This is where you and I separate, ideologically. I don't view all humans on this planet in the same way. I don't believe that every human is entitled to settle wherever they wish, whenever they wish. I believe that humans often have the government they wish/deserve, whatever that might be. And when it comes to providing limited resources from THIS country to the world, i favor taking care of Americans first, and then relieving suffering elsewhere.
I never said that anyone was entitled to settle wherever they wish, whenever they wish. Indeed, the European conquest of the Americas and destruction of its indigenous society would be a perfect example of precisely why it is inadvisable to permit people to do this. Citizens often do not have the government that they wish/deserve, particularly when the influence and direct intervention of superpowers prevents them from having such a government. I am quite sure that the Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq of Iran, President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala, President Salvador Allende of Chile, the Sandinistas of Nicaragua, etc., were all desired by their respective citizenries, given that they were democratically elected, despite the fact that the U.S. was complicit in their overthrow.
That being said, you'll want to refer back to the very fundamental economic principle of the diminishing rate of marginal utility to examine the manner in which affluent states can aid wretchedly poor states and citizenries without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance. For instance, if we were to refer back to the common example regarding a person waling by a shallow pond and seeing a small child facedown in the water, drowning in it, we would clearly see that it would be preferable to rescue the small child even if it would necessitate muddying one's trousers. Even if we were to assume that your assertion that aiding the poor elsewhere would cause the poor here to suffer was correct, (and I regard it as untrue), we might still say that it is preferable to rescue the child while breaking a limb, for instance. We make this assumption on the grounds that the extreme poverty experienced by many people around the world (augmented with starvation, preventable diseases) is far more severe and intense than the relatively lesser poverty that exists in an industrialized first-world country like the U.S. But I don't regard your premise as being accurate to begin with, and a conceivable option would be to steepen progressive tax rates on the upper class, those who would not sacrifice anything of comparable moral significance, to aid the severely destitute.
Illegal immigration negatively impacts poor folks in the U.S. by broadening the labor pool, keeping wages artificially stagnant, and thus, increasing the poverty and desperation of those in the U.S. who are destitute and suffering. And the problem of poverty in the U.S. is one we have not yet begun to solve, so we shouldn't be adding to it.
I disagree, and shall elaborate below.
The problem is that illegal immigrants often pay taxes, but are not entitled to services. If you legalize them, you will be increasing the burden on local schools, local services, local roads, local jails, etc., without a concurrent increase in income to those areas. On a national scale, the impact is absorbed. But at a local level, the impact can be catastrophic.
...That was directly rebutted by the study that you just quoted, which indicates that legalization enables immigrants to contribute greater amounts of taxes not only at the federal level, but at the state level also.
The question lawmakers attempt to answer is: Do undocumented immigrants pay enough in taxes to cover the services used? For undocumented immigrants, the answer is unclear. However, for legal immigrants, studies have shown that first generation immigrants pay more in federal taxes than they receive in federal benefits. The same does not hold true for state taxes and services, however, as first generation immigrants often use more in services than they pay in taxes. However, the descendants of the first-generation immigrant correct that pattern and contribute more in taxes at both the federal and state level than they consume in services at both levels. Each generation successively contributes a greater share due to increased wages, language skills, and education.
Local services were not directly analyzed, but it's likely that they reap the same benefits, considering that another study in Colorado confirmed that immigrants paid about $1,861 in state and local taxes were they employees of the formal labor market, and about $1,370 in sales and property taxes were they employees of the informal labor market, totaling about 70 to 86% of the $225 million they used in state and local services, somewhere between $159 and $194 million dollars. (
http://www.thebell.org/PUBS/IssBrf/2006/06ImmigTaxes.pdf)
The debate over immigration reform arouses intense discussion about whether undocumented immigrants excessively burden Colorado taxpayers. Much of this debate revolves around the misinformed belief that undocumented immigrants impose massive costs on the state without paying taxes. This brief clearly shows that undocumented immigrants pay enough state and local taxes to offset a large share of the three federally mandated services: K-12 education, emergency medical care and incarceration.
Considering that this estimate of 70 to 86% was based on another estimate of 50% of illegal immigrants working in the formal economy, if the theoretical possibility of illegal immigrants working in the formal economy were to be adjusted to 90 to 100%, so that an additional 40 to 50% would be paying income taxes, they would exceed necessary tax payments for the state and local services that they used.
Also, consider the three federally mandated services that they are using. Education is more often used by their offspring, many of whom are U.S. born citizens and thus legally entitled to it.
As for emergency medical care, the prevalence of their need for it may decrease were they not situated in dangerous workplaces and neighborhoods due to their low economic status, and I have indicated that such a status would be dramatically altered by amnesty.
As for incarceration, first consider this GAO report.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05646r.pdf
We identified a population of 55,322 aliens that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Department of Homeland Security determined,based upon information in its immigration databases, had entered the country illegally and were still illegally in the country at the time of their incarceration in federal or state prison or local jail during fiscal year 2003...About 45 percent of all offenses were drug or immigration offenses. About 15 percent were property-related offenses such as burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and property damage. About 12 percent were for violent offenses such as murder, robbery, assault, and sex-related crimes. The balance was for such other offenses as traffic violations, including driving under the influence; fraudincluding forgery and counterfeiting; weapons violations; and obstruction of justice.
So almost half of that number were incarcerated for either drug-related offenses (an authoritarian drug war benefits no one) or for simply being in the country illegally. Now, considering that incarceration for illegal residence would obviously no longer exist were illegal immigrants to be granted amnesty, and that incarceration for drug-related offenses would no longer exist were the drug war to be ended, and that incarceration for many other criminal offenses necessitated by extreme poverty would no longer exist should their wages dramatically increase through entry into the formal labor market, and possibly into the primary sector of the dual labor market, as has been done in the aftermath of legalization before, many of these financial costs stand to be reduced even further.
I don't believe that these individuals are entitled to these benefits in the first place. Let them apply to move here legally, through the existing system. I do believe in population control. At present, we keep our population growing at a relatively slow pace because the more educated Americans become, the less frequently they breed. However, illegal immigration leads to massive population increases that strain our infrastructure and that pose a threat to our natural environment and resources.
The current system permits an insufficient number of immigrants to enter, although a far larger amount could be permitted to enter, and therefore alleviate immigrants' immediate suffering without forcing upper class Americans to sacrifice anything of comparable moral significance.
On the other hand, it is simple economics. Employment does not necessarily increase simply because you flood the labor pool with new, unionized employees. More people in the labor pool = more competition for jobs = detrimental impact particularly on America's working poor who have already been left behind educationally and technologically. Until we fix that problem, i do not believe we should be contributing to their woes.
On the contrary, I would note that you seem to be ignoring dual labor market theory in your analysis. Because there are currently heavy restrictions on immigrants entering the primary sector of the dual labor market, they are largely relegated to the secondary sector, which is unregulated and characterized by low wages and a lack of benefits. Hence, though I do not deny that they are competing with low-skilled workers in the United States, I don't believe that it is their mere presence that causes this, but rather their disenfranchisement and the deprivation of their rights at the hands of the law.
Apart from global inequalities caused by other forms of neoliberalism, (for instance, the presence of many low-skilled workers in the U.S. that need cheap jobs alongside the wave of immigrants that also need jobs could be interpreted as global economic restructuring and indications of global poverty everywhere), trade liberalization is largely responsible for the domestic economic failures that you seek to blame on the presence of illegal immigrants. The North American "Free Trade" Agreement, for instance, was a particularly crushing blow. Outsourcing of jobs and labor to cheap workers in foreign countries not only has profoundly negative impacts on the socioeconomic circumstances of workers in those countries, it permits domestic employers to threaten low-skilled workers with termination unless they cede many of their union gains and benefits. It also results in the mass displacement of workers in countries where trade liberalization is implemented.
As I've mentioned previously, the implementation of the North American "Free Trade" Agreement served to displace multitudes of the Mexican working class by eliminating the need for their jobs. (The impact on corn farmers is a perfect example of this.) Mexican manufacturing wages fell by 21% during the 1990's, and other forms of socioeconomic decay, such as increased poverty rates, also set in. (
Dear Dr. Dollar | Dollars & Sense) Unemployment has also risen in Mexico since the treaty was signed, and the agricultural and industrial sectors have suffered. (
http://cmd.princeton.edu/papers/NAFTA and Mexican Immigration.pdf)
There has been popular dissatisfaction with NAFTA among the lower classes in Mexico, as most clearly manifested through the formation of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, and their declaration of war against the Mexican government. Hence, it is a treaty heavily hyped by American authorities as promoting American interests that has caused wage depression and socioeconomic problems in Mexico that have resulted in a wave of immigration.
perhaps you should bother to read up the thread where I provided statistics from a study by the CBO on this very subject, along with a study of the impact of illegal immigration on poor black Americans.
The "study" that I saw indicated correlation, not causation, and I have explained why that correlation might exist.
