Skip to content or view screen version

Hidden Article

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

If U.S. Economy Crashes—Will Pres. Obama Stop Illegal Aliens Taking U.S. Jobs?

Robert O'Malley | 19.10.2008 20:45 | Analysis | Workers' Movements | World

How might U.S. illegal immigration policy change if U.S. unemployment and the economy seriously worsen?

In the U.S. millions of illegal Immigrants now work in manufacturing, construction, restaurant, and hospitality service jobs. The U.S. national unemployment rate is approximately 6.1%. Several U.S. Cities are experiencing higher unemployment as the U.S. financial crisis reaches “Main Street.”

How might U.S. illegal immigration policy change if U.S. unemployment and the economy seriously worsen? It is foreseeable that at some point—Americans will demand that President Obama take action to ensure that U.S. jobs are not taken by illegal aliens, jobs U.S. Citizens need to feed their families. Consequently it might not be the Congress that decides the future of illegal immigrants but a failing U.S. economy that forces millions of illegal aliens to return to their country.

If the U.S. Economy keeps “contracting” it is foreseeable millions of laid-off workers and other U.S. Citizens will demand that employers who illegally hire illegal immigrants be aggressively prosecuted

Compare past U.S. unemployment: in November and December of 1982 near the end of a bad recession that was small compared to the current U.S. financial crisis, the U.S. unemployment rate reached 10.8 percent. After the Great Depression began in 1929 U.S. unemployment remained constant at about 14.4 percent for ten years: several U.S. Cities experienced 25% unemployment. Then as the economy worsened, economic production plummeted to over 50 percent especially in the durable manufacturing sector.

Robert O'Malley

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

Anti-immigration rhetoric is not filed under "Workers' Movements"

19.10.2008 21:58

The phrase "illegal alien" is a strange one, this side of the pond - it doesn't mean a great deal to us. But the British reactionary equivalent - "illegal immigrant" - is well understood by the nasty right over here. Your post seems to suggest that Obama *should* be tough on immigrants, whereas most people at IndyMedia would oppose that position, seeing it as borne of racism and the divisive effects of capitalism.

Surely Obama is bad enough (on Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia/Russia, Latin America, Cuba etc) without you encouraging the American Democratic "left" to be even meaner? Perhaps in the comments you might give us an idea what makes someone "illegal" to your mind - is it that they were "unlucky" enough to have been born outside the US? Have you not considered that it might be the "Washington Consensus" - which of course is not a consensus at all - that might be responsible for the poor economic state of their home countries in the first place?

Jon


If the world needs failures it can ask the right wingnuts to oblige

20.10.2008 00:41

Surely the aliens are those who arrive in an economy, siphon out billions of dollars and then leave behind wreckage. The idea that this is the act of a Mexican earning below minimum wage is curious. The amount of economic activity of all the Mexican Migrants - both legal and illegal - is estimated to be substantially less than the Eleven Trillion Dollar Derivatives Market that has helped to create the current crisis.

If Obama has any sense he will simply abolish the distinction between migrant and resident as an unwholesome and pointless distinction. This will then compel the Market Aliens to pay everybody, regardless of whatever contrived status they are currently assigned, a humane and civilised amount for working.

The rhetoric of "clamping down" on illegal aliens simply reiterates the failed political and economic policies that have created the current situation. If Obama responds in those terms then, tragically, he will be ensuring those failures are perpetuated. While the right wingnuts are failures, there is no purpose in the left accepting that failure should spread to the rest of society.

A Hockey Mom