March 2007
Monthly Archive
March 2, 2007
Posted by jonjayray under
Uncategorized [9] Comments
Just a quick debunking of a recent research report that has been widely misrepresented in the press. The study is:Debunking the Myth of Immigrant Criminality: Imprisonment Among First- and Second-Generation Young Men by Ruben G. Rumbaut, Roberto G. Gonzales, Golnaz Komaie, and Charlie V. Morgan, University of California, Irvine
The take-home message of the article is that Hispanics in the USA have a LOW rate of criminality. That is however, not at all what the article shows. Have a look at their Table 1 and you will see what most people know already — that Hispanics lie in between blacks and whites in crime-rate.
The only novelty of the article is this: It points out that it is the CHILDREN of the illegals who are the problem. The illegals themselves are too busy earning money to be much involved with crime.
This is of course VERY bad news — as it is conventionally assumed that the children of immigrants will adopt the characteristics of the host society.
The ECONOMIC advantages of immigration must therefore be balanced against the SOCIAL disadvantages of allowing in on a permanent basis such a troublesome group.
The study is being hailed as good news for the pro-immigrant camp. It is very much the reverse.
March 1, 2007
Democrats sought assurances Wednesday that President Bush will deliver Republican votes for putting illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship and creating a guest worker program. The Senate, with Bush’s backing, passed a bill last year that did both, but it wilted into campaign fodder for November’s midterm elections after House Republicans staged hearings around the country opposing it. “Without the administration’s earnest engagement on this issue, our efforts are likely to suffer the same fate they did last year,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said at a hearing he called to weigh the administration’s support.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told the committee that Bush is committed to seeing a sweeping immigration bill become law, though they were careful not to wade too much into details. “Secretary Chertoff and I come before you today on behalf of the president with a simple message: We believe that with some hard work a solution can be found, and we pledge to roll up our sleeves and work with you on a bipartisan basis,” Gutierrez said.
Supporters of allowing some of the estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants to remain in the United States are expected to unveil an immigration bill as early as next week. Closed-door meetings to draft the legislation have been going on for months with Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz., and Reps. Luis Gutierrez , D-Ill., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.
“There aren’t many issues where President Bush and this Congress are going to be able to come together. … It’s an opportunity that none of us can afford to squander,” Flake said. Bush has raised the immigration issue several times this year. He named it the issue on which he would find most agreement with Democrats after they won control of Congress last November.
A sticking point is whether to allow immigrants who come as guest workers in the future to remain in the country and seek legal residency after a prescribed period of work. Many conservatives and immigration-control groups think they should have to return home. Some Democrats also have trouble with bringing in additional immigrants to work because of labor union concerns that they will take jobs away from Americans. “What interests should be served, the interests of poor people or those around the world … or shouldn’t it be the interests of the people of the United States?” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
Kennedy said the U.S. already grants employers of high-skilled immigrants a chance to seek legal residency for the worker. Last year’s Senate bill divided illegal immigrants into three groups based on how long they had been in the country and set up different criteria for each. Those in the country less than two years had to leave. “Whatever measures are passed must work in the real world,” Chertoff said.
Source
March 1, 2007
Economist says immigration makes Anglos into bosses. Hard to see that he can show what would have happened to jobs overall if there had been NO immigration, however. Undoubtedly, though, the effective deregulation of the labor market that illegals provide does benefit the economy — and hence the overall population — economically. Cheaper services means a higher standard of living for existing citizens. It is existing American citizens of marginal employability — particularly blacks — who are most likely to be adversely affected
A study released Tuesday by the Public Policy Institute of California found that immigrants who arrived in the state between 1990 and 2004 increased wages for native workers by an average 4%. UC Davis economist Giovanni Peri, who conducted the study, said the benefits were shared by all native-born workers, from high school dropouts to college graduates, because immigrants generally perform complementary rather than competitive work. As immigrants filled lower-skilled jobs, they pushed natives up the economic ladder into employment that required more English or know-how of the U.S. system, he said. “The big message is that there is no big loss from immigration,” Peri said. “There are gains, and these are enjoyed by a much bigger share of the population than is commonly believed.”……
Steven Camarota of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies said the wage study, by examining immigrants only in California, failed to consider their effect on the rest of the country. Immigrants working for lower wages in a California factory, for instance, could keep wages down in a competing enterprise staffed by native-born citizens in another state, he said. Immigrants, who make up one-third of California’s labor force, could also be discouraging natives from moving to the state and taking advantage of higher-paying job opportunities, Camarota said.
And, by examining only wage effects, the study failed to address the declining percentage of native-born adults working in California, Camarota said. Their share of the workforce declined from 65% in 2000 to 62% in 2005, one of the lowest in the country, which could be caused by competition from immigrants, he said. “The idea that immigrants compete only with other immigrants is absurd on its face,” he said, adding that no industry in America employs only immigrants.
Peri said, however, that his study’s more detailed analysis of California’s employment trends showed no displacement of native-born workers. Other studies have shown that immigration has had a negative effect on African American high school dropouts. But those conclusions were rooted in different assessments of whether blacks performed the same work as immigrants, he said.
Source
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