April 17, 2013

A wise New York Times Editorial against amnesty

From the New York Times Editorial Board:
Hasty Call for Amnesty 
The A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s call for the government to grant amnesty to an estimated six million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States and to eliminate most sanctions on employers who hire them in the future was a surprising turnabout. Until now, organized labor has fought hard to keep illegal workers from taking jobs from higher-paid union workers. 
The A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s proposal is attractive to many groups. Unions welcome the chance to go after a huge new pool of unorganized workers. Employers welcome the chance to hire cheap labor without fear of criminal liability. And illegal immigrants who have worked hard for years and raised families under harrowing circumstances would welcome access to medical care and other services denied to illegal aliens. 
But the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s proposal should be rejected. Amnesty would undermine the integrity of the country's immigration laws and would depress the wages of its lowest-paid native-born workers. 
Back in 1986, Congress granted amnesty to an estimated three million illegal immigrants as part of a law that also promised to crack down on further illegal immigration by imposing sanctions on employers who knowingly violated the law. At that time, this page endorsed amnesty because it was tied to measures that promised to keep further rounds of illegal immigration in check. But 14 years later there are twice as many illegal workers, and employer sanctions are widely deemed a joke. Workers pretend to show employers proof of citizenship or work visas and employers pretend they do not know the proof is fake.

The primary problem with amnesties is that they beget more illegal immigration. Demographers trace the doubling of the number of Mexican immigrants since 1990 in part to the amnesty of the 1980's. Amnesties signal foreign workers that American citizenship can be had by sneaking across the border, or staying beyond the term of one's visa, and hiding out until Congress passes the next amnesty. The 1980's amnesty also attracted a large flow of illegal relatives of those workers who became newly legal. All that is unfair to those who play by the immigration rules and wait years to gain legal admission. 
It is also unfair to unskilled workers already in the United States. Between about 1980 and 1995, the gap between the wages of high school dropouts and all other workers widened substantially. Prof. George Borjas of Harvard estimates that almost half of this trend can be traced to immigration of unskilled workers. Illegal immigration of unskilled workers induced by another amnesty would make matters worse. The better course of action is to honor America's proud tradition by continuing to welcome legal immigrants and find ways to punish employers who refuse to obey the law.
... Published: February 22, 2000

The unemployment rate in February 2000 was 4.1%, The unemployment rate today is 7.6%.

22 comments:

  1. Absolutely devastating. So what has changed between now and then?

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  2. Jeez, does the AFL-CIO even pretend to be anything other than another mouthpiece of the Democrat Party anymore? How soulless do you have to be as a "union" to sell out working Americans that nakedly?

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  3. Yet the NYT editorial writers are either so ignorant or so tendentious that they include this:

    "...illegal immigrants who have worked hard for years and raised families under harrowing circumstances would welcome access to medical care and other services denied to illegal aliens."

    Nobody "denies" medical care to illegal aliens, and as for the "harrowing circumstances" under which they raise families, those are so harrowing that low-wage illegal aliens' fertility in America is maybe double what it is back in their homes, thanks to free food, free schooling, and free medical care for their children, plus somewhere between $5,000 and $8,000 yearly in cash subsidies dispensed through the IRS (EITC+ACC) to parents (including illegal aliens) of children (including illegal aliens) who work in the USA for low wages.

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  4. But Giovanni Peri said that an influx of low-skill immigrants with their "complementary skills" will lead to promotions for high school dropouts!

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  5. Harry Baldwin4/17/13, 5:09 PM

    I wish the NYT circa 2013 would debate the NYT circa 2000 and explain where its logic is faulty.

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  6. Hideous,

    How does an illegal alien claim the EITC?

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  7. Damn, I thought it was for real! I guess that six million figure should have given it away.

    What caused the NYT to change its mind? Generational change of management?

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  8. It is for real, it's just 13 years old:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/22/opinion/hasty-call-for-amnesty.html

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  9. Illegals and the EITC, true story. Started by Bush, consolidated by Obama.

    http://www.factcheck.org/2012/05/tax-credits-for-illegal-immigrants/

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  10. "How does an illegal alien claim the EITC?"

    In New York State and possible other states, illegals get all sorts of benefits. New York State spends 54 billion on it's Medicaid system alone.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/19/us-usa-nys-budget-medicaid-idUSBRE92I10P20130319

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  11. How does an illegal alien claim the EITC?"

    In New York State and possible other states, illegals get all sorts of benefits. New York State spends 54 billion on it's Medicaid system alone.
    Well, the illegals that don't have babies in the states are low on welfare cost but a lot of illegals stay long enough to have both legal and out of wedlock kids in the us.

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  12. How does an illegal alien claim the EITC?"

    In New York State and possible other states, illegals get all sorts of benefits. New York State spends 54 billion on it's Medicaid system alone.
    Well, the illegals that don't have babies in the states are low on welfare cost but a lot of illegals stay long enough to have both legal and out of wedlock kids in the us.

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  13. Nobody "denies" medical care to illegal aliens, and as for the "harrowing circumstances" under which they raise families, those are so harrowing that low-wage illegal aliens' fertility in America is maybe double what it is back in their homes, thanks to free food, free schooling, and free medical care for their children, plus somewhere between $5,000 and $8,000 yearly in cash subsidies dispensed through the IRS (EITC+ACC) to parents (including illegal aliens) of children (including illegal aliens) who work in the USA for low wages.

    4/17/13, 4:24 PM
    True, better than home but how many of us want to live like the average Hispanic in Santa Ana or La in the poorer barrios where about 10 people rent a 2 to 3 bedroom apartment or an old tract house under 100 sqaure feet. There are houses in both la and Santa Ana that sometimes have up to 20 people. Its that the illegal immirgants live in some of the most expensive parts of the US, so yes it really had to be bad at home to want to live like your average Santa Ana residence which has almost 5 percent per household while the US average is around 3 per household.

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  14. Anon at 9:42pm said: True, better than home but how many of us want to live like the average Hispanic...

    Plenty of working Americans are currently living in conditions not much better, partially thanks to immigration fueled congestion and lowered wages for the left half of the bell curve. They don't want to live like that any more than you do.

    Many more will be condemned to sub-American living standards if current trends continue. It is not callous to prefer that illegals remain at home rather than foist such conditions upon fellow Americans.

    See Samuel Gompers' Meat vs. Rice: American Manhood against Asiatic Coolieism and get back to me my most compassionate friend.

    -The Judean People's Front

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  15. How does an illegal alien claim the EITC?"

    In New York State and possible other states, illegals get all sorts of benefits.


    but how do they get the eitc without an ssn on their tax return? plz explain.

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  16. I mean a tract house under 1,000. And in really in Santa Ana-Anahime area there are some poor whites that live in motels but most of the bad living conditons are hispanic immirgants. Same does for La, the white underclass is small there but the Latin one large. I'm against them coming but they don't live high off the hog in the US as some here think.

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  17. “They’ll be able to immediately apply for much better jobs than they currently have,” Sessions warned of illegal immigrants set to join the pathway to citizenship. “Maybe they were working at a restaurant part time. Now they’re going to be truck drivers, heavy-equipment operators competing at the factories and plants and we’ve got an unemployment rate that’s very high.”

    The GOP members of the Gang of Eight described
    This is what happen under Reagan the smarter illegal immirgant men did moved into better blue collar jobs after the last anmesty.

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  18. It's amazing how quickly liberals have completely sold out to the big money elite.

    And how quickly Latinos have gained political power in the Democratic Party.

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  19. Does anybody why Marco Rubio is playing the role of Chuck Shumer's useful idiot?

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  20. To Carol: My understanding is that illegal aliens get the EITC benefit by using a TIN--Taxpayer Identification Number-issued to them by the IRS

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  21. Roland says: "Absolutely devastating. So what has changed between now and then?"

    Why don't you ask them? The hack who writes immig. editorials for them is at @DownesNYT, and the ed page editor is at @andyrNYT. There are many other NYT hacks who are also active there.

    In fact, I just asked them for you, see my tweet.

    Unfortunately, that's not going to do much good because they're going to ignore it as they have the other tweets I've sent them.

    But, there is a way to make that effective: if you helped out.

    Get onto Twitter and RT that or just repeat the question (attribution would be nice, but isn't necessary).

    If lots of people kept asking them the same question *and pointed out to their supporters that they won't answer the question*, then that might actually have an impact.

    Everyone please consider engaging in group efforts that focus on specific "pressure points", by which I mean such things as discrediting pro-amnesty editorialists and journos.

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  22. How does an illegal alien claim the EITC?"

    In New York State and possible other states, illegals get all sorts of benefits.

    but how do they get the eitc without an ssn on their tax return? plz explain.





    the irs doesn't do immigration checks. if you put "drug dealer" on your tax return under occupation they process the return, and keep the money...or give you a refund if you qualify...deportation is ice's problem.
    audits are done if the return has red-flags, but legal status isn't a red flag.

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