Immigration: myths vs. facts

[AlphaCentauri]

A look behind the anti-immigrant furor

In the buildup to the 2008 elections, the right-wing Republicans have decided to make immigrants the scapegoat for the failure of the Bush administration and the shortcomings of the capitalist system. Right-wing personalities on cable TV, on talk radio and in newspapers are fueling this process. Vicious lies are being told about immigrants.

The questions and answers here are designed to provide you with accurate information about the impact of immigrant workers and their families, with or without papers, on the United States today.


Why are so many immigrants coming to the United States?

• Working people in Mexico and other poor countries have been devastated by the practices of U.S. and other international corporations. So-called free trade pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are imposed with conditions that prevent poor countries from meeting their people’s needs.

• After NAFTA came into force, more than 1.3 million Mexican farmers were driven out of business. U.S. agribusiness, subsidized by our tax dollars, sold corn in Mexico at lower prices than farmers there could produce. Undocumented Mexican immigration to U.S. rose 60 percent.

• Big corporations in the United States have been glad to take advantage of the cheap labor, and have sent labor recruiters into economically depressed areas of Mexico, Central America and elsewhere.


So why don’t people in those countries fix their situation at home instead of coming here?

• U.S.-based multinational corporations have put heavy pressure on other countries, including Mexico, to keep their economies open to penetration by U.S. corporations.

• When these countries resist this pressure, the U.S. government and corporations intervene with threats, bribery and even military force to stop union organizing and political change from taking place.

• With this pro-business, anti-worker foreign policy, the U.S. government has sponsored coups, civil wars and dictators in Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras.


My grandparents came from Europe legally. Why can’t people from Mexico and other countries do the same? Why do they butt ahead in line?

• It is not a matter of “butting in line.” There is no line for them to get in! In 2005, the U.S. government gave out only 5,000 permanent legal resident visas for low-skilled workers.

• Even people married to U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents sometimes have to wait years to join their spouses. This is a different situation from the one our grandparents faced.

• Today it is nearly impossible for most people who don’t have relatives here or specialized skills to come at all.


Do immigrants cause unemployment?

• There are not a fixed number of jobs in our economy. The truth is immigrant workers and their families, like all other workers, create jobs at a rate corresponding to those they fill.

• The real causes of unemployment are rooted in the decreasing wages being paid to all workers. Our country’s workers can no longer afford to buy the products they produce.

• Immigrant workers are not responsible for the millions of jobs wiped out by the shutting down of plants across the nation. They are not the cause of massive job loss which occurs when employers increase the workloads of some employees while laying off others.


http://www.pww.org/index.php/article/articleview/12336/1/406

[Bluerthanblue]

1. Excellent info

Thank you for posting this.

k&r

[AlphaCentauri]

4. u r welcome n/t

[muntrv]

2. Mexicans don't drive down wages. Right to work laws do.

[AlphaCentauri]

3. Agree....

We stand for a living wage. Wages are subnormal if they fail to provide a living for those who devote their time and energy to industrial occupations. The monetary equivalent of a living wage varies according to local conditions, but must include enough to secure the elements of a normal standard of living--a standard high enough to make morality possible, to provide for education and recreation, to care for immature members of the family, to maintain the family during periods of sickness, and to permit of reasonable saving for old age.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

http://www.ssa.gov/history/trspeech.html

[blondeatlast]

8. YES! nt

[NNN0LHI]

10. Finally someone said it

Nail hit head time.

Don

[UTUSN]

5. K&R n/t

[progressoid]

6. lots of stuff to read in the sources also...

For more information and sources:

• “They Take Our Jobs! and 20 Other Myths About Immigration” www.beacon.org.

• “The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers” www.monthlyreview.org.

• The Pew Hispanic Center www.pewhispanic.org.

• Migration Policy Institute www.immigrationinformation.org.

• Immigration Policy Center www.immigrationpolicy.org.

• The People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo www.pww.org, and Political Affairs www.politicalaffairs.net.

[underpants]

7. More here

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/underpants/27

[NNN0LHI]

9. If you can hit a fastball you will be here in a jiffy though

Making millions.

Funny how that works.

Don

[blondeatlast]

11. "What is really behind the anti-iimigrant furor?" This hits 'em right where it hurts:

What is really behind the anti-immigrant furor?

• Right-wing politicians and their media supporters want to distract the public’s attention from the scandals of the Bush administration, the war in Iraq, the health care crisis, the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs and the home foreclosures disaster. They are using the “illegal immigrant” scare to do this.

• Big business interests want cheap labor but do not want low-paid workers to have rights. So they whip up scare campaigns against immigrant workers. Their aim is to keep them quiet and underpaid, and the workers divided.

• Hard-core racist forces are using the immigration issue to whip up hate and fear against Mexicans, other Latinos, Africans, Middle Easterners and South Asians. Their strategy is to give legitimacy to racist attitudes and policies in this country. This works to the detriment not only of immigrants but of all U.S. minorities and the rest of us.

[durutti]

12. When I was a canvasser for the AFL-CIO...

We were told to frame the "problem" in this way: it's the "fault" of the corporations who hire undocumented immigrants.

But this is wrong. There's no "problem" to speak of. When it's U.S. policies that have destroyed opportunities for decent employment in Latin America, the U.S. has a *moral responsibility* to allow Latin Americans to seek it in the U.S.

[blondeatlast]

13. So many "progressives" are utterly ignorant about how we've interfered in Mexico and

Central America.

Most of my growing years have been spent in rural Arizona. I was surrounded by migrant workers. They went to our churches, shopped at the same stores, went to the same schools when they could.

It was never a problem and when the issue "exploded" I was dumbfounded. Then I started paying attention to how our government had been interfering in Mexico and Central America and it was very clear they were dusting this up to conceal their guilt.

One of my best friends is in Sonora waiting to be allowed to join her husband and son here and it breaks my heart that this child misses his mom so badly. Just to cover some rich guy's ass. ridiculous.

[spin]

14. So why not change the laws.

Why should Mexicans have to sneak into this country? Why should they be forced to climb border fences or cross barren deserts to come to this country?

They risk their lives to work here. And they work hard, willing to do jobs for greedy employers at wages most legal citizens would refuse. Of course, they fear being caught by the authorities and sent back to Mexico or imprisoned.

5000 legal resident visas? That's ridiculous! We elect people to represent us, both Republican and Democrat, and this is the best they can do.

We need to demand a fair solution to this immigration problem, a solution that is beneficial to both Mexican laborers and to our country. We need to know who crosses our borders and why they are here. The Mexicans workers deserve some form of legal status to protect them from unfair labor practices and exploitation.

But I believe politicians are using immigration from Mexico for their own benefit. Why solve the problem when you can use it to get votes or contributions from employers who love cheap labor?

The Mexican immigration problem is similar to many other problems we face in this country in that it probably won't be resolved.

We need to hold the feet of politicians from both parties to the fire until they start to work together to find solutions to the problems we face. If they don't, perhaps it's time to replace them.

This country should be an example of fairness, democracy and enlightenment for the rest of the world. If we put the right people in office we can approach this ideal. Instead we elect people who engage in petty politics. We insist we have the best form of government and try to impose it across the globe. When we find other people reject us and in fact often hate us, we wonder why. Could it be that we are becoming a nation of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations?

[AlphaCentauri]

15. well said

Mexicans like to leave in their country they just want to survive, if they have the legal means to come and work they would go back to Mexico as soon as they have money to buy a house or a car.

[countryjake]

16. Kick & Recommend!

[mzmolly]

17. Adding to the point above:

Do immigrants drive down U.S. wages?

• It’s true that today U.S. workers are seeing their wages drop. This is especially true for young workers and people of color. But more than anything, this is due to a Congress and a president who refuse to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. It is due to right-wing policies that deny workers the right to form unions.

• Employers will always take advantage of workers who don’t have the right to defend themselves, using one group of vulnerable workers against the rest.

• Immigrants are not the cause of higher unemployment rates of African Americans and other U.S. minorities. The continued toleration of racial discrimination in hiring, the dismantling of affirmative action, and weak labor laws are to blame.

• The only effective response is to fight for equal treatment and equal rights for all workers. That is why the legalization of immigrant workers, with full labor and civil rights, is in the interest of us all.

Bush likes illegal immigration because it creates a cheap work force, let's not deny that.

[countryjake]

19. Organize! Workers United Will Never Be Defeated! n/t

[blondeatlast]

18. Kick. nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. And more:

Myth: Illegal immigrants come here and live off welfare.

Fact: Illegal immigrants are not entitled to welfare benefits. In fact, they would be inclined to avoid contact with welfare offices because the background checks would reveal their illegal status.

Myth: Latino immigrants will never assimilate and will overwhelm the rest of us, remaking this country in their own image.

Fact: The same was said of every large wave of immigrants who came to this country: Germans, Irish, Italians, Jews. You just weren't around to hear those dire predictions.