Immigration Debate May Be Dead, but Flaws in Legislation Remain

Fox News ^ | July 3, 2007 | John Lott

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The immigration debate in Congress is dead for now, but in all the heated discussion, many flaws in the legislation were never discussed.

The immigration reform debate completely ignored one big magnet for illegal entry into the United States: minimum-wage laws. And as the minimum wage increases that were recently passed this year go into effect, this problem will get worse.

Even employers willing to illegally pay subminimum wages are reluctant to hire U.S. citizens or legal residents, because even workers who’ve knowingly agreed to the low pay have a legal right to sue. And, by law, you can sue to get back double the underpayment of wages.

So, if a worker gets $5 per hour when the minimum is $7.25, he’d have about $4,500 in underpayments for a year — and a $9,000 payoff for suing.

As a result, only a tiny fraction of 1 percent of Americans covered by the minimum wage are paid too little, and these rare violations mainly involve mistakes by employers, not outright lawbreaking.

The only "cops" needed are just 700 or so federal agents who are also responsible for enforcing overtime pay, recordkeeping, child-labor standards and other regulations.

This is why illegal aliens make up the overwhelming majority of subminimum wage workers: Not only are they more willing to work for less, but they’re afraid to sue, for fear of being exposed and deported.

A recent survey estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center as well as an older estimate by Barry Chiswick at the University of Illinois at Chicago imply that over 15 percent of illegal alien workers earn less than the minimum wage. With something over 7 million illegals working in the United States, that easily means that more than a million are subminimum workers.

[2ndDivisionVet]

I suggest everyone here send that Mexica link to everybody you know...let them see for themselves what the illegal immigration issue is about!!

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Where’s the fence?