Posted on 03/29/2006 5:16:45 AM PST by Calpernia
Debate is heating up in Washington over proposed immigration reform.
Some federal lawmakers favor rounding up all illegal aliens and deporting them as felons, but there is growing support for legislation that would legalize the nations 11 million illegal immigrants - including an estimated 250 to 4 hundred thousand right here in Jersey- and ultimately allow them to become U.S. citizens.
Rider University Ethnic Studies expert Dr. James Castagnera says legalizing illegal immigrants in Jersey might provide a big financial shot in the arm, because "the likelihood that they would work on the books, rather than off the books- and therefore pay into the payroll taxes, the unemployment tax, the disability tax- I think increases dramatically."
He adds that most illegal immigrants in the Garden State are working - in low level, dirty, back breaking jobs no one else wants - "so I don't see that any jobs that might be held by citizen or legal immigrants in New Jersey are going to be lost."
Dr. Castagnera says Jersey continues to attract a huge number of illegal immigrants because we're an ethnic melting pot, and "we're a coastal state, we're an urban state, we're a state with a fairly high number of employment opportunities."
New Jersey Immigration Policy Network ^ | 01/24/06
10-page document issued by New Jersey Immigration Policy Network to the Governor New Jersey Immigration Policy Network, a coalition of more than 70 civil rights, community and social services organizations, recently presented Corzine with a 10-page issue paper asking him to take action within his first 100 days in office. (snip)....network executive director Partha Banerjee was optimistic. "Based on what he has done in the past, I'm very hopeful he'll put words into action," Banerjee said. The network wants Corzine to appoint an advisory committee to explore establishing a statewide office to coordinate services to New Jersey's immigrant communities.
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1472612/posts?page=38#38
Impact from illegal alien labor:
- Costing health care, retirement funding, education and law enforcement, accruing at $30 billion per year.
- USA is foregoing $35 billion a year in income tax collections because of the number of jobs that are now off the books.
- Census Bureau estimates that 8.7 million people are illegally residing in the USA
- Urban Institute estimates a total of 9.3 million are illegally residing in the USA
- Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates a total of 9.2 million are illegally residing in the USA
- The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) stated that the Bureau of Labor could have missed as many as 10% of illegal aliens, since illegal aliens avoid census questionnaires. The CIS suggests the total illegal population is at 10 million or higher (March 2004).
- Employers have incentive to hire undocumented workers off the books.
- Overseas labor markets have forced US employers to find innovative ways to capitalize on sources of cheaper labor to stay competitive.
- Employers place pressure on the government to ignore the flood of cheap labor.
- Services, ie but not limited to: public school enrollment, language proficiency programs, and building permits, that cater to illegal aliens have increased in areas that are considered gateways for immigration.
- The top nine states that account for 50% of illegal aliens are: California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.
- Sole authority to govern immigration flow is placed on the federal government.
- Responsibility for providing support to legal and illegal immigrants rests with the state and local governments.
- Immigrants send home on average $1,400 to $1,500 per year through money transfers (also called Remittances).
- As per the World Bank in 2002, people sent $133 billion worldwide. Developing countries accounted for $88 billion of that.
- Remittances from the United States to Mexico have tripled to $13 billion between 1995 and 2003.
- As per the Pew Hispanic Center, 39% of surveyed Latino immigrants listed themselves as having legal status to opening bank accounts. This enables cash transfers through private money centers such as Western Union and Money Gram.
- HOWEVER, banks including Citibank, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo Bank began accepting matriculas, which are photographed identity cards for Mexicans living in the US.
- Matriculas are obtainable by any legal or illegal Mexican. Matriculas are widely obtainable through Mexican consulates across the USA.
- To date, around 2.5 million matriculas have been issued, and the number is growing.
- In major illegal alien gateway cities, the influx of immigrants has led to a housing boom unexplained by official population growth.
- In New Jersey, the three gateway towns are New Brunswick, Elizabeth, and Newark.
- Housing permits in these three towns shot up over six-fold, while the rest of the three counties only saw a three-fold increase.
- 80% of these permits were designated for multiple tenent dwellings.
- Official statistics state that illegal aliens in New Jersey have jumped 110% – an estimate that is inconsistent with the housing statistics. Local realtors' stats for multiple tenent housing and school enrollments suggest the number is higher.
- The major illegal alien gateway cities have experienced school enrollments much higher than projections.
- The decrease in the number of births in the past decade had led education administrators to expect decreasing school enrollments as a post echo boom trend.
- A higher immigration rate, however, has offset the impact of declining births.
- Enrollment stats for major illegal alien gateway city school districts that included: Queens, New York; Elizabeth, Newark and New Brunswick, New Jersey; and Wake County in North Carolina revealed explosive growth in immigrant students, far beyond numbers consistent with *legal* migration limits.
- NYC public school system is the largest in the nation, enrollment of 1.1 million students.
- Immigrant student enrollment for 1998-2001 was 103,000, with Queens accounting for the largest share, 37,000.
- Between 1990 and 2001, more than half of New York City’s school districts increased their enrollments 10% or more, driven by a high number of immigrant students.
- New York City Public Schools, 1999 to 2001: 102,867 immigrant students: Dominican Republic, China, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Ecuador, Colombia and Haiti.
"Some federal lawmakers favor rounding up all illegal aliens and deporting them as felons"
Nobody is going to be physically able to round up ten million people and deport them anywhere.
Those who are here are an estabilshed fact. Fix the borders so that in future only legals come here; but don't talk nonsense about deporting millions of people. And if you dont' want them to form a permanent underclass, you'd better put their kids in school so they learn English, and get them started on the way to becoming Americans.
And when this batch of illegals become "legal" who will do those "...low level, dirty, back breaking jobs no one else wants..."?
Oh that would mean taking on the teachers unions and the multicultural gobbleygook they teach.
You will hear "crickets" from the "true conservatives" on that.
There is a union mentality that keeps people from getting these jobs and tasks.
Everything from shoveling snow to buying a frozen dessert truck. If you try to work or do a job that is deemed illegal immigrant territory, you get harrassed, property damage, or some other type of protest.
I love it when these guys fail to mention that illegal aliens drive down the competitive wages for jobs that Americans WANT to do. Look at construction. These illegals will work for wages far below what Americans will tolerate.
If these aliens were here legally, I wouldn't have a problem with this, because it's Capitalism. But it's stupid to import an endless supply of cheap labor into an economy, even if you think they're only going to take the most menial and low-paying jobs.
Exactly.
They stick to those jobs because they're low profile and the wage rates don't cause a ruckus. We don't harass them because "we" want $3/hour labor. Once they're legal, they'll start to demand unions, like LAs hotel and restaurant workers. Then what?
"Growing support" among whom, 50 Senators who'd sell out their own grandmothers for a buck? I'd suggest David Matthau get out amongst the legitimate citizens of the country to see what they think instead.
11 million is an inaccurate number. It is easily 3 times that.
Why do you put quotes on true conservatives? How do you know this for a "fact"? You don't speak for ME anyway.
I am curious about this:
- USA is foregoing $35 billion a year in income tax collections because of the number of jobs that are now off the books.
Any idea about how this figure was calculated and is it for all cash jobs or just those held by aliens?
Loretta Sanchez has referred to this as the "casual economy".
These people come here, they get these jobs, then they file for welfare benefits, and learn quickly how to work the system. Wow, if I could go somewhere get a part time job (pay NO taxes) and have the government hand me money, I'd go there.
Have no idea where they get their numbers from though.
Source for that figure was the Bear Stearns report:
www.bearstearns.com/bscportal/pdfs/underground.pdf
The Underground Labor Force Is Rising To The Surface
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