NPR: Jobs for day laborers decline due to housing slump, economy

On April 4 NPR’s All Things Considered ran an interview with Pablo Alvarado. executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, about the effect of the declining economy on demand for day laborers. Alvarado said, ‘, the number of workers in street corners and day labor centers has increased while the number of jobs has decreased. And that has do with the decline in the housing market because the majority of the employers of day laborers are homeowners, and usually, they use some kind of disposable income to hire workers to come and clean their backyards and front yards, do mostly landscaping and small home remodeling projects.”
But he says that illegal immigrants are staying. “Let me put it this way, if you live in Mexico or Central America, you may have your house and you may not have a bed, and you don’t have any bed to sleep, you have to sleep on the floor. But when you come to this country, you may not have a bed either, but at least there’s a carpet where you can lay down and sleep. And just by that, you see the improvement in the quality of life, just that simple example.”
The transcript in full:
Job Opportunities for Day Laborers Decline
April 4, 2008 from All Things Considered
ROBERT SIEGEL, host: What about employment at the lowest levels of the economy? What about those hiring lines of day laborers looking for a few hours of construction work or painting or gardening.
A lot of the people doing that kind of labor are working in the country illegally, and in some jurisdictions they’re facing new policies cracking down on illegal immigration.
What’s the impact of the economic down turn on them?
Pablo Alvarado is executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. He joins us from Los Angeles.
Welcome to the program, Mr. Alvarado.
Mr. PABLO ALVARADO (Executive Director, National Day Laborer Organizing Network): Thank you for having me.
SIEGEL: And first, from what you’ve been able to find out what’s happening on hiring lines at day labor centers?
Mr. ALVARADO: Well, the number of workers in street corners and day labor centers has increased while the number of jobs has decreased. And that has do with the decline in the housing market because the majority of the employers of day laborers are homeowners, and usually, they use some kind of disposable income to hire workers to come and clean their backyards and front yards, do mostly landscaping and small home remodeling projects.

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NPR story of a new illegal immigrant returned to El Salvador

National Public Radio’s Morning Edition is running a two part series on the impact of immigration law enforcement on immigrant households. The first of the series was aired on April 7, describing the devastating effect of Julio Cuellar’s return to El Salvador after being caught by the Feds shortly after being taken across the border by a coyote. The story reveals the desperate situation of poor households in Latin America.
On another radio new broadcast, I heard an immigration expert say that despite the recession most or all of illegal workers will stay in the U.S. Even one day of work at $60 as a day laborer yields as much income for an entire month back in Mexico. That’s shows you how important it is for workers to get into and stay in the U.S.
the transcript:
As the U.S. intensified its illegal immigration crackdown in recent years, deportations to El Salvador increased dramatically. Last year, according to El Salvador’s immigration ministry, 20,000 Salvadorans were sent back home from the U.S., compared to 3,500 who were deported in 2004.
On a recent blazing hot afternoon, security guards escorted 33 men and nine women from the tarmac at Cuscatlan International Airport in San Salvador into a cramped processing room.
Some deportees look defiant. Others look destroyed and lost. But they all seem to brighten as they file into rows of plastic chairs and find on each one a warm pupusa — the thick tortilla that is El Salvador’s national dish. Officials try to bolster the group with speeches welcoming them home.
“Thank God you are here and in much better shape than many others,” a police officer tells them. “Some return wounded or dead. But you are very much alive, ready to set off on your next trip if you choose!”
Quiet laughter fills the room as the deportees nod and cheer. Some say they do plan to go back to the U.S. as soon as possible. With few prospects in El Salvador and family still in America, they say they have nothing to lose.
But not Julio Cuellar.

Continue reading NPR story of a new illegal immigrant returned to El Salvador

Arizona employers slow to E-Verify

The Legal Arizona Workers Act that took effect 1/1/08 (which I have posted on) requires all Arizona employers to use the Federal E-Verify system. Only about 15% of employers have done so already.
Here is how it works: An employer enters a new hire’s name, Social Security number and birth date into the online system and instantly receives a message on the screen saying the person is eligible to work in the United States. It appears that there has about a 7% non-conforming rate. My guess is that the E-Verify system is working but that many employers have not been hiring illegal workers since January (the system is applicable only to new hires), and that employers who do have not signed up year.
An article in the Arizona Daily Star in full:
Arizona’s employers slow to get with program
By Becky Pallack
The Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), March 30, 2008
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/border/231848
E-Verify, the federal database for verifying a new hire’s legal status, largely has worked fine for Arizona employers.
That’s in part because only 15 percent of employers in the state have signed up to use it.
Just 22,000 of the 145,000 Arizona employers have registered, said Marie Sebrechts, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

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H-1B year to begin again April 1

…and with it another round of frenzied applications for 65,000 slots, which are typically oversubscribed in the first day or two after April 1.
This Wall Street Journal article (subscription required) reports that “The visa stalemate has prompted some companies to expand overseas. In September, Microsoft opened its first software-development center in Canada, saying it enabled the company to recruit and retain highly skilled people “affected by immigration issues in the U.S.”
The article in full:
Quota on Foreign Workers Worries Companies
March 31, 2008
U.S. businesses are bracing for another round of visa roulette, as applications for high-tech professionals — accepted by the government starting Tuesday — are expected to far outstrip supply.
The H-1B visas enable U.S. companies to hire skilled foreign workers for certain jobs that are difficult to fill domestically. Attorneys who help employers file petitions say they haven’t seen a decline in interest despite the economic downturn. Last year, the U.S. government received 124,000 applications for H-1B visas, nearly double the congressionally mandated cap of 65,000, so the visas were awarded by lottery.
This year, visas will be granted to 65,000 individuals randomly chosen from a pool of petitions filed in the first five business days in April, as stipulated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency that oversees the process. Selected foreign professionals can begin work at the employer that filed for them in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.

Continue reading H-1B year to begin again April 1

New York City area losing jobs due to visa barriers

According to the NY Times, The New York City metropolitan area is losing financial sector and other high paying jobs which are filled overseas because visas are so difficult to obtain. The primary visa category is the three year H-1B visas for professionals, of which 65,000 visas are awarded annually, plus 20,000 for graduates of American universities. Last year the quota was filled up on the first day, April 1. The article says, “Officials of large investment banks on Wall Street said the difficulty in obtaining visas for foreign workers, many of them graduates of American universities, had caused them to shift dozens of jobs to other financial capitals this year. In some cases, foreign-born professionals have grown weary of the struggle to get and renew a work visa in the United States and moved on to cities like London, where they say they feel more welcome.”
The article in full:
Businesses Say New York’s Clout Is Emigrating, With Visa Policies to Blame
By PATRICK McGEEHAN and NINA BERNSTEIN
New York officials have long taken pride in the city’s status as a global gateway. But lately, senior executives of some of the country’s biggest corporations, like Alcoa, have been complaining that American immigration policies are thwarting New York’s ability to compete with other world capitals.
Every big employer in the city, it seems, can cite an example of high-paying jobs that had to be relocated to foreign cities because the people chosen to fill them could not gain entry to the United States.
In Alcoa’s case, one of its chief financial executives, Vanessa Lau, who is from Hong Kong, is working from the company’s offices in Geneva when she should be at headquarters on Park Avenue, according to Alain J. P. Belda, the chairman and chief executive.

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New Bedford raid follow up: Boston millionaire puts up bail for 40

Last year ICE raided a textile factory in New Bedford, MA, hauling away hundreds and splitting families apart. (I have posted on this.) The Wall Street Journal (sub required) reported on 3/19, “Boston Financier Steps In to Bail Out Illegal Immigrants; Textile-Factory Raid Spurred Him to Act; ‘Un-American’ Images”. Bob Hildreth, who runs a financial company in Boston, had spent time in South America, He put up $200,000 to release 40 people from jail. “The raid broke families apart,” says the diminutive 57-year-old, who once taught high-school history. “This was extremely un-American.”
The full story:
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — One frigid March morning last year, federal agents raided a factory in this old whaling town, arresting hundreds of illegal immigrants as they sewed vests and backpacks for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Most were shackled and sent to a detention center in Texas, where they faced rapid deportation unless they could post thousands of dollars in bail — money they didn’t have — to buy time to mount a defense.
Then, a mystery benefactor appeared. The anonymous donor ponied up more than $200,000 to spring 40 people from detention.
The payments, which until now haven’t become public despite extensive news coverage of the raid itself, came from Bob Hildreth, a Boston financier who made his millions trading Latin American debt. He was “infuriated” at the televised images of workers being shipped to Texas, he says. Helping them make bail is “payback.”

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Seasonal immigrant workers severely cut back, pawn in immigration bill struggle

According to the NY Times, a Congressional confrontation has resulted in a severe reduction of seasonal immigrant workers, badly hurting the summer hospitality and restaurant industry. These workers enter through H-2B visas, 66,000 in a year. The times reports that since 2005 an override as been authorized by Congress allowing over 120,000 such workers. These include the Poles and Brazilians who staff the local summer ice cream parlor and wait at summer resort restaurants and stay at employer-provided housing. Cape Cod alone will be almost entirely bereft of 5,000 such workers, who cannot be replaced easily by Americans, as few candidates live nearby due to high housing costs. The Hispanic Congressional caucus has engineered to cripple this override this summer in order to put pressure on Congress to enact an comprehensive immigration reform bill.
The article:
Businesses Face Cut in Immigrant Work Force
By KATIE ZEZIMA
HYANNIS, Mass. — For years, William Zammer Jr. has relied on 100 seasonal foreign employees to turn down beds, boil lobsters and serve cocktails at the restaurants, golf course and inn he owns on Cape Cod and in nearby Plymouth.
This summer, however, the foreign workers will not be returning, and Mr. Zammer, like other seasonal employers across the nation, is scrambling to find replacements.
“It’s a major crisis,” he said. “We’re very short on work force. We’ll be looking at opening a little later, closing a little earlier, looking at how we do our menus.”
Mr. Zammer is caught up in a Congressional standoff over immigration overhaul that is punishing employers who play by the rules and that, advocates of change say, could cost small companies billions in lost business.

Continue reading Seasonal immigrant workers severely cut back, pawn in immigration bill struggle

CT’s strategy to cut down on illegal workers

I have posted often on the tight association of hiring illegal workers with failure to take out workers comp insurance. Now WorkCompCentral, a leading source of information about workers compensation (subscription required) reports how Connecticut regulators are using stop work orders on uninsured job sites in part to crack down on hiring of undocumented workers. “The Connecticut Department of Labor’s use of a six-month-old law that allows investigators to stop work at job sites where workers aren’t covered by workers’ compensation insurance has proven a key tool in running unscrupulous subcontractors out of the state and cracking down on the use of undocumented crews, a top regulator said Thursday…. In some cases, investigators found undocumented workers being paid “off the books” without workers’ compensation insurance. In others, construction companies bought coverage but grossly underestimated the size of their payrolls, he said.”
According to WorkCompCentral, the state legislature decided to use this strategy to crack down on use of illegal labor when other strategies were deemed to be in conflict with federal law.
The report in full:
Gary Pechie, director of Wage and Workplace Standards for the labor agency, said legislation that took effect last Oct. 1 gave his investigators their first role in enforcing insurance laws, and has prompted 10 stop-work orders so far.

Continue reading CT’s strategy to cut down on illegal workers

Immigrant votes in 2008

The Migration Policy Institute has analyzed the growth of the foreign born population and estimated the number of foreign born among projected 2008 voters. Here are data from three states:
California – foreign born grew as percentage of total population from 26.2% in 2000 to 27.2% in 2006. Hispanic voters (foreign and domestic born) are expected to be 16.8% of the vote. Since Hispanics comprise 55% of foreign born, the total foreign born voter block will certainly be much higher.
Texas – percentage of total population foreign born grew form 13.9% in 2000 to 15.9% in 2006. Hispanics are expected to be 18% of projected voters. Hispanics or Latinos make up 74% of the foreign born.
Ohio, foreign born share of total population grew from 3.0% in 2000 to 3.6% in 2006. Foreign born voters are projected to be 1.6% of all voters.

Immigrants have lower incarceration, crime rates

Do immigrants have higher criminal rates than non-immigrants? Those critical of immigration, in particular the presence of illegal immigrants, often allege that crime rates are higher. Here are some articles which report that if anything the reverse may be truer.
“Incarceration rate lower for immigrants” ran in the San Francisco Chronicle this week. Its two leading sentences are: “Immigrants in California are far less likely to land in prison than their U.S.-born counterparts, a finding that defies the perception that immigration and crime are connected, according to a study released Monday. Foreign-born residents make up 35 percent of the state’s overall population, but only 17 percent of the adult prison population, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, which conducted the research.” I post the entire article below to hyperlinks for other related articles.
Immigrants in California are far less likely to land in prison than their U.S.-born counterparts, a finding that defies the perception that immigration and crime are connected, according to a study released Monday.
Foreign-born residents make up 35 percent of the state’s overall population, but only 17 percent of the adult prison population, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, which conducted the research.
Noncitizen men from Mexico between the ages of 18 and 40, which the study indicated were more likely to be in the country illegally, were eight times less likely to be in a ‘correctional setting,’ the study found.
The study did not address the visa status of those included among the foreign-born, which would include citizens and noncitizens, including those in the country legally and illegally.
Nonetheless, these results have implications for the current debates over immigration policy, said Kristin Butcher, co-author of the report.
‘Our research indicates that limiting immigration, requiring higher educational levels to obtain visas or spending more money to increase penalties against criminal immigrants will have little impact on public safety,’ Butcher said in a statement.
While immigrants often have lower levels of education and higher poverty rates, which are normally associated with higher crimes rates, other factors are probably contributing to the underrepresentation among the foreign-born in state prisons.
Current immigration laws, for example, screen legal immigrants for criminal activity. Also, all noncitizens – including those in the country legally – face deportation for crimes that carry a prison sentence of a year or more.
And those here illegally have incentive to avoid contact with the law, which could lead to detection of their immigration status.
The study acknowledged several factors that could affect the incarceration rates among foreign- and U.S.-born residents, including the possibility that one group might receive more lenient treatment within the criminal justice system or have greater resources to mount a defense.
Also, the deportation of foreign-born criminals also could affect the rates, the study said.
The PPIC report is available online at: http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=776
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Study finds immigrants commit less California crime
Reuters, February 26, 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN246261520080226?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true
Report says immigrants commit fewer crimes
The Associated Press, February 25, 2008
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20080225-1503-ca-immigrantcrime.html
California: Study of Immigrants and Crime
By Julia Preston
The New York Times, February 26, 2008