The LA Times has this questionable report that claims that immigrants boost pay, not prison populations. That’s all well and good. But legal immigrants (which is the group cited by the report) isn’t really the problem.
The problem is illegal immigrants. Who do not boost salaries, and make up a very large portion of the jail populations in border states.
The US Government Accountability Office also conducted a study. And they found that illegal immigrants do help bolster the prison populations and drive up crime rates:
In our population study of 55,322 illegal aliens, we found that they were arrested at least a total of 459,614 times, averaging about 8 arrests per illegal alien. Nearly all had more than 1 arrest. Thirty-eight percent (about 21,000) had between 2 and 5 arrests, 32 percent (about 18,000) had between 6 and 10 arrests, and 26 percent (about 15,000) had 11 or more arrests. Most of the arrests occurred after 1990. They were arrested for a total of about 700,000 criminal offenses, averaging about 13 offenses per illegal alien.
As to the effect that illegal immigrants have on boosting pay? I don’t know. But I’ll bet that the only people who got a boost in their pay from these 400 illegal immigrants were your neighborhood drug dealers.
None of what you’re saying contradicts the notion that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than natives.
So, the average illegal immigrant in prison has been arrested 8 times per person. What’s the average for native convicts? Is that really the key statistic anyway? I’m more interested in number of convictions per 1000.
As for the question whose pay does an illegal immigrant raise? Probably yours. When you go out to your favorite sushi restaurant I imagine there are illegal immigrants in the kitchen. If they are getting paid at a lower rate than natives that is likely just money in your pocket.
There are of course a thousand examples like that.
Does that mean we should have illegal immigration? No. But don’t pretend you don’t benefit from it.
Sure you’d rather. But you don’t.
The fact is that Americans above the lowest income levels generally benefit from immigration- you get cheaper food from the migrant farmers, cheap labor from day workers, and a little bonus to your Social Security from unclaimed contributions.
Like I say, I think we have reasons to enforce immigration law but it will probably cost us to do so.
So low wages add up to enough savings so that agribusiness and the meat packers and every restaurant in the country is willing to risk fines, business shutdowns, and public embarrassment yet- there really aren’t any labor savings…
“When you go out to your favorite sushi restaurant I imagine there are illegal immigrants in the kitchen. If they are getting paid at a lower rate than natives that is likely just money in your pocket. ”
the few dollars we save when we go out to eat once a week will be lost when we pay for their medical bill or when we pay to keep them fed in OUR prison. somehow, i feel that going to the dentist costs more than cooking some kung pao.
That’s why America went broke in 1879 and never accepted another immigrant.
Whose afraid of immigrants?