Michigan Laws Proposed to Punish Employers Who Hire Illegal Immigrants
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Sheriff's deputy watches illegal immigrants jumping a fence in Texas, powerless to stop the flood. This photo is being used by conservative groups in Michigan to reinforce the need for illegal immigration controls.
Migrant laborers till fields in Monitor Township off Four Mile Road on a hot summer day in July 2005.
The flood of 37.9 million immigrants in the United States, largest in the nation's history, is beginning to affect Michigan.
Here are some reasons why:
A third of the immigrants are illegals,
83 percent of immigrant households have at least one worker, taking American jobs, and
the immigrant poverty rate is 17 percent, double the U.S. rate, according to a recent study.
Michigan reportedly has about 70,000 illegal immigrants at present, placing the state 16th in the nation.
By contrast, California has 2.2 million illegals, Texas over a million and New York about half a million.
This situation costs tax money for education welfare and prisons and reduces Michigan's representation in Congress. Based on estimates, the cost to Michigan could be over $200 million a year.
Aside from some cherry pickers near Traverse City and potato diggers near Muskegon, Michigan is not a destination for immigrants.
While Bay City in the 1940s had a heavy migrant influx working sugar beets, only rarely are they used on farms near here now.
In fact a national scandal involving poor housing conditions for migrant farm workers here was created in 1940 when a Bay City Times reporter, Leonard Jackson, won the Heywood Broun Award for his expose.
Things were different then since the migrant farm workers returned to Mexico at the end of the harvest. As the years went on more and more began to stay, and now the intent in coming by many is to establish permanent residency.
A few years ago there were about 25 camps for hundreds of sought-after migrant laborers in Bay County. Now there are three camps in Bay County with 11 living units that are state-certified for 78 workers.
Farmers and officials in farm support agencies say the reason for the drop in the number of workers here is the importation of pickling cucumbers from India. (Please see MyBayCity.com July 24, 2005, "Migrant Workers Crunched by Pickling Cucumbers from India.")
With immigration reform bogged down in Washington, some Michigan legislators are pushing laws to punish employers who hire illegal immigrants.
The presence of illegal aliens in other states caused Indiana, Michigan, and Mississippi to each lose one seat in the House in 2000, while Montana failed to gain a seat it otherwise would have. According to CIS, illegal immigration not only redistributes seats in the House, it affects a state's clout in presidential elections because the Electoral College is based on the size of congressional delegations.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reports that analysis of an estimated 100,000 illegal alien population in Tennessee indicates that they cost the state more than $285 million per year for education, medical care and incarceration. Read the full report at fairus.org.
FAIR estimates that in 2007 the illegal alien population is above 13 million persons. Government estimates were that in 2006 there were 11 to 12 million illegal aliens in the United States.
From 1965 to 2002 Michigan admitted about 446,000 immigrants, according to state estimates. Amnesty was granted large numbers of illegals in 1986.
Michigan admits more than 20,000 immigrants each year.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), disputes the underlying assumption of the Bush Administration enabling high illegal immigration, that immigrants are doing jobs Americans don't want.
Krikorian says by holding down natural wage growth in labor-intensive industries, immigration serves as a subsidy for low-wage, low-productivity ways of doing business, retarding technological progress and productivity growth.
This week in Lansing Democrats and Republicans were wrangling on immigration legislation.
Among bills in the hopper are those requiring citizenship listing on driver's licenses and specifying English as the official state language.
Another provision would prohibit local governments from creating rules on immigration issues.
Democratic House members recently proposed bills making it a felony to hire an illegal immigrant. Penalties for violations could include fines of up to $250,000 and five years in prison for multiple offenses.
A study by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) found that the foreign-born make up one-eighth (12.5 percent) of the nation's population, the highest level since 1920. Over half the immigrants are from Latin America, about a sixth from Asia, and about an eighth from Europe. Nearly one in three arrived in the United States illegally, according to CIS.
Adrian Vazquez, spokesman for the Michigan Organizing Project, an immigrant rights group, told the media recently that his group opposes punitive legislation against illegal immigrants. Mr. Vazquez said immigrants should not have to pay for a flawed federal immigration system but said it should be fixed by the government.
More than 60 percent of immigrants go to California, New York, Florida, Texas or New Jersey although recently they have begun to spread out across the country. For example, Georgia and North Carolina immigrant populations have skyrocketed an estimated 300 percent and 32 states and the District of Columbia showed significant immigrant population growth.
The CIS study found that immigrants are more likely to live in poverty or receive government subsidies than those born in the country. Besides the 17 percent of the immigrant population in poverty, another 26 percent is near poverty. Thirty-four percent lack health insurance of any kind, compared to only 13 percent of the native-born population. And, about one in three immigrants require at least one form of cash assistance, food assistance or Medicaid benefits.
Undereducated immigrants are disproportionately poor and therefore likely to receive welfare and other benefits. Among adult immigrants, 31 percent do not have high school diplomas, compared to 8 percent of persons born in the United States. That skews the high school graduation percentage among the population as a whole, the study said.
A Pew Hispanic Center study found that the inability to speak English limits economic and social mobility. The increase in immigrants without a high school education indicates the immigrant population will continue to struggle, the center concluded.###
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efindla Says:
On July 15, 2009
at 07:46 PM
Thanks for this interesting article about migrant workers in contemporary Bay County. Just a few quick corrections. Leonard Jackson's award-winning expose on the conditions of migrant workers was published in 1950, not 1940. Also, he wrote solely about Puerto Ricans, who had been flown in for that summer only, and whose vociferous protests to their own government in the Caribbean sparked the interest of liberal church and labor groups in Michigan. He unfortunately, like most other reform advocates of the day, ignored the plight of Mexicans and Texans of Mexican descent, who were suffering the same conditions as the Puerto Ricans, and had been for decades. His work was laudable, it unfortunately set other exploited folks up for further marginalization!
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