August 31, 2008
Federation for American Immigration Reform
High-immigration cheerleaders claim that we need immigration for our economy. But they ignore the detrimental effect that importing workers has on American workers, particularly low-skilled natives. In a supply and demand economy like ours, the more there is of something, the less value it has.
The Skill Levels of Most Immigrants Are Low.
Claims That We Need Low-Skilled Workers Are False.
Some employers claim that they need to import low-skilled workers to compete in the world market, where wages are very low. But those employers have simply become dependent on cheap foreign labor to the detriment of American workers: "Network recruitment [of immigrants] not only excludes American workers from certain jobs; it also builds a dependency relationship between U.S. employers and Mexican sources that requires a constant infusion of new workers," says economist Philip Martin.4 Such a strategy for our economy is doomed to failure anyway: "The low-wage strategy may work in the short run, but in the long run it's a loser. In the long run, we are not going to win a wage-cutting contest with the Third World," notes economist Vernon Briggs.5
Besides, the United States already has plenty of low-skilled native workers: "No technologically advanced industrial nation that has 27 million illiterate adults ... need have any fear about a shortage of unskilled workers in its foreseeable future."6
The effects are most pronounced in the cities where immigrants go. High immigration cities have twice as much unemployment as low immigration cities.7 Because too much immigration keeps wages low, wage increases in low-immigration cities have been 48 percent higher than in high-immigration cities.8 Thus, immigration contributes to the growing disparity between the rich and the poor in this country9 and the shrinking of the middle class.10 But the damage is not confined to high-immigration locales. The harm is carried to other cities when poor Americans whose wages have been depressed or who have been displaced from their jobs by immigration move to low-immigration areas in search of greener pastures.11
Wages Are Lowered By Competition From Immigrants.
The effect of immigration on those low-skilled Americans is profound, and the government knows it: "Undoubtedly access to lower-wage foreign workers has a depressing effect [on wages]," says former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.12 Research suggests that between 40 and 50 percent of wage-loss among low-skilled Americans is due to the immigration of low-skilled workers.13 Some native workers lose not just wages but their jobs through immigrant competition. An estimated 1,880,000 American workers are displaced from their jobs every year by immigration; the cost for providing welfare and assistance to these Americans is over $15 billion a year.14
This wage depressing effect of illegal immigrant workers was documented in 2008 by researchers working for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
"...the authors find that average wages among documented [legal] workers are lower in industries that employ undocumented [illegal] workers and that a greater share of undocumented workers in those industries further lowers wages."Large-Scale Immigration of Low-Skilled Workers Must Be Stopped.15
Large-Scale Immigration of Low-Skilled Workers Must Be Stopped.
In short, the mass importation of low-skilled workers through immigration damages the job market for Americans, depresses wages for low-skilled natives, and costs the taxpayer billions a year-all for the benefit of businesses that have become dependent on cheap, foreign labor. An immigration system that admits too many people, without regard to their skill levels or impact on the labor force, is to blame. We must reform the immigration laws to lower the level of annual immigration and to ensure that those immigrants who are admitted complement, not compete, with our native labor force.
- Economics Professor Robert Dunn, George Washington University, BorderLine, May 29, 1996.
- INS Statistics Division.
- U.S. Census Bureau, 1995.
- "Network Recruitment and Labor Displacement," Immigration 2000, Philip Martin, 1992.
- Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall, New Perspectives Quarterly, Volume 7, No. 4, Fall 1990.
- "Immigration Policy and Work Force Preparedness," Vernon Briggs, ILR Report, Fall 1990.
- A Tale of Ten Cities, Scipio Garling and Leon Bouvier, 1995.
- "Linked Migration Systems: Immigration and Internal Labor Flows in the United States," Economic Geography, July 1992, Richard Wright.
- Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisors, U.S. GPO, 1994.
- What is the Relationship Between Income Inequality and Immigration? John Martin, October 1996.
- Immigration and Internal Migration, William Frey, Population Studies Center, University of Mich 1994.
- U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, November 1995.
- National Academy of Sciences estimates that approximately 44 percent of wage depression among low-skilled Americans during 1980-1994 was due to immigration.
- The Net Costs of Immigration, Donald Huddle, Rice University, October 1996.
- Julie Hotchkiss & Myriam Quispe-Agnoli, "The Labor Market Experience and Impact of Undocumented Workers," Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (Working Paper 2008-7c), June 2008.
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The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a national, nonprofit, public-interest, membership organization of concerned citizens who share a common belief that our nation's immigration policies must be reformed to serve the national interest. FAIR seeks to improve border security, to stop illegal immigration, and to promote immigration levels consistent with the national interestmore traditional rates of about 300,000 a year.
