Highlands Today – April 1, 2010
SEBRING – A report by the University of California San Diego claims that illegal immigration has a minimal impact on the economy.Some local leaders are not convinced that hiring undocumented workers is the best strategy for an employer to save money and have an efficient workforce. But they do not deny their role in the agricultural and construction industry.
“First of all neither I nor anyone in agriculture condones illegal activity,” said Ray Royce, executive director of Highlands County Citrus Growers Association. “But there is no doubt that there are illegal immigrants that come through the system and perform certain jobs in agriculture, hotel and the construction sector here and across the country.”
“There is no doubt that the jobs that they gravitate to are the jobs that are not desired by domestic workers,” he added.
The report by Gordon Hanson, a UC San Diego professor of economics who was commissioned by Migration Policy Institute, a non-profit organization that studies immigration, found that illegal immigrants provide a ready source of manpower in agriculture, construction, maintenance and other lower end jobs that are not appealing to domestic workers.
The education level in the U.S. has risen in the past 50 years. In 1960 half the nation’s U.S. born working-age population did not have high school diplomas but not it’s down to only 8 percent, the report said. This leaves more lower skilled jobs unfilled.
In hiring undocumented workers, employers seek to gain capital by having lower labor costs and migrant workers seek to gain more than two times their income from their home country.
The only group negatively impacted by illegal immigrants in the workforce are lower skilled domestic workers, but according to the report the impact is low.
“Illegal immigration produces a tiny net gain to the U.S. economy after subtracting U.S. born workers’ losses from U.S. employers’ gain,” Hanson said.
“If we account for the small fiscal burden that unauthorized immigrants impose, the overall economic benefit is close enough to zero to be essentially a wash,” he said.
Most agricultural companies hire migrant workers through the H-2A legal guest worker program. But since the Department of Labor announced their final rule on changes to the H-2A program, which went into effect March 15, the process of hiring legal migrant workers is more burdensome to the ag industry.
“If it were a more managerial system, more workers would be hired through guest worker program and that would inherently cut down on illegal immigrants being hired … most present fraudulent documents to employers who don’t know they are illegal,” Royce said.
It can cost more than $1,000 to recruit a migrant worker through the H-2A program but it is the preferred method because it gives employers a secure and reliable workforce.
Will Bennett, consultant and manager for ME H2A LLC., in Avon Park, recruits H-2A workers for his clients. Although he does not support the hiring of illegal workers he can see why some organizations take that route.
With the changes to the H-2A program there is a higher likelihood of undocumented workers being hired in the ag industry, he said.
“On the one side the consumer doesn’t have to pay as much for goods. On the other side undocumented workers have anchor children and use social services,” Bennett said.
Former Avon Park Mayor Tom Macklin, who has been vocally opposed to illegal immigration, disagreed with the report.
“It’s laughable as far as I am concerned,” Macklin said.
In 2006 Macklin proposed an ordinance called the Illegal Immigration Relief Act that would have denied permits to businesses that assist illegal immigrants, fine residents who rent to them and would have made English the official language of the city government. The ordinance did not pass.
Macklin said illegal immigration poses three main problems: it increases crime and burdens the prison system, increases costs and co-pays for paying health care customers, and puts financial pressures on the school system to translate and teach non-native students English.
In the United States 59 percent of undocumented immigrants are from Mexico, 15 percent are from Central America and the Caribbean, 7 percent are from South America, according to Hanson’s report. The majority have crossed the U.S. Mexico border illegally.
Macklin sees illegal immigration as a problem beyond Mexico and Central America.
“There’s a terrible misconception that the only people in this country who are here illegally have crossed the borders. That’s not the case. It’s much easier for someone who is caucasian or black to blend in with the country,” Macklin said.
In the U.S., 19 percent of illegal immigrants are from Asia, Canada and Europe, most of them who have over stayed their visas, according to the report.
Although locals are not convinced that hiring illegal immigrants is the best tactic, the agricultural industry said it is filling the gaps in employment opportunities that domestic workers do not want.
“The only reason there is opportunity for them to work is because domestic workers have passed the opportunity,” Royce said.
Highlands Today reporter AIyana Baida can be reached at (863) 386-5855 or nbaida@highlandstoday.com
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