Dreams of Opportunity

Last weekend, the conversation of undocumented workers came up at my house during a dinner party. The discussion was lively, with many differing perspectives, so I decided to pursue the issue in more detail. I had really never formulated my own opinion on the matter, simply because I didn’t think I knew enough about the topic to do so. However, after researching and talking with a few people of various points of view, I know which side of the argument I am on – the undocumented workers’ side. Here are a few key points that I discovered when researching.

The argument against undocumented workers: According to an article I found on the website of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), defenders of undocumented workers falsely claim that foreign born workers only take jobs that U.S. workers don’t want. The Federation insists that immigrants are willing to work for lower wages than U.S. citizens because of their illegal status. The article includes that this “depress(es) wages and working conditions” for all workers, legal and illegal, in that line of work. This makes that field of work “less attractive” to citizens of the U.S. who usually aren’t willing to work for such low wages, giving the impression that the undocumented workers do jobs that citizens do not want to do.

The first thing I noticed when reading the FAIR article was that they continually call the workers “illegal immigrants” or “illegal aliens”. To me, this shows the bias that the Federation has towards workers, and that made me question their argument. Also, the FAIR article provided little data, aside from an estimated number of undocumented workers and where they resided, so I looked up some information on my own.

I found an article discussing Luis Alberto Urrea’s book The Devil’s Highway, the story of the Yuma 14. The Yuma 14 was a group of fourteen Mexican immigrants that died trying to cross the border. In the book, Urrea reveals a lot about the real situation with undocumented workers. The article about the book cites many very specific facts that provide perspective on the effect of foreign workers.  In 2002, for example, Mexican immigrants paid almost $600 million in federal taxes and sales taxes. Urrea also found that these immigrants used roughly $281 million in social services and uncompensated health care. This results in a net benefit to the US taxpayers of $319 million.

It seems irrational to claim that the undocumented workers are hurting America when they provide our nation with the net tax revenue benefit of 319 million dollars. If we do buy into FAIR’s argument that the hiring of illegals depresses wages, my question would be “why aren’t the employers at fault?” They are the ones to blame if that is really the case – its not like undocumented workers ask for lower wages.

What do you think?