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February 28, 2007

The IFCO guilty pleadings: what was behind them

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) on Tuesday 2/27 ran an article about how ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) went after the executives at IFCO, the pallet manufacturer raided last year, for systematically hiring illegal workers. The article contains nuggets of information about ICE’s new strategy – which I have excerpted here. They include patiently collecting information in several states on manager communications; getting Social Security to cooperate in revealing huge mismatches of Soc Sec numbers; and planting an informant. (I have previously posted on IFCO.)

According to an article in the Salt Lake City Tribune, five managers pleaded guilty:

James Rice, 37, of Houston, an executive regional general manager of the Netherlands-based IFCO Systems, pleaded guilty to conspiring to employ illegal workers. Robert Belvin, 43, of Stuart, Fla., a former general manager of the Albany IFCO plant, pleaded guilty to two felony conspiracy charges. They face up to 2 years in prison. Dario Salzano, 36, of Amsterdam, N.Y., Scott Dodge, 44, of Elmira, N.Y., and Michael Ames, 44, of Shrewsbury, Mass., each pleaded guilty Tuesday to one misdemeanor. They could face up to six months in jail and $3,000 in fines for each undocumented worker employed, though they likely will get reduced terms because they cooperated, Sciocchetti said. Charges were pending against two other IFCO managers in Houston and Cincinnati.

Here in addition are some figures from the ICE Fact Sheet on the net:

* The number of criminal arrests in worksite enforcement cases has increased from a mere 25 in Fiscal Year 2002, the last full year under the old INS, to 716 during Fiscal Year 2006 under ICE..

* The number of individuals arrested on administrative immigration violations in worksite enforcement cases has increased from 485 in Fiscal Year 2002, the last full year under the old INS, to 3,667 during Fiscal Year 2006 under ICE.

The Wall Street Journal articles reads:

In 2005, the Department of Homeland Security announced that instead of imposing small fines for sloppy paperwork, its immigration-enforcement branch would flush out "egregious" employers and put them in jail. That demands proof and police work -- including undercover informants and secret recordings -- more common to drug busts than immigration audits.

Since ICE's creation in 2003, employer arrests have leapt from 25 in 2002 to 718 in 2006. Only last week, ICE arrested three executives of a Nevada-based janitorial service with national reach. But successful prosecutions have so far largely been limited to smaller labor contractors, restaurant owners, and a company putting up a fence on the Mexican border.

IFCO's parent, IFCO Systems NV, by contrast, has world-wide sales of nearly $650 million. Registered in Holland and managed out of Houston and Munich, it promotes itself as a smoothly run system, listing Target Corp., Cargill Inc. and Dell Inc. among many corporate customers. Repairing pallets -- the rough frames that carry goods from factory to warehouse -- is tough work. Up until last April, most IFCO pallet workers were Hispanic.

It was easy for ICE to swoop down on those working illegally. To accuse their bosses of a conspiracy, punishable by prison terms of up to 20 years, was a far greater task. The clues ICE collected, as disclosed in the complaints filed in federal court in Albany, resulted from a combination of lucky tips and accidents. The evidence was backed up by local police work, aggressive surveillance, and the unusual involvement of the Social Security Administration..



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TEST CASE
Immigration Crackdown
Targets Bosses This Time
Fake Papers and a Spy
Foiled IFCO Managers;
'César' Wore a Wire
By BARRY NEWMAN
February 27, 2007; Page A1

GUILDERLAND, N.Y. -- Early in April of 2005, a man whose friends knew him as César went looking for a job at a wholesale distribution hub near this upstate village. At a workshop run by IFCO Systems North America Inc., the nation's biggest recycler of wooden pallets, César let the boss know that he was in the country illegally, but would be trying to buy some fake "papers."
[filing] RELATED READING

See the complaint1 filed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement against IFCO managers.

"That will work," said Robert Belvin, the 42-year old IFCO site manager.

What Mr. Belvin didn't know was that César was an undercover informant working for federal immigration enforcers. Or that he was wearing a wire.

The conversation -- and many others César recorded -- helped build a case that is the biggest test so far of a heavily touted government campaign to control illegal immigration.

A year after César went to work, agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau pounced on 52 IFCO workshops in 26 states, arresting 1,187 foreigners. Unlike raids on many other companies -- including December's arrests of 1,282 workers at Swift & Co. -- the motivation for the raid on IFCO wasn't to catch foreigners. It was to catch the Americans who hired them. Seven IFCO middle managers were also arrested that day and charged, in identically worded complaints, under the same felony statute that punishes human smuggling. Five of them, people familiar with the case say, are expected to plead guilty today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.
CAST YOUR VOTE

[discussions]2
What is the appropriate penalty for employers who hire illegal immigrants? Cast your vote and join in a discussion.3

Neither the company nor its top executives were named in the complaints, which allege that the managers "knowingly conspired with others" to transport, harbor and support undocumented workers for "commercial advantage or private financial gain." But the investigation isn't closed. Like any ICE operation today, one immigration official says, the objective is "to move up in the organization."

In 2005, the Department of Homeland Security announced that instead of imposing small fines for sloppy paperwork, its immigration-enforcement branch would flush out "egregious" employers and put them in jail. That demands proof and police work -- including undercover informants and secret recordings -- more common to drug busts than immigration audits.

Since ICE's creation in 2003, employer arrests have leapt from 25 in 2002 to 718 in 2006. Only last week, ICE arrested three executives of a Nevada-based janitorial service with national reach. But successful prosecutions have so far largely been limited to smaller labor contractors, restaurant owners, and a company putting up a fence on the Mexican border.

IFCO's parent, IFCO Systems NV, by contrast, has world-wide sales of nearly $650 million. Registered in Holland and managed out of Houston and Munich, it promotes itself as a smoothly run system, listing Target Corp., Cargill Inc. and Dell Inc. among many corporate customers. Repairing pallets -- the rough frames that carry goods from factory to warehouse -- is tough work. Up until last April, most IFCO pallet workers were Hispanic.

It was easy for ICE to swoop down on those working illegally. To accuse their bosses of a conspiracy, punishable by prison terms of up to 20 years, was a far greater task. The clues ICE collected, as disclosed in the complaints filed in federal court in Albany, resulted from a combination of lucky tips and accidents. The evidence was backed up by local police work, aggressive surveillance, and the unusual involvement of the Social Security Administration.

IFCO maintains that nothing points to illegal immigration as part of its formal business model. "We deeply regret that we had even a single ineligible worker on our payroll," the company said in a written statement. The company declined to comment further on the case.

The government claims that the immigration status of more than half of IFCO's 5,800 workers in the U.S. was suspect. It is unclear whether the U.S. Attorney in Albany, who is supervising the case, will bring charges against higher-level IFCO executives.

Still, the government's intrusive new style has petrified other companies that rely on foreign labor. "Everybody thinks these are show trials," says Amy Peck, an immigration lawyer in Colorado who represents corporate clients. "And at the same time, we're scared to death about what's going on."
[Chart]

The IFCO evidence, she and other lawyers acknowledge, appears to pull back the curtain of "plausible deniability" that effectively allows six million foreigners to work illegally in the U.S. To avoid discriminating, employers have argued for 20 years, they can't turn away candidates whose papers seem to be genuine. But at one upstate work site, the IFCO complaints allege, that was disingenuous.

The first hint came three months before César applied for a job, when the phone rang at the ICE office in Latham, 10 miles from here. The caller said he worked for IFCO, and said he saw some Spanish-speaking co-workers tearing up their W-2 tax forms. That made the immigration enforcers at ICE very curious: Why would anyone tear up a W-2?

The IFCO worker who phoned said that one of his bosses told him the men didn't need W-2s because they didn't file tax returns. "That's not something you hear every day," says Julie Myers, the DHS assistant secretary who heads ICE. Her agents decided IFCO was worth watching.

Toward the end of the month, a few IFCO workers were relaxing at the Governor's Inn, a motel near the pallet shop. "They like to drink," a Honduran named Reynaldo says now. "They went to the store to get more beer." (A forklift driver arrested in the raid, he has remained in the area and asked that his full name not be used.) As four men returned to the motel in a Chevrolet, the Guilderland police say, they crashed into a Subaru. Two young women were slightly hurt. The Chevy's driver jumped out and ran.

The police found the other three men in the motel. Mr. Belvin, the manager of IFCO's operation, arrived and went with his workers to the police station. All three, the police told Mr. Belvin, had admitted being in the country illegally. Mr. Belvin said that was untrue and that he had the documents to prove it. Mr. Belvin's lawyer didn't respond to phone messages seeking comment.

Then, in an unrelated incident in March, a woman called the police to say she had been attacked in a garage by a Hispanic man. An officer sent to the scene found no suspects. But he did interview six men at a nearby house in connection with the woman's complaint. The men all said they worked for IFCO. The police, recalling IFCO's connection to the earlier accident, notified ICE. Senior inspector John Tashjian said, "If there's any suspicion they're undocumented, we do that."

Responding, ICE agents found five men who didn't belong in the country and arrested them. In sworn statements, a Honduran said he didn't show any documents when IFCO hired him and a Salvadoran said he was told "that papers would be provided to him later."

It wasn't long before ICE decided to plant its spy.

"I have never heard of that being done in an immigration work-site enforcement action, never," says Paul Zulkie, an attorney who advises corporations on immigration policies and is also president of the American Immigration Law Foundation.

But ICE's orientation has changed. Many of its agents came out of the former Customs Service, which enforced import and export regulations. For them, getting evidence to prove that managers know full well that documents are fake means peeking behind the paperwork.

According to the complaints, ICE's informant had himself been arrested by the Border Patrol for entering the country illegally. After he assisted ICE in a human-smuggling case in Texas, the agency gave him temporary leave to remain in the U.S. -- plus a stipend -- in exchange for his cooperation to help with the IFCO investigation. In April, the complaints say, he introduced himself to some IFCO workers at a grocery.

The informant isn't cited by name in the complaint. But piecing together bits of information, former IFCO workers say they knew him as César, a Portuguese-speaking forklift driver.

The complaints detail how he ultimately got his fake green card and fake Social Security card directly from ICE. The name on the Social Security card wasn't the one he had given IFCO. Nor was the name on the green card. The picture, say the complaints, was of someone else. César showed the documents to Mr. Belvin's boss, James Rice.

Mr. Rice, then 35 years old, was a development manager who had come to open the Guilderland operation the previous October. But because it was a start-up, people close to the company say, its managers were having a hard time finding workers. Looking at the photo on the fake green card while César recorded him, Mr. Rice said, "It looks like you to me." Mr. Rice's lawyer had no comment.

Once hired, César did more at IFCO than drive a forklift. At Mr. Belvin's request and with assistance from ICE, the complaints say, he helped recruit more illegal workers. He got phony documents for five other new hires and he phoned an IFCO manager in Houston to ask about jobs here for two Mexicans who had crossed the border.

In July, César was promoted to foreman.

Already well along in its work, ICE opened a second line of inquiry into IFCO: It enlisted the Social Security Administration.

When numbers on tax returns don't match numbers on its books, Social Security tells employers by letter. A "no-match" can have many explanations, but to ICE it's a red flag of illegal immigration. Yet privacy law bans Social Security from showing ICE its data. Companies do volunteer for audits in return for shelter from raids, and they can check Social Security numbers of new hires themselves. IFCO didn't volunteer for such programs. But the sanctity of its records vanished the moment its recyclers were seen tearing up W-2s.

Destroying the forms was a violation that let Social Security in on the case. Through a subpoena of IFCO's payroll processor, says one official, its inspectors learned that 53% of IFCO's workers in 2005 had dud Social Security numbers. What's more, the complaints say, they discovered that in 2004 and 2005 IFCO received 13 letters in Houston informing it that "more than 1,000 social-security numbers" at "several" of its sites "did not match the records of the SSA."

IFCO didn't follow up on the letters. People familiar with IFCO's position say an employee set the letters aside unopened, failed to tell anybody about them, and then left the company for good.

Recruiter abuses in H-2A agriculture guest worker program

“Low Pay and Broken Promises Greet Guest Workers” in the New York Times reports abuses on the United States guest worker program for agricultural workers, the H-2A program. I have posted on H-2A workers before, and also on a special H-2B forestry workers program. The articles focuses on recruitment abuses. “The guest worker program is not for contractors who feel they might be able to find work for other people,” said Mary Bauer, director of the Immigrant Justice Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “It’s for people who have a compelling need to bring in workers from abroad. There’s an enormous incentive for contractors to bring in as many people as possible, even when there isn’t enough work, because they often make money from recruitment fees.”

The article says, “Each year 120,000 foreign workers receive visas to do farm work or other low-skilled labor, usually for three to nine months. These programs grew out of the World War II bracero program, in which hundreds of thousands of Mexicans worked on farms and railroads, often in deplorable conditions.”

Labor experts say employers abuse guest workers far more than other workers because employers know they can ship them home the moment they complain. They also know these workers cannot seek other jobs if they are unhappy.

“I’d say a substantial majority of U.S. guest workers experience some abuses with their paycheck,” said David Griffith, a professor in the anthropology department at East Carolina University and author of the new book “American Guestworkers: Jamaicans and Mexicans in the U.S. Labor Market.” “It’s the recruitment process especially where they get cheated.”

The abuses take many forms. Guest workers often pay exorbitant fees and are frequently given fewer weeks of work and lower wages than promised. Many employers fail to make good on their commitment to pay transportation costs. The Thai workers, who were supposed to be paid $16,000 a year for three years, ended up earning a total of just $1,400 to $2,400. Most of the Thai workers had their passports taken away after they arrived, leaving them trapped.

“The program has been rife with abuses, even during the best of times,” said Cindy Hahamovitch, a history professor at the College of William and Mary, who is writing a book about guest workers. “There will never be enough inspectors to check every labor camp, contract and field.”

The article in full:

To a rice farmer from Thailand making $500 a year, the recruiter’s pitch was hard to resist — three years of farm work in North Carolina that would pay more than 30 times as much as he earned at home.

The pitch was so persuasive that the farmer, Worawut Khansamrit, put his farm up as collateral to pay the recruiter $11,000 to become a guest worker. “The amount of money they promised was very attractive,” said Mr. Khansamrit, a slight, soft-spoken 40-year-old with a 15-year-old daughter he wants to send to college.

But after he arrived in North Carolina with 30 other Thai workers, he found there was only about a month’s work. He was then taken to New Orleans to remove debris from a hotel damaged by Hurricane Katrina — work he says he was never paid for. This month, he and other Thai workers filed a federal lawsuit asserting that they were victims of illegal trafficking.

Mr. Khansamrit’s tale highlights the abuses that many guest workers face at a time when President Bush and many in Congress are pushing to expand the guest worker program as part of an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws.

Each year 120,000 foreign workers receive visas to do farm work or other low-skilled labor, usually for three to nine months. These programs grew out of the World War II bracero program, in which hundreds of thousands of Mexicans worked on farms and railroads, often in deplorable conditions.

Labor experts say employers abuse guest workers far more than other workers because employers know they can ship them home the moment they complain. They also know these workers cannot seek other jobs if they are unhappy.

“I’d say a substantial majority of U.S. guest workers experience some abuses with their paycheck,” said David Griffith, a professor in the anthropology department at East Carolina University and author of the new book “American Guestworkers: Jamaicans and Mexicans in the U.S. Labor Market.” “It’s the recruitment process especially where they get cheated.”

The abuses take many forms. Guest workers often pay exorbitant fees and are frequently given fewer weeks of work and lower wages than promised. Many employers fail to make good on their commitment to pay transportation costs. The Thai workers, who were supposed to be paid $16,000 a year for three years, ended up earning a total of just $1,400 to $2,400. Most of the Thai workers had their passports taken away after they arrived, leaving them trapped.

“The program has been rife with abuses, even during the best of times,” said Cindy Hahamovitch, a history professor at the College of William and Mary, who is writing a book about guest workers. “There will never be enough inspectors to check every labor camp, contract and field.”

For decades, farmers, tree-planting companies, and hotel and restaurant owners have argued that they need guest workers, citing a shortage of Americans willing to fill jobs in their industries. In Washington, many supporters of an expanded guest worker program say they want to strengthen protections to curb abusive treatment.

“The business community supports the idea that these temporary workers should have the exact same employment protections as American workers,” said Randel Johnson, co-chairman of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, a business group lobbying to expand the guest worker program. “When an employer can’t find an American worker to fill a job, the economy is helped if the employer can find someone else.”

Critics, including many labor unions and immigrant groups, say employers exaggerate the labor shortage because they are eager for cheap, docile, temporary labor from abroad. The critics say there would not be such a shortage of American workers if employers offered a living wage for these jobs.

In Congress, proposals to expand protections for guest workers include a provision to bar employers from retaliating when these workers protest and one that would let them sue in federal court over contract violations.

Earlier this month, Mr. Khansamrit and 21 other guest workers sued several labor contractors and farmers in federal court in North Carolina, accusing them of fraud, breach of contract, minimum wage violations and illegal trafficking.

The lawsuit, brought by Legal Aid of North Carolina, asserts that the contractors received recruitment fees that are illegal under Thai law, provided far less work than promised, and violated federal law by not paying transportation costs from abroad and not paying three-fourths of the wages promised.

“None of them gave us what they promised,” said Pradit Wiangkham, 42, a Thai electrician turned guest worker. Mr. Wiangkham also worked unpaid in New Orleans, where he said the contractor ordered the workers to sleep in a foul-smelling hotel that had no electricity, lights, hot water or potable water. In North Carolina, the living arrangements were not much better; at times 33 Thai workers slept in a storage shed behind the labor contractor’s house, the workers said.

The workers’ lawyers say federal officials should have detected that something was awry because the contractors were applying to bring in so many Asian workers to work just three months.

“Why would someone want to bring workers from Asia all the way to the East Coast for such a short-term, low-wage job?” said Lori Elmer, a lawyer for the workers. “They couldn’t break even unless there was fraud.”

Seo Homsombath, the president of Million Express Manpower, a small labor contracting company that works closely with recruiters overseas, did not respond to faxes and a letter to his home in North Carolina. Roy Raynor, another principal, declined comment.

But in a separate lawsuit, Mr. Raynor testified that Mr. Homsombath and he were supposed to receive payments from the recruiters in Thailand. He said he was to receive $1,200 for each worker, ostensibly for training them to pick cucumbers.

David James, a Labor Department spokesman, said the department was investigating whether the contractor failed to provide adequate wages and housing and failed to pay for transportation. He said the department had no rules regarding the payment of recruitment fees overseas.

Advocates say the Labor Department should require employers to repay recruitment fees and transportation costs from abroad when such costs effectively bring the workers’ wages below the minimum wage.

The Thai guest workers are not alone in their complaints. Legal Aid of North Carolina has also sued on behalf of three Indonesians.

Several of the Indonesians and Thais have applied for special visas available to workers who have been trafficked illegally. With such visas, they hope to work in the United States to repay their debts.

“I felt completely defrauded,” said Indra Budiawan, who had been a waiter in Indonesia. “They never gave me any work after I arrived.”

Mr. Budiawan, 28, paid $6,000 — 10 times his annual pay — putting up his in-laws’ ancestral land as collateral after a recruiter showed him a brochure about farm work in North Carolina and about the good housing and food that guest workers receive. “When I was at the airport in Jakarta, I felt very happy,” he said. “I felt extremely proud about the job I would have in America, given that there is so much poverty and unemployment in Indonesia.”

But when he arrived, the head of the GTN Employment Agency, Leeta Kang, told him there were no farm jobs. He was taken to a sign-making store that was the contractor’s main business. There, Mr. Budiawan slept on the storage room floor, waiting for work that never materialized.

Mr. Budiawan told Ms. Kang that he wanted to leave. But he said she demanded $2,000 for a return ticket and for the passport she had taken from him. After two weeks without work, Mr. Budiawan fled. He is now living in Miami with two other Indonesian guest workers.

Mr. Budiawan called his father-in-law, whose land was used as collateral, to explain his predicament. “I felt very ashamed,” he said. “Everyone was depending on me. And now the bank has taken steps to repossess our ancestral land.”

Ms. Kang insisted that it was not her fault there was no work for Mr. Budiawan. “He showed up way behind schedule,” she said. “By the time he arrived, the farm owner had already canceled everything.”

Ms. Kang said a squash farmer had completed his harvest and no longer needed Mr. Budiawan. She said she had tried in vain to contact the recruiters in Indonesia to alert them that she no longer needed Mr. Budiawan and several others.

“The agents in Indonesia were obviously just trying to get money out of them,” Ms. Kang said. “Whatever these people paid, none of it went to us.”

Mike Moore, the squash farmer, said Ms. Kang had asked him to apply for far more guest workers than he needed. “She told me to take 50,” he said. “I told her, ‘I might need five. I might need 25.’ She said, ‘That’s no problem. Even if you don’t need them, we have plenty of work for them in other places.’ ”

Some experts say abuses are more likely when contractors, rather than farmers, bring in guest workers.

“The guest worker program is not for contractors who feel they might be able to find work for other people,” said Mary Bauer, director of the Immigrant Justice Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “It’s for people who have a compelling need to bring in workers from abroad. There’s an enormous incentive for contractors to bring in as many people as possible, even when there isn’t enough work, because they often make money from recruitment fees.”

Experts say that in some states, contractors bring in less than 10 percent of the guest workers, while in other states, they bring in half.

Like the other Thai guest workers, Chinnawat Kompeemay, who ran a grocery store near Bangkok, is in limbo, living in temporary housing in Virginia.

“All I wanted was to provide my children with a better education and living standards,” he said. “If my children get the education I want them to have, they won’t be tricked the same way. They won’t be taken advantage of like their father.”

February 26, 2007

California labor law enforcement in the underground economy

There are at least two enforcement efforts at work in California to protect low wage immigrant workers, including illegal workers, from employer abuses. One I have already posted on here – an initiative to combat workers comp fraud. Another is the Economic and Employment Enforcement Coalition. Both of these initiatives enforce state and/or federal employment laws without necessarily closing down the targeted businesses.

Workcompcentral reported today an EEEC action: “Garment Industry Sweep Nets $454,600 in Fines.” The report: “A garment industry enforcement sweep by California's underground economy task force netted $454,000 in fines and found five employers who lacked workers' compensation coverage for 95 employees, the state Department of Industrial Relations announced Friday. The Economic and Employment Enforcement Coalition's (EEEC) Feb. 7-8 sweep resulted in 24 of 32 businesses inspected receiving a notice to discontinue and $454,600 in citations and projected penalties. Inspectors found five businesses that lacked comp coverage for workers.

Those businesses and other garment manufacturers were also cited for a variety of labor law violations.

After the sweep, Korean Garment Industry Association President Steve Kim initiated an outreach seminar to answer labor compliance questions and to help local garment manufacturers into compliance, the EEEC said. The seminar was held Thursday in Los Angeles.

The EEEC presentation included expert speakers from the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement and Division of Occupational Safety and Health. The Employment Development Department and U.S. Department of Labor were also on hand to answer questions and provide information on workplace safety, wage and hour, payroll taxes, registration and other labor-related issues, the coalition said in a press release.

Below is a desription of the EEEC from its website:

Economic and Employment Enforcement Coalition (EEEC) is a partnership of state and federal agencies, each expert in their own field, collaborating to:

Educate business owners and employees on federal and state labor, employment, and licensing laws;

Conduct vigorous and targeted enforcement against labor law violators;

Helping to level the playing field and restore the competitive advantage to law abiding businesses and their employees.

Background - Triple "E" Coalition

California's small businesses form the backbone of our state's economy. They provide the most jobs to our people and with their great flexibility they are able to quickly adapt to the changing demands of the marketplace. They are both the symbol and culmination of California's great entrepreneurial spirit and they form the basis of our free-market economy. These businesses and their employees are facing an ever increasing danger. Their ability to compete in the world economy is being threatened. The underground economy plagues many of our once vital industries, driving down wages, harshening working conditions and undercutting legitimate businesses to a point where they can no longer fairly compete and can no longer provide well-paying jobs to Californians. Businesses operating underground have typical profiles such as avoiding licensing requirements, which makes them harder to find and bring into compliance with state and local laws; they pay wages in cash, which allows them to avoid payroll taxes that fund unemployment insurance, disability insurance, and paid family leave; they fail to pay income taxes; they often employ vulnerable workers (newly arrived immigrants), children and the poor to whom they often fail to pay even the minimum wage mandated by state or federal law. Businesses operating in the underground economy fail to carry workers' compensation insurance, often avoiding minimum occupational safety and health requirements. By avoiding so many legal requirements, these underground operations carry much lower overhead costs which give them an unfair competitive advantage over legitimate businesses that follow the rules.

In order to help legitimate businesses and California workers combat the underground economy, California needs stronger enforcement of the current labor laws. For decades California has had some of the strongest labor and workforce safety laws in the country. To help enforce these labor laws and regulations, the Triple "E" Coalition (Economic and Employment Coalition-EEEC) was created as a multi-agency enforcement program consisting of investigators from the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, Division of Occupational Safety and Health, Employment Development Department, Contractor's State License Board and US Department of Labor .The primary emphasis of the EEEC is to combine the enforcement efforts of the agencies and put as many investigators into the field as possible.

February 24, 2007

Executives indicted for tax evasion re: illegal employees

A new strategy to attack employer use of illegal workers has emerged: indicting corporate executives for tax evasion when they pay their employees off the books. We already know about failing to buy workers compensation insurance. This tax evasion attack will I expect be a potent tool against the medium to large sized employer. About half of illegal workers are estimated to be paid in cash without tax or social security payments being made.

The Wall Street Journal carried a story on 2/23 about indictments against a cleaning and maintenance company with commercial customers throughout the U.S. (“Homeland Security Strategy Hits Executives, Illegal Workers”). Per the article “ Pressing ahead with its new strategy to 'attack the economic engine' that fuels most illegal migration into the U.S., Homeland Security agents arrested three top executives of a national cleaning service for allegedly employing illegal immigrants and defrauding the government. The sweep also netted nearly 200 employees believed to be illegal immigrants."

Nevada-based Rosenbaum-Cunningham International Inc., or RCI, provided cleaning and maintenance services to popular hospitality venues and restaurants like Hard Rock Cafe, ESPN Zone and House of Blues, taking in more than $54.3 million between 2001 and 2005, Homeland Security officials said yesterday .

According to a 23-count indictment unsealed yesterday, the company knowingly hired illegal immigrants, intentionally failed to withhold taxes and created shell accounts to line the pockets of top executives. RCI co-owners Richard M. Rosenbaum and Edward Scott Cunningham and firm controller Christina Flocken face criminal fraud, immigration and tax charges.

More from the article…

Another 195 people working for RCI as cleaners were arrested on illegal-immigration charges in raids in 17 states and Washington, D.C. A message on an answering machine for RCI in Florida said it had ceased operations as of yesterday. The government said its investigation was ongoing.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of Homeland Security, began the investigation 20 months ago over concerns about cleaning crews at the Grand Traverse Resort in northwestern Michigan.

Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff promised that there would be more work-site enforcement arrests and promised to bring high-impact criminal cases against employers who systematically violate immigration laws.

He said that in 2006, DHS set a new record, in terms of work-site enforcement cases, with 716 criminal arrests and more than 3,600 administrative apprehensions. That was a 700% increase since 2002, before the department was created.

Wealth of statistics on illegal immigrants in the U.S.

This is a quick guide to postings I have made in the past. These and other postings are listed in the right hand column segment called “popular posts.” You will find even more information if you go to the hyperlinks in each of these postings.

Go here to find estimates of the number of illegal workers by state and their share of the state’s workforce. Data drawn in part from the Pew Hispanic Center.

Go here to find federal government estimates of illegal immigrants, by country of origin and by when they arrived in the U.S.

Go here to find recent research findings on the impact of all immigrant as well as illegal immigrant labor on native born American wages.

And here for types of work performed by illegal immigrants and other data on these workers, from the Pew Hispanic Center.

February 23, 2007

AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department’s statement on immigration reform.

Here is the statement, thanks to Jim Platner. I will summarize:

“Mass unregulated illegal immigration into the United States creates unfair wage competition.” There needs to be tougher border enforcement. “A mandatory electronic work-eligibility verification system is needed, which can effectively detect the use of fraudulent documents and significantly reduce the employment of unauthorized immigrants.” This system is “the lynchpin” to comprehensive immigration reform.

A new temporary worker program “would be particularly harmful to the long-term interests of the building and construction industry, because of its negative effect on bona fide apprenticeship and training programs.”

Union sponsored hiring halls and joint labor/management training programs work, and should be supported as the means to provide qualified labor to this industry.

The H-2B visa system in place should be used for foreign labor. This visa program “is currently available to full employers’ temporary needs resulting from either on-time, seasonal, peak load or intermittent labor shortages that do not last for more than one year…it is uniquely appropriate” to fill employer needs in building and construction that cannot otherwise be met be hiring halls.

The H-2B system should be modified to allow for joint labor-management programs to sponsor temporary employment of “trained skilled workers from abroad.” This will assure protection of labor standards of U.S. workers.

There should be a “path to earned legal status” for illegal immigrants here now, as many have been “law-abiding, tax-paying and hard working” participants in the economy. They should pay an appropriate penalty and get in line behind those legally in line from the start. [The term “citizenship” is not used.] Once they “adjust their status”, they should receive federal labor and civil rights protections but not receive federal entitlements.

February 22, 2007

U.S. Border Patrol has become more aggressive

The NY Times reports that borders controls have toughened considerably in the next few months.

Excerpts from the article:

All along the border, there are signs that the measures the Border Patrol and other federal agencies have taken over the last year, from erecting new barriers to posting 6,000 National Guardsmen as armed sentinels, are beginning to slow the flow of illegal immigrants.

The only available barometer of the decline is how many migrants are caught. In the last four months, the number has dropped 27 percent compared with the same period last year, the biggest drop since a crackdown immediately after 9/11. In two sections around Yuma and near Del Rio, Tex., the numbers have fallen by nearly two-thirds, Homeland Security officials say.

Border Patrol commanders say they see no explanation for the drop-off across the entire 2,000-mile border other than stiffer enforcement deterring migrants. The slackening flow, they argue, belies the conventional wisdom that it is impossible to stem illegal migration. Many veteran officers in the force are now beginning to believe it can be controlled with enough resources.

The new measures range from simply putting more officers out on patrol to erecting stadium lights, secondary fences and barriers of thick steel poles to stop smugglers from racing across the desert in all-wheel-drive trucks. The Border Patrol has deployed hundreds of new guards to watch rivers, monitor surveillance cameras and guard fences.

And zero tolerance by U.S. Courts, with jail sentences being handed out…

Though it seems cruel to many migrants, the zero-tolerance policy appears to be working, Border Patrol commanders say. Along the river the Del Rio sector patrols, arrests are a third of what they were a year ago, only about 35 a day. In the meantime, drug seizures have doubled, as more agents have been freed up to patrol.

"Word is getting around out there that if you cross in this area and get apprehended you are probably going to go to jail, and that is a deterrent," Sector Chief Randy Hill said.

February 21, 2007

OSHA and regional business association join forces to train Hispanic workers

The following is a press release by OSHA about this training program. Delmarva Safety Association works with Delaware, Maryland and Virginia employers.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Delmarva Safety Association (DSA) recognize the value of establishing a collaborative relationship to foster safer and more healthful American workplaces. OSHA and DSA hereby form an Alliance to provide DSA members and others with information, guidance, and access to training resources that will help them protect employees’ health and safety, with a specific focus on reducing workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths among the Spanish-speaking workforce. In developing this Alliance, OSHA and DSA recognize that OSHA’s State Plan and Consultation Project partners are an integral part of the OSHA national effort.

OSHA and DSA will work together to achieve the following training and education goals:

* Develop training and education programs on occupational safety and health issues specifically targeted to employers of Hispanic workers.

* Deliver information for inclusion in safety and health training for supervisors that addresses important cultural considerations and sensitivities.

* Deliver or arrange for the delivery of safety and health training which address these cultural considerations.

See below for the complete press release:

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Delmarva Safety Association (DSA) recognize the value of establishing a collaborative relationship to foster safer and more healthful American workplaces. OSHA and DSA hereby form an Alliance to provide DSA members and others with information, guidance, and access to training resources that will help them protect employees’ health and safety, with a specific focus on reducing workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths among the Spanish-speaking workforce. In developing this Alliance, OSHA and DSA recognize that OSHA’s State Plan and Consultation Project partners are an integral part of the OSHA national effort.

OSHA and DSA will work together to achieve the following training and education goals:

* Develop training and education programs on occupational safety and health issues specifically targeted to employers of Hispanic workers.

* Deliver information for inclusion in safety and health training for supervisors that addresses important cultural considerations and sensitivities.

* Deliver or arrange for the delivery of safety and health training which address these cultural considerations.

OSHA and the DSA will work together to achieve the following outreach and communication goals:

* Develop and disseminate information through print and electronic media, including OSHA’s Spanish-translated materials, electronic assistance tools and links from OSHA’s and DSA’s Web sites.

* Speak, exhibit, or appear at OSHA’s or DSA conferences, local meetings, and training seminars, including the DSA Safety Seminar & Exposition.

* Share information on best practices for reducing injuries, illnesses and deaths for Hispanic workers, as jointly determined by OSHA and DSA, at DSA member’s worksites with others in the industry and publicize the results through outreach by DSA and through OSHA- or DSA-developed training programs and materials.

* Cross-train OSHA personnel, DSA members and other industry safety and health professionals in best practices or effective approaches to reducing workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths to Hispanic workers, as jointly determined by OSHA and DSA.

* Work with other Alliance participants on specific issues and projects for reducing workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths to Hispanic workers that are addressed and developed through the Alliance Program.

* Promote and encourage DSA members’ or worksites’ participation in OSHA’s cooperative programs such as compliance assistance, the Voluntary Protection Program, Consultation, and the Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program.

* Encourage DSA member’s worksites to build relationships with OSHA’s Regional and Area Offices to address health and safety issues.

OSHA and DSA will work together to achieve the following goals related to promoting the national dialogue on workplace safety and health:

* Raise others’ awareness of and demonstrate their own commitment to workplace safety and health whenever DSA leaders address groups.

* Develop and disseminate case studies illustrating the business value of safety and health and publicize their results.

* Convene or participate in forums, round table discussions, or stakeholder meetings on issues to help forge innovative solutions in the workplace or to provide input on safety and health issues.

OSHA’s Alliances provide parties an opportunity to participate in a voluntary cooperative relationship with OSHA for purposes such as training and education, outreach and communication and promoting a national dialogue on workplace safety and health. These Alliances have proved to be valuable tools for both OSHA and its Alliance participants. By entering into an Alliance with a party, OSHA is not endorsing any of that party’s products or services; nor does the Agency enter into an Alliance with the purpose of promoting a particular party’s products or services.

An implementation team will be formed. The team will be made up of representatives of OSHA, DSA, Hispanic groups, businesses employing Hispanic workers, and other stakeholders who have specific expertise and/or a strong interest in enhancing workplace safety and health for Hispanic workers. The implementation team will meet to develop a plan of action. This may include the identification of priority business sector(s) employing a significant population of at risk Hispanic workers and the methods that may be most effective in achieving desired results. In addition, the team will meet at least quarterly to track and share information on activities and results in achieving the goals of the Alliance. OSHA will encourage State Plan States’ and OSHA Consultation Projects’ participation on the team.

This agreement will remain in effect for two years. Either signatory may terminate it for any reason at any time, provided they give 30 days written notice. This agreement may be modified at any time with the concurrence of both signatories.

Leonard J. Renner
Area Director
Occupational Safety and
Health Administration

February 19, 2007

Robert Feenstra on the powerful dynamics linking U.S. and Mexican workforces

Technology advances proceed apace while America is outsourcing jobs to developing countries. These two forces combine to increase the level of migration in the world. Much of this migration is into the U.S. by far the biggest in-migration country in the world. The net effect of this cycle is to improve middle class lives in the U.S. but worsen work prospects for poorly educated Americans.

Robert Feenstra of U.C. at Davis, who has long been a student of economic productivity, made a presentation on “Globalization and its Impact on Labor.” He goes a long way to describing the overwhelming power of forces behind the growth of low wage immigrant labor (including illegal labor) in the United States.

The essence of Feenstra’s story, leavened with information he does not include, is this:

Manufacturing labor in both the U.S. and Mexico have not benefited in the past 10-15 years even while the service workforce has benefited, by capturing the lion’s share of increases in the compensation pie.

This is in part because manufacturing growth in Mexico, expected due to NAFTA, failed to take place except in isolated areas like along the American border (Manquiladora). Thus good manufacturing jobs were not available at anywhere near the numbers needed for the ocuntry's work population. In part, a disproportionate share of economic gains went to service, not manufacturing jobs. The manufacturing sector was also hurt by American and Chinese competition.

Relatively disadvantaged workers in both countries have been making hard decisions on where or if to work. With economic distances expanding between workforce segments, making catch-up less probable, choices narrow down to if and where to migrate.

Mexicans, especially those at the lower end of that country’s education scale, have little prospects of rewards in Mexico and have come to the U.S. to, in effect, make middle class life more comfortable for Americans. Poorly educated American workers have been withdrawing at increasing rates from the workforce, either into part time work, idleness or disability pensions.

Here in the style of Powerpoint bullets, is the story:

One, technology is concentrating economic rewards in the service sector workforce and leaving production (i.e. manufacturing) stagnant. This is happening in developed as well as developing countries – The U.S. as well as Mexico. In the U.S. service workforce relative wages compared to manufacturing wages grew strongly since the mid 1980s.

Two, production jobs in the U.S. are being off-shored and an increasing number of service jobs as well. The next effect is the increase the average compensation of better educated services workers – in both the U.S. AND in the countries providing the off-shored labor.

Three, this offshoring has been responsible for about 1% of the 2.5% – 4% annual productivity growth in the U.S. economy. This is a big deal.

Fourth, in Mexico manufacturing worker wages have not grown appreciatively with NAFTA, which was supposed to set off an economic boom. Feenstra does not discuss farm workers in Mexico, but one gets the impression that both farm and manufacturing wages in Mexico have lagged.

Fifth, there has been a huge transborder shift of workers at the lower end of the wage and education scale.

Mexican labor has moved into the U.S. just as the most vulnerable American workers have been withdrawing from the American workforce. Not addressed by Feenstra, the labor force participation of poorly educated blacks is very low.

Some 70% of the American workforce with less than 8 years of education are foreign born, and 22% of the workforce with 8 to 11 year’ education.

And American workers are heading out the door. The SSDI (disabled worker insurance program) of the U.S. has been growing – very sharply in the past few years. Those exiting the labor market for federal disability pensions are largely manufacturing workers with limited education. In 1995, there were 1.1 million SSDI awards made. In 2004, there were 2.2 million made.

The European Union has sought from the beginning to stem migration from poorer new members by systmatically suppprting infrastructure and manaufacturing growth in the new members.

See Feenstra here.

Immigration’s impact on American wages by educational level of workforce

Here are important research data on the impact of how foreign born workers hurt some and help other Americans in wages. Note that these figures pertain only to wage impact. They do not address the lower costs of goods and services and greater corporate productivity which immigration and its companion free trade bring

POORLY EDUCATED WORKERS

Ten percent of U.S. born workers have less than a 12 years’ education. Foreign born workers make up 70% of all workers with less than 9th grade education, and 22% of workers with 8-11 years’ education. In these education categories, foreign born workers MARKEDLY DEPRESS wages by about 4%.

HIGH SCHOOL GRADS and "SOME COLLEGE" EDUCATED WORKERS

Eighty percent of U.S. born workers have between 12 and 16 years’ education. Foreign born workers make up 13% of the HS graduate workforce and 10% of the some college work force. (13% of all workers with HS degree, 10% with some college, and about 15% with college degree.)

For the HS graduate and some college workforces, foreign born workers SLIGHTLY INCREASE wages very slightly, by about 1% - 2%

COLLEGE AND MORE EDUCATED WORKERS

Ten percent of U.S. born workers have masters, professional or doctoral degrees. Foreign born workers make up 15%, 18% and 30% of these workforce categories, respectivelly. These foreign born workers MARGINALLY DEPRESS wages, by about 0.2%.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

About 4.9% of the American workforce is made up of illegal workers. Few of them have a HS degree or higher education. They GREATLY DEPRESS wages for all workers with less than a HS degree – by 8% -- and MARGINALLY INCREASE the wages of the more highly educated workforce – by about 1%.

The data come from Table 5 and Figure 8 of a 2/8/07 presentation by Robert Feenstra of U.C. at Davis. he draws from research by Gianmarco Ottaviano and Giovanni Peri, about whom I have posted.

Poorly educated immigrant workers hurt, help American workers: 2005 study

Let's call this the Home Depot Effect: poorly educated workers compete for jobs, and benefit better educated workers by lowering the cost of goods while stimulating middle class growth.

Following is the abstract of a paper written in 2005 by Gianmarco Ottaviano and Giovanne Peri for the Centre for Economic Policy Research Discussion Paper No. 5226, 2005, (alternative version National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 11672, 2005: "Rethinking the gains from immigration: theory and evidence from the U.S."

Recent influential empirical work has emphasized the negative impact immigrants have on the wages of US-born workers, arguing that immigration harms less educated American workers in particular and all US-born workers in general. Because US and foreign-born workers belong to different skill groups that are imperfectly substitutable, one needs to articulate a production function that aggregates different types of labor (and accounts for complementarity and substitution effects) in order to calculate the various effects of immigrant labor on US-born labor.

We introduce such a production function, making the crucial assumption that US and foreign-born workers with similar education and experience levels may nevertheless be imperfectly substitutable, and allowing for endogenous capital accumulation.

This function successfully accounts for the negative impact of the relative skill levels of immigrants on the relative wages of US workers. However, contrary to the findings of previous literature, overall immigration generates a large positive effect on the average wages of US-born workers. We show evidence of this positive effect by estimating the impact of immigration on both average wages and housing values across US metropolitan areas (1970-2000). We also reproduce this positive effect by simulating the behavior of average wages and housing prices in an open city-economy, with optimizing US-born agents who respond to an inflow of foreign-born workers of the size and composition comparable to the immigration of the 1990s.

February 18, 2007

New York Times editorial on immigration reform.

A New York Times editorial, “They Are America,” is trying to shake the country into paying attention to what was going to be a major legislative thrust this year: immigration reform. At least, that seemed probably before Iraq fell apart. This editorial goes down a long list of small and large missteps and outrages upon immigrants, from fence-bulding and factory raids by ICE to DNA testing. the authors stop short of describing what precisely they want in immigration reform, beyond management remedies to some practicef of the Bush Administration.

The entire editorial is below.

Almost a year ago, hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers and their families slipped out from the shadows of American life and walked boldly in daylight through Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, New York and other cities. “We Are America,” their banners cried. The crowds, determined but peaceful, swelled into an immense sea. The nation was momentarily stunned.

A lot has happened since then. The country has summoned great energy to confront the immigration problem, but most of it has been misplaced, crudely and unevenly applied. It seeks not to solve the conundrum of a broken immigration system, but to subdue, in a million ways, the vulnerable men and women who are part of it. Government at all levels is working to keep unwanted immigrants in their place — on the other side of the border, in detention or in fear, toiling silently in the underground economy without recourse to the laws and protections the native-born expect.

The overwhelming impulse has been to get tough, and tough we have gotten:

Border enforcement. What little the last Congress did about immigration was focused on appeasing hard-line conservatives by appearing to seal the border. President Bush’s new budget continues that approach, seeking 3,000 more Border Patrol officers and another $1 billion for a 700-mile fence, adding to the billions spent to militarize the border since the 1990s. That still isn’t enough to build the fence and it hasn’t controlled the illegal flow; you need more visas and better workplace enforcement to do that. It has directed much traffic into the remote Southwest desert, making more immigrants vulnerable to smugglers and leaving many people dead.

Federal raids. In December federal agents stormed a half-dozen Swift meatpacking plants, rounding up hundreds of suspected illegal immigrants and exposing the secret that is no secret: America’s dirtiest, hardest jobs are done by people too desperate to shun them and too afraid to complain. The raids have been replicated in other states and industries, on day-labor street corners and in homes from Connecticut to California. In immigrant communities, the undercurrent of fear has been replaced by terror, and employers are jittery, too. The immigration agency says it singles out only fugitives in Operation Return to Sender, but the sweeps are broad and panic is indiscriminate.

Local crackdowns. State, county and local officials have picked up where they left off last year, introducing bills to get tough on illegal immigrants. They cannot control federal policy, so they try other ways to punish those they see as unfit neighbors, to stifle their opportunities, extract money, expose them to legal jeopardy and otherwise inflict suffering, in the deluded hope that piling on miseries will make them disappear. In suburban Long Island, where resentment over an influx of day laborers has festered under a hapless and intolerant county government, lawmakers are considering banning workers from county roadsides. Texas legislators are mulling a bill to reject the 14th Amendment and deny the benefits of citizenship to children born in this country to undocumented parents. Local officials all over are trying to deputize police officers as immigration agents, causing overburdened police forces and prosecutors to bristle. Some bills are symbolic, most are simply spiteful, and their effect is a chaotic patchwork, not a sane national policy.

Gutted due process. Laws enacted a decade ago and tightened after 9/11 distance even legal immigrants from the protection of the law. Immigrants are routinely detained without bond, denied access to lawyers, deported without appeal and punished for one-time or minor infractions with a mechanistic ferocity that precludes a judge’s discretion or mercy. Several of the immigration bills that Congress has considered seek to heighten the efficiency with which immigrants who run afoul of the authorities can be railroaded out of the country. This gums up another aspect of the legal system, which deals with refugees and asylum seekers. A much tighter web for immigrants has been erected, and it catches many blameless victims.

The web of suspicion. The Justice Department wants to expand routine DNA collection to include detained illegal immigrants, creating a vast new database that will sweep up hundreds of thousands of innocent people. DNA, far more than fingerprints, is a trove of deeply personal information. Its routine collection from law-abiding citizens is considered an outrageous violation of privacy rights. In the belief that illegal immigrants lack such rights, DNA swabs and blood would be collected even if a detainee is not suspected of a crime. This reinforces the notion that immigrants should be treated as one huge class of criminal suspects.

The bureaucratic trap. The federal bureaucracy, notorious for backlogs and bad service, wants to charge more to immigrants who want to become Americans — an average increase of 66 percent in the price of visas and citizenship papers. Such steep and arbitrary increases would create a means test for citizenship, an affront to our national values.

The rise of hate. The Anti-Defamation League, acutely sensitive to the presence of intolerance, has detected an increase in Ku Klux Klan activity around the country, much of it focused on hatred of new immigrants. This virus in the bloodstream usually erupts amid national ferment and fear, and according to a report available at www.adl.org, hate groups like the Klan have moved quickly to exploit the simmering debate over immigration.

Hopelessly fixated on toughness, the immigration debate has lost its balance, overlooking the humanity of the immigrant. There is a starkly diminished understanding that hospitality for the stranger is part of the American ethos, and that as much as we claim to be a nation of immigrants, we have thwarted them at every turn. We must do better.

The new year began with renewed optimism for the chances of sensible immigration reform in Washington. The hope is justified, but time is short and real change will still require boldness and courage. Citizenship must be the key to reform. The idea of an earned path to citizenship for illegal immigrants was missing from President Bush’s State of the Union address this year, though he has continued to say his usual favorable words about reform. The new Democratic Congress and moderate Republicans cannot be afraid to stand up to the anti-amnesty demagogues and lead Mr. Bush to a solution.

Enforcement of laws cannot be ignored. Punish immigrants who enter illegally, make them pay back taxes and fines, restrict their ability to get work through deceit and false identities. But open a path to their full inclusion in the life of this country.

The alternative — the path of immigrant exploitation, of harassment without hope — will only repeat the ways the country has shamed itself at countless points in its history.

February 15, 2007

Skilled foreign workers – summary statistics

Now waves of immigrants are mostly not skilled workers. But foreign born workers have a huge share of some skilled job categories.

Thanks to Immigrant Voice for bringing to my attention these figures.

Skilled workers are a small minority of U.S. legal immigrants. Of the 940,000 legal immigrants recorded in 2004, only 16% were skilled employment-based immigrants. This means that 150,000 of the almost one million new legal immigrants (permanent or temporary) came on a skilled based authorization. About 40% of these skilled immigrants had advanced degrees, or 5 or more years of experience after a baccalaureate degree.

Per Immigrant Voice, the impact of these workers’ contributions to American competitiveness belies their small number, because they make up a large share of all workers in certain professions.

In 1996 17% of all scientists and engineers were foreign born. That rose to 24% in 2002. Among scientists and engineers with PhDs or professional degrees, 38% were foreign born in 1996 and 43% in 2002.

Go to Chpter 2, page 57 of the 2006 Economic Report of the President for more information.

February 14, 2007

Essential Worker Immigration Coalition: Reform platform

This lobbying group / business association is gearing up for immigration reform this year. It wants more immigrant workers, the more legal the better.

Here is its platform for reform:

Reform should be comprehensive: addressing both future economic needs for future workers and undocumented workers already in the United States.

Reform should strengthen national security by providing for the screening of foreign workers and creating a disincentive for illegal immigration.

Reform should strengthen the rule of law by establishing clear, sensible immigration laws that are efficiently and vigorously enforced.

Reform should create an immigration system that functions efficiently for employers, workers, and government agencies.

Reform should create a program that allows hard working, tax paying undocumented workers to earn legal status.

Reform should ensure that U.S. workers are not displaced by foreign workers.

Reform should ensure that all workers enjoy the same labor law protections.

The policy platform goes on….

EWIC IMMIGRATION POLICY OUTLINE


A. New Non-Immigrant Programs Based on Economic Needs

• A short-term program for industries that have short-term needs for one year or less.

• A long-term program that could be renewed if there are continuing needs.

B. New Immigrant Visa (Permanent Residence) Program Based Upon Economic Needs

• Available to participants in either short-term or long-term non-immigrant programs.

• Based upon petition by either Employer or Employee through a test of the U.S. labor market.

• With sufficient numbers of immigrant visas.

• New employment-based permanent visas should not come at the expense of other immigration categories.

C. Mechanism for Undocumented Workers in the U.S. to Earn Legal Status

• Establish a mechanism to allow undocumented, taxpaying and otherwise admissible workers in the U.S. to earn a legal status.

• Define clear requirements and obligations for eligible and qualified participants.

• Conversion to lawful status should be based upon employability, although not necessarily a particular employer.

D. Workable Immigration Enforcement System

• Enforcement of immigration laws is critical for economic, national security and for successful comprehensive immigration reform.

• Pairing enforcement with an updated legal immigration system to reduce undocumented immigration will result in adequate screening of the workforce, more control over undocumented workforce, and a shift in focus to the very small percentage of bad actors who seek to abuse the system.

• Enforcement reform should clearly define requirements and obligations for all parties.

• New enforcement regimes must not penalize employers for their past inability to comply with a broken system.


E. Funding for Immigration programs

• Dedicate resources to fund continuing program initiatives.

• Provide start-up funding for structuring and implementing new program.

How long do Mexican migrants work in the U.S.? 6 – 11 years

From the abstract of recent study by the Austin TX based research firm of Econone: In this paper we use data from the Mexican Migration Project (MMP) to estimate the number of years a Mexican born foreign worker could reasonably be expected to be employed or seeking employment in the U.S. labor market. We find, consistent with other studies of Mexican migrant workers, that the typical Mexican born worker who migrates to the U.S. to work does not spend their entire working life in the U.S. Our analysis shows the typical Mexican migrant can be expected to be active in the U.S. workforce between 6.1 and 11.1 years on average.

February 12, 2007

Contractor insurance fraud and why it matters

Thanks to Workers Comp Insider for alerting me to this Insurance Journal article about building contractors who cheat on their workers comp insurance. Why does this matter for immigrant workers? Because employers who cheat on insurance – buying too little, or none at all – are those mostly likely to hire vulnerable immigrant workers and cheat these workers on other labor rights. The news story said nothing about the composition of the workforce, but I bet a lot of the lower skilled work was being performed by immigrant workers. I call this combination of insurance fraud and employer abuses a toxic cocktail that can kill.

February 9, 2007

Human trafficking suit in CT

The Associated Press today reported a federal suit by Guatamalan workers in Connecticut alleging a nursery engaged in human trafficking. The suit goes after both the nursery, Imperial Nurseries, and the labor contractor. If the suit is half true, it's still 100% awful. Yale Law School students helped to prepare the suit. The labor contractor, who appears to have been fired some time ago by the nursery, seems to agree with the suit but denies it know anything about it.

Story follows:

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A dozen Guatemalan workers filed a federal lawsuit Thursday accusing one of the nation's largest nurseries of engaging in human trafficking by forcing them to work nearly 80 hours per week, paying them less than minimum wage and denying them medical care for injuries on the job.

The workers, who filed the lawsuit against Imperial Nurseries in Granby and its labor recruiter, say they were promised jobs planting trees in North Carolina for $7.50 per hour. Instead, they say they were taken in a van to Connecticut without their consent, had their passports confiscated so they would not escape and were threatened with arrest or deportation.

"These workers came here lawfully to earn a living and support their families," said Nicole Hallett, a Yale Law School student helping the workers. "Instead they were defrauded and trapped into conditions of forced labor."

Griffin Land & Nurseries, parent company of Imperial, said the workers were hired by Pro Tree Forestry Services, an independent labor contractor Imperial had retained. Griffin said it cooperated with an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor.

"The DOL later advised Imperial that they were satisfied over the Pro Tree workers' living conditions and transportation and found no basis for the human trafficking allegations," the company said.

Labor officials did advise Imperial that some Pro Tree employees were not being paid the legally required wage. Imperial terminated its contract with Pro Tree on June 30, the company said.

"Imperial was appalled to hear that Pro Tree was not paying its employees appropriately, because it paid Pro Tree well in excess of what they would need to pay their employees in compliance with applicable law," the company said. "In addition, Imperial offered to give the DOL the final payment Imperial owed to Pro Tree so that DOL could pay these Pro Tree workers directly."

The U.S. Department of Labor is investigating the allegations, a spokesman said. Telephone messages were left for Pro Tree, which is also named in the lawsuit.

The workers say in the lawsuit that they were afraid to talk freely to labor investigators because of the threats of deportation and arrest.

Imperial's sales volume places it among the 20 largest landscape nursery growers in the country, according to the lawsuit.

The workers were recruited last spring and early summer, according to the lawsuit, which accuses the defendants of engaging in human trafficking and a pattern of racketeering.

The workers were paid about $3.75 per hour but also incurred substantial, illegal deductions which further reduced their wages, according to the lawsuit. The workers also incurred substantial debts in Guatemala to pay for their visas and trip to the U.S., according to the lawsuit.

Some of the workers flew to North Carolina, then were taken to Hartford in a small van. Some were forced to sit on the floor during the trip. When they arrived, they were housed in small filthy apartments and slept on the floors, according to the lawsuit.

The work involved preparing flowers, trees, shrubs and other plants to be sold to residential and wholesale consumers.

"I started to think the United States wasn't America but rather Egypt, a place of slavery," Marvin Coto, one of the workers, said through a translator.

Coto said he was forced to work in the fields in the rain when he had a severe fever. Other workers suffered back injuries.

"I got tremors from the fever, I'm shaking from the fever," Coto said. "I started crying and said you should let me go free. Every day they forced us to do more and more work. Our hands began to get swollen and they laughed at us and said you can keep working."

Coto, 33, said he eventually took refuge in a church, while other workers fled. Instead of sending money home, the workers said they wound up begging their relatives to send them money.

"My children in Guatemala didn't even have bread to eat," Coto said.

The lawsuit seeks back pay and damages.

Pro Tree employees opened the workers' mail, prohibited them from riding city buses and restricted their travel, the lawsuit alleges.

The workers also say they were subject to verbal abuse, including being called "indios", a racial epithet used to describe indigenous people of Guatemala.

The lawsuit contends the defendants knew or should have known that the labor contractor employed such techniques.

Tidbits from the first year of this blog

In passing into the second year of workingimmigrants.com, I have compiled some notable entries from the first year -- Peter Rousmaniere

Relative role of U.S. in transborder migration

Number of cities in world with at least one million foreign born residents: 20
Number of these cities in the United States: 8
Number of these cities in India or China: zero
Size of foreign born population in the world today: 200 million out of 6.5 billion (3%)
Size of foreign born population in U.S. Today: 35 million out of 300 million (12%)

Relative role of China in intraborder migration

Number of internal migrants from rural to urban areas in China: 150 million out of total population of 1.2 billion.

Off-shoring of work and the polarization of the American workforce

MIT professor David Autor argues that highly routine mental and manual jobs are being outsourced overseas or eliminated by automation, but that mental and manual jobs involving a level of irregularity in decision making and face to face servicing are growing. This concept explains why some manual jobs are expected to grow in the future along with the growth of high end mental jobs.

Impact of all immigrant workers on American workforce

Share of new jobs 2002 – 2012 to be filled by an immigrant: one out of eight

Size of illegal workforce

Illegal workers in U.S. as of early 2006: about 7.3 million

Illegal workers as % of total U.S. workforce: 4.9%

Illegal workers as % of total U.S. workforce in jobs requiring less than high school degree and without strict documentation requirements: 9/7%

Where do illegal workers work?

Per the Pew Hispanic Center:

Some 55-60% of these undocumented workers are in formal employment and are paying social security taxes

About 3 million of the 7.2 million illegal workers are in occupations in which undocumented workers account for at least 15% of total employment in that occupation. These include construction labor (25%), cooks (20%). Maids and housecleaners (22%), and grounds maintenance (25%). among roofers, 29% of the total workforce is estimated to be undocumented workers.

One half of undocumented working men here are single. But a phenomenal 94% of undocumented men work compared to 83% for native Americans.

Economic impact of illegal population in U.S.

A Texas study says that illegal household payments of consumer and property taxes (via rent or home ownership) exceeds by about 30% the taxpayer burden for education, healthcare, and incarceration.

Do illegal workers displace American workers?

Some say yes, others say no.

It appears that illegal worker compensation is about 30% below what it would be with 100% worker protections afforded to Americans. Go here for a case study.

Waves of Hispanic work immigration since 1980s

1980s: agricultural workers, mostly on farms
1990s: meat processing workers, mostly in rural; towns
2000s: urban work including residential construction: in cities and suburbs

Employment of Indians in the U.S.

They own 20,000 hotels, or 50% of all economy hotels in the U.S.
There are 40,000 Indian physicians in the U.S, or about 4% of all doctors

Role of foreign born entrepreneurs in the U.S.

They are involved in one quarter of all technology start-ups.

Is there a nursing shortage?

Yes.

Percentage of Philippine nurses working outside the Philippines

75%

Foreign nurses in the U.S.

300,000, or about 11% of all nurses.

Mexican population in U.S.

Percentage of Mexican workforce that is working in the U.S.

16%

Remittances from Mexicans in U.S. to Mexico

$25 billion in 2006

Total remittances from all parts of world to Latin America

$54 billion in 2005

Number of community-based immigrant worker centers

upwards of 200

Foreign day laborers in the U.S.

Estimated number on any particular day:

117,600 at 500 sites in the U.S.

Percentage who speak English very well:

3%

Mexican Government guide for illegally entering the U.S.

I am just now getting around to posting this guide, here in English translation, and available in original comic book format here.

Guide for the Mexican Migrant

Distributed by the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations


INTRODUCTION

Esteemed Countryman:

The purpose of this guide is to provide you with practical advice that may prove useful to you in case you have made the difficult decision to search for employment opportunities outside of your country.

The sure way to enter another country is by getting your passport from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the visa, which you may apply for at the embassy or consulate of the country you wish to travel to.

However, in practice we see many Mexicans who try to cross the Northern Border without the necessary documents, through high risk zones that involve grave dangers, particularly in desert areas or rivers with strong, and not always obvious, currents.

Reading this guide will make you aware of some basic questions about the legal consequences of your stay in the United States of America without the appropriate migratory documents, as well as about the rights you have in that country, once you are there, independent of your migratory status.

Keep in mind always that there exist legal mechanisms to enter the United States of America legally.

In any case, if you encounter problems or run into difficulties, remember that Mexico has 45 consulates in that country whose locations you can find listed in this publication.

Familiarize yourself with the closest consulate and make use of it.

DANGERS IN CROSSING HIGH RISK ZONES

To cross the river can be very risky, above all if you cross alone and at night.

Heavy clothing increases in weight when wet and this makes swimming and floating difficult.

If you cross by desert, try to walk at times when the heat will not be too intense.

Highways and population centers are far apart, which means you will spend several days looking for roads, and you will not be able to carry foodstuffs or water for long periods of time. Also, you can get lost.

Salt water helps keep liquids in your body. Although you may feel more thirst if you drink salt water, the risk of dehydration is much less.

The symptoms of dehydration are:

—Little or no sweat.

—Dryness in the eyes and in the mouth.

—Headache.

—Tiredness and excessive exhaustion.

—Difficulty in walking and thinking.

—Hallucinations and visions.

If you get lost, guide yourself by lightposts, train tracks, or dirt roads.

BEWARE OF HUMAN TRAFFICKERS (COYOTES, POLLEROS)

They can deceive you with assurances of crossing in a few hours through the mountains and deserts. This is simply not so!

They can risk your life taking you across rivers, drainage canals, desert areas, train tracks, or highways. This has caused the death of hundreds of persons.

If you decide to hire people traffickers to cross the border, consider the following precautions:

Do not let them out of your sight. Remember that they are the only ones who know the lay of the land, and therefore the only ones who can get you out of that place.

Do not trust those who offer to take you to “the other side” and ask you to drive a car or to take or carry a package for them. Normally, those packages contain drugs or other prohibited substances. For this reason, many people have ended up in jail.

If you transport other persons, you can be confused with a human trafficker, and they can accuse you of the crime of trafficking or auto theft.

Do not entrust your minor children to strangers who offer to take them across to the United States.

DO NOT USE FALSE DOCUMENTS

DO NOT USE FALSE DOCUMENTS OR THOSE THAT DO NOT BELONG TO YOU, NOR DECLARE A FALSE NATIONALITY.

If you try to cross with false documents or those of another person, take into account the following:

To use false documents or those of another person is a federal crime in the United States, for which you can be tried in a criminal proceeding and end up in jail; likewise if you use a false name or say that you are a citizen of the United States when you are not one.

Do not lie to officials of the United States at ports and points of entry.

IF YOU ARE ARRESTED

Do not resist arrest.

Do not assault or insult officials.

Do not throw rocks or objects at officials or at patrols since this is considered a provocation by those officials.

If they believe themselves to be under attack, it is likely that they will use force to arrest you.

Raise your hands slowly so that they see you are not armed.

Do not have in your hands any object that could be considered a weapon such as spotlights, screwdrivers, pocket knives, knives, or rocks.

Do not run or try to escape.

Do not hide in dangerous places.

Do not cross high-speed highways.

It is better to be arrested for a few hours and repatriated to Mexico than to get lost in the desert.

IF THEY ARREST YOU, YOU HAVE RIGHTS!

Give your real name.

If you are a minor accompanied by an adult, tell the authorities so they do not separate you.

Your rights are:

To know where you are.

To ask that they allow you to contact a representative of the closest Mexican consulate for assistance.

Not to make statements or to sign documents, above all if they are in English, without the advise of a defense lawyer or Mexican consular representative.

To receive medical attention if you are injured or in delicate health.

To be respected in your person and to receive dignified treatment without regard to your migratory status.

To have safe transport.

To have food and water whenever you need it.

You are not obligated to state your migratory status at the time of arrest.

You have the right not to be beaten or insulted.

Not to be held incommunicado.

In case they take away your things, ask for a receipt so that you can claim them upon release.

It is important that you inform your lawyer or Mexican consular representative who visits you of any infringement of these rights. Also inform the closest office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Mexico.

If you want more information and you live in Texas or the city of Acuña, Coahuila, tune in to “La Poderosa” (The Powerful) at 1570 AM.

IN CASE OF ARREST

If you are sentenced for a crime or you are jailed and facing a criminal proceeding, you have the following rights:

Not to be discriminated against by the police, the courts, or prison officials.

To receive visits by Mexican consular personnel and members of your family.

To receive legal representation without conditions and obstacles.
“Laws.”

If you are facing a criminal proceeding and you have not yet been sentenced, ask your lawyer or consular representative about pleading guilty.

Do not declare yourself guilty without first consulting your lawyer about the chances of winning your case.

It is important that you know the laws of the state where you live and work since the laws in each one are different. Consider the following advice:

If you drink, do not drive, since if you do not have documents, you can be arrested and deported.

If a legal resident is convicted more than twice for drinking under the influence, he can be deported.

Do not drive without a drivers license.

Respect traffic laws and use your seatbelt.

Do not drive without insurance and do not agree to drive a stranger’s car.

Do not let strangers into your car.

If when driving, you commit a traffic infraction and you are stopped by the police, place your hands on the steering wheel and do not get out of the car until the officer requests that you do so.

Avoid calling attention to yourself while you normalize your stay or process your documents to live in the United States.

The best way is not to change your routine of going from your job to your home.

Avoid noisy parties. The neighbors can get annoyed and call the police, and you can be arrested.

Avoid getting involved in fights.

If you go to a bar or night club, and a fight starts, leave, since in the confusion you could be arrested even though you have done anything.

Avoid family or domestic violence. As in Mexico, it is a crime in the United States.

Domestic violence is not only physical, but it also includes threats, screaming, and ill-treatment.

If you are accused of domestic violence against your children, spouse, or some other person who lives with you, you could go to jail. In addition, the Child Protective Service could take away your children.

Do not carry firearms, knives, or other dangerous objects.

Keep in mind that many Mexicans are dead or in prison for that.

If the police enter your house or apartment, do not resist. However, ask for a proper warrant. It is better to cooperate and to seek to communicate with the closest Mexican consulate.
“Search Warrant.”

CONSULATES

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has 45 consular offices in the Interior and on the Southern Border of the United States of America whose function is to help you. Remember, if you have been arrested or are serving a prison term, you have the right to communicate with the closest Mexican Consulate.

Always carry your Consular Protection Guide.

Stay close to the Consulate.

Stay close to Mexico.

It is your home, Countryman!


MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS General Directorate of Protection and Consular Affairs

Another follow up on the Swift raid: what happened to Cactus, TX.

The Washington Post reported that “The streets of this small, isolated city in the Texas Panhandle are virtually empty nowadays, and "For Rent" signs decorate dilapidated trailers and shabby 1940s-era military barracks that just weeks ago were full of tenants.” The story relates how the depletion of residents has left two businessmen: a Mexican and a Vietmanese, high and dry.

On Dec. 12, hundreds of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents clad in riot gear and armed with assault rifles descended on the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in a coordinated raid of six of the company's facilities nationwide. The operation was the government's largest single work-site enforcement operation ever. The plant in little Cactus -- a town better known in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, and in the department of Quiché, Guatemala, where workers came from, than in Texas -- was the largest one raided. Almost a quarter of the 1,282 suspected illegal immigrants arrested in the raids were removed from the Cactus plant.
Sales of tortillas and other staples are down. Money wire transactions to Central America have mostly dried up. The "Guatemalas," as local residents call them, are almost all gone, and so are a significant number of Mexican nationals. An estimated 12 to 18 children are now living with only one parent since the other was arrested in a massive immigration raid at the biggest employer in town.

The story goes on:

That an obscure town 600 miles north of the border and in the middle of High Plains country once owned by Anglo ranchers and farmers was a haven for illegal Mexican and Central American immigrants was no surprise to anyone here. The draw to Cactus has existed since American Beef Packers opened the meat-processing plant in 1974. Swift's predecessor company bought the plant in 1975, and it became known as Swift & Co.'s Cactus Beef Plant in 2002.

Although opened with local hires, Vietnamese and Laotian refugees became the dominant workforce by the late-1970s. By the mid-'80s the workforce was overwhelmingly Mexican immigrants, and by 2000 the Guatemalans, speaking the Mayan language of Quiché, had started to arrive. Before the Dec. 12 raid, Swift employed 3,050 workers in Cactus at a starting wage of $11.50 an hour to slaughter, process and package several thousand head of cattle daily.

Work inside the plant is hard, dirty, stinky and dangerous, and it is where Cactus's biggest business owner and mayor, Luis Aguilar, and Cactus's largest landlord, Thanh Nguyen, got their starts in the United States. Aguilar, a native of Chihuahua, began working at the plant in 1976 using false identity papers, he admits. In 1986, he was able to legalize his status in the United States, along with 2.7 million illegal workers, under the amnesty program authorized by the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act.

Previously criticized by some local officials who thought he aided and even encouraged illegal immigrants to settle in Cactus, Aguilar took the raids almost personally. He canceled the annual city Christmas party because so many residents, including City Council members, had spouses or other relatives who had been arrested by immigration authorities. Aguilar subsequently lent one of his buildings to be used as a food and used-clothing pantry for residents whose relatives were caught in the raid.

"These are my people," said Aguilar, 50, who today owns the largest house in Cactus, a nearby 575-acre ranch, a laundromat and the town's only full-fledged grocery store. About half of his 26 rental units are empty now.

Nguyen and his family, part of the mass exodus of "boat people" who left Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, arrived as legal refugees in nearby Dumas, Tex., in 1979 under the sponsorship of a restaurant owner who wanted cheap labor. Within six months, Nguyen and his wife left for the better-paying meatpacking plant in Cactus, said Nguyen's son Phuong, 37, who is also known as Ben.

Except for the Nguyens, Asian immigrants moved out of Cactus, which is now 99.5 percent Hispanic. Some local officials recently said that 75 percent of the city's estimated 5,000 residents before the raid were illegal immigrants. Aguilar disputes that, saying it was only 15 percent.

To Ben Nguyen, that number is not important. His father usually offered a few weeks of free rent to immigrants until they got a job at the meat plant and their first paycheck and provided thrift store mattresses and clothes, if necessary, Nguyen said. Now only eight of his father's 60 rental units are occupied. Some were vacated the day of the raid, but the majority were abandoned within weeks, when frightened immigrants moved away. Since then, vandals have been kicking in the doors of the empty apartments, looking for any items of value that might have been left behind.

"I do believe in punishment for the crime, but this is too much," Ben Nguyen said. "You scare kids; you push people so far away that you destroy the economy of the town. . . . This town is built by immigrants. They were just like me when they come over here. They didn't have anything. They came over here just to work and start their lives."

But authorities charge that these immigrants had false identity documents, enabling them to get driver's licenses and jobs illegally, victimizing U.S. citizens and fueling the fraudulent document industry. Traffic stops or crime reports became confusing events in Cactus in recent years. Immigrants would offer two names, said former Cactus Police Chief Tim Turley. The had "el verdadero," as they called it -- the true name -- and their work name.

Mario Lux, 26, from the town of Canilla in Quiché, said the piece of paper that gave him his work name cost him $1,400 and was obtained for him by a friend in Cactus. With that document, Lux said he got an identification card in nearby New Mexico and then a job at the Swift plant in March 2006, cutting fat and gristle off meat for $11.90 an hour. He was not working the day of the raid but now will not return for fear of being discovered and arrested. He says that he still owes $3,200 to the smuggling network that got him to Cactus and that he has been unable to send money to his wife and three children back home. He is also three weeks behind in his rent. He and his three roommates pay $120 a week for their small apartment.

"I have no idea how I will pay that now," Lux said as he stood in the food and clothes pantry established in the Cactus town center.

February 7, 2007

The net fiscal impact of illegal immigrants? New Jersey and Texas studies clash

A study of New Jersey asserts that illegal immigrants cost taxpayers $2.1 Billion. A Texas study last year asserted that the burden on taxpayers was $1.2 Billion. New Jersey’s total population is 8.4 million and it estimates its illegal immigrant population at 372,000. Texas in contrast has 20.8 million people of which 1.4 million are estimated to be illegal immigrants. How can New Jersey have almost double the taxpayer burden with less than 40% of the population of illegal immigrants?

And consider this: the New Jersey study authors say it is irrelevant what the contribution of illegal workers make in payroll taxes (yes, many pay payroll taxes) and consumer taxes. Why? Because for every illegal worker there is a legal American sitting on a bench ready to take the job if vacated! This is like saying that the taxpayer burden of red headed left handed persons is so many millions, and it doesn’t matter how much they pay in various taxes. Nor do the authors address a more important question, a step up in complication: what illegal immigrants add to the gross state product. Talk about one-sided accounting!

Per the Pew Hispanic estimates (you will find them on the right column under “undocumented workers by state”) there are 256,000 illegal workers in New Jersey and 1.024 million in Texas (2005 figures).

Go here for the Texas study, which I posted on in December.

The New Jersey study estimates these burdens on taxpayers: schools, $1.85 billion; healthcare $200 million; incarceration, $50 million. The Texas study has these comparable figures: schools, $967 million; healthcare $58 million; incarceration, $130 million.

The Texas study estimates that illegal households pay $867 million in consumption taxes and, per their rental or owned residences, $582 million in property taxes. With other payments, total payments by illegal immigrants into the public fisc are estimated at $1.581 billion, or $424 million higher than the total $1.156 billion burden on taxpayers.

February 6, 2007

A new information center for immigration issues

The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) has launched a more comprehensive information service for policy making and research about immigration.

The Migration Policy Institute describes itself as “a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide.” It is unveiling an initiative: the creation of a National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy. “The Center will connect government agency administrators, researchers, community leaders, service providers, the media, and others who seek to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities today’s high rates of immigration create in local communities.”

The underlying goal appears to be to generate more positive support for pro-immigration policy at the federal level.

The MPI’s press release goes onto say:

As part of the launch of the Center, MPI is also unveiling its electronic resource center, which provides online information and analysis across more than a dozen integration subfields, and a new, cutting-edge data tool that provides instant access to the most current demographic and social information on the foreign born in each state. The electronic resource center provides “one-stop shopping” for individuals seeking information on integration topics ranging from proposed changes in the U.S. citizenship test and application fees to the performance of immigrant students in U.S. schools. And, with the click of a button, the new state data tool allows users to see data such as the percent change in the foreign-born population in Georgia from 1990 to 2005, or the top countries of origin for the foreign born in California, based on data from the Census Bureau’s 2005 American Community Survey.
Three broad demographic trends make the need to focus on integration clear. First, high numbers: Over half of new workers in the U.S. economy in the 1990s were immigrants. Second, the dispersal of immigrants to nontraditional receiving areas: The state with the fastest growth between 2000 and 2005 was South Carolina. Third, shifting legal status: The share of immigrants who are undocumented rose dramatically over the past decade, rising to almost 30 percent all U.S. immigrants
.

Full text copy of the press release:

Migration Policy Institute Launches
New National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Migration Policy Institute announced today the creation of its new National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy. The Center will connect government agency administrators, researchers, community leaders, service providers, the media, and others who seek to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities today’s high rates of immigration create in local communities.

“Despite the fact that more than a million immigrants enter the United States each year, and more than one in five children in the United States is the child of an immigrant, immigrant integration is one of the most overlooked issues in U.S. public policy today,” said MPI President Demetrios Papademetriou. “MPI has established this Center, which is the first of its kind, to build a more coherent and knowledge-driven field of individuals addressing these issues at the local and national levels.”

Michael Fix and Margie McHugh will co-direct the Center, which will provide policy research and design, leadership development and technical assistance, and an electronic resource center on U.S. immigrant integration issues. Mr. Fix is the former director of the Urban Institute’s Immigration Studies Program and is now MPI’s Vice President and Director of Studies. Ms. McHugh is the former Executive Director of The New York Immigration Coalition, an umbrella organization for 150 groups in New York that has pioneered effective approaches on a variety of integration issues.

“Our Center will be a hub that helps build the knowledge and skills of individuals across the country who are being called upon to address the impact of immigrants in their communities,” said Ms. McHugh. “The need to deepen our understanding of effective integration policy and practice will only grow as migration to new destination places continues, as the question of the legal status of 12 million unauthorized immigrants is addressed, and as concerns about the nation’s competitiveness become more urgent,” she said.

The launch also includes the release of an agenda-setting volume, Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy -- A Reader, in which top health, education and fiscal policy experts focus on trends in education, health, the workforce, citizenship, and the second generation. The authors also explore issues raised by proposed reforms to the U.S. immigration system, including impact aid to states and health care coverage for the foreign born. (Please see below for highlights.)

“Taken together, the chapters in this book make clear that the laissez faire approach to immigrant integration that the nation has taken in the past simply leaves too much to chance,” said Michael Fix, the volume’s editor. “As the debate over a legalization program begins to take shape, Congress must broaden its field of vision and address not just the numbers and categories of our immigration system, but the mechanisms that must be in place to ensure the success of immigrants and the cohesion of the communities where they settle,” Mr. Fix said.

As part of the launch of the Center, MPI is also unveiling its electronic resource center, which provides online information and analysis across more than a dozen integration subfields, and a new, cutting-edge data tool that provides instant access to the most current demographic and social information on the foreign born in each state. The electronic resource center provides “one-stop shopping” for individuals seeking information on integration topics ranging from proposed changes in the U.S. citizenship test and application fees to the performance of immigrant students in U.S. schools. And, with the click of a button, the new state data tool allows users to see data such as the percent change in the foreign-born population in Georgia from 1990 to 2005, or the top countries of origin for the foreign born in California, based on data from the Census Bureau’s 2005 American Community Survey.

In coming months, the electronic resource center will be built out to include more state-by-state research and analysis on key integration issues, and the state data tool will be expanded to include data on immigrant families’ language acquisition, workforce participation and income. The electronic resource center can be accessed through MPI’s website at www.migrationpolicy.org/integration. The state data tool, which is one of many offered by the new MPI Data Hub, can be accessed at http://www.migrationinformation.org/datahub/.

Highlights from Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy - A Reader:

* Despite unprecedented high flows of immigrants into the United States, immigrant integration remains an afterthought and one of the most overlooked issues in U.S. policy. There is no Office for Immigrant and Refugee Integration and integration issues played little role in the debate over comprehensive immigration reform in the last session of the Congress.

* Three broad demographic trends make the need to focus on integration clear. First, high numbers: Over half of new workers in the U.S. economy in the 1990s were immigrants. Second, the dispersal of immigrants to nontraditional receiving areas: The state with the fastest growth between 2000 and 2005 was South Carolina. Third, shifting legal status: The share of immigrants who are undocumented rose dramatically over the past decade, rising to almost 30 percent all U.S. immigrants.

* Three-quarters of children of immigrants are U.S. born and are citizens living with noncitizen parents in mixed-status families. Policymakers have often overlooked the complexity of these families.

*Targeted federal spending on immigrant integration policies has been low and directed primarily toward two small subpopulations: refugees and farm workers (most of whom are foreign born).

*One index of integration is the progress of the second generation. Here, despite worries that current flows are producing a “rainbow underclass,” the evidence suggests that all groups including Mexicans -- are making substantial generational progress. Still, children of Mexican immigrants lag on many indicators, most notably in college attendance and graduation -- worrying trends in an economy that increasingly rewards higher skills.

*There has been a sharp rise in the Limited-English-Proficient (LEP) student population. Nationwide, LEP student enrollment rose 65 percent between 1993/94 and 2003/04 while overall enrollment in schools rose only 10 percent. Not surprisingly, share increases were much steeper in “new growth” states.

*The data make clear that many recent immigrants and their children are outside the mainstream in terms of their access to health care. Fifty-six percent of low-income, noncitizen immigrants were uninsured in 2004, compared to 23 percent of low-income natives.

*There are a number of persisting myths about immigrants’ use of health care that have made careful policymaking more difficult. First, immigrants are not the primary reason the ranks of the uninsured are growing. Second, per-capita health expenditures on immigrants were less than half those of native citizens. Third, the migration patterns of immigrants during the 1990s indicate that they were driven by jobs, not the generosity of health and other benefit programs.

*One area where policy can make a difference is promoting the credentialing of immigrants arriving with technical and educational skills. Half of legal immigrants experience occupational downgrading in their first year in the United States. Noncitizen immigrants with college degrees are twice as likely to be low income as natives.

Elements of an integration agenda would include:

-- Taking a cautious approach to making temporary immigration (without a path to permanent status) a primary thrust of current immigration reform efforts;

-- Focusing on the gap in Mexican immigrants’ transition to higher education;

-- Focusing policymakers’ attention on “high LEP” schools that have been found to be disproportionately failing to meet standards under the federal No Child Left Behind Act;

-- Understanding and better integrating programs and financing that flows through the adult education and workforce training systems so that they better meet the needs of both immigrants and employers;

-- Expressly addressing the health care needs of legalizing and other immigrants in immigration reform legislation;

-- Designing a new National Office for Immigrant and Refugee Integration that builds on the experience of the Bush Administration’s recently formed Task Force on Immigrant Integration; and

-- Ensuring that an impact aid program that builds on the lessons of the 1986 law is incorporated into immigration reform.

More information about the volume, including the Table of Contents, is online at:
http://www.migrationinformation.org/integration/securing_future.cfm.


To request a media copy of Securing the Future or to arrange an interview, please contact Colleen Coffey at 202-266-1910 or ccoffey@migrationpolicy.org.

February 5, 2007

Mexican remittances were $25 billion in 2006

The Houston Chronicle reports, "More cash flows home, remittances from Mexicans working abroad reach $25 billion."

Mexico City -- Mexicans working abroad sent home a record $25 billion last year, most of it from the United States, according to a study released Friday. The estimated figure represents a 25 percent increase over 2005 and a nearly 80 percent surge since 2003, the Inter-American Development Bank, or IDB, said in its report. Remittances have surpassed tourism as Mexico's second-largest source of foreign revenue, helping support more than 4 million Mexican families, said the Washington-based bank, which lends to 26 member countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Oil is Mexico's largest foreign revenue producer.

The country's reliance on remittances from abroad is not necessarily a good thing, the bank said. 'No one should celebrate that Mexico is the largest remittances market in the world,' it said. 'It means the domestic economy is simply not generating enough jobs.'

Indeed, more than half of the Mexican emigrants surveyed in another recent study by the bank said they were unemployed before leaving for the U.S. Those who held jobs in Mexico earned an average of about $150 a month. By contrast, more than half found jobs within a month of arriving in the U.S., where they earned an average monthly salary of $900.

The bank made no distinction between Mexicans who were in the U.S. legally or illegally.

(More follows on the hyperlink.)

2/5/07 update on Swift raid

The Washington Post ran this article quoting the president of Swift as saying the raids were for show.

Meatpacker: Immigration Raids Were Show
The Associated Press, February 2, 2007

Greeley, CO (AP) -- The head of meatpacker Swift & Co. said federal officials wanted a high-profile example of an immigration crackdown when they staged raids at its plants in six states in an identity theft investigation late last year.

President and CEO Sam Rovit said the government rejected the company's offer to help in the investigation months before the Dec. 12 raids.

'They were looking for a marquee to show the administration it was tough on immigration,' he told the Greeley Tribune for a story published Friday.

Rovit denied knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and told the newspaper his company complied with federal hiring practices to check applicants' immigration status.

Rovit and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman did not immediately return phone and e-mail messages from The Associated Press Friday.

ICE arrested 1,282 workers during raids in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa and Minnesota. Of those, 246 now face state or federal identity theft charges and the rest face immigration charges.

Greeley-based Swift says it is the world's second-largest processor of fresh beef and pork, and employs about 20,000 people, including about 15,000 in the U.S.

February 4, 2007

An initiative in California to protect immigrant workers from insurance fraud

This is a model for every state with a large low wage immigrant work population to follow. California is the most active state in private/public sector expression of concern and action about protecting low wage immigrant workers. I have posted several times about California. This time I am posting about two overlapping initiatives:

AWAHP: The Agricultural Workers Access to Healthcare Project
WCEC: The Workers Compensation Enforcement Collaborative

The Collaborative it aiming to identify employers who are un- or under-insured. It involves a creative mingling of community activist, law enforcement, and state regulatory efforts. Financially supporting the effort is the state’s insurance fraud commission.

According to the Watsonville Law Center, in Watsonville CA (831-722-2845)


“Uninsured employer cases account for 25% of all injured workers served through the Agricultural Workers’ Access to Healthcare Project (2003—2006). Nearly all injured workers whose employers lack workers’ compensation insurance coverage are Spanish-speaking low-wage immigrant workers. These clients are often unaware of or afraid to exercise their right to workers’ compensation benefits because they fear retaliation in the form of termination of employment and/or deportation. Injured workers come to The Watsonville Law Center (WLC) usually because they have not been able to access medical treatment or legal assistance.”


AWAHP:
The Agricultural Workers Access to Healthcare Project was formed to assist low-wage immigrant workers access medical treatment and related benefits under the workers’ compensation system. A collaborative between California Rural Legal Assistance, Salud Para La Gente and The Watsonville Law Center, AWAHP is the first of its kind in the state and possibly the nation and noted as a model approach for worker health in California in a report published by the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers’ Compensation under the California Department of Industrial Relations.

WCEC:
The Workers Compensation Enforcement Collaborative (WCEC) is comprised of state and local enforcement agencies and others committed to tracking and addressing barriers to enforcement of low wage immigrant workers’ compensation rights. Over the last year, WCEC has worked to develop goals and objectives to ensure workers are informed of their right to medical treatment and related benefits under the workers’ compensation system, and are provided accessible medical and legal services so they can obtain the medical treatment they need. Agencies represented and proposed goals for the collaborative are listed below.

WCEC Members:
The Watsonville Law Center, Department of Insurance (DOI) Fraud Division, Santa Cruz and Monterey County Offices of the District Attorney, the Fraud Assessment Commission, Kaiser, the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers’ Compensation (CHSWC) and the U.C. Berkeley Labor and Occupational Health Project. The project is working on developing collaborative partnerships with the following agencies: Workers’ Compensation Injury Rating Bureau (WCIRB), Uninsured Employers Fund (UEF), Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE), and the Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC)-Information and Assistance Unit, Salud Para La Gente, California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), California Applicants’ Attorney Association (CAAA).

H-IB visa quota for this year may be exhausted in first 15 days

These are the visas that are typically used by engineers to come to the U.S, and work for the likes of Intel or Microsoft. Back in 2004, the annual quota for new H1B visas was 195,000, then it dropped to 65,000. The Senate’s immigration reform bill S. 2611 would boost it back to 115,000, then rise annually according to a “market” based factor. And – many persons with advanced degrees would be exempt from the cap. See my prior postings on H1B.

The Times of India (TOI) reports that when the next annual period begins on April 1, the entire lot of 65,000 visas may be claimed within a few weeks:

The rush for H-1B visas this year could be like never before. Two years ago, the H-1B quota finished on August 9, 2005. Last year it finished on May 25. This year, with the US economy still growing strongly, it is expected that the quota, which opens for filing of applications on April 1, will finish around April 15.
In other words, as Navneet S Chugh, attorney with the Chugh Firm, US, says, "All of the 65,000 visas (which allow skilled foreign workers, including Indians, to go to the US) will evaporate in 15 days." Chugh's firm is telling its clients that "it is imperative that we have all our H-1B petitions ready to go and file them special delivery on April 1."
TOI spoke to several technology firms who said they are busy finalising the names and number of their employees, who would be travelling to US.

February 1, 2007

American immigration and world trade: the connection

From 1994 until NAFTA (The American Free Trade Agreement) took effect in 2001, “total trade with Mexico had increased by a factor of 2.3, the number of intracompany transferees crossing the border had risen by a factor of 5.6, the number of temporary workers by a factor of 4.8 and the number of tourists by a factor of 2.9.” This from an article by Douglas Massey, the Princeton professor about whom I have posted before. I read this week an article he wrote, as part of a WESAW course I am taking in my town.

Go here to find the article on migration.

Massey takes a global perspective on immigration: International migrant flows “are intimately connected to broader processes of economic integration that for the past half century have been shrinking the globe.”

Flows of commodities, services and information are matched by flows of people. The industrialized countries are caught in a “contradiction”: they want to globalize everything except the flow of people. America is dead center in this contradiction. As I posted before, we have the largest number of cities with at least one million in foreign born residents, but our politicians are largely fearful of immigration.

“Immigrants arrive because the same processes of globalization that create mobile populations in developing regions and a demand for their services in global cities also create links of transportation, communication politics and cultures to make international migration easier and cheaper.”

-- from Great Decisions, 2007 edition, the Foreign Policy Association