In however simple or complex your view of the world may be. . .
And in your imaginings of what the world would be like if illegal immigrants weren’t here. . .
Do you think you have more money or less money at the end of the day because of the presence of illegal immigrants?
(I just have the US in mind, but feel free to chime in if you live other-where).
Personally, I think they save me money.
Probably save me money. Legalizing them would cost money – but it’s the right thing to do.
Probably save me money but cost me time.
Living in a border state, we undoubtably benefit from lower agricultural, construction and landscape maintenance costs. We have, however, been severely inconvenienced by unduly crowded hospital emergency rooms all three times we’ve had to use them over the last several years, crowded with those abusing them for free, non-emergency health care. I’d sure like to see some remedy come to that because the current situation is competely unacceptable.
They are a net positive economically for the country and for me.
I see them as an economic negative, driving wages down, & bringing crime & social problems.
Economically positive, socially negative. Legal immigrants I see as total positives, economically and socially.
Intersting question.
There’s a loud mouthed jerk who’s kids take music lessons from the same music school as mine and I’m often there to hear his various political rants. He’s a British ex-pat and prides himself as some kind of advisor in the Reagan and Bush Sr. administration.
Anyway he and some soccer mom and diplomat’s wife from Scandinavia were discussing this very subject and were convinced that illegal labour was not any cheaper than legal.
All were trying to find a nanny for their spawn and had repeated experiences with illegal immigrants demanding the same rate and benefits as the legals. But when asked for proof of legal entry, the illegals disappeared and never showed up again for work.
I have no experience with this but I’ve heard repeatedly that illegal immigrant labour (nanny, construction) isn’t the bargain that it’s often claimed to be.
Costs. No question. The so called savings that we get on things like cheap agriculture products have been shown to be financially insignifigant, especially compared to the cost illegals add to the system as a whole.
I’ll only comment that your first point on wages is only logical if prices for products stay the same if/when people get paid more. Otherwise, as economic theory suggests, raising wages does have a direct influence on the prices of goods/services and thus prices go up for everyone.
-Tcat
But if the quality or quantity of work performed is better or higher
I guess that would constitute a “bargain”. Most employers often view the lack of english language proficiency as a negative. As for skill/experience, particularly in the construction arena (I know 2 builders), it varies from person to person.
Can’t say who’s picking my veggies but I’ve turned down local illegals because they were overpriced.
If you’re referring to Mexicans I think they’re overrunning the country ahead of all other immigrants at an exponential rate. This isn’t Mexico and I don’t want a split culture like Canada. I like the Mexican culture as much as any other (actually more so since 9/11). They’re good neighbors when assimilated.
Well, I’m not sure if he’s causing our produce to be cheaper or not, but mine is saving me money…actually paying our bills and caring for our child after it gets home from working ten hours a day, six days a week. He’s bringing me flowers on Mother’s day and taking me on picnics. He’s teaching me Spanish and giving me massages and painting my toenails. He’s cleaning up the litter box when I’m not feeling so good. He’s been the best darned tootin daddy in the world and will soon be the best goshdarn hubby in the universe. 
He’s a pretty good neighbor too, even if he does like that unamerican mariachi music. 
They cost us.
First you need an interperator because they don’t speak English.
Even those that do don’t seem to grasp ideas well.
In a production setting someone must spend extra time explaining or sometimes showing them how to do a job.
They help hold wages down which is probably a plus for them since they do have a place to go where living is cheaper unlike their American co-workers.
I don’t see landscape maintainence a valid reason to allow Illegals to come here.
I for one of most mow their own grass.
If an immigrant wants my job, he’ll have to follow it back to Mexico.
could I get an interperator for that last sentence? :dubious:
well actually for the whole thing—kind of a broad brush there don’t ya think?
Of course illegal immigrants cost me money! Oh sure, by buying in bulk I can get a better price, but it’s still a cost on the ledger.
They’ve paid an estimated five billion (if I recall correctly; cite a print source that unfortunately I don’t remember) into Social Security that they won’t be able to get back.
I’m convinced they do drive wages down, both unskilled and tech jobs. It’s supply and demand.
Everyone thinks of illegal immigrants as Mexican, but there are a lot of people who came in on legal visas and overstayed them, and they work at all kinds of jobs, including supervisory and tech/engineering/etc jobs. (Like H1Bs but illegally.)
I just used a day laborer for a day of yard work. I did not ask for any papers. He was Mexican, had some English, worked hard. I paid him $10/hr, could have paid $8. I perceive Mexican unskilled/agricultural/day labor as quite hard-working.
Yes they come to emergency rooms, but they also come to doctors with cash in hand. I suspect they do burden ERs and hospitals, along with the XX% of Americans who don’t have med.insurance. Which burden weighs more, I couldn’t say.
Last time you were at the hospital, what % of employees had an accent? At mine, it’s over 50% by estimate. Does your hospital check applicants’ paperwork for citizenship/legal residence?
It may be that politically it’s difficult to simply close the border and evict the 11 million, because a lot of political contributors do not want that source of labor to go away. (The arguments from compassion may not weigh with this Administration as much as that last sentence does.) Wasn’t it WalMart that was recently found to have a ridiculous number of their contract janitors illegally in the country?
Recently the subject of requiring employers to check paperwork has come up. Those who proposed that assisting illegals be a felony didn’t specify that employing them counted as assistance. Whole can of worms there, they’d have to check us all for “papers” in order not to discriminate I believe–which will burden us all IMHO.
Dunno if the lower wages helps American workers, mostly it probably helps shareholders and CEOs.
There is a cost to enforcing the immigration laws, and it will go up if Bush’s plan occurs. I’d leave out terrorism and dope smuggling costs, they aren’t strictly immigration issues. You need some sort of rational management, but how to design it.
I’ve been wondering this myself. The big afternoon Jon and Ken show on the huge KFI-Los Angeles is really into the idea that illegals are killing hospitals with unpaid ER bills.
It continually drives me crazy that I can’t tell which way to turn my classroom lab faucets, and I’ll bet $100 that the valves were installed by someone with a fake ID who didn’t truly understand what he was doing. (Being 15 minutes from the Mexican border, I’m not just assuming stupid things here.)
Oh, to actually answer the question, I think it’s not far from break-even. To me personally, some loss, some gain, and no way to track it.
PS. Another snippet of info, I just read that the US ships Mexicans back to the border, but (all?) other nationalities get turned loose with instructions to appear back at Immigration for a hearing; which a lot of them disregard. This would not include people arrested for crimes that then are found not to be legal residents; they are jailed just as an American would be.