“Immigration policy has been
captured by special interests who peddle the notion that immigration is an
unmitigated benefit to the nation and that it is costless,” says Vernon M.
Briggs Jr., a professor at Cornell University. “Nothing could be further
from the truth.” According to Briggs, the national unemployment rate in
1997 was 4.9 percent; for the foreign-born, it was 7.4 percent; for the
foreign-born without a high school education, it was 9.8 percent; and for
native-born unskilled workers, it was 14.5 percent. Thus, concludes Briggs,
there is no shortage of unskilled workers in the nation and no need to
import them. What’s more, importing the unskilled has the greatest impact
on the least skilled segment of the labor force “that is already having the
greatest difficult finding employment.”
Blacks are hit hardest,
reports Frank L. Morris Sr., retired dean of Morgan State University’s
graduate school. Competition with immigrants “has been devastating for
African-Americans in high-immigration states,” particularly among farm
workers, janitors, security guards, taxi drivers, child-care workers and
those employed in construction, restaurant and hotel jobs, Morris said
during congressional testimony. Furthermore, “Many African-American
citizens [in places where there is high immigration] are living in dire
straits. I consistently confront the myth that immigrants take jobs that
other Americans such as African-Americans do not want. …African-American
workers and especially young urban workers were and are being denied
opportunities in construction that were given to immigrant construction
workers.” |