The Quote Below: More Information from the Media
The raids were believed to be the largest statewide immigration crackdown in recent history and a partial fulfillment of President Trump’s vow to remove millions of undocumented workers from the country. The impact on Mississippi’s immigrant community has been devastating. For non-immigrant workers, the aftermath has forced them into a personal reckoning with questions of morality and economic self-interest: The raids brought suffering, but they also created job openings. . . .
[Juan] Grant, only two years out of high school and still finding his way in the world. He said it felt good to be earning $11.23 an hour, even if the new job entailed cutting off necks and pulling out guts on a seemingly endless conveyor of carcasses. It was about $4 better, he said, than what he used to earn at a Madison County cookie factory. . . .
A 2016 study on the effects of immigration on the United States economy found that immigration had “little long run effect” on American wages. – After ICE, a Reckoning in Mississippi Chicken Country, The New York Times, Richard Fausset, 12/28/19 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: Last year ICE raided chicken processing plants in Mississippi and arrested foreigners who were working there illegally. With the jobs vacant, the employers had to raise wages to attract American workers. This writer seems to think it is a moral problem when our country gives preference to its own citizens for employment and enables those with low incomes to receive better wages. Perhaps it is a moral problem for well-heeled writers who have little loyalty to their fellow citizens—and by extension little loyalty to their country.
The 2016 study has a number of flaws, and it received funding from investors who stand to gain from mass immigration. A better source of information is the 2016 study by the National Academy of Sciences which found that immigration lowers American wages by 5.2 percent. According to Harvard economist George Borjas this figure means a yearly transfer of $500 billion a year from workers to employers and investors. Thus mass immigration may properly be described as a Robin Hood in reverse policy. It robs from the poor and gives to the rich. As long as mass immigration continues, it will have long-term and significant effects.