Immigrants have an Essential Role

Should workers be brought into U.S. to perform low-skilled jobs or should the low-skilled jobs be exported to poor countries?

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Immigrants have an essential role for the agricultural, restaurant and hotel industry. Most of us tend to forget that low-skilled immigrant workers are also consumers of goods and services that are made in the U.S. We also tend to forget that their low-cost labor helps the economic output and that the kids get a higher education if they chose to.

But, with the Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IRRA) of 1996 added Section 287(g) and the Immigration National Act (INA) – authorities are allowed to enter into agreements with other local and state governments to aid in the enforcement of immigration law and with more anti-immigration laws. Immigrants are leaving areas that signed the 287(g) agreements, and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are raiding homes and work sites to place undocumented immigrants in jail or deporting them. There is evidence of labor shortages in the agricultural and other low-skilled sectors. (Genti Kostandini, Elton Mykerezi, Cesar Escalante)

With the immigrants still migrating to the U.S. for low-skilled jobs which only accounts for approximately 5 percent of the U.S. job force, i.e., agricultural, hotel, restaurants, and janitorial. Researchers have found that data from the U.S. Census Bureau that anti-immigration laws have resulted in a 1 to 2 percent drop in employment in authorized and unauthorized workers in the low-skilled sectors (Huyen Pham & Pham H. Van, ).

You can’t necessary export all low-skilled jobs to developing countries. Agricultural, restaurant and hotel industry are all depended on regional, environmental, and human needs. For example, you can't grow a tomato in colder climates, and most people don’t want to visit developing countries because they don’t feel safe. Unlike most, I would love to visit developing countries and have the opportunity to see what I am mapping.

Allowing hard working immigrants to come into the U.S. and work low-skilled jobs would help the economy.

I would like to leave you with a quote from Eduardo Porter from the New York Times:

“It is not crazy for American workers who feel their wages going nowhere, and their job opportunities stuck, to fear immigration as yet another threat to their livelihoods.”

It makes you think a little deeper is the real problem economic?

References

Genti Kostandini, Elton Mykerezi, Cesar Escalante; The Impact of Immigration Enforcement on the U.S. Farming Sector,American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Volume 96, Issue 1, 1 January 2014, Pages 172–192, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajae/aat081

Huyen Pham & Pham H (Pham, and Van). Pham, and Van). Van, The Economic Impact of Local Immigration Regulation: An Empirical Analysis, 32 Cardozo L. Rev. 485

(2010). Available at:https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/43

Rubenstein, James M. The Cultural Landscape: an Introduction to Human Geography. 12th ed., Pearson, 2017.

ICYMI: Eduardo Porter Of The New York ... - America's Voice. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Jul. 2018 <https://americasvoice.org/press_releases/nyt-danger-of-not-enough-low-skilled-im>.