The moderate-liberal columnist argues that conservatives' old argument against illegal immigration was stressing the need for more secure borders, but now they're arguing that illegal immigrants are takers and not makers: "According to the independent National Foundation for American Policy
(NFAP), immigrants will contribute $611 billion to the Social Security
system over the next 75 years. Indeed, immigrants are a key force in
keeping the Social Security trust fund solvent for older Americans who
are at or near retirement. NFAP also found that halting all immigration
into the United Size would explode the size of the Social Security
deficit by at least 31 percent over 50 years."
He continues: "Jeffrey S. Passel and Michael E. Fix, two respected demographers,
recently compared the welfare participation rates of legal immigrants to
native-born American citizens. Controlling for income, they found that
immigrants had nearly identical — and in some cases lower —
participation rates than citizens in the three big social programs:
welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid. They found that 32 percent of
natural-born citizen families at the 200 percent poverty line received
food stamps, compared to only 22 percent of immigrant families. Their findings complement those of another pair of demographers, James
P. Smith and Barry Edmonston, for example, who found last year that
immigrants actually receive less in Social Security and Medicare
benefits than do native-born American citizens."
More: "Some opponents of immigration reform claim that giving citizenship to
the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United
States would set back the fragile economic recovery. Once again, the
truth is the opposite of what the critics contend. Professor Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda of the University of California-Los
Angeles has researched this very question and found that immigration
reform which includes legalization of the 11 million would add $1.5
trillion to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over a decade. These big gains occur because legalized workers earn higher wages than
undocumented workers, and they use those wages to buy things and
stimulate the economy through commerce. Professor Hinojosa-Ojeda also
calculated that the tax benefits alone from legalization would be
between $4.5 billion and $5.4 billion in the first three years."
Booker Rising response: Juan, I see what you did there. You conflated legal immigration (which virtually no one opposes) with illegal immigration, in order to boost your position. In the studies mentioned above, what percentage of illegal immigrant families received welfare benefits? When illegal immigrants are educated and medically cared for at taxpayer expense, how much money do black folks (and other citizens) lose in money that may have otherwise gone to their education and medical care? What lower black unemployment rate would USA have, but for our lax stance regarding illegal immigrants? However, my argument remains the same: illegal immigrants are criminals who disproportionately take jobs from low-skilled black folks. If black folks have to follow the law (and the percentage of illegal immigrants who are black is pretty low), then illegal immigrants shouldn't be rewarded for their criminal activity.
Juan Williams Op-Ed: Dispensing With A New 'Dagger' Against Immigration Reform
