Stop blaming the recession on immigrants

Posted by Helen Jugovic on 15 June 2009 | 1 Comments

Tags: recession, immigrants, impact of immigrants on the economy, Wilmington, NC, employer who refuses to pay fair wages, immigrants compliment US workers, immigrants don't take jobs away from Americans

As the economy struggles in recession, an old debate becomes new: the question of immigrants' impact on the U.S. economy.

• Are illegal immigrants taking our jobs? Are they supressing US wages? Are they using up our resources?
• Or did the sweep of raids on businesses that stripped us of hardworking, honest immigrants help lead us into economic crisis?
• Did we chill the voice of those who would report unfair wages or crimes?
• Did we stop international talent from working in the US, making our businesses slow and less competitive?

Everyone knows that when times are tight, we look for a scapegoat. But blaming the recession on immigrants is wrong.

In my many years of working with immigrants (and employers), I rarely see an employer who refuses to pay a fair wage. In fact, most of my clients ask whether a high-dollar government fee or higher wage might help legalize the worker faster, because he is “simply irreplaceable.” Anyone who has been in a tobacco field in North Carolina knows how hard working immigrants can be. Even well-covered, a quarter of tobacco workers get sick each year from the nicotine touching their skin.

In the minority of cases where I see immigrant labor suppress US wages, my clients are afraid to report the abuse, because they fear they will be deported. The unit of Legal Aid that helps farmworkers obtain fair wages knows this problem well. Since it’s the blueberry season, I’ll use that as an example:

Our migrant and seasonal farmworkers are often paid by the bucket. If the season is good and a worker is fast, he may make minimum wage or more. If the crop is poor or the weather impedes, he may not make minimum wage by the end of the week, if paid by the bucket. Employers need to pay our blueberry harvesters at least the minimum wage, and organizations like Legal Aid work to help enforce that. But when American immigration law does not give enough protection to immigrants who report violations, Americans should not be surprised to see their wages suppressed. Think of the civil rights movement for African Americans. If they didn’t have protection from police (or sometimes, the national guard), how would they ever have exercised their rights?

If our immigration system already had a perfect compliance rate, it would so much easier to enforce fair wages, to ensure people all “come here legally” and to protect our borders. But we will never get there, without reform. Until we start seeing immigrants as complimenting and helping US workers, instead of stealing their jobs, we are missing the big picture of our American economy.

I understand why Americans fear losing their jobs or their homes in these tough times. I understand why, if an American had to choose, he might want to give a job to an American rather than a foreigner, especially for jobs created by the Obama economic stimulus plan. But restricting jobs to people who don’t want to work (or can’t work, don’t have the expertise or otherwise simply are not a good fit), just because they are born on US soil, will hurt our economic recovery.

Moreover, closing our doors to foreigners to protect the economy means we close the door on foreign talent and innovation.  For each job saved for an American, we might lose 2 more jobs we might have had, with immigrants by our side. Immigrants are complementing, not replacing, American workers.

Immigration reform, by legitimizing the status of the 12 million undocumented immigrants, will level the playing field for employers & Americans who compete against the bad employers that use cheaper, fearful, undocumented labor. It would boost IRS revenues, for those immigrants who have been too afraid to file taxes using an ITIN. It would give our wage and hour law enforcement and civil rights organizations a strong voice again, to create safety for those who dare to speak out against discrimination and crime. And it will preserve the exchange of ideas and culture internationally. To become the strong economy we once were, we need to stop making immigrants our scapegoat for every problem.