President
Obama’s efforts to grant legal residency and citizenship to the
estimated 11 to 12 million illegal aliens in the United States will, if
successful, worsen the already poor employment prospects of
less-educated Americans and increase the budget deficits of the state
and federal governments.
Although
proponents of amnesty argue that employers cannot find Americans to
perform the jobs that illegal aliens take, the Department of Labor’s
data actually indicate that America has a large surplus of unemployed
and underemployed workers who could fill these jobs. According to the broad measure of unemployment, the U-6,
the unemployment rate for workers with only a high school degree is
17.4%; the unemployment rate for workers without a high school degree is
27.4%. By the end of 2012, the total number of working-age, native-born
Americans who were not working had risen to 50 million, up 8.3 million
since the end of 2007.
Earnings
data also indicate that the supply of workers exceeds demand. Median
inflation-adjusted earnings of working-aged American men fell by 28% from 1969 to 2009. Declining incomes signal a glut, not a shortage, of labor.
Illegal
immigrants in the United States hurt the employment prospects of
American workers. Between 74% and 79% of illegal immigrants have no more
than a high school degree. Seven to eight million illegal immigrants
are holding jobs. In the absence of illegal immigrants, American workers
with a high school education or less would fill these positions. To
attract American workers, employers might have to raise wages, but
improving the living standards and bargaining power of less-educated
Americans is a good thing. By enforcing existing law, which
prohibits employing illegal aliens, the federal government could
increase the number of Americans with jobs, raise wages, and encourage
illegal aliens to return to their home countries.
In
addition to darkening the employment outlook for Americans, an amnesty
would cost the government trillions of dollars in increased benefits
payments, over and beyond the taxes illegal immigrants would pay. Robert
Rector of the Heritage Foundation estimated that the amnesty proposed
in 2007 would cause the federal government to pay out an additional $2.5 trillion in Social Security and Medicare benefits,
beyond the taxes the amnestied immigrants would pay in. Further,
according to an estimate by Republican staffers in the Senate, if seven
million illegal aliens are uninsured, an amnesty would increase spending
under the Obamacare program by $300 billion over the next ten years. Spending on welfare will also go up because immigrant-headed households are much more likely to receive government assistance.
A CIS analysis of the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey in 2007
found that 46.9% of households headed by a Hispanic immigrant used some
form of welfare, versus 6.6% and 38%, respectively, of non-Hispanic
white and black households.
Finally,
an amnesty would worsen overpopulation and overcrowding in the United
States. The Census Bureau projects that under current law the
total U.S. population will rise to 436 million by 2050, an increase of 127 million over its current size; 96 million of this increase will result from net
immigration and children born to immigrants. America is already a fully
settled and overcrowded country. Although we should stem population
growth in order to protect the environment and preserve our country’s
open spaces, an amnesty would amplify population growth because those
receiving legal status would be able to bring in the members of their
immediate and extended families living back home; and an amnesty would
cause new waves of poor people to illegally settle in the U.S. in the
expectation of the next one.
Numbers USA has
a form that automatically populates with your representatives’ contact
information after you fill in your zip code. You can use the form to fax
your representatives a well-written form letter outlining why they should
vote against amnesty.
