Ruining The Jobs That Americans Do

I've got to give credit to Arizona Republic columnist Robert Robb for picking through another spew from the Pew Hispanic Center. What he found was surely not made clear by the study's authors; it had to have been found in the data. That's a lot more work than I'm used to seeing reporters do.

Every other article I can find about the study, and even the Pew press release, sings the praises of our great labor saviors who only do the jobs Americans won't do, or that the Mexican government deems that black Americans are incapable of doing. Here, it becomes clear that Pew found out that both illegal aliens and low skilled legal immigrants are both taking American jobs and lowering wages in construction jobs, which used to be the bridge to the middle class for many Americans.

Not so much any more. Thanks to illegal aliens:

Tilting the labor market

Nowhere has the demand for construction labor increased faster than in Arizona. Yet, most construction jobs in Arizona now pay below the state's median hourly wage, which was not the case in 1990. A stagnant or declining price of something is not an indication of a shortage of it. Contrary to the contention of immigration liberals, in almost all cases illegal immigrants do compete with native-born workers. A previous Pew study attempted to ascertain the percentage of the workforce illegal immigrants represented in various job categories. The highest was insulation workers, at 36 percent. That means in virtually all job categories in which illegal immigrants are prominent, at least two-thirds of the workers are legal.

But this is where my kudos end. Robb goes on to end his piece with the standard drivel about how we cannot deport millions of illegals and even comes up with a new heartstring that he tugs generously.

Yep. There are lots of anchor babies and it would be wrong to deport the parents and leave the kids, even though we send the parents of American kids to prison every day for the crimes they commit and leave them with relatives or in foster care. It would be wrong to weigh down overburdened state foster care systems with these anchors. The direct answer to this is that the kids would have to go "home" with the parents until they reach the age of consent; then they can return, if they choose to do so.

That's the way things work.


Technorati tags: illegal immigration, illegal alien, amnesty, immigration reform, immigration, guest worker, Pew Center