America's Voice Blog

Posted 06/07/11 at 05:37pm By Mahwish Khan

MA Governor Latest to Opt Out of Secure Communities; Victory for Community Groups in Key States

Gov. Deval PatrickYesterday, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA) announced that his state will not participate in the federal government’s failed “Secure Communities” deportation program. Governor Patrick joins Governor Quinn of Illinois and Governor Cuomo of New York in taking a courageous stand against the flawed enforcement program, and others – like California -- seek to find ways out of the agreement.  

But Governors Patrick, Quinn and Cuomo aren’t fighting this battle on their own. They’re responding to calls from their communities to stand up for public safety and protect residents of their states. Grassroots groups have played a vital role in each statewide campaign to end Secure Communities. In Massachusetts, local groups including the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition and Centro Presente circulated sign-on letters and lined up testimonies at hearings around the state, laying the groundwork for Governor Patrick’s bold action. In New York, Governor Cuomo’s decision was a response to months of organizing by local groups, including Make the Road New York, the Immigrant Defense Project, the New York Immigration Coalition and the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights. Leading the way was Illinois, where the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights led a successful campaign to get Governor Quinn to opt out even while they were fighting for the Illinois DREAM Act.  But the movement in the states was and continues to be big – so please add any leaders and organizations we may have missed in the comments section below!

These groups, and anyone who understands immigrant communities, knows that the Secure Communities program has gone way beyond its stated goal of targeting foreign-born individuals convicted of serious crimes. And thanks to the “Uncover the Truth” campaign led by the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Benjamin H. Cardozo School of Law, they have the numbers to back it up.  For example, according to the New York Times:

Official figures from Boston showed that 54 percent of the immigrants deported under the program had no criminal convictions, only civil immigration violations.  Only about one in four deportees under the program had been convicted of a serious crime.

Click here to read more.
Posted 04/26/11 at 05:26pm By Mahwish Khan

Undocumented Immigrants Paid Approximately $11.2 Billion in Taxes in 2010

There’s more news for those naysayers who claim that undocumented immigrants don’t pay taxes, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Last week, the Immigration Policy Center came out with a report using data from the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), estimating that in 2010, the state and local taxes paid by households that are headed by undocumented immigrants came to approximately $11.2 billion in state and local taxes. 

Here’s the breakdown, followed by a chart showing which states benefited the most in tax dollars from their immigrant populations:

  • $1.2 billion in personal income taxes,
  • $1.6 billion in property taxes
  • $8.4 billion in sales taxes. 

Tax Revenue by State

Earlier today, we wrote about the relatively unknown, but powerful, California Congressman, Elton Gallegly, and how California farmers are worried about the immigration policies that the Mass Deportation Caucus in the House (namely Gallegly, and his two right-hand men, Reps. Lamar Smith and Steve King) is trying to implement.  As you can see from the chart above, if California mass-deported their tax-paying undocumented workers (many of whom are migrant farmworkers), California would lose approximately $2.74 billion in tax revenue. More, actually, when you consider that for every farm worker job, there are approximately 3.1 upstream and downstream jobs created.

But this is only if Gallegly had his way with undocumented immigrants. His immigration policies are also anti-“legal” immigration (though he’d have you believe otherwise), which would gravely affect workers in California’s Silicon Valley.

The short of it: Gallegly’s immigration strategy could sink our economic recovery -- and California's in particular.

The other anti-immigrant “amigo,” Rep. Lamar Smith, is more vocal and better known in political circles for some of his more extreme views. He and Rep. Steve King have famously pushed to revoke 14th amendment rights, and labor intensively with Gallegly to push for enforcement-only “solutions” (that don’t work). And our more vocal anti-immigrant House member hailing from Texas would be surprised to learn that his state is number two on the list of states receiving the most tax revenue from households led by undocumented immigrants, at $1.6 billion dollars.

But that’s such a small number to both Smith and Gallegly. It’s especially unimpressive when you compare it to the numbers related to the Gallegly, Smith, and King’s much-loved strategy of mass deportation, though there’s more damage than benefit here. Mass deportation would cost an estimated $206 billion to $230 billion over 5 years, and a $2.6 trillion cumulative loss in GDP over 10 years.

Any lawmaker who was concerned with the economy and had passed a second-grade math class would, especially after seeing these numbers, try to create a path toward citizenship to create more taxpayers.  But Gallegly, Smith, and King are driven by their anti-immigrant views, and very soon, if they keep it up, they'll be driven out of office.

Posted 04/05/11 at 03:11pm By Mahwish Khan

Immigration System Needs Solutions to Protect High and Low-Skilled Workers

start-up visaRepresentatives Lamar Smith (R-TX), Elton Gallegly (R-CA) and Steve King (R-IA) are in the driver’s seat on immigration policy for the GOP.  Their goal is mass deportation of 11 million undocumented workers and their families, which they couch in the friendlier-sounding “attrition through enforcement”.  As revealed in a series of hearings this year, their strategy is to pit one group of workers against another—U.S. workers against immigrants, native-born American workers against foreign-born American workers, African-American workers against Latinos, etc.  A recent hearing on the H-1B work-visa program also made it clear that while Smith, Gallegly, and King have never met an undocumented dishwasher or field hand they liked, they recognize the vital role of high-skilled immigration to the United States. 

Gallegly is already plotting legislation to make the E-verify employment authorization system mandatory.  It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to predict where this is headed: a crackdown on undocumented workers through nationwide E-verify and other measures, and a sweetener for the business community through changes to high-skilled immigration.           

Recently, the President said that he wants to deal with changes to high-skilled immigration, including the Kerry-Lugar Startup Visa bill, as part of comprehensive immigration reform.  That position garnered criticism from Vivek Wadhwa in TechCrunch:

I debated this with [United States Chief Technology Officer] Aneesh Chopra, at the Economist Innovation Summit in Berkeley, last week.

The day before that event, Aneesh had invited me to a meeting with the director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Alejandro Mayorkas, at Stanford Law School. We had had a very productive discussion with leading academics, lawyers, and entrepreneurs about how the government can interpret existing laws in a more favorable way for immigrant entrepreneurs. I was pleasantly surprised at how open Mayorkas was to criticism and at how he listened to the ideas presented to him. Both he and Chopra acknowledged the deficiencies of the current system and pledged to do all they could to have them fixed.

But Chopra dropped a bombshell at the Economist event. He said that the President would only support the Startup Visa in the context of “comprehensive immigration reform.”  What this means is that the legislation will be lumped in with toxic debates about illegal immigration and will be held hostage to other interests.

If Wadhwa is concerned about the “toxicity” of the immigration debate, he should direct his criticism at Lamar Smith, Steve King, and Elton Gallegly—along with Sens. Jeff Sessions, David Vitter, and others.  They are the ones who try to use every immigration issue—however important—as a vehicle for anti-immigration amendments and increased enforcement against undocumented workers.  Yes, our country needs immigrant entrepreneurs and their contributions.  But we also need busboys, farm workers, and landscapers.  Helping one group while hurting another is not acceptable.    

Our entire economy – and especially the economy of California (from Silicon Valley to the Central Valley and beyond) -- is dependent on immigrants from across the spectrum.  With Smith, Gallegly, and King at the helm in the House, it’s clear that any bill expanding access to America for high-skilled workers will also be a magnet for punitive enforcement targeting low-skilled workers. 

It’s time for the adults in the Republican Party to step up, set aside the Smith-Gallegly-King agenda, and work with Democrats on real, comprehensive immigration reform.   

Posted 04/01/11 at 01:03pm By Lynn Tramonte

Dept. of Homeland Security, Dept. of Labor Sign Memorandum of Understanding on Workplace Enforcement

Department of Homeland Security and Department of LaborYesterday, the Obama Administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Labor Department finally agreed to work together to make sure the government’s zeal to enforce immigration laws doesn’t hurt labor enforcement efforts.

Let me break down the power equation here.  Like labor unions, some employers support comprehensive immigration reform because it’s the only way to a fair system where everyone has the same rights and responsibilities.  But other employers—the notorious Agriprocessors comes to mind—profit from the status quo.  They hire undocumented immigrants because they are easier to control.  They use the broken immigration system to enhance their profit margin, undercut law-abiding competitors, undermine workers, and cheat American taxpayers.  When workers start demanding their rights, these employers threaten them with deportation.   

It would be smart to focus enforcement efforts on these abusive employers, to break the cycle of abuse and protect the rights of all workers.  Unfortunately, Michael Chertoff’s Department of Homeland Security instead targeted immigrant workers with massive worksite raids, criminal prosecutions, and deportations.  The Labor Department was largely unaware or uninvolved.  Immigration and Customs Enforcement even used the Department of Labor to trap immigrants by impersonating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and arresting workers who showed up for safety training.

Click here to read more.
Posted 03/28/11 at 01:50pm By Van Le

Report Analyzes True Economic Effects of Arizona SB 1070

laborersA year ago this April, Arizona passed its now-infamous SB 1070 bill, which has polarized the immigration debate around the nation and spawned both counter and copycat bills.  The law itself yet remains unenforced, due to legal challenges to its constitutionality.  Ahead of the one-year anniversary, the Immigration Policy Center and Center for American Progress last week released a very interesting new report, entitled “A Rising Tide or a Shrinking Pie: The Economic Impact of Legalization Versus Deportation.”  The report analyzes two scenarios: what would happen if SB 1070 were carried out to its full intended effect and every single undocumented immigrant was purged from Arizona, and would happen if the state instead decided to pursue legalization.

The report points out that the US immigration debate has become so heated that public discussion tends to be lacking in substance, with facts left altogether out of the equation.  It seeks to explore what is best for Arizona economically in this post-recession, and the numbers are significant.

If every undocumented immigrant were expelled from Arizona, it would:

  • Decrease total employment by 17.2%

  • Eliminate 581,000 jobs for immigrants and native-born workers alike

  • Shrink the state economy by $48.8 billion

  • Reduce state tax revenues by 10.1%

However, if all of the undocumented in Arizona were instead legalized, it would:

  • Increase total employment by 7.7%

  • Add 261,000 jobs for immigrants and native-born workers

  • Increase labor income by $5.6 billion

  • Increase tax revenue by $1.86 billion

Why?  The report’s introduction explains:

Undocumented immigrants don’t simply “fill” jobs; they create jobs. Through the work they perform, the money they spend, and the taxes they pay, undocumented immigrants sustain the jobs of many other workers in the U.S. economy, immigrants and native-born alike. Were undocumented immigrants to suddenly vanish, the jobs of many Americans would vanish as well.

In contrast, were undocumented immigrants to acquire legal status, their wages and productivity would increase, they would spend more in our economy and pay more in taxes, and new jobs would be created. Simply put, Arizona’s current approach to immigration policy is economically self-destructive.

Click here to read more.
Posted 09/03/10 at 12:18pm By Guest Blogger

Weekly Diaspora: The High Cost of Cheap Labor

by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger:

A new study about the effects of immigration on U.S. employment supports the long-standing arguments of immigration advocates: Rather than displacing American workers, immigrant labor actually makes our economy stronger. Kevin Drum has the details at Mother Jones.

Now, with reports that undocumented laborers are a mainstay of disaster relief efforts all over the country, Americans are beginning to get a sense of the unsavory work relegated to many immigrants, and the high price immigrants pay for the simple privilege of employment.

Undocumented workers driving wages up

Going back to Mother Jones, new research examining the relationship between immigration and U.S. employment found that—contrary to conventional anti-immigrant wisdom—immigration does not negatively affect American employment. Instead, immigration drives wages up by pushing low-wage American workers into higher-paying jobs.

Here’s how it works: As less-educated immigrants gravitate towards work that requires fewer English language skills (like manual labor), their less-educated American counterparts move on to higher-paying, communications-intensive work that capitalizes on their comparatively better English language skills. This naturally drives wages up, and makes for a more productive economy overall.

The irony, as Drum notes, is that those who complain about immigrants stealing American jobs are the same people who want immigrants to learn English and assimilate as quickly as possible. “If they did,” Drum argues, “then they’d just start competing for the higher paying jobs that natives now monopolize.”

Click here to read more.
Posted 01/07/10 at 02:35pm By Jackie Mahendra

New Study: Immigration Reform Would Bring $1.5 Trillion in Economic Growth

This morning I was live-tweeting from an event at the Center for American Progress (CAP), co-sponsored by the Immigration Policy Center, where economic experts from a wide range of institutions had come together to document the astounding economic benefits to the United States that would come from passing a comprehensive immigration reform package.

The event centered around a new study entitled,  “Raising the Floor for American Workers,” which was written by Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, a professor at UCLA.

As Congress prepares to debate immigration reform early this year, the report crisply lays out the economic argument for fixing our immigration system. Simply put, Americans ignore immigration at the peril of their pocketbooks: passing reform would usher in $1.5 trillion in economic growth. Conversely, we'd see a net drain on our economy of $2.6 trillion over 10 years if we decided to simply deport all undocumented immigrants currently here.

The report examined the impact of the 1986 immigration bill and used economic modeling to make three key findings:

  • Comprehensive immigration reform generates an annual increase in U.S. GDP of at least 0.84 percent. This amounts to $1.5 trillion in additional GDP over 10 years. It also boosts wages for both native-born and newly legalized immigrant workers.

  • A temporary worker program with proper labor protections generates an annual increase in U.S. GDP of 0.44 percent. This amounts to $792 billion of additional GDP over 10 years [...]

  • Mass deportation reduces U.S. GDP by 1.46 percent annually. This amounts to $2.6 trillion in lost GDP over 10 years, not including the actual cost of deportation. [...]

Click here to read more.
Posted 12/21/09 at 03:53pm By Adam Luna

CAP Releases New Principles on Immigration Reform

workers taxpayers citizensThe Center For American Progress just released new guidelines today, which would present a strong foundation for a real immigration overhaul.

Before laying out their core principles for Immigration Reform (view pdf), however, authors Marshall Fitz and Angela Kelley outline why this kind of reform is so urgent:

Our broken immigration system undermines core national interests and must be reformed. The public demands it. Our security requires it. Global competitiveness and economic reality compel it. Our identity as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws depends on it.

[...] The failures of our immigration system stand in sharp contrast to the powerful contributions that immigrants have made to our country. Immigrants have become part of the American mainstream, and they are essential to our economic growth. They are the entrepreneurs on Main Street, U.S.A., and they have risen to the top of every segment of society along with their children, including the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. presidency.

They continue with a broad blueprint for reform that is both tough and practical:

We must develop a system that recognizes those contributions and treats immigration as a national resource to be managed and embraced. This requires that we develop strong enforcement mechanisms at the border and worksite that will expose future illegal border crossers and employers who seek to hire undocumented workers. It requires that we deal realistically with the fact that more than 5 percent of our national workforce is undocumented. It requires that we allow families that have been separated for years or decades to be united quickly. It requires that we create flexible immigration channels to enable foreign workers to enter the country without disadvantaging U.S. workers. And it requires that we provide immigrants with the tools they need to integrate into our communities.

Opponents of reform will continue to foment fear and cling to the status quo. But public opinion polling shows that voters expect their elected officials to solve tough problems with pragmatic policies while standing on principle. As the president and Congress begin work on this issue, the Center for American Progress offers the following framework of principles and solutions for comprehensive immigration reform.

Click here to read more.
Posted 12/02/09 at 03:46pm By Maribel Hastings

Legalizing Farm Workers: A Shared Necessity

Check out Part 6 in my series, "Immigration Reform: Know the Players."

Here's a taste:

The debate over legalizing farm workers has always been marked by the controversial question of labor conditions and migrants’ lives, health and housing.

But this time, labor organization and farmers are in agreement that passing an AgJOBS bill is a shared necessity.

Read the full article at MaribelHastings.com.

Posted 11/25/09 at 01:01pm By Dara Lind

Got Milk? Thank Immigrants

We know that immigrant workers are a crucial, though often invisible, part of the American workforce. However, as we sit down to pumpkin pies with whipped cream on top this week, it's important to remember just how many American businesses --dairy farming firmly among them -- rely on immigrants to run.

Just ask the Vermont dairy farmer profiled on Vermont Public Radio yesterday morning. Listen to what he tells his employees (most of whom come from Mexico):

You guys are very important. You guys run this farm. I don't milk the cows here. You guys know the cows.

With the latest round of employment audits from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hitting Vermont farmers, the farm owned by the farmer in the VPR segment worries aloud what might happen if he's next:

If all of a sudden my guys were gone tomorrow, it would be really hard to operate.

"It's hard to find people to do the work," he tells VPR, not to mention the time it would take to train a new workforce to become as skilled as his current farmhands.

The farmer, like so many small businessmen who have come to trust and rely on immigrant workers, intimately understands that ICE's current piecemeal enforcement actions aren't a real solution to our immigration crisis-- they are placing many small American businesses in a state of severe anxiety and uncertainty at a time when our economy is incredibly fragile.

As so many of us do, this Vermont farmer hopes to see a system whereby immigrant laborers like the ones who "run (his) farm" can work legally in the United States, to support American businesses and pursue the American dream for themselves and their families.

So, if you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner this week, and your Uncle Bill tells you we should kick all the immigrants laborers out, just shake your head and ask:

Got milk?

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