|
Real Immigration Reform:
The Path to Credibility
May 3, 2007
Statement of
Vernon M. Briggs, Jr.*
Cornell University
Before the Subcommittee on Immigration
of the Judiciary Committee of
the U.S. House of Representatives
For over 40 years, efforts have been
made to respond to the unexpected consequences of the accidental revival of mass
immigration that has followed the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965.
Immigrants had been declining as a percentage of the population since 1914 and
in absolute numbers since 1930. In 1965 only 4.4 percent of the population was
foreign born and they totaled only 8.5 million people. There was absolutely no
intention by policy makers of that era to increase the level of immigration. The
post-World War II “baby boom” began pouring a tidal wave of new labor force
entrants in the labor market that year and would continue to do so for the next
16 years. Moreover, the “War on Poverty” had been launched in 1964 and the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 was passed. Both emphasized the need to focus on the
employment needs of unskilled, poor and minority workers. Also, the infamous
“bracero program” that had allowed the entry of temporary foreign workers from
Mexico to do farm work had finally been terminated on December 31, 1964 because
it had taken the agricultural labor market out of competition with the
non-agricultural labor market.
Rather, the stated goal of the Immigration Act of 1965 was to rid the
immigration system of the overtly discriminatory “national origins” admissions
system that had been in effect since 1924. But as events were to reveal, this
legislation let the “Genie out of the jug.” Without any warning to the people of
the nation, the societal changing force of mass immigration was once again
released on an unsuspecting public.. By 2005, the foreign-born population had
soared to 35.5 million persons (12.5 percent of the population) and there were
over 22 million foreign born workers in the labor force ( 14.7 percent of the
labor force).
The obvious conclusion from this continuing saga is that, when it comes to
immigration reform, legislative changes should only be taken with the greatest
of caution. While there is common agreement today that the existing immigration
system needs changes, the reform responses should not be seen as an opportunity
to placate the opportunistic pleadings of special interests groups. They should
serve the national interest.
Immigration is a policy-driven issue. Policy changes do make a difference.
Nearly any change has labor market implications—some large and some small. As
America’s most influential labor leader, Samuel Gompers, wrote in his
autobiography: “Immigration is, in all its fundamental aspects, a labor issue.”
For no matter how immigrants are admitted or by what means the enter the United
States, most adult immigrants join the labor force following their entry as
eventually do their spouses and children. Thus, the labor market impact of
immigration policy changes must be a guiding consideration when legislative
decisions are made.
The Major Reform Issues
At a time when the labor market of the nation is undergoing significant
transformation in terms of its skill and educational requirements, there is a
distinct difference between the human capital endowments (as indicated by
educational attainment levels) of the adult native-born population and those of
the native foreign-born population. Fully 33 percent of the foreign-born
population has not competed high school and another 25 percent only have a high
school diploma (compared, respectively to 13 percent and 34 percent of the
native- born population. The foreign-born work force, therefore, is
disproportionately concentrated in the low skilled segment of the nation’s labor
supply. As a consequence, their substantial presence has been repeatedly found
by research to lower the wages of all low skilled workers. Likewise, as the
Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration, found the
increase in “the relative supply of less educated labor” caused by immigration
has “contributed to increasing inequality of income” within the nation. Further,
the unemployment rate for workers without a high school is reported by the U.S.
Department of labor to be 6.8 percent in 2006 – with the rate for such black
workers being 12.8 percent. Thus, there is ample evidence that prevailing
immigration policy is not congruent with the labor market needs of the nation.
The second concern is the massive violation of the existing immigration system
by illegal immigration. It makes little sense to debate the deficiencies and/or
to consider additions to the extant system when mass violations of whatever is
enacted go on year after year. The accumulated stock of illegal immigrants in
2006 is estimated to be close to 12 million persons, with the annual increase
being 500,000 a year. Worse yet is the fact that these numbers exist despite the
fact that anther 6 million illegal immigrants have had their status legalized as
the result of the 7 amnesties that have been granted by Congress since 1986.
Thus, it is not much of a stretch to conclude that almost half to the total
foreign-born population of the United States today is either presently an
illegal immigrant or was one in the past. The estimated 7.4 million illegal
immigrants are concentrated in the low skilled segment of the labor force where
they compete with over 42 million legitimate workers (i.e., the native born,
naturalized citizens, permanent resident aliens, and temporary visa holders
eligible to work) who are also mostly employed in low skilled occupations.
Because the illegal immigrant workers will do whatever it takes to get a job,
they become “preferred workers” for these jobs. The losers are the legal workers
whose wages and incomes are depressed or who become unemployed as well as the
others who become discouraged from seeking work and withdraw from the labor
force. These are the persons who are most adversely affected by the unfair
competition with illegal immigrant workers and who are in need of the protection
of the law. But their voices continued to be ignored.
Lastly, despite the lack evidence of any labor shortages, the expanding use of
non-immigrant labor programs and calls for new “guest worker programs” have
raised concerns that immigration policy is being by special interests as a
method of cheap labor recruitment. The number of visas issued for employment
based non-immigrant workers has doubled from about 600,000 visas in 1994 to
approximately 1.2 visas in 2005. The controversial H1-B visas for “specialty
occupations” have tripled since 1994 – form 98,030 visa to 321,336 visas in
2005.
Reform of the Legal Immigration System
The logical starting point for efforts to change the legal immigration system is
the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform (CIR) in 1997.
The findings of CIR were the product of six years of careful study that was
backed up numerous public hearings; consultations with experts; and commissioned
research studies – including the work provided by a special panel created by the
National Research Council of the National Academy of Science. Collectively, its
report represents the best and most impartial study ever done of the nation’s
immigration policies.
CIR concluded that the existing immigration system pays virtually no attention
to the labor market in its design. For the most part, whatever human capital
attributes most immigrants bring to the United States are largely incidental to
the reasons for which they are admitted. Far too many bring far too little.
Moreover the admission of one person can trigger the entry of additional
extended family members who also typically have a paucity of human capital
endowments as well.
To reduce this “chain migration” phenomenon, CIR proposed that the annual level
of legal immigration be reduced (to 550,000 visas a year). To accomplish this,
it recommended the deletion of most of the extended family admission categories
that provide eligibility for additional family members after one person becomes
a permanent resident alien or a naturalized citizen. CIR called for the
categories that admit adult unmarried children of U.S. citizens; adult married
children of permanent resident aliens; and the adult brothers and sisters of
U.S. citizens all be eliminated. It also recommended that the diversity visa
slots (50,000 visas) be eliminated. The diversity lottery program also pays
scant attention to any human capital characteristics of those it admits (i.e.,
they only need to have a high school diploma).
In accordance with its belief that immigration policy should move away as much
as possible from the admission of unskilled immigrants and toward skilled
immigrants,
CIR also recommended that no unskilled workers be admitted under the
employment-based admission categories. It recognized that the nation had a
surplus of unskilled job seekers (as it still does today) and certainly should
not admit more. As the Chair of CIR, Barbara Jordan, explained:
“What the Commission is concerned about are the unskilled workers in our
society.
In an age in which unskilled workers have far too few opportunities opened to
them,
and which welfare reform will require thousands more to find jobs, The
Commission
sees no justification to the continued entry of unskilled foreign workers—unless
the
rationale for their admission otherwise serves a significant interest, as does
the admission of nuclear family members and refugees.”
Illegal Immigration Reforms
There is little reason to debate changes in the nation’s legal immigration
system as long as its terms are regularly and massively violated by illegal
immigration. The integrity of the entire system is in question and will remain
tainted until its terms are strictly enforced. Three steps must be taken:
-
Employer sanctions – which were
advertised as being the “centerpiece” of the strategies to combat illegal
immigration when they were enacted in 1986 – must be made to work. A
requirement to verify social security numbers (as recommended by CIR) must be
made mandatory immediately while steps be initiated to establish a national
counterfeit proof worker identification system are put into place. The card
would not have to be carried with someone but only be produced at those times
when one applied for a job or for some government benefit.
-
Enforcement must become a reality.
Fines for violations of the employer sanctions system must be increased and
used routinely. The same for criminal penalties for repeat offenders. By both
deed and national publicity, the message must be made clear to the public that
illegal immigrants will not work in the United States. Those apprehended will
be fined too (if employed) and deported. More worksite inspectors and border
patrol personnel hired and deployed and more detention facilities added.
-
There must be no amnesties given for
those who have illegally entered the United States to work. There have been
seven amnesties since 1986 when the first such amnesty was given. Another was
even pending in the U.S. Senate on the infamous day of September 11, 2001 when
terrorists attacked in New York City and Washington, DC. It was abandoned in
the wake of those attacks because background checks as required of legal
immigrants were never done for those who entered illegally.
Illegal immigrants inflict harm on the
American workers. Getting them out of the labor force is as important as keeping
others from illegally entering the country. Only then will market forces be free
to set the wages and working conditions without being artificially depressed and
worsened by the presence of the shadow labor force who are not supposed to be
even in the country to say nothing about not being in the labor force. Given
another amnesty – especially on the unprecedented scale of the millions now in
the U.S—would free them to move into other occupations and other geographic
regions of the country not now infected by the presence of illegal immigrant
workers. Moreover, if amnesty is given again to any significant number of those
illegal immigrants now in the country, the potential family reunification
implications of what the immigration system will provide once the amnesty
recipient gains permanent resident status and later naturalized citizenship are
mind-boggling (certainly in the tens of millions of similarly low skilled
extended family members).
Local communities will be devastated by the increase in the demand for
government services and local taxes will have to be greatly increased to meet
their needs which now will have been legitimized.
Massive fraud can be expected to add tens of thousands of additional amnesty
seekers who do not qualify for whatever the eligible terms are, but who will
also seek to be included. Who can be expected to stop them from trying?
The anticipated result will be that the low wage labor market will simply be
inundated by job seekers. A Marxian nightmare for low skilled workers will be
created. Wages for low skilled workers will stagnate and increases will likely
be tied largely to the irregularity of increases in the federal or state minimum
wage rates. Income disparity will rapidly worsen. Competition for low skilled
jobs will be brutal and poverty rates will soar.
Finally, it is absolutely inconceivable that the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security could ever administer the terms of any of the proposed amnesty programs
(e.g., verifying their ability to speak English, checking their knowledge of
American civics, seeing if they have paid their back taxes, affirming that they
have not committed any crimes, confirming that all eligible males have signed up
for the military draft, etc.) in any thing close to a competent manner and still
do all of its multiple other immigration-related duties. It would be cheaper by
far to spend a small fraction of what it will cost to administer an amnesty
program on tooling-up worksite enforcement of employer sanctions and border
management.
There simply cannot be anymore amnesties for those who have continued to violate
the nation’s immigration laws that ban their eligibility to be employed.
Non-Immigrant Policy Reform
Both CIR in 1997 and the earlier findings of the Select Commission on
Immigration and Refugee Policy in 1981 stated unequivocally that there should
not be anymore guest worker programs for unskilled workers. Their views
reflected those of virtually every scholar who has studied the issue both in the
United States and elsewhere. Such programs have uniformly proven to be
administratively difficult to enforce; hard to stop once enacted; depress wages
for those employed in impacted occupations; stigmatize certain jobs as being
only for foreigners; and inevitably generate more illegal immigration.
As for skilled workers, proposals to enlarge the existing H1-B program in
“specialty occupations” are coming largely from special interest lobbying
campaigns sponsored by corporate interests. There is no demonstrable evidence of
any chronic shortage that the workings of the nation’s own training and
educational institutions cannot overcome. Corporations simply do not want to
compete for such workers from the pool of American workers. The basic question
is: why should the federal government use public policy to keep the wages of
American workers from being paid what the nation’s labor market would otherwise
dictate?
The existing H1-B program is fraught with charges of hiring and layoff abuses.
These concerns are associated with whether or not the program is designed to
keep starting level wages in these occupations below what they would otherwise
be and, also, whether the program is used to discriminate against older workers
in these occupations who, if retrained to keep current with evolving
technologies, would command higher salaries. The H1-B programs also conjure up
negative images of abuse associated with the concept of indentured servitude for
those employed under its auspices. If the visa holder is intending to try to use
the H1-B program (as many are) as a means to legally immigrate to the United
States under the employment-based admission preference, he needs to work for an
American employer long enough for his employer to certify that he is needed for
that job and that a qualified American worker is not available to do the job he
is now doing.
If in fact there is any likelihood that a skilled shortage were to occur, rising
wages should signal American youth and American training and education
institutions of the opportunities to respond. Why dampen the signal system of a
free market with an H1-B program designed primarily to undermine this mechanism
and to deny American workers
the opportunities to fill these skilled worker positions? It is long past time
to reign-in this massively abused program. There is absolutely no national
interest in expanding it.
Concluding Observations
In its final report to Congress in 1997, the Commission on Immigration Reform
defined what “a simple yardstick” for “a credible immigration policy” is:
“people who should get in do get in, people who should not get in are kept out;
and people who are judged deportable are required to leave.”
The standard cannot be clearer. Congress and the Administration at that time did
not listen and, sure enough, things have gotten far worse.
It time to put aside the selfish pleas of special interest groups and to enact
real immigration reform.
Although some of my recommendations address issues not mentioned by CIR, all are
consistent with those about which it did speak. All are intended to assure that
our
immigration policies are fair but firm and that they are congruent with the
welfare of the nation’s most valuable resource: it labor force.
|
