Mass Deportations for the U.S. Economy

Introduction

As the U.S. experiences its highest unemployment levels in a generation and news reports document the desperation of some native-born workers who are unable to find steady work, we must ask the question whether now is really the best time to implement a legalization program (Michael, 2000).

Mass Deportations for the U.S. Economy

Basic math would suggest that 16 million unemployed American workers would benefit from subtracting 12 million undocumented workers from the labor force. However, it isn't that easy. Mass deportation is no silver bullet for solving our unemployment problem. Our economic and unemployment issues are not a matter of simple math or a zero sum game. In reality, American workers and recent immigrants' workers are not easily interchangeable and removing millions of workers and consumers from our fragile economy would only make matters worse.

Moreover, what could help spur economic growth and create jobs is an aggressive legalization program for the 12 million workers without legal status in this country today. Studies have shown, again and again, that legalizing workers would move them into better paying jobs, homeownership and higher consumption of goods and services—all of which better the situation of native-born workers as well as their immigrant counterparts.

The simple math of “swapping” one worker for another just doesn't hold up under close scrutiny (Sam,2 005).

In a recent IPC report, demographer Rob Paral took a close look at Census and Department of Labor data and found that there is a huge disparity between immigrant workers and unemployed natives, making it such that they don't compete for jobs longterm.

Even during a time of economic recession and high unemployment, most native-born workers do not compete with most immigrants for the same jobs. This is apparent even when we compare unemployed natives with employed “recent” immigrants who came to ...