Immigration Rules: An Economic Disaster?

[EV_Ares]

Homeland Security's plan to crack down on employers will gut industries of workers and drive more immigrants underground, say opponents.

by Moira Herbst of Business Week

Employers and immigrant rights groups are speaking out against rules announced Aug. 10 by the Bush Administration requiring employers to fire workers without valid Social Security numbers. Opponents argue that the regulations, effective in one month, will create a disastrous ripple effect in the U.S. economy and disrupt the lives of an estimated 12 million undocumented people in the U.S.

"Throwing this rock in the pond will have devastating consequences," says Craig Regelbrugge, co-chairman of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform and spokesman for the American Nursery & Landscape Assn. "The anti-immigrant crowd hasn't thought through what would happen if this entire workforce went away. Who will be there to put meat and vegetables on American dinner tables? The only unaffected group will be Americans who do not eat."

Industries that employ large numbers of undocumented workers, such as agriculture, construction, cleaning, and maintenance, will be disproportionately affected by the rules. Regelbrugge estimates, for example, that fully 70% of all U.S. agricultural jobs are now occupied by undocumented immigrants. "There's panic right now in the agricultural sector," says Regelbrugge. " will force employers to either fire experienced, trained workers or put their head down and hope law doesn't catch up with them."

Clear Guidelines
The rules, released following Congress' failure in June to pass comprehensive immigration reform, mandate that employers get rid of workers whose names do not match up with their reported Social Security numbers. Companies have 90 days after the Social Security Administration (SSA) sends out a "no-match" letter—detailing when a number submitted to the SSA isn't consistent with the name on file—to resolve the discrepancy or fire the worker. The regulations were announced by Homeland Security Dept. Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez during a press conference last week.

Employers who fail to comply will face fines of up to $11,000 per worker and up to six months' jail time. Administration officials also announced that they would speed up construction of fences along the Mexican border, hire more border patrol agents, and detain more undocumented immigrants caught crossing the border.

((((entire article @ link below))))

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/aug2007/db20070813_797626.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_best+of+bw

[fasttense]

1. Oh my god

You mean US employers will have to hire actual US citizens? They wont be able to offer less than minimum wage, they will have to follow health and safety regulations, our food prices will go up by about 1%, dishwashers, maids, gardeners will charge more and possible get paid a living wage, and employers will have to treat the poorest paid people in the US with some amount of dignity to keep them from walking off the job. This is horrible.

And we know the only reason the price of food, and just about everything else in the US, is going up is because corporations are forced to pay more to their employees. Stagnant wages and falling earnings of the US middle class is all due to the increase labor costs.

Of course all the illegal immigrants here in the US wont go home. Just because we have seen construction workers return home since the housing bubble burst, and just because migrant workers use to return home before Raygun stopped enforcing employer sanctions, doesn't mean illegals will get smart and return to force their own governments to offer living wages instead of slave wages. Past precedent and facts are of no consequence when you can push every emotional button and make it seem like 12 million people will be starving in the streets.