Mr. Lee's Response to Further Comments on His Article, "PROBLEMS
WITH PRESIDENT BUSH'S GUEST WORKER PROPOSAL" Unexcerpted Full
Text before ILW Editing
By Alan Lee, Esq.†‡
Dear Editor:
As a final response to comments on my article, "Problems with
President Bush's Guest Worker Proposal", kindly allow me to
reply to the views of Mr. Alexander as contained in the Immigration
Daily of 3/7/06. He initially believes that the article refers to
studies done prior to "our recent influx of poorly educated,
unskilled and illegal aliens". From my understanding and views
of most immigration officials who have been crowing about their
successes at stopping illegal immigrants from entering in the past
few years, there has been less illegal immigration now than in the
past. There promises to be even less in the future with the erection
of a massive fence across the entire Southwest U.S. The studies
remain valid as when conducted in the early 2000's. Mr. Alexander
asked whether Mr. Greenspan's comment considered the impact of illegal
aliens on state finances. The answer is in the affirmative as Mr.
Greenspan stated that immigrants, including undocumented workers,
in essence donate $27 billion to state and local economies. Mr.
Alexander fails to see how millions of poorly educated and unskilled
workers would be able to replace retiring more skilled and educated
U.S. workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the
Department of Labor, more than 33 million new job openings are being
created in this country between 2000 and 2010 in occupations requiring
little or moderate training. The jobs will be in restaurants, construction,
retail, trucking, hospital care and other fields. The coming labor
shortage is not only of knowledge persons, but also of manual laborers.
Mr. Alexander also fails to take into consideration that 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.
Mr. Greenspan further said that short of a major increase in immigration,
economic growth cannot be safely counted upon to eliminate deficits
and the difficult choices that will be required to restore fiscal
discipline. Among others, the Employment Policy Foundation, a conservative
think tank, predicted a shortage of 35 million workers by 2030;
and the Conference Board, a New York based economic research group,
predicted a 31 million worker shortfall. In addition, the children
of those who first come to the United States are widely acknowledged
to give a net benefit to the country. I am aware of the 2004 unfavorable
study of the benefits of immigration by the anti-immigration group,
FAIR, through its former arm, the now independent Center for Immigration
Studies, but the study's methodology is flawed and the motivation
suspect. Mr. Alexander states that low-wage workers who contribute
to Social Security receive an amount disproportionately larger than
their contribution to Social Security than do high wage workers.
Mr. Alexander must remember that Social Security 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 Social
Security pyramid supporting the large class of retiring baby boomers,
the Social Security system will go bankrupt in the future unless
benefits are sharply curtailed or the monies to fund Social Security
are found elsewhere in the federal budget. It may well be that by
the time most now undocumented workers are eligible for Social Security,
they will find that they are getting 10¢ in benefits for every
dollar contributed. Finally it is not for the purpose of giving
cheap, subsidized labor for Agribusiness and Wal-Mart that this
country needs many more workers - it is for the betterment of this
country and the future that we leave to our children and their children.
Alan Lee, Esq. New York, NY
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