Category: Uncategorized

Proposal: a new bilateral worker agreement between U.S. and Mexico

The Center for Global Development called on September 13 for a creation of a new bilateral worker agreement between Mexico and the United States. Co-chairs of the Working Group that produced the proposal, Shared Border, Shared Future are Carlos Gutierrez, U.S. Secretary of Commerce 2005 – 2009 and Ernesto Zedillo, President of Mexico, 1994 – 2000.

The report authors argue that a circular flow of Mexican workers across the border has been a feature for some 150 years, makes economic sense for the labor markets for both countries, and workers can be better off for it, provided effective measures to control exploitation. Since 1964, with the termination of the so-called Bracero program, the black market has naturally grown. The authors estimate that without a bilateral agreement, 100,000 illegal entries into the U.S. will persist. Border crackdowns in the 1990s interrupted the return flow.

They write that low skilled Mexican workers in the U.S, are mostly complementary to, and not competitive with, native-born workers. The authors cite several flaws with the Bracero program and/or current temporary worker programs in which low wage Mexican workers participate (mainly the H-2A visa):

  • Labor organizations not involved in design
  • Employment tied to single employer
  • No effective way to complain about labor violations
  • Arbitrary restriction to certain employment sectors (to favor American corporate farms)
  • Arbitrary and rigid numbers of visas.

Their recommended program includes oversight by a bilateral labor market commission, better job matching data, employer fees to obtain workers, protections to ensure that native-born worker wages are not undercut, and better controls and incentives to ensure return to Mexico. The report includes model legislative language.

Expanding exposure to immigrants, 1990 to 2014

An extraordinary aspect of American life has been the rapid demographic expansion of the immigrant presence in the past 25 years.

The Center for Immigration Studies published today maps showing by county 1990, 2000 and 2014 the immigrant share of adult population, in five categories (lowest, under 4.9%; highest, over 20%). Maps also show the percentage increase in immigrant share (lowest, <5%; highest, over 300%). Point your cursor on a county and a detailed profile of immigrants comes up.

Highlights:

In 1990, immigrants were at least 20% of the adult population (18-plus) in just 44 counties; by 2014 they were at least 20% of the adult population in 152 counties.

In 1990, only one out of eight Americans lived in a county in which at least 20% of adults were immigrants; by 2014, nearly one in three Americans lived in such counties.

Since 1990, the immigrant share of adults has more than quadrupled in 232 counties. (These counties mostly had 1990 immigrant shares of 1 – 3%).

Where this expansion grew on a very old foundation, such as in New England, there has been little if any push-back from native-born Americans. Where an immigrant population was very small at the outset, push-back has probably been concentrated. This is particularly so where a large undocumented immigrant population rose to high visibility.

An example of this dynamic is California vs. Arizona. Activists against undocumented immigrations arose in the 1980s. In California, where immigration is deeply rooted, involving many sources such as Japan and Armenia, activists only succeeded in swinging the state from Republican to Democratic in the 1990s. Arizona has been the most aggressive of states in repeatedly passing statutes and a constitutional amendment restricting undocumented immigrants with no serious political penalty.

Why did we get so many illegal residents?

There are two answers, one on border control, the other on weak internal enforcement due to the fact that immigration law is federal, but enforcement is local.  It did not matter which political party was in control of the Executive Branch or of Congress.

Between 1990 and 2000 the illegal population grew from 3.5 million to 8.6 million, or by over 5 million. The illegal population peaked in 2007 at 12.2 million. About two thirds of illegal immigrants in the U.S. come from Latin America, and possibly 75% of illegal Latin American immigrants arrived by crossing the Mexican-American border without authorization. These estimates suggest that that during the 1990s, illegal Mexican border crossings into the U.S. were in the range of 250,000 or more a year. Taking into account some out-migration, and the uncertainty of all these estimates, an annual inflow in the 1990s of 250,000 over the Mexican border is conservative.

The pressing question is, Why did immigration control fail in the 1990s, and to such degree that even after 9/11 the borders remained porous? Aside from the pull of employers in the U.S. and the push of Hispanics seeking a better job, why did control of migration fail so miserably, especially after passage of the 1986 Immigration and Reform Control Act, which was supposed to have put the problem of illegal immigrants under control?

Border control

Douglass Massey’s writings with co-authors explain why the borders remained leaky even after Washington appears to redouble efforts to improve control. A 1997 presentation by Douglass Massey and Audrey Singer, concluded that “Despite the apparent build-up of enforcement resources along the Mexico-U.S. border and the launching of highly publicized initiatives, the probability of apprehension fell in the late 1980s.”

A federal website relates that “Operation “Hold the Line” was established in 1993 in El Paso, and proved an immediate success. Operation “Gatekeeper” was implemented in 1994, and reduced illegal entries in San Diego by more than 75% over the next few years.”  But total figures contradict this sunny assertion.

In the early 1970s, the chances of being caught by border enforcement was 35%-40% per attempt, but by the early 1990s the chances were 15%-20%. At this low risk, the cat-and-mouse game was tilted in favor of the border-crossers, whether with coyotes or unassisted.

Massey and Singer find that the Immigration and Naturalization Services was focused on drug smuggling in the 1990s. That was the decade prison sentencing turned more severe for drug crimes.

Tougher border control did, however, reduce the once fluid circular movement of Hispanics back to south of the border, as persons already in the U.S. became more worried about being able to return north.

In 1998, 278 million people, 86 million cars, and four million trucks and rail cars entered the United States from Mexico. More than half of the cocaine and large quantities of heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine entered the United States across the border.

The authors wrote in 1997 that “INS efforts to build goodwill and garner political support by joining the popular war on drugs have not noticeably slowed the entry of controlled substances, but they have greatly facilitated the entry of undocumented migrants by shifting scarce enforcement resources away from catching undocumented migrants toward intercepting drug smugglers.” With a lowered capture rate, Hispanic gained more experience in the cat-and-mouse game; success at crossing over led to more success.

Internal enforcement

A new book, Policing Immigrants, examines the actual practices of state and local police in enforcing federal immigration law far away from the border. There is no federal police force assigned to enforce immigration laws (or any laws, for that matter). How immigrant laws are enforced is subject to a patchwork of policy, legislation and enforcement. “Standards are unclear, and guidelines for enforcing immigration law are changing and often vague,” the authors write. On top of which, the concept of community policing, which places a very high value on trust between local police forces and the community of residents, is extremely hard to square with immigration law enforcement.

It was not until 1997, with the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, that there was statutory support for the federal government to formally authorize local police departments to participate in joint training, planning and application of the laws. The risks of misadventure are high, demonstrated by the Maricopa County, AZ sheriff Joe Arpaio, who raided a city hall without notifying local police in advance, and using a state law aimed at human smugglers to arrest the clients of smugglers.

A Value-Added Immigration Policy, such as Canada’s

Ray Marshall, President Carter’s Secretary of Labor, wrote an analysis of how the United States could create a coherent immigration policy in part borrowing on the work of Canada, Australia and Great Britain. Here are passages from the preface (Value-Added Immigration, Economic Policy Institute, 2011).

For most countries, these foreign worker flows are designed to overcome domestic labor shortages associated with economic development; aging populations; declining birth rates; the tendency of people with rising incomes to avoid menial, low-status work; and global skill shortages associated with technological and organizational changes.

Advanced liberal democracies such as Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom have, in addition, supported their value-added economic agendas with complementary migration policies, including a shift in emphasis from family-based to employment-based migration; a greater emphasis on skilled migration; and the development of metrics, structures, and mechanisms designed to efficiently and flexibly adjust the flow of foreign workers to domestic labor shortages. Consistent with both political necessity and value-added principles, these countries have complemented foreign worker adjustment mechanisms with a variety of safeguards to prevent the depression of domestic wages and working conditions or the displacement of domestic workers. These labor protections also are compatible with the value-added principle that foreign workers should complement and not compete with domestic workers; adherence to this principle simultaneously garners greater public support and creates mutually beneficial or plus-sum outcomes.

The United States, like Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, is an immigration nation, increasingly dependent on migration for its economic and social welfare, but it has immigration policies that are almost universally regarded as dysfunctional. The United States does not have a guiding national economic policy for the flow of foreign workers, with the predictable outcome of an immigration system that depresses wages and working conditions and accelerates growing income inequalities; it does not adjust the flow of foreign workers to measured labor market shortages; it has almost no reliable data to measure the number and characteristics of migrants, their social and economic impacts, or chances of success in domestic markets, or to determine whether foreign workers compete with or complement domestic workers; it has no high-level federal official primarily responsible for employment-based migration; it has the largest unauthorized migration levels in the industrialized world; and it does too little to protect either foreign or domestic workers or the national interest.

If undocumented farm workers gained legal status…

Roughly 3.2 million persons work on farms, most part time One million of them are hired workers (i.e. not members of an operating family). They are largely full time and account for 60% of labor hours on farms. Most are foreign-born, and many of them are undocumented. Perhaps 150,000 undocumented persons work full time on California farms. (Go here and here.) This is by far the greatest concentration of undocumented workers, within one industry and one state. They are about 8% of the undocumented workforce in California and 1% of the state’s entire workforce.

(The undocumented workforces in construction labor and housekeeping are larger but they are scattered throughout the country.)

What would happen if these California workers, who earn about $10 an hour, gained legal status? Philip Martin on the University of California /Davis considers the impact on wages. It’s likely that (1) they will demand higher wages and (2) consider better jobs off the farm, thus reducing the farm labor pool. (Go here and here.)

When the Bracero program ended in 1962, the United Farm Workers union won a 40% wage increase for some table grape workers. Assuming that these newly enfranchised workers win a similar wage increase, Martin estimates that the price of a pound of apples would increase by 4%. Per Martin, 40% increase in farm labor costs translates into a 3.6% increase in retail prices, costing households not much but raising the annual income of the workers from $10,000 to $14,000.

STEM employment in the U.S. and foreign workers

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) jobs have been populated by foreign workers. Many temporary H-1B workers are employed in these jobs. Many STEM jobs have been off-shored. In 1994, there were 6.2 U.S.-born workers for every foreign-born worker in science and engineering occupations. By 2006, the ratio was 3.1 to 1.

Michael Teitelbaum, in Falling Behind: Boom, Bust and the Global Race for Scientific Talent (2014) summarizes several studies that address some aspects of degree granting and employment in STEM. There is no consensus that there is a labor shortage, he says, and says that it is easy to see how groups with strong self-interests can find credible evidence that there is a shortage of native-born workers or that there is an ample supply of these workers.

He asks, is there a shortage of STEM workers in the U.S.? A shortage of supply can be determined when these events occur: a strong growth in employment, an increase in wages relative to other jobs, and a declining or low unemployment rate.

Teitelbaum cites a Bureau of Labor Statistics study in 1999 of labor shortages between 1992 and 1997. Despite the strong economy during that period, the BLS found only seven if 68 occupations it studied as having a shortage. “These seven did not include information technology, nurses, or other categories for which employers had been claiming shortages.” The only STEM job with a shortage was mechanical engineering. The six others were management analysts; advertising and PR managers; purchasing agents and buyers; special ed teachers; dental hygienists; and airplane pilots and navigators.

He goes on to cite the STEM Workforce Data Project, which from 2004 to 2007 produced a number of studies. In its final report, the Project found an absence of federal policy to address “the rise of foreign sources of labor that were not available before [off-shoring and foreign workers coming to the U.S.]”

Teitelbaum next summarizes a RAND study in 2002 which failed to find “the kind of vigorous employment and earnings prospect that would be expected to draw increasing numbers of bright and informed young people into [science and engineering] fields.”

Another RAND study in 2008, for the Department of Defense, found that “in sum, unemployment and wage growth patterns are thus no unusual and do not point to the presence of a chronic shortage in S & E.”

He notes that degree production in STEM has not grown at the pace of the growth in STEM jobs, and that degree production in STEM in China, India and South Korea has grown much faster, from smaller bases.

Do poorly educated immigrant workers compete with or complement their native-born peers?

Low skilled jobs in America are increasing in numbers. Per the Urban Institute, Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that, by 2022, there will 4 million additional jobs in occupations that do not require a high school diploma. Who will fill these jobs – foreign born or native born workers?

Maria Enchautegui of the Urban Institute finds that:

In 2013, the foreign-born population accounted for 44% of the 16 million workers that have no high school diploma. [About 25% of foreign born workerd, or 7 million, have no HS degree, and about  7% or 9 million native born workers have no HS degree. About half of the American workforce in 1960 had not completed high school.]

The top three occupations with the largest number of immigrants without high school diploma are maids and house cleaners, cooks, and miscellaneous agricultural workers.

In contrast, the occupations with the largest number of native workers without high school degrees are cashiers, truck drivers, and janitors and building cleaners.

The top three occupations in which less-educated immigrants are most over-represented are miscellaneous personal appearance workers, such as manicurists (87% immigrant); workers who grade, sort, and classify unprocessed food and other agricultural products (82%); and sewing-machine operators (81%).

The top three occupations in which less-educated natives are most over-represented are counter attendants in cafeterias, food concession stands, and coffee shops (86% native workers); hosts and hostesses at restaurants, lounges, and coffee shops (85%); and receptionists and information clerks (81%).

PFR: The complementary profile of the two work forces can be seen in injury risk. Immigrant workers tend to be over-represented in jobs with low educational requirements that have double the injury risk of these kinds of jobs dominated by native-born workers.

Trump overestimates by ten times the crime rate of aliens

Donald Trump told an audience in Phoenix on August 31 that there are two million alien criminals in the United States: “According to federal data, there are at least 2 million, 2 million, think of it, criminal aliens now inside of our country, 2 million people criminal aliens. We will begin moving them out day one. As soon as I take office. Day one. In joint operation with local, state, and federal law enforcement.”

Trump asserts, in effect, that the criminal rate among aliens is ten times that among native-born residents. Figures strongly suggest that the criminal rates of the two populations are about equal, or 1%.

Let’s look at criminal figures in the context of the adult population between 15 and 64. (For a demographic profile of foreign and native born, go here.) There are about 43 million foreign born persons in the U.S. today, of whom 53% are aliens, that is, not naturalized. Leaving out persons under 15 and over 64 years old, that leaves us with about 18.2 million working age aliens. Trump’s two million is 11% of them. Trump is saying, in effect, that one out of every ten alien working age adults is a criminal.

What do incarceration figures tell us? There are about 300,000 aliens in prison today – the vast majority from Latin America. That is equivalent to 2% of the number of working age adult aliens. But a lot of them are in prison for immigration reasons. The U.S. deports about 200,000 aliens a year due to internal (non-border) arrest for criminal violations. That’s equivalent to a bit over 1% of working age aliens. (The great majority of non-border deportations arise from criminal acts.) It would appear highly unlikely that a major uptake in law enforcement is going to significantly (or at all) increase the alien population in prison and in deportation processing. (For figures on incarcerations of aliens and deportations, go here and here.)

The prison population of non-aliens in the U.S appears to about two million. There are about 230 million native born working age residents. This means there are slightly less than 1% of number of working age native Americans in prison.

Why immigration policy is so elusive

Four countries were expressly founded on the necessity of immigration – The United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Immigration was essential into the cultures and economics of these countries from the start. Gary P. Freeman of the University of Texas wrote in 2010 that no single piece of postwar legislation, with the possible exception of the Medicare Act, has had a more profound effect on the United States than the 1965 immigration law.

In 1995, he explained why immigration policy in the U.S. is both elusive and expansionist. (“Modes of Immigration Polities in Liberal Democratic States”.) First, migration takes time to develop, starting small and isolated, and grows without the native born population grasping what is going on.

Then, the direct benefits of immigration go to few while the costs are diffused. In the 2010 article Freeman lists the primary beneficiaries: immigration lawyers, ethnic groups, high tech employers, universities, religious institutions, hospitals, nursing homes, the hospitality industry, construction, and labor intensive sectors like meat packing, chicken processing, textiles, agriculture, and low-skilled services such as housekeeping and landscaping. (“Can Comprehensive Immigration Reform Be Both Liberal and Democratic?”)

Immigration politics is heavily client-oriented, largely out of view and with without extensive public debate. An example is Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who per his website “committed to immigration reform that serves the national interest – not the special interests – and that curbs the unprecedented flow of immigration that is sapping the wages and job prospects of those living and working here today.” A subcommittee he shares has denied the Dept. of Labor power to better enforce prevailing wage standards for H-1B temporary worker applicants.

Further, In liberal democracies, nativist talk about immigrants is viewed as disreputable. Strong anti-immigration politicians are usually roundly criticized. Popular opinion is generally more restrictionist than organized political party positions. Per Freeman, the national political positions are ineffective and contradictory, seeking to accommodate as many as possible without forcing the issues. Thus, per Freeman, liberal democracies have an expansionist bias.

A case study of mechanization and lower demand for immigrant workers

Dairy farming is a microcosm of the country’s historical dependence on low wage immigrant workers. These farms are cutting hired workers in half by mechanization, in order to reduce dependence on uncertain labor supply and boost higher productivity per cow. This mechanization story has played out in other farming sectors. Here we look at the several hundred Vermont dairy farms. We see how reduction of undocumented workers is taking place, worksite by worksite, driven by several forces.

Background

Farms in American employ about one million hired workers on top of family owner workers. According to one study, the share of native-born hired crop farmworkers fell from about 40% in 1989-91 to a low of about 18% in 1998-2000, while the share born in Mexico rose from 54% to 79%. Since then, Mexican share fell to about 68% with other Hispanic countries account for up to 6%. Most are estimated to be undocumented. (Go here.)

Dairy farming depends almost entirely on Hispanic workers. One study found that 75% of Hispanic dairy workers in New York State were from Mexico, 25% were from Guatemala and Honduras.

Nordic Farms goes robotic

Robots are transforming the dairy industry: higher productivity, fewer workers. Go here and here.

According to the Burlington, Vermont, Free Press, a dairy farm in Charlotte, Vermont invested in five robots at $200,000 each to milk 260 cows, three times a day. Here is a video of dairy robotics. Through the use of special ear tags, lasers, and mechanical arms that find and milk the utters, mile production has gone up by 10% and cows are systematically weighed and inspected for infection. At least two other farms bought robots.

Vermont dairy farms are being pressured by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to hire only authorized workers. In addition, the supply of native born workers in Vermont has declined from outmigration and the spread of prescribed opioids and heroin. Opioid misuse is concentrated in rural areas, due to easy supply, outmigration of upwardly mobile persons, kinship and social networks, and increasing deprivation (go here).