Illegal aliens: Boon or bust to the U.S.?

A recent link by a contributor to the blog was made to the far left site, American Progress, about the cost that enforcing immigration laws, i.e. detaining and deporting illegals, is detrimental (“a disaster”) to local, state and national economies.

To wit: American Progress makes ten arguments, each of which either references another left wing blog or a dead link.  Go figure.  In the newspapers that are referenced (and aren’t dead links), terms like “He had no firsthand knowledge, but….”, followed by outright and unsourced assumptions and opinion, such as “I’d already received emails and messages on Facebook that the state’s immigration law had caused BBVA Compass, which is owned by the Spanish megabank BBVA Group, to cancel plans for an $80 million tower in Birmingham for the bank’s U.S. headquarters”, then in the next paragraph states that “the bank is going to stay in the Daniel Building headquarters and renovate the Harry B. Brock Administrative Center near Highland Golf Course.  That was reported in Saturday’s paper.  But the reason for the tower cancellation wasn’t made clear.”

So American Progress just makes up a reason, specious as it is?  Seriously, why would this bank not only stay in Alabama, and continue to expand, if the immigration law was seen as an affront or impediment?  This is what American Progress calls a reputable source.  The rest of us call it rumor mongering and yellow journalism.  What they don’t mention is that any path to citizenship will be a one way path to the Democrats, hence the liberal support for “motor voter” registration as well as the clearly crooked “same day registration”, topped off by their rabid and nonsensical opposition to positive ID for all voters.

This is not to say that alleged right-of-center newspapers don’t participate in this.  The WSJ recently had an article, titled “A CEO’s demand: Fix immigration” on the Chipotle Mexican restaurant chain that was raided by the government and lost a significant number of their workers to scrutiny of their hiring records by ICE.  The company claims that they “unintentionally hired some illegal immigrants” due to rapid upscaling in the number of their outlets.  Apparently, this “overenthusiastic hiring” caused them to lose half of their 900 employees to ICE raids in Minnesota alone!

Chipotle’s claims that only “about half its workers are hispanics, including many in management roles.”  A check of current national unemployment rates for hispanic CITIZENS at the government’s (optimistic) Bureau of Labor Statistics gives you a rate of about 11%.  Are these people unwilling to work in such an upstanding, upwardly mobile job?  Could it be that they don’t “look hispanic” enough?  Or maybe the jobs are not as great as they say?  Honestly, with just over 13 million people desperate for work in this country, how logical or reasonable is their claim that they can’t come up with enough legal job candidates, even with their claimed highly selective hiring standards, to fill their job openings without resorting to hiring illegals?

Let’s face it: businesses like the cheap labor, and the Democrats like the cheap votes.  In both cases, the welfare of the American citizen is being compromised.  Both sides claim that the U.S./state economies can’t survive without this pool of cheap, illegal labor.

I believe the same arguments were once made by former slave states.

Illegals coming here may fill a low end employment niche, particularly ones created with racist/elitist, “I’m too good for that job” attitudes (see Juan Williams to Gingrich a few debates ago).  New illegals may be thankful for both being here and having work, but will the naturalized-through-birth children of this generation of illegals settle for working in the fields?  I suspect not, particularly if they are conscripted into unions.  You can’t keep them down on the farm once they’ve been to Paris!  If this is the case, then a new wave of illegals will be required to fill the gap left by the children of the current workers.  Ad infinitum.

A continuing boon or another bust?  I think you know the answer to that.

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Dimsdale

A TEA party partisan, guerrilla fighting in the trenches of liberal Massachusetts.

12 Comments

  1. JBS on January 21, 2012 at 10:56 am

    Illegal aliens are, by definition, illegal. That being said and accepted, any talk of illegal aliens being a benefit to the U.S. economy is spurious and only serves to justify and condone their presence.? There are established pathways for citizens of another country to legally gain entrance to the U.S., one of which is a work visa. Any arguments as to the difficulty of obtaining a visa, for example, only abets the the presence of illegal aliens here in the U.S. Businesses who depend on hiring immigrant labor can work with the Immigration authorities to legally obtain work visas for prospective workers.?
    If the cost of apprehending illegal aliens is high, what is the alternative? There is already an estimated 13 MILLION illegal aliens residing in the U.S. now. I applaud the efforts of ICE and the Border Patrol in enforcing our borders and laws. More should be done apprehend and deport illegal aliens or, as the spin doctors on the left put it, undocumented immigrants.
    I know that liberals, Dems and bleeding hearts would disagree. Illegal aliens can only be a drag on the economy and are, therefore, a bust.



  2. ricbee on January 21, 2012 at 7:35 pm

    Businesses like “illegals” that they can pay almost nothing to undercut their rivals. Even legitimate companies like illegals because they won’t ever squawk about anything & usually work extra hard so they don’t have to sneak into another job.
    ?But many illegals come directly to the welfare rolls after exhausting church & private benefits. Put their kids in school & go to the food bank.



  3. crystal4 on January 22, 2012 at 6:39 am

    The myth of illegals on welfare has been pretty much debunked. You need a SSN. They can’t file for unemployment, either.
    “A check of current national unemployment rates for hispanics at the government?s (optimistic) Bureau of Labor Statistics gives you a rate of about 11%. “? Ummm, these are citizens, not illegals.
    Some sites say that because they come here during their working years, the ave. contribution in taxes is $80,000 in benefits they will never collect when they retire.
    The cost of their children’s education is another matter, I agree.
    There has to be an amnesty program with those currently here issued work visas and a program to help them work toward citizenship. If they break any laws, they must know that they will be deported immediately.
    Streamline the way people can come here to work. Sponsorship and a job waiting for them (and a clean record) would be required.
    I saw a snippet of a show about the farmers who, in states that have cracked down on illegals, are in jeopardy of losing their businesses. Some have hired legals…had to pay much higher wages. The “legal…



    • Lynn on January 22, 2012 at 1:09 pm

      Crystal great points and well worded. I can agree with almost everything you said.



    • Dimsdale on January 22, 2012 at 2:14 pm

      Ah, but I didn’t say anything about them being on welfare (although MA attempted, under Dukakis, to issue “Social Security” numbers to illegals for that very reason).? The question is really that they are generating unemployment among citizens by undercutting the citizen’s employment.
      As for the 11% figure, read more carefully: I stated that with an 11% unemployment rate among citizens, Chipotle’s should not have any issue in hiring hispanic CITIZENS versus illegals.? The BLS give stats on citizen employment.? I will edit the post to make that absolutely clear though.
      “Contribute taxes to benefits they never receive?”? I only hope that partially offsets the unemployment among citizens that they create.? They shouldn’t even be getting employment here, much less benefits.
      Giving amnesty to them is like paying a robber to work in your company after he robs you.? It only gives other robbers more incentive to rob you.? They already broke the law by coming here.? How many are driving here without licenses and kill citizens?? If you have already committed a felony, what is a misdemeanor to you?
      I will happily pay more for produce to get legal Americans hired.? With all the talk about “buying American”, there…



    • Dimsdale on January 22, 2012 at 2:17 pm

      …should be more talk about “hiring American”.



    • NH-Jim on January 24, 2012 at 12:43 pm

      A NYT article from 2006, “Immigrants stealing U.S. Social Security numbers for jobs, not profits-Americas-International Herald Tribune”
      [First, a caveat to this liberal-spin article: illegal aliens are NOT immigrants & earning a wage IS A PROFIT.]
      Stolen SS # result in:
      1. Stolen Credit of victim: illegally issued credit cards, loans, etc.
      2. Profiting from an illegally gained job.
      3. Victim denied loan because of fraudulent credit/income history.
      4. SSA is complicit in the fraud for it adds $20 billion to the SS trust fund.
      5. Illegals file bankruptcy under fraudulent SS #’s.
      6. 1-in-20 workers in US are illegals, most working with stolen SS #’s.
      7. Victims’ loss of time/money straightening-out credit.
      8. 1-in4 households are victims of SS identity theft.
      9. Families denied public assistance & health & disability because records show someone is working under stolen SS #.
      10. Stolen SS #’s allow perpetrator to receive health care which…



    • NH-Jim on January 24, 2012 at 12:44 pm

      ?
      10. Stolen SS #’s allow perpetrator to receive health care which affects victims health records.
      ?
      11. One can be arrested for a crime they did not commit.
      ?



  4. phil on January 22, 2012 at 9:38 am

    American Progress asserts that it is too expensive to enforce immigration laws.? Soooo, is it also too expensive to enforce bank robbery laws or murder laws?? Well, we don’t know.? Are said bank robbers and murderers going to vote Democrat or Republican?? Do bank robbers and murderers have a union?? So hard to decide what laws to enforce.? Why not just ignore all of them?



    • NH-Jim on January 24, 2012 at 11:56 am

      Maybe it is just cheaper to erect a true border fence, wall, or barrier.



  5. Tim-in-Alabama on January 23, 2012 at 8:18 am

    Immigrants have always played an important part in our nation’s economy, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why Democrats love those who come here illegally. Their being here diminishes the value of citizenship for those born here and those who immigrate legally. I think it’s probably the result of Democrat mob think. If Republicans are against it, they have to be for it. Democrats really are pathetic dimwits.



    • Lynn on January 23, 2012 at 12:25 pm

      It’s time to vote out the dimwits and get rid of the dimwit light bulbs. LOL couldn’t resist



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