Latino Immigrants Among Hardest Hit by Recession

By
Thursday, February 12, 2009 at 4:50 pm

In reporting on my story today about the behind-the-scenes battle over requiring employers receiving stimulus money to weed out undocumented workers by using E-Verify, I heard lots of complaints about all the illegal immigrants that have flooded the country and taken the jobs that ought to be going to hardworking Americans.

“We have millions of people in this country working illegally,” says Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “Far more people will lose their jobs due to illegal aliens than could lose [them] due to an error in the [computer] system,” he said, referring to the E-Verify system. “The employers got up one day and said, ‘why retain them if we can hire illegal aliens cheaper?’ ”

Well, this study released today by the Pew Research Center at least raises some serious questions about those claims.  Turns out, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, that Latino immigrants — legal and illegal — are losing their jobs more rapidly than just about anyone else.

While U.S.-born Latinos and blacks have also been hit hard by the recession, according to the Pew Study, it’s the foreign-born that are the worst off. From Pew:

The unemployment rate for foreign-born Hispanics increased from 5.1% to 8.0%, or by 2.9 percentage points, from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2008. During this same time period, the unemployment rate for all persons in the labor market increased from 4.6% to 6.6%, or by 2.0 percentage points.

This may be due in part to the sharp decline in construction work, where Latino immigrants play a large role. Still, the stimulus bill has got major anti-illegal immigration groups worried that money for new construction work means more work for all those illegal immigrants.

“If there is a job creation program that succeeds,” says Mehlman, “it will create a magnet for illegal aliens. They come if they believe that they’re going to benefit. If you are creating jobs and not taking any steps to ensure they only go to legal U.S. workers, that’s what’s going to happen.”

Of course, as I explained in my story today, the solution he’s advocating – the use of a flawed government-run computer system called E-Verify – wouldn’t do much to ensure that those illegal workers don’t just steal a Social Security number and get a fake ID card. And, it would accidentally exclude millions of legal workers, especially the foreign-born.

There must be a better way.

Comments

9 Comments

Delaware Bob
Comment posted February 12, 2009 @ 5:30 pm

Very Good Story!

Now I can't say the ILLEGAL ALIENS are completely to blame for the shape of our economy, but they are a BIG part of the problem. The ILLEGAL ALIENS send BILLIONS upon BILLIONS out of this Country every year, money we will NEVER see again. Does this help our economy?

How about the BILLIONS the American taxpayers fork out for the ANCHOR BABIES, the schooling of them, the medical care and the list goes on, and on, and on.

How about the MILLIONS upon MILLIONS paid to jail ILLEGAL ALIENS for the crimes, then the cost to deport them. Does this help our economy?

Then you have these activist groups, the Catholic Church and the ACLU that want AMNESTY for these ILLEGAL ALIENS. It would be absolute suicide for this Country if AMNESTY were granted to the 20 million or so ILLEGAL ALIENS. We have more and more people out of work everyday and they want to add another 20 million to this Country? I say, “NO”!

If AMNESTY were ever granted to these 20 million ILLEGAL ALIENS, you can bet big money that 3 years from now, there would be ANOTHER 3-5 million ILLEGAL ALIENS demonstrating on our soil for AMNESTY.

An end MUST come to this illegal immigration. The perfect tool we have so far is E-Verify. It MUST be used by ALL businesses and Government Social Services. EVERY employee must be checked! If they are illegal, they are to be dismissed!

I believe it is time for all 50 States to pass a State law, like Arizona, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina and a few others. It is time for these ILLEGAL ALIENS to go back to their home Country and get out of this Country. The problems they are causing will not go away until the ILLEGAL ALIENS are out of this Country.

THIS COUNTRY WILL NEVER GET BACK ON IT'S FEET AS LONG AS ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE IN THIS COUNTRY NO MATTER HOW MANY TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS WE SPEND!


r dion
Comment posted February 13, 2009 @ 3:57 am

E verify is not FLAWED, the error rate is less than .05%!!! In less then 2 two hours using a similar data base the irs and the ssa can weed out any mistake made comparing name and ss#. This constant barrage of misinformation are only used because no real arguments do not exist. Employers for years have been uncle sams's free tax collectors if they can do this they can also do e verify. Illegal activity should not be rewarded, it sets bad example, sort of like being appointed head of the IRS and being a tax evader. I wonder how this appointment is going to affect compliance with paying income taxes. There are always unintended consequences to every action and the Geichler appointment will have a lots of negative consequences!


stevo1
Comment posted February 13, 2009 @ 5:17 am

Boy, am I confused. I have been hammered with the propaganda that it is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us. I now find that to be
RIDICULOUS.

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.

Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.

Verify at: http ://www..cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
Verify at:

http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
Verify at:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/…

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
Verify at
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/…

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
Verify at:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/…

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
Verify at:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/…

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.

Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.0…

9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/…

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the U.S.
Verify at:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/…

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.

Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National Policy Institute, 'estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.'

Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/depo…

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin.
Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm

14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States.'
Verify at: http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

The total cost is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.

More simply put, in just over 2 years without the illegal alien stranglehold on our economy, the current Wall Street crisis and the proposed $700 billion bailout would be paid for, without a cent of tax of US citizens!

Are we THAT stupid?
on the other
hand, it does raise the hair on the back of your neck, I hope you forward it
to every legal resident in the country including every representative in
Washington , D.C. – five times a week for as long as it takes to restore some
semblance of intelligence in our policies and enforcement thereof.


Estoban
Comment posted February 13, 2009 @ 6:21 am

“Of course, as I explained in my story today, the solution he’s advocating – the use of a flawed government-run computer system called E-Verify – wouldn’t do much to ensure that those illegal workers don’t just steal a Social Security number and get a fake ID card. And, it would accidentally exclude millions of legal workers, especially the foreign-born.”
———-
Calling E-Verify flawed is laughable, and flawed to the point of excluding millions of employees is impossible. Fill a sports stadium with 30,000 job seekers and E-Verify will flag less than 30 of them. Most of those flagged can be approved by updating changes of address with the government with a simple phone call. Let us stay realistic here. Eight million illegal aliens are doing American jobs while 12 million Americans are seeking employment. E-Verify is the only sensible tool to use to prevent law breaking illegal aliens from taking jobs from Americans.


Marge Wood
Comment posted February 13, 2009 @ 9:03 am

E-Verify all the way. Needs to be renewed and mandated for all employers everywhere, not just for government jobs. Notice that Pelosi, Reid and Obama pulled this amendment out of the final stimulus bill to please their illegal alien advocates and the US Chamber of Commerce. They are selling out America for future votes and to solidify their power grab. All of you zombies who annointed Obama and majority democrats are hopefully construction workers that will lose your jobs.


Wandagb
Comment posted February 13, 2009 @ 9:27 am

Everything you need to know about immigration and what to do about it humorously told.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBw1nUlf38I

NumbersUSA is the hero.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7WJeqxuOfQ


Jenny
Comment posted February 14, 2009 @ 7:45 pm

Sorry, but have to call you on the BS. Since 2000, virtually all newly created jobs have gone to foreign nationals, those here illegally, and those exploiting our visa programs. American citizens have been displaced, fired and replaced or their wages undercut (in the construction and other building trades) by foreign nationals here on visas and those here illegally. Citizen's losing their jobs have risen dramatically since, and prior to that due to the outsourcing binge that came about after Bill Clinton pushed through NAFTA and MFN status w/China. The refusal to enforce our current immigration laws and corrupt democrats in congress (and I am a liberal democrat, but I will vote against democrats because of this starting this year) becoming corrupted by corporate and foreign contributions, has destroyed our middle class, and working poor, eliminating almost all the gains achieved since the New Deal.

Why doesn't the author report where the Pew Center gets it's money? The same US Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable lobbyists that pay off the National Council of La Raza, MALDEF and LULAC. What's more, the Pew Center doesn't do polls to gather information on the displacement of citizens in the workplace, I wonder why? But Dr. George Borjas, of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard has conducted many studies, based on factual data that has proven that there is no shortage of American citizen workers, no matter if we are talking about from unskilled all the way up to the highest skilled tech workers and math and science degrees. What's more, the importation of foreign nationals and illegal aliens have dragged down the wages of American citizens and lead to massive displacement in the workplace. All based on facts and data from the CBO and GAO.

E-Verify isn't flawed, it's virtually 100% accurate, and no citizen or legal immigrant whose info comes up false has a problem rectifying it. Citizens have ID's, and so do legal immigrants, in fact legal immigrants not only have ID provided, they have a huge file of paperwork given to them to prove their legal status, and they are informed always to have their ID on them, and to save their folder of paperwork in case it's needed. E-Verify is free to use, and confirms status instantaneously. What bothers this author is that E-Verify is effective and anyone using faked or stolen ID and social security numbers would be caught by E-Verify.

American citizens have always done and still need to do construction work, citizens who are black, brown and white. Those jobs lifted them out of poverty, and since 2000 and the refusal to enforce our immigration laws, citizens have been forced out of those jobs, so employers could make higher profits, and politicians get bigger kickbacks.

It's citizens who have civil rights, and they have human rights considerations as well. This writer apparently wants citizens rights to be swept under the carpet, so her preference for a slavery based economy can continue.


Jenny
Comment posted February 15, 2009 @ 3:45 am

Sorry, but have to call you on the BS. Since 2000, virtually all newly created jobs have gone to foreign nationals, those here illegally, and those exploiting our visa programs. American citizens have been displaced, fired and replaced or their wages undercut (in the construction and other building trades) by foreign nationals here on visas and those here illegally. Citizen's losing their jobs have risen dramatically since, and prior to that due to the outsourcing binge that came about after Bill Clinton pushed through NAFTA and MFN status w/China. The refusal to enforce our current immigration laws and corrupt democrats in congress (and I am a liberal democrat, but I will vote against democrats because of this starting this year) becoming corrupted by corporate and foreign contributions, has destroyed our middle class, and working poor, eliminating almost all the gains achieved since the New Deal.

Why doesn't the author report where the Pew Center gets it's money? The same US Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable lobbyists that pay off the National Council of La Raza, MALDEF and LULAC. What's more, the Pew Center doesn't do polls to gather information on the displacement of citizens in the workplace, I wonder why? But Dr. George Borjas, of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard has conducted many studies, based on factual data that has proven that there is no shortage of American citizen workers, no matter if we are talking about from unskilled all the way up to the highest skilled tech workers and math and science degrees. What's more, the importation of foreign nationals and illegal aliens have dragged down the wages of American citizens and lead to massive displacement in the workplace. All based on facts and data from the CBO and GAO.

E-Verify isn't flawed, it's virtually 100% accurate, and no citizen or legal immigrant whose info comes up false has a problem rectifying it. Citizens have ID's, and so do legal immigrants, in fact legal immigrants not only have ID provided, they have a huge file of paperwork given to them to prove their legal status, and they are informed always to have their ID on them, and to save their folder of paperwork in case it's needed. E-Verify is free to use, and confirms status instantaneously. What bothers this author is that E-Verify is effective and anyone using faked or stolen ID and social security numbers would be caught by E-Verify.

American citizens have always done and still need to do construction work, citizens who are black, brown and white. Those jobs lifted them out of poverty, and since 2000 and the refusal to enforce our immigration laws, citizens have been forced out of those jobs, so employers could make higher profits, and politicians get bigger kickbacks.

It's citizens who have civil rights, and they have human rights considerations as well. This writer apparently wants citizens rights to be swept under the carpet, so her preference for a slavery based economy can continue.


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