Immigration Reform- Still on the Front Burner

Raising the Floor for American Workers
The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform
by Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda January 2010

The full article with accompanying charts/graphs and appendixes available for viewing at this site: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/01/pdf/immigrationeconreport.pdf

Conclusion:
The experience of IRCA and the results of our modeling both indicate that legalizing currently
unauthorized immigrants and creating flexible legal limits on future immigration in
the context of full labor rights would raise wages, increase consumption, create jobs, and
generate additional tax revenue—particularly in those sectors of the U.S. economy now
characterized by the lowest wages. This is a compelling economic reason to move away
from the current “vicious cycle” where enforcement-only policies perpetuate unauthorized
migration and exert downward pressure on already-low wages, and toward a “virtuous
cycle” of worker-empowerment in which legal status and labor rights exert upward pressure
on wages.
Legalization of the nation’s unauthorized workers and new legal limits on immigration
that rise and fall with U.S. labor demand would help lay the foundation for robust, just,
and widespread economic growth. Moving unauthorized workers out of a vulnerable
underground status strengthens all working families’ ability to become more productive
and creates higher levels of job-generating consumption, thereby laying a foundation for
long-term community revitalization, middle-class growth, and a stronger, more equitable
national economy.

American Immigration Council
1331 G Street, NW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20005-3141
www.immigrationpolicy.org

Center for American Progress
1333 H Street, NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
www.americanprogress

Click on the title of this post to watch the video "Immigration Gumballs" for the real truth about immigration reform!