Immigrants are not a threat to Union Labor - that's propaganda
From Penigma.blog
Anti-Immigration Lies and the Fundamentals of Propaganda
Right wing social media has been promoting images that attack President Obama and Immigrants, claiming 1 in 4 Americans between the ages of 25 and 54 are out of work; and that Obama granting work permits to 5 million undocumented immigrants is wrong. Implied is that it is undocumented immigrants who are the source of low wages and unemployment.
The clear implication is that Obama is offering preferential treatment in employment, ahead of Americans, to undocumented immigrants, and that Obama is somehow responsible for anyone who is not employed. The far right, who have been anti-labor, are trying very hard by repeating the big lie often enough to convince their voting base to act (and vote) against the interests of labor. It is likely to be one of the key issues, the big wedge issue, of the 2016 election.
This is factually inaccurate -- the first criteria or characteristic of propaganda. Experts across the political spectrum insist that it is inaccurate. Studies indicate this is inaccurate.
So, who are those economists, those experts? What studies?
Nat Journal has some specifics, from 2013:
Left and Right Agree: Immigrants Don't Take American Jobs
March 22, 2013 As Congress considers immigration reform, experts across the political spectrum say American jobs are safe.
That immigrants take the jobs of American-born citizens is “something that virtually no learned person believes in,” Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, said at a Thursday panel. “It’s sort of a silly thing.”
Most economists don’t find immigrants driving down wages or jobs, the Brookings Institution's Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney wrote in May. In fact, “on average, immigrant workers increase the opportunities and incomes of Americans,” they write. Foreign-born workers don’t affect the employment rate positively or negatively, according to a 2011 analysis from the conservative American Enterprise Institute. And a study released Wednesday by the liberal Center for American Progress suggests that granting legal status to undocumented workers might even create jobs.
The CAP study, led by the visiting head of the Washington College economics department, sought to predict what would happen under immigration reform. The researchers considered a handful of scenarios. In each, it was presumed that the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants would be immediately granted legal status. They then looked at the effect of those undocumented immigrants not being granted citizenship at all over a decade, getting it immediately, or getting it in five years.
Legal status alone would lead to the creation of 121,000 extra jobs annually over the next 10 years, they found. Getting citizenship within five years would increase that to 159,000 jobs per year. And receiving both legal status and citizenship this year would create an extra 203,000 jobs annually.
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