Friday, August 10, 2007

My comment on: Illegal Immigrants Receiving Slave Wages

My comment on: Illegal Immigrants Receiving Slave Wages.

I agree with you, immigrants do get paid a lot less because they are illegal. Illegal immigrants often use false social security numbers and employers even pay immigrants cash and take advantage of them. Although they are illegal, I don’t think it’s fair to take advantage and pay them less for a tough hard days’ work. A new law will require employers to fire employees who fail to provide proper identification and social security numbers. According to the article, Expected crackdown on illegal immigrants in the workforce will cause problems for many sectors, opponents say by Juan Castillo:

A new crackdown on the hiring of illegal immigrants will lead to the loss of 300,000 to 400,000 jobs in Texas in the next year, causing great harm to employers, workers and the economy, Bill Hammond, the head of the state association of businesses said Wednesday.

As a result, this new law will affect both employers and consumers because illegal immigrants make about 6% of Texas’ workforce. This can put an end to the slave wages illegal immigrants receive, but now they will be out of jobs. So this goes back to your point that “illegal immigrants should not be coming into the United States,” you are right. Without jobs, illegal immigrants won’t have incentives to come to the U.S., but the economy will be greatly affected. Until new reforms are taken to help illegal immigrants come legally to the U.S. to work, live, or pursue the “American Dream” this will continue to be a problem for both employers and illegal workers. I say help because illegal immigrants continue to come to the U.S. legally, illegally and with or with no fence and even across the ocean. This new law will not only affect construction employers, but also farmers with illegal immigrants making about 70% of the workforce according to the article. At least this new law will end the poor treatment against illegal immigrants and make U.S. citizens realize the importance of illegal immigrants and their labor to the economy.

1 comment:

Kris S. Seago said...

Very insightful commentary. IFF we wanted to STOP illegal immigration, we could place huge fines on employers who give jobs to illegal immigrants. This would remove the incentive and the flow of illegal immigrants would slow without a fence. However, I don't think we REALLY want this to happen. Instead, we'll put the burden on the individual immigrants.....