“Today’s undocumented workers, mostly of Latino origin, hold about 8 million jobs in the U.S.. They account for 5 percent of the workforce and are concentrated in such critical sectors as agriculture, construction, manufacturing and transportation. Nearly all pay taxes in one form or another, and with few exceptions they do not receive aid through Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Nor are they eligible for food stamps, housing subsidies or unemployment insurance.
“There are, of course, costs associated with allowing undocumented people to remain, mostly in areas like public schooling for their children and emergency healthcare, which is provided even to the undocumented. But arresting, detaining, processing and removing large numbers of undocumented immigrants is not inexpensive; it is estimated to cost about$70,000 per deportee.
“Mass deportation of undocumented Latinos would create serious labor shortages. One-fourth of U.S. farm workers and 15 percent of construction workers would disappear. Production would slow and the ripple effect would put tens of thousands of American citizens out of work. Federal, state and local tax revenue would shrink, as would GDP, which would decline by as much as 6.2 percent, depending on how many are expelled.
“However they got to America, most are making their lives, and all of our lives, better. Go ahead and deport the murderers and the rapists — that will make us all safer. But let the hard-working, law-abiding immigrants stay, for their sake and for our own.” –- Going After Undocumented Immigrants Is a Fool’s Game, Scott D. Seligman The Hill [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: Undocumented workers, this writer’s term for illegal aliens, do pay taxes. But they don’t enough taxes to cover the tax-paid benefits they receive. Among those benefits are the full range of welfare programs for their American-born children. Also there’s the cost to educate illegals’ kids, which means less funding to educate American children. Then there’s the expense of illegals using emergency health care, which even this writer acknowledges.
Nevertheless, he says that we shouldn’t try to deport them (except for murderers and rapists—which he generously concedes) because it’s too expensive. He neglects to note that formal deportations of just a few illegals encourages a great many others to self-deport back to their home countries. That’s been happening since the Trump Administration began its deportation campaign.
The writer maintains that the loss of illegal aliens from our workforce would cause “labor shortages.” But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Fewer workers means that the wages of workers will increase—a very good thing. Furthermore, higher wages will draw more Americans back into the workforce. Currently, we have a record number of people of working age who aren’t employed. Higher wages also will accelerate the current trend toward automation of jobs. That will do much to ease concerns about labor shortages.
This writer has the gall to claim that illegal aliens make our lives better that these lawbreakers are “law-abiding.” The reality is that they break numerous laws to live in our country. These are not victimless crimes, and their cost is more than we can afford.