Economic Ramifications Of Illegal Aliens

Let's discuss the economic ramifications of illegal aliens. I will use the term "American" below to refer to a legal citizen.

Provides a cheap labor work force:

1) This reduces the expenses of Americans to free up capital to spend on other things. Some Americans may now be able to work two jobs and pay an illegal to watch their children during the day, whereas paying full price for child care would make having a second job unprofitable. The second job stimulates the economy by generating value and cash flow.

2) This reduces overhead of business owners who may otherwise not be able to run a business if they had to pay FICA taxes, full wages, and now healthcare. The business owner is an American who now does not need to rely on welfare/social services and who may employ some other Americans in addition to his illegals.

3) This cheap labor force shifts the supply-demand curve in a such a way that it promotes Americans to go to college and get technical and science degrees and increase the education of Americans.

4) Reduces liabilities of small business owners. Americans can be very litigious and frivolous and sue for ridiculous things.

Facts:

1) Illegal Aliens come here and are able to survive because American's are willing to hire them for their services. Aliens are not coming here for free education or free healthcare or to collect welfare. If Americans stopped hiring illegal aliens, then illegal aliens would stop coming.

2) If Americans have a financial incentive to hire illegal Aliens, then they will continue to hire them.

How to stop Illegal Alien Immigration:

My argument is that illegal aliens are not a bad thing, however the government has full power to stop illegal aliens. Compare the cost of these suggestions with the cost of the US Border Patrol and the cost of building a 3,000 mile fence around the Mexican border.

1) Reduce FICA taxes and expenses on small business owners.

2) Reduce liability of small business owner in court.

3) Reduce OSHA requirements to make them more reasonable and easy to follow.

4) Provide incentives and tax credits for hiring Americans, rather than disincentives like the current healthcare bill which only force businesses to hire more illegal Aliens.

If we were truly interested in stopping illegal immigration, we'd require proof of legal status to:

Rent an apartment or buy or sell property
Rent or buy or sell a vehicle
Subscribe to a cellphone
Subscribe to a utility
Attend public school or college
Join a union
Receive public assistance
Receive medical treatment (after ONE visit to an emergency room - once that visit has been used, no more ER visits without prepay)
Discontinue the practice of bestowing citizenship on anyone born here (requires Amendment) when the mother is here illegally

However, we're going the opposite direction. ICE workplace visits and deportations are down about 50% from last year.

Xnarg said: If we were truly interested in stopping illegal immigration, we'd require proof of legal status to:

Rent an apartment or buy or sell property
Rent or buy or sell a vehicle
Subscribe to a cellphone
Subscribe to a utility
Attend public school or college
Join a union
Receive public assistance
Receive medical treatment (after ONE visit to an emergency room - once that visit has been used, no more ER visits without prepay)
Discontinue the practice of bestowing citizenship on anyone born here (requires Amendment) when the mother is here illegally

However, we're going the opposite direction. ICE workplace visits and deportations are down about 50% from last year.9 ways and not a single one of them to penalize businesses that hire illegal aliens. I wish I could say I am surprised.

katx said: 9 ways and not a single one of them to penalize businesses that hire illegal aliens. I wish I could say I am surprised.

Research shows that people respond better to incentives than penalties. We need to incentivize Businesses who hire Americans rather than penalize the ones who hire illegals. Currently we penalize businesses who hire either.

I get a much better days work from the Hispanic gentlemen that congregate in The Home Depot parking lot than people that answer want ads.

tripleB said: katx said: 9 ways and not a single one of them to penalize businesses that hire illegal aliens. I wish I could say I am surprised.

Research shows that people respond better to incentives than penalties. We need to incentivize Businesses who hire Americans rather than penalize the ones who hire illegals. Currently we penalize businesses who hire either.Good point, with which I do not disagree. However, your comment also applies to the original 9 ways to which I was responding. It was in the context of the 9 punitive measures -- none of which applicable to businesses -- that I made my comment.

katx said: tripleB said: katx said: 9 ways and not a single one of them to penalize businesses that hire illegal aliens. I wish I could say I am surprised.Research shows that people respond better to incentives than penalties. We need to incentivize Businesses who hire Americans rather than penalize the ones who hire illegals. Currently we penalize businesses who hire either.Good point, with which I do not disagree. However, your comment also applies to the original 9 ways to which I was responding. It was in the context of the 9 punitive measures -- none of which applicable to businesses -- that I made my comment.And it's not surprising that you jumped to an invalid conclusion.

Not every post has to have a 30-page treatise in it and cover all the bases. In a subsequent post, I followed up concerning your false accusation.

With unemployment in some areas hitting over 50% among young African-American males (for example), it behooves us in humanitarian and financial terms to free up as many entry-level jobs as possible by reducing illegal immigration.

Xnarg said: If we were truly interested in stopping illegal immigration, we'd require proof of legal status to:

Rent an apartment or buy or sell property
Rent or buy or sell a vehicle
Subscribe to a cellphone
Subscribe to a utility
Attend public school or college
Join a union
Receive public assistance
Receive medical treatment (after ONE visit to an emergency room - once that visit has been used, no more ER visits without prepay)
Discontinue the practice of bestowing citizenship on anyone born here (requires Amendment) when the mother is here illegally

However, we're going the opposite direction. ICE workplace visits and deportations are down about 50% from last year.Let's examine one of the above a bit more closely:

"Receive medical treatment (after ONE visit to an emergency room - once that visit has been used, no more ER visits without prepay)"

Consider the following scenario:

Little girl, we are sorry that you have been shot in an accident and are bleeding to death but you used your one free ER visit when we treated you for your ear infection.

Xnarg said: The current system of validating legal status for employment purposes is inadequately slow.

It's a red herring. Forget validation. Let's just start with stiff penalties for those, who hire illegals knowingly, without any proof of eligibility whatsoever. When finding a cash paying job without committing a felony becomes impossible, we can revisit the issue, or what's left of it, and see what we can do about validation. The problem is not nearly as hard to solve as some think, it's just not the right time to begin solving it, drawing the attention away from the real issue.

tripleB said:
1) This reduces the expenses of Americans to free up capital to spend on other things. Some Americans may now be able to work two jobs and pay an illegal to watch their children during the day, whereas paying full price for child care would make having a second job unprofitable. The second job stimulates the economy by generating value and cash flow.


"Reduces expenses so that they can spend"? Isn't expenses spending already?

tripleB said: 2) This reduces overhead of business owners who may otherwise not be able to run a business if they had to pay FICA taxes, full wages, and now healthcare. The business owner is an American who now does not need to rely on welfare/social services and who may employ some other Americans in addition to his illegals.

Yes, I guess, it does reduce the overhead. So does slave labor and child exploitation. Would you argue those are good things too, using the same argument?

tripleB said: 3) This cheap labor force shifts the supply-demand curve in a such a way that it promotes Americans to go to college and get technical and science degrees and increase the education of Americans.

Supply-demand curve? Are you talking about people, whose only reason to go to college was that because of illegal aliens, it was hard for them to find a job as an apple picker? I would argue, that American colleges would be much better off without such students.

tripleB said: 4) Reduces liabilities of small business owners. Americans can be very litigious and frivolous and sue for ridiculous things.
There aren't fewer americans (yet) in the country, because of illegals, so, they are not likely to sue less.
The potential liability for business owners is actually higher when they higher illegals - not only they can still be sued civilly, but also, if only the government started doing it's job, be subjected to various penalties and fines for violating immigration and labor laws and tax evasion.

dimatkach said: Xnarg said: The current system of validating legal status for employment purposes is inadequately slow. It's a red herring. Forget validation. Let's just start with stiff penalties for those, who hire illegals knowingly, without any proof of eligibility whatsoever. When finding a cash paying job without committing a felony becomes impossible, we can revisit the issue, or what's left of it, and see what we can do about validation. The problem is not nearly as hard to solve as some think, it's just not the right time to begin solving it, drawing the attention away from the real issue.I agree that employers should be penalized for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

We have to know that the employees are here illegally before we can prosecute employers. And, we should rightfully deport illegal immigrants when they're caught.

It seems rather disingenuous to prosecute employers for hiring illegal immigrants and then letting those immigrants remain in the country because they'll just go out and get another job.

Unfortunately, we're cutting back significantly on all forms of immigration enforcement. This negatively affects our economy in many ways.

Funny how no one suggests mandating paying illegals the same amount as legals. If there is no cost savings for hiring an illegal, businesses won't do it.

There are people that really think hiring undocumented workers can be stopped by fiat. Hey, how's that 'drug war' going, lol.

To solve this problem, one needs to address the core issue - lack of opportunity in Mexico. Mexico is a neighbor. A stable Mexico is in our interest. The U.S. should encourage it's development with business-investment tax incentives. In addition, a strong Mexico would have better control over the drug lords over running the country right now.

Xenth said: Funny how no one suggests mandating paying illegals the same amount as legals. If there is no cost savings for hiring an illegal, businesses won't do it.

In other words remove the minimum wage that requires businesses pay an artificially higher than market wage? That would effectively mean employers could pay Americans the fair wage they pay illegals. If the wage illegals accepted wasn't fair then they wouldn't accept it.

^^ I think that increasing documentation requirements is definitely a reasonable step.

Ironically, the insurance mandate might make it easier to detect such violations. Don't have insurance and you look foreign? That's reasonable suspicion, at least. (:

Xnarg said: If we were truly interested in stopping illegal immigration, we'd require proof of legal status to:

Rent an apartment or buy or sell property
Rent or buy or sell a vehicle
Subscribe to a cellphone
Subscribe to a utility
Attend public school or college
Join a union
Receive public assistance
Receive medical treatment (after ONE visit to an emergency room - once that visit has been used, no more ER visits without prepay)
Discontinue the practice of bestowing citizenship on anyone born here (requires Amendment) when the mother is here illegally

With the exception of emergency room visits, all of that verification is going to do little good. Illegal immigration is highly profitable for those enabling it. Everything on that list can be easily, no, very easily done for others by proxy or with fake identities. All those measures do is dump more bureaucracy and big brother on legal residents, while simultaneously making it that much more profitable for human traffickers to be the "gatekeepers" for rent and services to illegal immigrants.

When a coyote can make money not just smuggling people across the border, but in arranging for restricted services for those people once they are here, that increases the profit motive in organized immigration cartels.

Illegal immigrants will still come here even if they have to obtain housing and utilities on the black market.

The only entity that can be effectively targeted is the employer. Employers are the primary beneficiaries of cheap labor. Everyone else is merely a means to that end. Employers have fixed operations and known directors. In short, they have something to lose. You can't stop the problem by going after criminals or poor migrant workers with nothing to lose. Both of those groups are acting out of incentives stronger than any disincentives the government can realistically offer.

Elites on the left want votes. Elites on the right want slave labor.

Illegal immigration will never be really addressed...

nycll said: JTFH said: Elites on the left want votes. Elites on the right want slave labor.

Illegal immigration will never be really addressed...And the retired people need more younger workers than American women can domestically give birth to to support them.

Clearly the solution is to stop all this condom and abstinence nonsense they are teaching in high schools so we can have more young native-born americans to work for the retiring baby boomers.

tripleB said: Aliens are not coming here for free education or free healthcare or to collect welfare.Take a look at this NY Times article, just published. It's obvious there's a group who specifically come for the health care.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/health/policy/21grady.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

"they needed dialysis at a cost of about $50,000 a year"

"they turned to Grady, a taxpayer-supported safety-net hospital that would provide dialysis to anyone in need, even illegal immigrants with no insurance or ability to pay"

"the strapped public hospital closed its outpatient dialysis clinic, leaving 51 patients — almost all illegal immigrants — in a life-or-death limbo."

"the mounting losses have compromised Grady’s charitable mission, forcing layoffs, increases in fees and the elimination of services."

"provide more than $300 million in uncompensated care this year, estimate that as many as a fifth of its uninsured patients are illegal immigrants."

EvilCapitalist said: RushnRockt said: Xnarg said: Exactly! The whitewash of history would be to claim that Europeans broke some (non-)existent law in coming to North America.
I am not sure what that has anything to do with reality of the topic. Your "whitewash" example is as made up as saying that they got the land adhering to some laws other than might is right.

History is always written by the winners.

Nice saying, but does not apply to the topic, or reality for that matter. We all know that extermination of indigenous populations or competing western powers was done without any sort of "law" backing it up. Why deny the obvious fact of "might is right" being the single "law" of the land and sea is beyond me.