Myths about Undocumented Immigrants


*Undocumented immigrant workers take jobs away from native workers.

Studies show that undocumented immigration either has no effect on native workers or actually increases their labor market opportunities by boosting the industries that create new jobs. Undocumented immigrants often take jobs that others in the community refuse to perform. For example, the railroads across the West were largely built by Chinese immigrants, and large-scale agricultural production still relies on Mexican workers, many of whom are migrants, not immigrants. Undocumented immigrants are an intrinsic part of our economy and our daily lives. We see and talk to them everyday, they clean our homes and offices, care for our children, tend our gardens, prepare our food, build and improve our homes. Those who say that these jobs would be filled by documented U.S. residents, if undocumented workers were removed, may not be aware of the serious labor shortages in these relatively unskilled, low-paying occupations, or of the projections for a growing demand for these types of workers. The unemployment rate in Mercer County stands at 3.7%, significantly below the national and state averages. In practical terms, Mercer County has full employment. Higher wages alone would not be sufficient to attract U.S. born workers to these low status jobs, and there is a limit as to how high wages would be able to rise without creating an inflationary effect on other occupations up the ladder. A $15 an hour dishwasher job may persuade a middle class teenager to give up postsecondary education and enter the workforce. But everyone else's salaries in the restaurant would have to rise commensurately. Any guesses as to how high the average dinner tab at a restaurant would go up? What would be the wage at which young people might consider a career as domestic workers? Without immigrants, how many two-income households would have to give up one income because of the inability to find affordable housekeeping and childcare services?



*Undocumented immigrants come to the United States to get welfare.

Undocumented men come to the United States almost exclusively to work. In 2003, over 90 percent of undocumented men worked—a rate higher than that for U.S. citizens or legal immigrants (Passel, Capps, and Fix 2004). Undocumented men are younger, less likely to be in school, and less likely to be retired than other men (Capps et al. 2003). Moreover, undocumented immigrants are ineligible for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and most other public benefits (Fix, Zimmermann, and Passel 2001).




* Undocumented immigrants all crossed the Mexican border.

Between 60 and 75 percent of the more than 10 million undocumented immigrants entered illegally and without inspection—mostly across the Mexican border. The other 25 to 40 percent entered legally and subsequently overstayed visas or otherwise violated the terms of their admission (Passel 2005).



* Undocumented immigrants are all single men.

Over 40 percent of undocumented adults are women, and the majority (54 percent) of undocumented men live in married couples or other families (Passel 2005). Fewer than half of undocumented men are single and unattached.



* Most children of the undocumented are unauthorized.

In fact, two-thirds of all children with undocumented parents (about 3 million) are U.S.-born citizens who live in mixed-status families.




* A large share of schoolchildren are undocumented.

Nationally in 2000, only 1.5 percent of elementary schoolchildren (enrolled in kindergarten through 5th grade) and 3 percent of secondary children (grades 6-12) were undocumented. Slightly higher shares—5 percent in elementary and 4 percent in secondary schools—had undocumented parents.




* Undocumented immigrants do not pay taxes.

Undocumented immigrants pay the same real estate taxes—whether they own homes or taxes are passed through to rents—and the same sales and other consumption taxes as everyone else. The majority of state and local costs of schooling and other services are funded by these taxes. Additionally, the U.S. Social Security Administration has estimated that three quarters of undocumented immigrants pay payroll taxes, and that they contribute $6-7 billion in Social Security funds that they will be unable to claim (Porter 2005).



*Undocumented immigrants should be deported

Undocumented immigrants are not a separate and distinct group of people who can be neatly "removed" from our midst. These neighbors are part of "us". According to the Urban Institute, 85% of immigrant families are of mixed-status. This means that undocumented immigrants live mostly with other family members who have legal immigration status, or are U.S. citizens. We have been hearing about the emotional and economic devastation visited on the families affected by recent immigration raids when the main or only breadwinner in the household is taken away. It is not just the U.S. citizen dependents of these undocumented immigrants who suffer. Their employers, the religious congregations where they worshiped, the businesses they patronized and society at large suffers when hard- working, tax-paying, productive members are taken away. The “pie” gets smaller.




*Undocumented Immigrants are criminals

Lack of immigration status is not a voluntary choice in most cases. Many of those deported in recent months in our area had attempted to obtain legal status, but after a complex and very expensive process, were rejected because in the years it took to decide on their petitions, the situation in their country might have marginally improved. Others had been denied the opportunity to even start the process, because they come from a country like Mexico, where visa quotas are set unrealistically low. The inability to achieve legal status has nothing to do with the mostly exemplary behavior of these undocumented immigrants, or a perverse desire on their part to remain disenfranchised. There are willing employers and relatives who wish to sponsor them, but the barriers put up by a dysfunctional immigration system stand in the way of legalizing the status of most undocumented immigrants. We have criminalized people for seeking a better future through hard work, doing what we and our ancestors did since this country was founded. Rather than dedicating resources to decreasing the backlog of immigration petitions so that families can be reunited, and employers can fill job vacancies, Congress has chosen to increase expenditures in more border militarization, and jail for immigrant detainees. In the words of Carl Sandburg “When a nation goes down, or a society perishes, one condition may always be found; they forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what had brought them along.”



*Undocumented immigrants are a negative drain to society

There are some who allege that these immigrants consume more social services, like health and education, than what they contribute in taxes and through their work. Most studies reflect just the opposite. The studies which claim a negative economic impact from illegal immigration do not account for the future contributions of the children of immigrants who are the principal beneficiaries of the social services provided to these families. Some question why children of immigrants should be entitled to an education at taxpayers' expense. The answer is simple: because they will make up the future workforce that will sustain our growing retiree population. In the 1990-2000 decade, New Jersey would have had zero population growth without the influx of new immigrants. At a time when we are contemplating the need to reform our Social Security system because of the unsustainable demands the retirement of the Baby-Boom generation will impose, how can we responsibly consider removing immigrants from our society? The Social Security Administration is holding $421 billion in an"Earnings Suspense Fund" for wages reported under "unmatched" Social Security numbers, which are likely to belong in large part to undocumented immigrants.



* The United States is being overrun with undocumented immigrants.

The estimated number of illegal aliens living in the U.S. ranges from 5 to 8 million. This accounts for approximately 2% of the U.S. population. About half of those undocumented immigrants came legally to this country and became illegal by remaining here after their visas expire.



* Most immigrants to the United States are illegal, undocumented aliens who come only for economic reasons.

According to the INS, 849, 807 immigrants were legally admitted to the U.S in 2000. Economics played a role in those arrivals, but family, work, and basic freedoms are also significant considerations influencing people’s decision to come to this country. Of the immigrants coming legally to the U.S. in 2000, 69% came to be reunited with immediate family members (parents, children, siblings, or spouses), 13% were sponsored by U.S. employers to fill in positions for which no U.S. worker is available, and an additional 8% came as refugees or asylees, fleeing persecution and looking for safety and freedom in the U.S. Like generations of immigrants before them, these immigrants came to this country looking for a better life, and their energy and ideas enrich all our communities.





SOURCES:

Yearning to Breathe Free
Presented on the Queens Library of New York website, this bibliography lists 50 works of fiction that chronicle 100 years of the immigrant experience in America.

American Dreaming: Immigrant Life on the Margins by Sarah J. Mahler. Princeton, 1995.

Beautiful Flowers of the Maquiladora: Life Histories of Women Workers in Tijuana by Norma Iglesias Prieto. University of Texas, 1997.

Health and Social Services among International Labor Migrants: A Comparative Perspective by Antonio Ugalde and Gilbert Cardenas. University of Texas, 1998.

A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki. Little, Brown, 1993.

Immigrant America: A Portrait by Alejandro Portes and Rubin G. Rumbaut. University of California, 1996.

Latinos: A Biography of the People by Earl Shorris. Avon Books, 1994.

The Mexican Outsiders: A Community History of Marginalization and Discrimination in California by Martha Menchaca. University of Texas Press, 1995.

Network News from the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

New to North America: Writings by U.S. Immigrants and their Children and Grandchildren edited by Abby Bogomolny. Burning Bush, 1997.

A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present by Howard Zinn. Harper Collins, 1995.

Shadowed Lives: Undocumented Immigrants in American Society by Leo Chavez. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1992.

National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR)

Michael Fix, Jeffrey S. Passel, et al., "Immigration and Immigrants: Setting the Record Straight, " The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., May 1994



(1) Migration World, 1996, "Immigration to the United States in Fiscal Year 1996, " INS, April, 1997, and INS, June, 1998

(2) Poverty and Race, March/April 1995, U.S. Census Bureau, April 1998

(3) Michael Fix and Jeffrey Passel, "Immigration and Immigrants, Setting the Record Straight, " The Urban Institute, 1994

(4) U.S. Department of Justice Press Release, March 10, 1998

(5) U.S. Census Bureau, April, 1998; INS Statistics, "Immigration to the Unites States in Fiscal Year 1996"; INS Statistics, April 1997; and INS Statistics, "Illegal Alien Resident Population, " June 1998

(6) Wheeler and Bernstein, National Immigration Law Center, February 1997, citing Congressional Budget Office, 1996, and Fix and Zimmerman, Urban Institute, 1995

Michael Fix and Jeffrey S. Passel, et al., "Immigration and Immigrants: Setting the Record Straight, " Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., May 1994

David Bacon, "Immigrant Workers: The Law that Keep Them Chained, " Los Angeles Weekly, October 8-14, 1999

David Bacon, "Immigration Law - Bringing Back Sweatshop Conditions" November 10, 1998

D.W. Miller, "Scholars of Immigration Focus on the Children, " Chronicle of Higher Education, February 5, 1999





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vigil at Batavia, IL feb. 26, 2006

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chicago protest againts HR 4437 3/10/06

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chicago protest march (500,000)