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.
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.
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Anti-immigration rhetoric is not filed under "Workers' Movements"
19.10.2008 21:58
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
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