Amy Traub
Immigration Policy that Benefits the American Middle Class
Immigration policy is among the most divisive issues facing the U.S. today, and progressives often don’t know how to talk or think about it. On the one hand, we are faced with racist demagogues who appeal to Americans’ very real economic anxiety to promote harsh and unworkable policies that will benefit no one. On the other hand, immigration advocates make a vital point about the human rights of immigrants, but so far have not successfully addressed mainstream concerns. As progressives, we know that scapegoating undocumented immigrants is wrong, but that doesn’t provide a positive agenda or a way to distinguish which immigration policy proposals will truly move us forward as a nation.
Any debate over immigration policy must be connected to the larger conversation about America's squeezed middle class and the working people striving to attain a middle-class standard of living. Thorough review of the economic, sociological, and demographic evidence leads us to the following conclusion:
An immigration policy that serves the fundamental interests of middle-class Americans must take two realities into account: immigrants’ economic contributions make them indispensable to our nation’s middle class, and, at the same time, a lack of effective rights in the workplace for undocumented immigrants undermines the ability of all working people in America to secure and maintain jobs that provide a middle-class standard of living.
The Drum Major Institute for Public Policy has turned this insight in to a two-part middle-class test.
1) Immigration policy should bolster—not undermine—the critical contribution that iimmigrants make to our economy as workers, entrepreneurs, taxpayers and consumers, because:
• On average, immigrants pay more in taxes each year than they use in government services, and these taxes fund programs like Social Security that strengthen and expand the middle class.
• Undocumented immigrants alone are estimated to have contributed nearly $50 billion in federal taxes between 1996 and 2003.
• The middle class relies on the goods and services (pdf) that the authorized and undocumented immigrants in the U.S. now produce.
• By increasing consumer demand, immigrants generate economic growth that benefits the middle class: immigration is a major contributor to the expansion of Hispanic and Asian-American consumer markets (pdf) —an estimated 12 percent of the nation's 2004 purchasing power.
• Immigrants also stimulate the economy by starting small businesses and attracting investment capital (pdf, see page 7) from their countries of origin.
Since the American middle class relies on the economic contributions of immigrants both legal and undocumented, a pro-middle-class immigration policy must not include mass deportation or aim to shut down future immigration arbitrarily.
2) Immigration policy must strengthen the rights of immigrants in the workplace:
• Under current immigration law, immigrant workers compete with their U.S.-born counterparts on an uneven playing field to the detriment of both groups.
• Because employers threaten undocumented immigrants with deportation, these workers cannot effectively assert their rights in the workplace by, for example, asking for raises, complaining about violations of wage and hour or workplace safety laws, or by supporting union organizing drives.
• As long as this cheaper and more compliant pool of immigrant labor is available, employers are all too willing to take advantage of the situation to keep their labor costs down.
• U.S.-born workers are left to either accept the same diminished wages and degraded working conditions as immigrants living under threat of deportation or be shut out of whole industries where employers hire predominantly undocumented immigrants.
When immigrants lack rights in the workplace, labor standards are driven down and all working people have less opportunity to enter or remain part of the middle class. A pro-middle-class immigration policy must therefore guarantee immigrants full labor rights so that employers cannot use deportation as a coercive tool in the labor market.
Applying this test to immigration reform proposals helps to illuminate which policies would actually benefit the vast majority of Americans who are middle class or aspire to be. For example, guest worker programs have frequently been proposed as a means of addressing the nation’s future workforce needs. Yet by permanently isolating immigrant workers into a separate and unequal program, such a system would ensure that guest workers always remain more vulnerable and less secure than the mainstream of American workers, and thus are more exploitable, continuing to threaten American wages and working conditions. In other words, guest worker programs do poorly on part 2 of the middle-class test.
Similarly, New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer’s effort to grant driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants collapsed without a discussion of the extent to which these immigrants have become an inextricable part of our communities, a perspective suggested by part 1 of the middle-class test.
We encourage you to take a look at DMIBlog’s additional coverage of immigration for even more insight on the issue.
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ADDENDUM: I am excited about the substantive and generally productive stance taken by the Democratic presidential candidates on immigration in their debate last night. Senator Edwards, in particular, recognized the problem of workplace exploitation and closely linked immigration policy to strengthening and growing the middle class. The one irony arose when Senator Dodd correctly linked immigration to unfair trade. Yet Dodd, along with every other sitting Senator participating in the debate, missed a vote on just such an unfair trade agreement with Peru that very day, presumably because they were preparing for the debate.
Posted at 7:38 AM, Dec 05, 2007 in Immigration | Middle-class squeeze | Progressive Agenda | Permalink | Comments (10)
Comments
Well spoken
Posted by: jc | December 5, 2007 05:39 PM
all of these issues give me a headache why does anyone pursue the right path and stop making choices let the action you take be the choice you made already-if you have any immigration questions click here
http://www.deportation-solutions.com/eloy/index.php
http://www.usaimmigration-attorney.com/
Posted by: fred | December 5, 2007 08:54 PM
It is a grand delusion of most Americans to believe that our fate is somehow separate from that of the immigrant. For God sakes, this is our national heritage, and by turning away from our heritage as an immigrant country - myself 4th generation Italian/Irish - we are denying the natural progression of our society at large.
I think that people like to think of Mexicans as invaders because we forget that our actions force them into such a predicament. As if border crossing were a walk in the park. As if OPEC never happened. As if our south of the border neighbors were content living in an impoverished, crime and violence ridden world.
Posted by: Stephen Silvestri | December 11, 2007 02:55 AM
How on earth do you get
the information that
illegal immigrants pay
$50 billion to the Federal
Government when they pay
no income tax.
Funny how the State of
California pays out over
$2 billion dollars a year
for services to illegal
aliens - how over ninety
hospitals & clinics have
gone bankrupt here with
more on the way due to
immigration & crowded roads
crowded cities, crowded
low performing schools &
job takeovers from legal
citizens are the norm for
the day . Please have
your readers come to
Southern California -
before they continue to
bleed for illegal immigrants
Posted by: Ann Walker | January 3, 2008 07:21 PM
You misquoted the IRS. He spoke of liabilities of $50,000,000, not collections from illegals
Posted by: william wegmann | January 26, 2008 04:16 PM
You misquoted the IRS. He spoke of liabilities of $50,000,000, not collections from illegals
Posted by: william wegmann | January 26, 2008 04:17 PM
The ONLY contribution these illegals have made to our country, are alot of liabilities, reimbursed by OUR tax dollars. I am so sick and tired of this bleeding heart, tree hugging society, who make their own citizens pay and pay and pay some more, for a bunch of people who should have stayed in their own country and made changes there. I think our ancestors had to make great sacrifices to become Americans....not simply find a way to "sneak in and camp" The Swift meat packing plant, in Colorado, hired 400 illegals to displace Americans. Ironically, there was a huge incident of ID theft in that same area.....jobs we don't want, huh? 200 of the Americans there went back to work at their old jobs, after ICE took away the problem. What about our own border patrol, who had to go to jail because they shot a drug trafficker in the butt? Too bad they didn't shoot him in the head, because they're in jail, and he's still running drugs freely over our borders. You people who say the illegals are good for our economy don't get out much. They are trying, and thanks to idiots doing the bleeding earts deal.....are succeeding in taking our country over. I, for one, hope I am in California, for Cinco De Mayo, so I can BURN a Mexican flag during their celebration. They fly our flag upside down underneath theirs, fly their flag above ours......and we sit by and lick our paws and say they just want a better life....yea, they do......OURS, and everything WE worked for, and died for. Send em' ALL home. Until our government started giving our money away to "help" the Muslums and "help" the Mexicans....we had some sort of positive cashflow....and Mom could actually stay home and take care of kids and have normal loves....now, we have to support everyone who steps foot in this country, beause, as soon as they get here....they have rights. Deport the Muslums...they hate us anyway....deport the Mexicans....they want to take over our country. Talking about our own ancestry, isn't even close to what we're talking about here. Our ancestors worked their way up....and became Americans. And spoke fluent English, and tried so very hard......none of these people are doing anything BUT stealing employment from us, driving our wages down, when alot of our jobs have already been deported.....how about deporting these people with corporate America when they leave here, for cheaper labor. Concerning those clowns....they shouldn't be rewarded, like they are now....they should be HEAVILY taxed when they try to send their goods back to the USA. We can't afford to buy them anyway....after all, we're unemployed now. The Muslums driving trucks down the road scare me to death. The mexicans are going to be driving their run down trucks over here freely real soon also....driving our freight rate down. The ONLY reason anyone would want this for our country, is because they are part of corporate America, and serve to profit from it. The average taxpayer, really doesn't want any parts of it. Tell me, please, what will you do when the Mexican truckers are unleashed on Americas' highways, while the Mexican government has no database sufficient to monitor these drivers. They're not drug tested, they have already been caught "buying" their CDLs, I have witnessed a Mexican truck, sitting at the fuel island....front end torn up, radiator steaming...hauling freight in my country, where I am heavily monitored, taxed and tolled heavily, fingerprinted, satelitte monitored, pay way more in fuel than is neccessary (ie: $350.00 for 89 gallons of fuel?) These Mexicans will thumb their noses at our highway laws, just like they have at our immigration laws. they are simply telling America, we will do what we want, when we want, and you Americans HAVE to deal with us because your government says so! All I can say is......we need a new government....one that enforces its' own laws and does the proper thing by its' people, and stops worrying about all these idiots who are trying to kill us, exploit US, and take over our land! Muslums back to the Middle East, Mexicans back to Mexico, penalize industries (not reward) those who leave for cheaper labor...and BTW charge just as much for their products done at the reduced rates....and get rid of this HUGE government, politicians who, I believe, have some financial gain to be had, by deliberately overlooking these people who have come to steal our way of life. We need a fresh start for our own people.....the ones who served our country, and came here and paid their dues.....didn't send their money back to their country. Biggest export to Mexico? MONEY! Get out more, stay in touch with the common people, and LEARN! Sitting in your office cube writing about these "wonderful exploited people" makes me sick, when I am exploited every time I turn the key on in my truck. Made to PAY more and more, in services on my truck (ie: $1.30 per mile AND $91.00 an hour for a road call), fuel in my tank (about $.50 more per gallon because BIG oil jerks know we need it), taxes on everything from tags to paying higher food prices. Oh, and the best one yet....having to pay to park in some truck stops....about $16.00 just to take the mandatory 10 our break imposed on us by the tree huggers who have no clue what life is even like out here. These number that are being thrown out, is NOT real life. My wife and I were in Walmart, in Phoenix, AZ. I called her on her cell to see where she was, in the store. I also asked her if she felt like she was in a foreign country yet....wonder why.
Posted by: Jay Shipley | March 3, 2008 10:35 PM
Talk about selling an anti-white middle class agenda in terms you think we'll accept. Doublespeak 101. Who do you think you're fooling? You can only appeal to the white middle class in this manner when they are prosperous. The US economy is imploding and is 8-16 months from a major depression. People at this time are thinking in terms of dollars and cents. Your analysis is irrelevant is the face of reality. What reality you ask? The reality that the white middle class pays the overwhelming massive majority of taxes in this country that are in turn transferred to 3rd world minorities who come to our country to exploit our economic productivity by getting free school, healthcare, etc etc etc all on our dime...
Here's a deeper thing for you to ponder - where are you going to be when violent insurrection begins?
Posted by: Jon Dame | March 12, 2008 12:00 AM
Talk about selling an anti-white middle class agenda in terms you think we'll accept. Doublespeak 101. Who do you think you're fooling? You can only appeal to the white middle class in this manner when they are prosperous. The US economy is imploding and is 8-16 months from a major depression. People at this time are thinking in terms of dollars and cents. Your analysis is irrelevant is the face of reality. What reality you ask? The reality that the white middle class pays the overwhelming massive majority of taxes in this country that are in turn transferred to 3rd world minorities who come to our country to exploit our economic productivity by getting free school, healthcare, etc etc etc all on our dime...
Here's a deeper thing for you to ponder - where are you going to be when violent insurrection begins?
Posted by: Jon Dame | March 12, 2008 12:03 AM
Talk about selling an anti-white middle class agenda in terms you think we'll accept. Doublespeak 101. Who do you think you're fooling? You can only appeal to the white middle class in this manner when they are prosperous. The US economy is imploding and is 8-16 months from a major depression. People at this time are thinking in terms of dollars and cents. Your analysis is irrelevant is the face of reality. What reality you ask? The reality that the white middle class pays the overwhelming massive majority of taxes in this country that are in turn transferred to 3rd world minorities who come to our country to exploit our economic productivity by getting free school, healthcare, etc etc etc all on our dime...
Here's a deeper thing for you to ponder - where are you going to be when violent insurrection begins?
Posted by: Roger Curner | March 12, 2008 12:07 AM