On Illegal Immigration; Right or Wrong

I would like to say this country has been "dumbing down" the job market for years, but that isn't quite right.

There used to be jobs for college grads and jobs for high school jobs and jobs for almost everyone else except the blatantly insane.

People at the lowest rungs of the education ladder could afford to buy groceries and have roofs with mortgages over their heads.

Today, we ship our jobs overseas.

Today, we deny that we are all immigrants but we like to keep the doors to the country closed.

Today, jobs that we once tried to escape from, like managing a retail store, are now held by college graduates.

Today, it takes two or three incomes to buy a house.

Atkins, Only two or three? LOL The home prices in our area are increasing at the rate of 20 to 30 percent/year. The average home price is somewhere in the range of $650,000. I guess it would depend on the 'average' two or three income.

C.I
You forgot to add they have to be rebuilt after every rainy season and or earthquake. I prefer solid ground when I spend my hard earned money.

Sorry couldn't resist after seeing all those expensive houses at the bottom of the hill.

My wife had the same reaction you had; why do those people keep building homes on unstable hills? According to a tv report on that recent landslide, some rebuilt homes in the same area as the previous landslide of some 7-8 years ago. We're on a 'hill,' but we're talking maybe 8-10 feet higher than the other homes in our area; perfect to drain rainwater downwards.

From NYT:

June 7, 2005
Some Immigrants Are Offering Social Security Numbers for Rent
By EDUARDO PORTER
TLALCHAPA, Mexico - Gerardo Luviano is looking for somebody to rent his Social Security number.

Mr. Luviano, 39, obtained legal residence in the United States almost 20 years ago. But these days, back in Mexico, teaching beekeeping at the local high school in this hot, dusty town in the southwestern part of the country, Mr. Luviano is not using his Social Security number. So he is looking for an illegal immigrant in the United States to use it for him - providing a little cash along the way.

"I've almost managed to contact somebody to lend my number to," Mr. Luviano said. "My brother in California has a friend who has crops and has people that need one."

Mr. Luviano's pending transaction is merely a blip in a shadowy yet vibrant underground market. Virtually undetected by American authorities, operating below the radar in immigrant communities from coast to coast, a secondary trade in identities has emerged straddling both sides of the Mexico-United States border.

"It is seen as a normal thing to do," said Luis Magaña, an immigrant-rights activist assisting farm workers in the agriculture-rich San Joaquin Valley of California.

The number of people participating in the illegal deals is impossible to determine accurately. But it is clearly significant, flourishing despite efforts to combat identity fraud.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants who cross the border from Mexico illegally each year need to procure a legal identity that will allow them to work in the United States. Many legal immigrants, whether living in the United States or back in Mexico, are happy to provide them: as they pad their earnings by letting illegal immigrants work under their name and number, they also enhance their own unemployment and pension benefits. And sometimes they charge for the favor.

Martin Mora, a former migrant to the United States who these days is a prominent local politician preparing to run for a seat in the state legislature in next October's elections, said that in just one town in the Tlalchapa municipality, "of about 1,000 that fixed their papers in the United States there might be 50 that are here and lending their number."

Demand for American identities has blossomed in the cracks between the nation's increasingly unwelcoming immigration laws and businesses' unremitting demand for low-wage labor.

In 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act started penalizing employers who knowingly hired illegal immigrants, most employers started requiring immigrants to provide the paperwork - including a Social Security number - to prove their eligibility to work.

The new law did not stop unauthorized immigrant work, of course. An estimated 10 million illegal immigrants live in the United States today, up from some 4 million before the immigration law went into effect. But it did create a thriving market for fake documents.

These days, most immigrants working unlawfully buy a document combo for $100 to $200 that includes a fake green card and fake Social Security card with a nine-digit number plucked out of thin air. "They'll make it for you right there at the flea market," said David Blanco, an illegal immigrant from Costa Rica who works as an auto mechanic in Stockton, Calif.

This process has one big drawback, however. Each year, Social Security receives millions of W-2 earning statements with names or numbers that do not match its records. Nine million poured in for 2002, many of them just simple mistakes. In response the agency sends hundreds of thousands of letters asking employers to correct the information. These letters can provoke the firing of the offending worker.

Working with a name linked to a number recognized by Social Security - even if it is just borrowed or leased - avoids these pitfalls. "It's the safest way," said Mario Avalos, a Stockton accountant who every year does tax returns for dozens of illegal immigrants. "If you are going to work in a company with strict requirements, you know they won't let you in without good papers."

While renting Social Security numbers makes up a small portion of the overall use of false papers, those with close ties to the immigrant communities say it is increasingly popular. "It used to be that people here offered their number for somebody to work it," said Mr. Mora in Tlalchapa. "Now people over there are asking people here if they can use their number."

Since legal American residents can lose their green cards if they stay outside the country too long, for those who have returned to Mexico it is useful to have somebody working under their identity north of the border.

"There are people who live in Mexico who take $4,000 or $5,000 in unemployment in the off season," said Jorge Eguiluz, a labor contractor working in the fields around Stockton, Calif. "They just lend the number during the season."

The deals also generate cash in other ways. Most identity lending happens within an extended family, or among immigrants from the same hometown. But it is still a hard-nosed transaction. Illegal immigrant workers usually earn so little they are owed an income tax refund at the end of the year. The illegal immigrant "working the number" will usually pay the real owner by sharing the tax refund.

"Sometimes the one who is working doesn't mind giving all the refund, he just wants to work," said Fernando Rosales, who runs a shop preparing income taxes in the immigrant-rich enclave of Huntington Park, Calif. "But others don't, and sometimes they fight over it. We see that all the time. It's the talk of the place during income tax time."

Done skillfully, the underground transactions are virtually undetectable. They do not ring any bells at the Social Security Administration. Nor do they set off alarms at the Internal Revenue Service as long as the person who lends the number keeps track of the W-2's and files the proper income tax returns.

In a written response to questions, the audit office of Social Security's inspector general acknowledged that "as long as the name and S.S.N. on an incoming wage item (i.e., W-2) matches S.S.A.'s record" the agency will not detect any irregularity. The response noted that the agency had no statistics on the use of Social Security numbers by illegal immigrants. It does not even know how many of the incorrect earnings reports it receives every year come from immigrants working unlawfully, though immigration experts estimate that most do.

Meanwhile, with the Homeland Security Department focused on terrorism threats, it has virtually stopped policing the workplace for run-of-the-mill work violations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested only 450 illegal immigrants in the workplace in 2003, down from 14,000 in 1998.

"We have seen identity fraud," said John Torres, deputy assistant director for investigations. But "I haven't heard of the renting of identities."

Immigrants on both sides of the transactions are understandably reluctant to talk about their participation.

A 49-year-old illegal immigrant from Michoacán who earns $8.16 an hour at a waffle factory in Torrance, Calif., said that she had been using a Social Security number she borrowed from a friend in Mexico since she crossed illegally into the United States 15 years ago. "She hasn't come back in this time," the woman said.

A 37-year-old forewoman who manages crews in the canneries and packing plants of the San Joaquin Valley also agreed to share her testimony only under the condition that her name not be used. She said that she functioned as a sort of identity clearing house, collecting Social Security numbers of acquaintances who want their identities "worked" and assigning them to illegal workers in the canneries.

"Friends and relatives ask me to get somebody who will work their Social Security number," she said. "Workers who just arrived from Mexico don't have anything. They can't pay $150" for fake documents, she added, "so I tell them, 'Take this one.' "

Moreover, even though the forewoman immigrated as a child and is now an American citizen, she occasionally uses somebody else's identity to work. When the crop is poor and work is scarce, she prefers to toil under somebody else's Social Security number, so she can supplement her wages with unemployment benefits that she claims under her own name and number.

"Some people work their own number in the cannery and at the same time lend it for somebody to work it in the packing plant," to pad their earnings, she said.

There are risks involved in letting one's identity be used by someone else, though, as Mr. Luviano, the beekeeping instructor, learned through experience.

Mr. Luviano got his green card by a combination of luck and guile. He says he was on a short trip to visit his brother in California when the 1986 immigration law went into effect and the United States offered amnesty to millions of unauthorized workers. Three million illegal immigrants, 2.3 million of them from Mexico, ultimately received residence papers. Mr. Luviano, who qualified when a farmer wrote a letter avowing he had worked for months in his fields, was one. Once he had his papers, though, he returned to Tlalchapa.

He has entered the United States several times since then, mostly to renew his green card. But in the early 1990's, concerned that long absences could put his green card at risk and spurred by the chance to make a little extra money, he lent his Social Security number to his brother's friend. "I kept almost all the income tax refund," Mr. Luviano said.

Mr. Luviano decided to pull the plug on the arrangement, however, when bills for purchases he had not made started arriving in his name at his brother's address. "You lend your number in good faith and you can get yourself in trouble," he said.

But he is itching to do it again anyway. He knows that Social Security could provide retirement income down the line. And there's always the tax refund.

"I haven't profited as much as I could from those documents," Mr. Luviano said ruefully.

Given that this very problem played a very prominent role in the 1980 presidential TV debates, with more or less the same ideas floating around, I believe this is not specific to any of the big parties. As I see it, illegal immigration from Mexico raises two issues: Given that the US have immigration laws, should they be enforced? And, is the net effect of such immigration good or bad. My own answer is that on net a good thing, because the poor immigrants and the rich employers gain more than the middle class American workers lose. But ignoring immigration laws is the wrong consequence, not the least because it subverts the rule of law in general. The right consequence would be to change immigration laws, and to open the US for immigration from Mexico officially.

As a matter of law, no, because it is illegal -- like illegal immigration. As a matter of ethics, no, because none of the people whose money he robs consent to be robbed -- which is unlike the case of an illegal immigrant, who works for a willing American employer. That's why I see illegal immigration as illegal, but also as ethically okay -- analogous to the way I view smoking marijuana today, or drinking wine in 1930.


I don't understand what you mean by "exploited". When willing businesses hire willing employees, in what sense do you think they are exploiting them?


They work for consenting employers, rent their homes from consenting landlords, and buy their food from consenting grocers. That makes them welcome enough for the people they have social intercourse with. If you don't like Mexicans, fine: don't hire them, don't work for them, don't rent houses to them or from them, and don't talk to them. Nobody forces you to invite Mexicans into your home if you don't want to. But what gives you the right to deny others the pleasure of doing all these things?


Yes, and the exploited are better off for it, so why should I have a moral problem with that?

Doesn't it come down to the basic problem of whether anyone has the right to own anything? Can you fence off all the good stuff for yourselves and your mates? Why should there be any borders anywhere? Do you think people should suffer the consequences of being born on the other side of the fence?

Thomas


They are exploited when the are paid slave wages, forced to work long hours and are fired if they open their mouths. In addition contrary to the BS they take only jobs Americans will not they also take jobs that Americans will take at less than prevailing rates.

In addition as noted in C.I. response they play and steal from the system.

A smaller world population would improve some of our economic problems.

Atkins
What would you suggest? Note. The burgeoning of the worlds population is in the third world nations.

Here in the United States, we could tax people at a higher rate for every child after number two.

Nearly half a century ago, the Nestle corporation sent "milk nurses" to Third World nations to turn women from breast feeding to bottle feeding.

I won't say anthing more on this in order to keep my sarcastic side in check.

However, we need to structure our foreign policy in a way that encourages birth control overseas as well.

I don't understand "slave wages" either. As best I know, slaves didn't get any wages and, more importantly, they didn't have the option of declining their masters' 'job offers'. Unlike slave work, hiring an immigrant is a voluntary act on both sides, and that's a big difference as far as I am concerned.


I agree about that rhetoric being bullshit. But all I can see here is an income redistribution from American workers to American capitalists, which strikes me as a wash from America's point of view. This is ignoring the immigrants' point of view, from which immigration is highly beneficial.


That is indeed an argument against illegal immigrants. But for one thing, do you know this for a fact? When I applied for my Green Card, I remember signing a form saying that I am not eligible for any welfare (and medicaid, and Social Security ...) payments for the first X years of my stay in America. I am, however, welcome to pay taxes for other people's welfare payments. (X was either five or ten -- I'd have to look it up.) It is logically possible that illegal aliens "steal from the system" when I can't, but this is nothing I am ready to believe without further evidence. (In the Social Security card fraud story CI has posted, it was legal immigrants who were stealing from the illegal ones.) And second, assuming what you say is true, I would see it is an artifact of the immigrants being illegal, so it could easily be fixed by legalizing immigration.

The organzation of north america is slowly taking place.Blending into the future is inevitable.

Huh? I thought the percentage of organized workers in America is still declining. Did I miss something?

Thomas
The expression slave wages means that people are working for far less than what is normal and acceptable.

Thomas wrote
I agree about that rhetoric being bullshit. But all I can see here is an income redistribution from American workers to American capitalists, which strikes me as a wash from America's point of view. This is ignoring the immigrants' point of view, from which immigration is highly beneficial.

And all I can see is illegal aliens stealing jobs from American citizens. I would stress these people are not immigrants but illegal aliens.
Regarding your statement it is a redistribution of income American workers to American capitalists. How so?

And whom do you want to decide what is normal and acceptable? Certainly both parties of the deal find the wages normal and acceptable, as judged by their willingness to agree on them. Who are you and I to argue with them?


I disagree that these jobs are the American workers' to steal from. Jobs are contracts, not property, and everyone can enter any contract with anyone he likes, if only the terms are mutually agreeable. Everyone also has the right of declining to enter a contract if they don't like its terms. You would probably agree with this if we were talking about other kinds of contracts. For example, if you divorce Jane to marry Jill, we would probably agree that Jane has no valid complaint against Jill for "stealing her marriage". I submit that the same logic applies to jobs.


Immigrants, legal or not, have the effect of increasing the supply of labor but not of capital, thus driving wages down and profits up. (There is a job loss to Americans from every income earned by a Mexican, like you describe, but it is offset by a job gain for Americans from every income spent by a Mexican, so your argument about job loss does not apply.) Hence, we're looking at a dollar loss to American workers who earn lower wages, and at a dollar gain to American capitalists who pay lower wages. Because every wage earned is a wage paid and vice versa, this is a dollar wash for Americans as a whole, and hence a pure income redistribution.

I think liberalism is fine but unrealistic. If we want everybody on this planet to have all the goods and services that will enrich everybody's life, there wouldn't be enough raw materials to satisfy the appetite of all. Even capitalism must have some limits; we can't continue to exploit this planet of its raw material forever and survive. I think Thomas is spot on. We must either enforce our immigration laws or change it. That will satisfy the problem of exploitation of the immigrant worker. Where we set the limits to immigration is a whole new topic, because this thread is about legal and illegal immigration. That would also involve many of the EU countries which struggles with legal immigration within their borders with their high unemployment.

CI -- I am still puzzled by how often this "exploitation" theme is coming up. And while it is never fair to argue ad personam, let me ask you a personal question. You are a Japanese American, which probably means that your ancestors immigrated sometime between 1850 and 1920, the golden age of liberal American immigration policies. Chances are that the first generation of your ancestors worked in sweatshops much worse that what Mexican immigrants are working in now. They knew more or less what they were getting into, and they came willingly anyway.

Now my question to you is, do you think your elders made a mistake? Do you think your family would be better off if they had stayed in Japan, far from American exploitation? Do you think America would be better off if they had? And if your answer is "no" to both, as I assume it is, what do you think is different with today's Mexicans? Are the legal barriers against their immigration any more defensible than the ones against Chinese immigration erected during the "yellow scare" of the 1880s? My own answer is "no" to all of the above.

Our ancestors not only worked in sweatshops, but were also restricted from owning property - even though they came over legally. No, my elders did not make a mistake, but they legally - and were definitely exploited. You know as well as I that those were different times; everybody struggled - the so-called middle class didn't exist as they do now. Your comparison between the barriers for Chinese immigration and the Mexicans of today is unfair. Most whites approved discrimination early in our history (that's one of the reasons it was much easier to put Japanese Americans into US concentration camps during WWII), whereas it's generally disapproved of today. Today's Mexicans have the advantage of more Americans who approve of their illegal immigration. That's the reason why I agree with your opinion about enforcing our immigration laws or changing it.