it free?

There are a lot of undocumented persons out there stuck in a situation where they can't legally adjust their status. I'm sure a lot of these people without documentation couldn't get as much as a visa or afford to file for one to start with. It's kind of like being fcuked if you do and fcuked if you don't, either way you are fcuked and you just have to make the best of it.

If someone *chose* to leave the country where they are a citizen, and they came here illegally, i don't consider them "fcuked." They made the choice to come here illegally; they pay the consequences of breaking the law.

My family came to the USA legally after much hardship. They waited over ten years to come to America.