The Obama administration has been accused by Republicans of being “soft” on illegal immigration.  Nothing can be further from the truth and there lies the problem.

As The Wall Street Journal noted today,  U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement audited more than 2,740 companies in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2010, nearly twice as many as the previous year.  It also levied record $7 million in civil fines on businesses that employed illegal workers.   There are probably some 11 million people working in the U.S. without proper documentation, though that number has declined in recent years as jobs dried up because of the Great Recession.

A reality check is in order.  Getting rid of every illegal immigrant working in America would do little to help the economy. It also would be logistically impossible and prohibitively expensive.  Many of the 8 million or so jobs lost during the economic slowdown were because of globalization or corporate mergers and acquisitions.  Illegal immigrants could not get many of these positions because they either lacked the education or were unable to get Green Cards due to existing laws.   Moreover, even unskilled American born workers continue to have a difficult time securing work at a living wage, a phenomena that would exist even if the U.S. border was sealed air tight.

Even with unemployment at record levels and greater immigration enforcement more than 1 million foreign workers found work in America often illegally, according to Reuters. This underscores the fallacy of the get-tough approach.

“Employers have chosen to use new immigrants over native-born workers and have continued to displace large numbers of blue-collar workers and young adults without college degrees,” said Andrew Sum, the director of the Center for Labor Market Studies, in an interview with the news service. “One of the advantages of hiring, particularly young, undocumented immigrants, is the fact that employers do not have to pay health benefits or basic payroll taxes.”

This is sad but true and employers who exploit vulnerable people deserve to be prosecuted.  Nonetheless, all the law enforcement in the world will not address the problem because the demand is so strong. The jobs that do attract undocumented employees tend to be dirty, grimy and potentially dangerous such as agriculture, meat-packing and construction.  Many of these workers also wind up in the services sector such as hospitality and child care.  U.S. citizens don’t want many of these jobs because they pay poorly and offer little opportunity for advancement.  Someone has to do them though or else the U.S. economy would grind to a halt.  That message is lost on the Obama administration.

Sensing a political opportunity to score points with conservatives, a new ICE office is being formed to “bolster verification of company hiring records,” the Journal says.   What’s less clear are the costs involved.  Removing someone who is otherwise law-abiding from their jobs transforms them from a consumer who contributes to the economy to a burden on society.  Without a way to earn a living legally, many will be forced to turn to government aid and, perhaps even crime, to make ends meet.  The ramifications are enormous.

For instance, Los Angeles County, the largest county in the U.S.,  spent more than $600 million last year on welfare benefits for the children of illegal immigrants, according to FoxNews.Com.   The total cost to cash-strapped California is estimated at $10.5 billion.  Last year, the conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform pegged the costs for the entire country at $113 billion annually.  Critics attacked the group’s study for lumping education costs of the children of illegals, many of whom are U.S. citizens.

Instead of cracking the whip, the Obama administration should try carrots.  Maybe it should allow undocumented workers to pay a one-time penalty to become legal.  At least,  they can become taxpayers instead of welfare recipients.  The one thing that these workers should not get is any fast-track to U.S. citizenship ahead of people who immigrated legally.  Amnesty should not be an option.

When it comes to illegal immigration, conservatives often talk about the dangers of rewarding bad behavior.  That’s a red herring. The U.S. forgave Wall Street for sending the country into a fiscal crisis by providing it trillions of dollars in financial bailouts. Why shouldn’t a group of people who do jobs Americans have little interest in doing get the same consideration?

–Jonathan Berr

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