| Friday, April 14, 2006 |
| Facts about aliens |
Cartoon credit: My own daughter
The first page of her comic strip
Immigrants are the subject of this post – not the sci-fi, one-eyed creatures flying some hi-tech flying object.
I am compelled to write about the current immigration drama because it is exciting to find the occasional balanced view on such politicized and dramatized topics.
The Internet is full of sites that argue on both spectrum of the immigration debate. Happy Circumstances has a post on some extreme views against illegal immigrants. On the other hand the Christian Monitor has a very balanced article showing the economics of the illegal immigrant debate.
What caught my attention is some interesting facts in the lengthy article in Time magazine (April 10, 2006), which I find very enlightening. In an article entitled Should they stay or should they go? by Karen Tumulty, we get the real issues beyond the deafening ship-them-out-and-close- the-boarders or they-are-stilling-our-jobs noise.
1. “The politics of immigration is becoming so tricky for the GOP. The business interests [$$ching, ching$$] in the party base don’t want to disrupt a steady supply of chep labor for the agriculture, construction, hotel and restaurant industries, among others.” pg. 32
2. “Bush is keen to preserve for Republicans the gains that he is credited with having made among culturally conservative but traditionally Democratic Hispanics, who gave him 40% of their vote in 2004 and are believed to have been crucial to his re-election. …Florida Senator Mel Martinez, a Republican, warned his party last week that it risks losing ground with ‘individuals who share our values on so many different issues.’ pg. 36
3. [Congressional Republicans] are short on tangible accomplishments in this midterm-election year. pg. 36
In a related article (in the same magazine) Lisa Takeuchi Cullen and Daren Fonda provide some facts about aliens’ economics (pg. 43).
1. “Immigrant labor is a drag on wage growth, thus keeping a lid on inflation and interest rates. As a result, prices for goods and services are lower, and citizens can purchase more.”
2. As consumers they, spend 80% of what they earned in the US. “University of North Carolina found that Hispanic residents, 45% of whom were undocumented, contributed $9.2 billion in spending to North Carolina’s economy in 2004.”
3. “’No credible estimate exists that [shows] immigrants cause unemployment,’ says James Smith, a senior economist at the Rand Corp.
4. Illegal aliens offering cheap labor takes away jobs from native high school drop outs, according to Harvard economist George Borjas.
5. “Through 2002, illegals paid an estimated $463 billion into Social Security.” And they gain “almost nothing” out of this.
Bottom line
Politicians and businesses have a huge stake in all this.$$ |
posted by Fikirte @ 2:38 PM
 
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