Our Fascist Government Disappoints Me Once AgainJanine Reports 9/23/07

Not overdramatic in the least! Just because the American Government is passive agressive doesn't make them any less inhumane! I did research on immigration a year ago for a class project. Here is some of my findings:

Myths vs. Facts

First to begin, we need to clear the air and discredit many of the popular common day myths with facts. According to a Survey by the National Research Center's 2000 General Social Survey, which measured attitudes toward and perceptions of immigration in a "multi-ethnic United States," subjects were asked whether "more immigrants cause higher crime rates," 25% replied "very likely," 48% replied "somewhat likely." The results concluded that about three fourths (73%) of Americans believed that immigration is causally related to more crime. Furthermore, 60% believed that "more immigrants were somewhat or very likely to cause Americans to lose jobs," and 56% thought that "more immigrants were either somewhat or very likely to make it harder to keep the country united."

This misperception of foreign-born, in particular, illegal immigrants, is widely embraced by American public opinion.

Sadly, these misperceptions often shape policy. For example, according to the Immigration Policy Center, "in 2006 the city council of Hazleton Pennsylvania's "Illegal Immigration Relief Act Ordinance" declared, in part, that "illegal immigration leads to higher crime rates" and seeks accordingly to secure for the city's legal residents and citizens "the right to live in peace free of the threat of crime" and to protect them from "crime committed by illegal aliens."

Furthermore, in President Bush's May 15, 2006 address to the nation on immigration reform, Bush asserted that: "Illegal immigration puts pressure on public schools and hospitals, it strains state and local budgets, and brings crime to our communities."

According to the IPC, despite the fact that "contemporary and historical data, including investigations carried out by major government commissions over the past century have shown repeatedly and systematically that immigration actually is associated with lower crime rates."

The IPC states that, "Even as the undocumented population has doubled to 12 million since 1994, the violent crime rate in the U.S. has declined 34.2% and the property crime rate has fallen 26.4%."

The IPC also states, "Cities with large immigrant populations such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami have also experienced declining crime rates."

So what is the actual incarceration rate for the foreign-born? According to the IPC, "Among men age 18 to 39 (those of whom comprise the majority of the prison population), the 3.5% incarceration rate of the native-born in 2000 was 5 times higher than the .7% incarceration rate of the foreign-born."

Now that we've discredited the popular opinion that illegal immigrants increase crime rates, lets go back to President Bush's statement that "Illegal immigration puts pressure on public schools and hospitals, it strains state and local budgets…"

Do they really?

It is widely believed that immigrants don't pay taxes. However, according to Justice for Immigrants:
"Immigrants pay taxes, in the form of income, property, sales, and taxes at the federal and state level. As far as income tax payments go, sources vary in their accounts, but a range of studies find that immigrants pay between $90 and $140 billion a year in federal, state and local taxes. Undocumented immigrants pay income taxes as well, as evidenced by the Social Security Administration's "suspense file" (where taxes that cannot be matched to workers' names and social security number), which grew by $20 billion between 1990 and 1998."

It is also widely believed that immigrants come to America to usurp our public benefits and welfare program: Again, according to Justice for Immigrants "Immigrants come to work and reunite with family members. Immigrant labor force participation is consistently higher than native-born, and immigration workers make up a larger share of the U.S. labor force (12.4%) than they do the U.S. population (11.5%). Moreover, the ratio between immigrant use of public benefits and the amount of taxes they pay is consistently favorable to the U.S. In one estimate, immigrants earn about $240 billion a year, pay about $90 billion a year in taxes, and use about $5 billion in public benefits. In another cut of the data, immigrant tax payments total $20 to $30 billion more than the amount of government services they use."

Furthermore, in a testimony prepared by Michael Fix the Vice President and Director of Studies for the Migration Policy Institute before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means, titled Immigrant's Costs and Contributions The Effects of Reform in the Hearing on the Impacts of Border Security and Immigration on Ways and Means Programs states "The 1996 welfare reform law substantially restricted new legal immigrants' access to public benefits…A study of taxes paid by immigrants in the Washington DC region revealed that immigrant households pay substantial taxes. Immigrants' tax payments were proportional to their share of the total regional population. Tax payments in the Washington region varied by legal status, with payments and compliance ascribed to undocumented immigrants being lowest. This finding suggests that a legalization program that effectively mandates full tax compliance as a condition for earning Legal Permanent Residence status would lead to higher tax yields, which would be felt immediately (unlike increased usage of many social benefits)…"

In light of this data, it's hardly fair to declare immigrants as a strain on the U.S. economy.

As Justice for Immigration puts it, "During the 1990s, half of all new workers were foreign-born, filling gaps left by native born workers in both the high and low skill ends of the spectrum. Immigrants fill jobs in key sectors, start their own businesses, and contribute to a thriving economy. The net benefit of immigration to the U.S. is nearly $10 billion annually. As Alan Greenspan points out, 70% of immigrants arrive in prime working age. That means we haven't spent a penny on their education, yet they are transplanted into our workforce and will contribute $500 billion toward our social security system over the next 20 years."

It's also a common myth that immigrants take jobs away from Americans. However, according to Justice for Immigrants immigrant entrepreneurs actually create jobs for U.S. and foreign workers. Even though there haven't been any comprehensive studies done on immigration-owned businesses, there are countless examples that support this statement. In Silicon Valley, for example, companies created by Chinese and Indian immigrants generated more than $19.5 billion in sales and nearly 73,000 jobs in 2000.

The true problem as Benjamin Johnson, Director of the Immigration Policy Center puts it, is "Our labor markets are attracting younger, less educated immigrant workers because our labor force is getting older and better educated. We are doing what we have been doing for two hundred years: looking to our immigration system to fill the gaps in our labor force. While we have been encouraging workers to get an education and improve their training in order to compete in the knowledge-based economy we are creating, we have not created more channels of legal immigration to replace those workers. Today, in a labor force of more than 150 million workers, we have (only) 5,000 permanent visas available for foreign workers in less-skilled occupations."

In fact according to the Migration Policy Institute, for six of the last eight years, the number of H-1B visas authorized each year has fallen short of U.S. employers' demand.

So what about the immigrants that cross the border illegally? Actually, according to Justice for Immigrants, citing the Department of Homeland Security, "around 75% of today's immigrants have legal permanent (immigrant) visas; of the 25% that are undocumented, 40% overstayed temporary (non-immigrant) visas."

Imagine if you will how easy it can be to overstay a temporary (non-immigrant) visa. According to Benjamin Johnson, Director of the Immigration Policy Center, since "we essentially have no legal channels of employment-based immigration for workers…they attempt to come through the already overburdened family-based systems." To further illustrate, "the backlogs on visas for family-based immigration are now so long that immigrants are forced to wait 5 to 7 years before they can be legally reunited with a spouse or child."

Many immigrants seek the legitimization of legal permanent residence, only to dismay. According to Niall O'Dowd, chairman of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, "What we want is a work-based system whereby people who are providing services, who are in a position to work hard, who are in a position to give back to this economy, can do so in a legal fashion." According to O'Dowd, there are about 50,000 undocumented Irish in the U.S., most of whom came with tourist visas and overstayed in order to work.

So what does all this mean? In short, immigrants have more to offer than they supposedly take. To withhold legal venues for citizenship out of unfounded fears of crime, loss of jobs, and strains on the U.S. economy due to increased immigration is irrational.

Benefits

Now, that we've discredited many of the myths surrounding immigration, let's further expand the benefits of immigration.

According to Fix's testimony before the House of Representatives, Fix states, "Decade after decade we have found that immigrant entrepreneurship creates jobs and, as a result, boosts tax payments. Immigrants are increasingly associated with further openings to trade and other forms of exchange that promote business. The foreign-born population's willingness to follow jobs to other states and localities makes the U.S. economy run more efficiently. High-skilled immigrants innovate in key sectors of the economy. And immigrant workers both produce and, in turn, consume goods and services – thus creating jobs that might not otherwise have existed that in turn have wider economic ripple effects."

In an article by the associated press titled Census: Immigrants stabilize big-city populations, it's stated that, "without immigrants pouring into the nation's big metro areas, places such as New York, Los Angeles and Boston would be losing population. Many smaller areas, including Battle Creek, Michigan, Ames, Iowa, and Corvallis Oregon, would lose people as well, according to population estimates released by the Census Bureau."

According to the American Immigration Law Foundation, Immigrants Revitalize America's Cities. They state, "in 1999, the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth and Citizen's Bank released a study that showed immigrants as the direct cause of saving 200,000 jobs in the New England area in the 90s. Similar cases can be seen throughout the country. As 43 million Americans relocate every year, immigrants are stepping in to replenish the populations and work forces of America's major cities, keeping them alive and vibrant. Immigrants: Pay taxes, stabilize shrinking populations, facilitate economic growth, revitalize neighborhoods, replenish work forces, nullify effects of out-migration, and increase property values."

Reform

Now that we've both discredited the myths surrounding immigration and discussed the benefits immigrants bring to the U.S. economy, lets discuss reform!

Justice for Immigrants proposes the following components for reform:

• An earned legalization program for the undocumented population is workable and that includes a path to citizenship which is fair and achievable;
• A future worker program that permits migrant workers to enter safely and legally and that includes worker protections and the option for participants to pursue a path of citizenship;
• Family-based immigration reform that reduces backlogs and waiting times for family reunification
• The restoration of due process protections for immigrants taken away by the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA); and
• Policies which address the root causes of migration, including economic development in sending countries.

I urge you all, in light of what I've presented today to please take the time to mail your state senators and representatives.

Sources:

Justice for immigrants. Retrieved April 24, 2007, Web site: http://www.justiceforimmigrants.org

Retrieved April 24, 2007, from Immigration Web site: http://sorrell.humboldt.edu/~economic/econ104/immigrat/

(2007, May 5). Census: Immigrants Stabilize Big City Populations. Retrieved April 24, 2007, from CNN.com Web site: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/05/metro.population.ap/index.html

(2007, March 20). O'Dowd: immigration debate not about borders. Retrieved April 24, 2007, from CNN.com Web site: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/20/psyk.odowd/index.html

Johnson, Benjamin (2996, July). Perspectives on immigration. Retrieved April 24, 2007, from The American Immigration Law Foundation Web site: http://www.ailf.org/ipc/2006_july_perspective.shtml

Immigrants revitalize america's cities. Retrieved April 24, 2007, from The American Immigration Law Foundation Web site: http://www.ailf.org/pubed/pe_revitalize_index.asp

Fix, Michael (2006, July 26). Immigration costs and contributions: the effects of reform.

Michele, Wucker (2006, August). The american immigration law foundation. Retrieved April 24, 2007, from Perspectives on Immigration: The Top Ten Ways America Gets Immigration Wrong Web site: http://www.ailf.org/ipc/2006_august_perspective.shtml

Rumbaut, R., & Ewing, W. (2007). The myth of immigrant criminality and the paradox of assimilation.Washington: American Immigration Law Foundation.