Evidence Shows that Immigration Does Not Increase Unemployment

Originally posted at Immigration Impact, a project launched in 2008 by the American Immigration Council to help shape and develop a rational conversation on immigration that shifts the terms of the debate towards achieving workable and effective comprehensive policy reform.

Busting the Myth of the “Job Stealing” Immigrant

by Walter Ewing

Some critics of the immigration bill now winding its way through the Senate claim that it would increase

unemployment among native-born workers—especially minorities—by adding more immigrants to an already tight job market. In fact, both the legalization and “future flow” provisions of the bill would empower immigrant workers to spend more, invest more, and pay more in taxes—all of which would create new jobs. Contrary to the simplistic arithmetic of immigration restrictionists, employment is not a “zero sum” game in which workers compete for some fixed number of jobs. All workers are also consumers, taxpayers, and—in many cases—entrepreneurs who engage in job-creating economic activity every day.

If immigrants really “took” jobs away from large numbers of native-born workers, especially during economic hard times, then one would expect to find high unemployment rates in those parts of the country with large numbers of immigrants—especially immigrants who have come to the United States recently and, presumably, are more willing to work for lower wages and under worse conditions than either long-term immigrants or native-born workers. Yet there islittle apparent relationship between recent immigration and unemployment rates at the regional, state, or county level. An IPC analysis of 2011 data from the American Community Survey found that, at the county level, there is no statistically significant relationship between the unemployment rate and the presence of recent immigrants who arrived in 2000 or later.

The principal reason unemployment is not the automatic byproduct of immigration is that immigrants and native-born workers fill different kinds of jobs which require different skills. Even among less-educated workers, immigrants and native-born workers tend to work in different occupations and industries. If they do work in the same occupation or industry—or even the same business—they usually specialize in different tasks, with native-born workers taking higher-paid jobs that require better English-language skills than many immigrant workers possess. In other words, immigrants and native-born workers usually complement each other rather than compete. As data from the 2012 Current Population Survey illustrates, most foreign-born workers differ from most native-born workers in terms of what occupations they work in, where in the country they live, and how much education they have. What this means in practical terms is that most native-born workers are not directly competing for jobs with immigrant workers because they are in different labor markets.

This is true even in the case of immigrants and African Americans who live in the same urban areas. An analysis of 2010 Census data by Saint Louis University economist Jack Strauss found that cities with greater immigration from Latin America experience lower unemployment rates, lower poverty rates, and higher wages among African Americans. Latino immigrants and African Americans fill complementary roles in the labor market—they are not simply substitutes for one another. In addition, cities which have suffered the effects of declining population are rejuvenated by an inflow of Latino immigrants who increase the labor force, tax base, and consumer base.

The grim job market which confronts many minority workers is the product of numerous economic and social factors: the decline of factory employment, the deindustrialization of inner cities, and racial discrimination, among others. Immigration plays a very small role. According to Yale University economist Gerald D. Jaynes, the impact on less-educated native-born workers of competition with immigrant workers “is swamped by a constellation of other factors (such as declining factory jobs and other blue-collar employment).” Jaynes and a colleague “launched a large-scale statistical analysis to measure immigration’s effects on wages and employment of natives nationwide. To our surprise, no matter how we approached the data, our results showed either no effects or very modest effects for the least-educated black men.”

Immigration restrictionists conveniently overlook the fact that immigrants create jobs as consumers and entrepreneurs. Immigrant workers spend their wages in U.S. businesses—buying food, clothes, appliances, cars, etc. Businesses respond to the presence of these new workers and consumers by investing in new restaurants, stores, and production facilities. And immigrants are 30 percent more likely than the native-born to start their own business. The end result is more jobs for more workers. Economist Giovanni Peri of the University of California, Davis, concludes that “immigrants expand the U.S. economy’s productive capacity, stimulate investment, and promote specialization that in the long run boosts productivity,” and “there is no evidence that these effects take place at the expense of jobs for workers born in the United States.”

Critics of the Senate bill who raise the specter of mass unemployment need to learn how labor-force dynamics really work.

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Non-Citizens Eager to Serve in U.S. Military Blocked by Government Bureaucracy

Today, while we celebrate and honor those who have proudly served in the U.S. military, we need to remember that among those veterans are immigrants who fight and die on behalf of Americans every single day

The article below was originally posted at Immigration Impact. Immigration Impact is a project of the American Immigration Council whose mission is to strengthen America by honoring our immigrant history and shaping how Americans think about and act towards immigration now and in the future.

Non-Citizens Eager to Serve in U.S. Military Blocked by Government Bureaucracy
BY MARGARET D. STOCK, COUNSEL TO THE FIRM, LANE POWELL PC
November 11, 2011

This Veterans Day, we celebrate those who have proudly served in the U.S. military, including immigrants. Immigrants have long served in all branches of the U.S. military as infantry soldiers, medics, foreign-language translators, and in every other job open to them. At last count, foreign-born service members made up about 8% of the 1.4 million military personnel on active duty. However, some highly qualified non-citizens have been blocked from serving due to the Obama Administration’s suspension of a recruiting program called the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI). Frustrated by the government bureaucracy responsible for halting MAVNI, those non-citizen volunteers are petitioning the government in hopes of reopening the program.
Started under the Bush Administration in 2008, MAVNI was a highly successful military recruiting program open to certain legal aliens who were also U.S. licensed medical professionals or who spoke certain strategic languages. Applicants were required to pass special immigration and security screening before being approved for enlistment and were put on an accelerated path to U.S. citizenship. If they failed to serve honorably for five years, they could lose their U.S. citizenship.

Although MAVNI was highly successful and saved the Pentagon hundreds of thousands of dollars, the program came to an end in 2010 when newly confirmed Obama Administration political appointees failed to extend it, even though MAVNI was scheduled to continue for several more years. Many blame government inefficiencies at the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness at the Department of Defense, which is primarily responsibility for the program and has reportedly experienced turbulence in the last year.

In the meantime, hundreds of frustrated MAVNI applicants began a White House petition, asking family members, friends, and colleagues for their signatures in a quest to get the attention of the Obama Administration and get the MAVNI program re-opened. Under White House petition rules, the MAVNI applicants need 25,000 signatures on their petition to earn a response. At this point, they have about 700.

Unlike many White House petitions that ask for legal changes or budget appropriations, the MAVNI petition does not seek Congressional legislation or taxpayer money. Leon Panetta, the Secretary of Defense, can put the program back into operation immediately by signing a memo. One would hope that the White House petition process might get Secretary Panetta’s attention, as MAVNI applicants report that letters and Congressional inquiries have not yet resulted in any action.

There is no question that MAVNI is critical in filling military shortages of medical professionals and foreign language speakers. In fact, senior military leaders testified repeatedly before Congress about the value of the program. MAVNI recruits many highly educated people who would not normally find an easy path to serving America due to America’s dysfunctional legal immigration system.

This Veterans Day, let’s hope the administration recognizes the vital role immigrants have and continue to play in the U.S. military and makes a greater effort to reopen the MAVNI program.

Photo by USACEpublicaffairs.

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