AILA Blog

Immigration Reform–Maybe It Is About the Money

1/7/10

Today the Immigration Policy Center of the American Immigration Council, along with the Center for American Progress issued a report confirming what many people of rationale mind (including the vast majority of Americans) already knew–It would be an economic disaster to deport 12 million people. The loss of this vital economic element would cause a loss to the U.S. Economy of over 2 TRILLION dollars over the next 10 years. Hey, I think that is real money!

Raising The Floor For American Workers, written by UCLA Professor Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, highlights the economic reality of the the undocumented population in the United States, how tied in they are to the economic engine of the United States, and what an economic nightmare we, as Americans, would deal with if we followed the failed deportation-only policies advocated by immigration restrictionists.

More importantly, Dr. Hinojosa-Ojeda found that not only is a comprehensive reform of our immigration laws (involving BOTH a legalization component AND a an actual workable immigrant visa plan) an economic necessity, it will actually raise the wage floor for all American workers. Frankly, its about time someone looked at the numbers here and ran verifiable scenarios, and did not just play around with easily manipulable census data.

Now, do you think anyone in Congress will read this? Will it change any minds? Ultimately, it is only us, those that understand the human cost of bad immigration policies, that can convince people reluctant to fix our broken immigration system on humanitarian grounds, that it is in our own ECONOMIC interest to makes these necessary changes. Let’s get to it.

by Charles Kuck