Mr. Lee's Response to Further Comments on His Article, "PROBLEMS WITH PRESIDENT BUSH'S GUEST WORKER PROPOSAL" Published in Immigration Daily of 3/9/2006

By Alan Lee, Esq.^†‡

Dear Editor:

In response to comments on my article (03/01/06 ID), let me reply to Mr. Alexander's letter (03/07/06 ID). His letter asked whether Mr. Greenspan's comment considered the impact of illegal aliens on state finances. Yes. Mr. Greenspan stated that immigrants, including undocumented workers, donate $27B to state and local economies. Mr. Alexander's letter fails to see how millions of poorly educated and unskilled workers would be able to replace retiring more skilled and educated US workers. DOL states 33+ million new job openings are being created in this country between 2000-2010 in occupations requiring little/moderate training. The coming labor shortage is not only of knowledge persons, but also of manual laborers. The undocumented are usually among the more ambitious and enterprising people of the countries that they leave, having the initiative to strike out for a new life rather than remaining in their routines back home. Short of a major increase in immigration, according to Mr. Greenspan, economic growth cannot be safely counted upon to eliminate deficits. Among others, the Employment Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, predicted a shortage of 35M workers by 2030; and the Conference Board, a NY-based economic research group, predicted a 31M worker shortfall. Mr. Alexander's letter must remember that SS benefits are not reachable for most until the age of 62 and the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 expressly prohibits SSI benefits to permanent residents. Without a massive number of new workers at the bottom of the SS pyramid supporting the large class of retiring baby boomers, the SS system will likely go bankrupt in the future. It is not for the purpose of giving cheap, subsidized labor to Employers that this country needs many more workers - it's for the betterment of this country and the future that we leave to our children and their children.

Alan Lee, Esq. New York, NY

To see original comments, click here and scroll down to "Letters" section.

† The author is a 26 year practitioner of immigration law based in New York City. He was awarded the Sidney A. Levine prize for best legal writing at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1977 and has written extensively on immigration over the past years for the ethnic newspapers, World Journal, Sing Tao, Pakistan Calling, Muhasha and OCS. He has testified as an expert on immigration in civil court proceedings and was recognized by the Taiwan government in 1985 for his work protecting human rights. His article, "The Bush Temporary Worker Proposal and Comparative Pending Legislation: an Analysis" was Interpreter Releases' cover display article at the American Immigration Lawyers Association annual conference in 2004, and his victory in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case of first impression nationwide, Firstland International v. INS, successfully challenged INS' policy of over 40 years of revoking approved immigrant visa petitions under a nebulous standard of proof. Its value as precedent, however, was short-lived as it was specifically targeted by the Administration in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004.

‡ This article © 2006 Alan Lee, Esq.

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