In the third installment of my four-part series of some of the myths by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) about the Gang of Eight immigration bill, I take a deeper look at his claims that the bill modernizes our legal immigration system and grows our economy.
Modernizing our Legal Immigration System Will Grow our Economy and Create Jobs
Rubio Speak
The modernization of our legal immigration system will be a net benefit for America as we make historic reforms towards a more merit-based immigration system that will help us attract entrepreneurs, innovators, investors, skilled workers and people driven by the desire to build a better life for themselves and, in turn, create jobs for American workers.
The Truth about Rubio Amnesty
- Their argument is immigrants make the population grow which makes the economy bigger which increases the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Any increase in the GDP is always good. Ipso facto, all immigration is good for the economy. While it is undeniably true that growing the U.S. population makes the economy larger and that usually results in an increase in the GDP, it does not necessarily result in a per capita increase in GDP, meaning the benefits that accrue to each individual.
- The U.S. immigration system over the last 30 years has functioned in a way that the economic benefits of immigration accrue to immigrants and those who employ immigrants (both legal and illegal – including guest workers).
- Furthermore, immigrants send part of their wages back to their home countries, taking that money out of the U.S. economy. In 2011, remittances to Latin America alone totaled $61 billion.
- Foreign guest workers displace American workers and drive down wages in both low- and high-skill occupations.
- Illegal immigration, and amnestying low-skilled illegal aliens, hurts the most vulnerable Americans, taking away job opportunities for the less-educated and disproportionally hurting minorities.
- During the so-called recovery following the 2007 recession, foreign workers have been hired at a much higher rate than Americans. If Sen. Rubio’s bill is passed, displacement will accelerate.
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Keep in mind that this bill will up our already high legal immigration by 50%, add hundreds of thousands of guest workers on top of that, and will immediately allow in all those on family reunification wait lists, even if they would normally have to wait a decade or more. We are talking many more millions of people above the present levels. And we can’t even keep track or do proper checks on those coming in now, through the same legal channels that will supposedly check all these people out. We need to CUT immigration, not expand it. Do we really want more of those who only see this country as a welfare check?
Guys Like Rubio, Funded by Foreign Corporate Brainwasher Lobbyists
Also falsely allege there’s a shortage of engineers in America, when in fact there’s a HUGE GLUT. they want unlimited H-1Bs too.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says it all. During 2006-2010, America butcher axed about 150K engineer jobs. BLS alleges though, that by 2020 America will add 250K [mostly Civil Engineers] to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure….as if BLS is capable of reading tea leaves 7 years in the future and IMO, America’s bankrupt and there’s no way we’ll ever rebuild our infrastructuere on debt.
I estimate most of the MASSIVE BUTCHER AXING of American engineer jobs were in automotive and space [shutdown of NASA]….and those “made in America” foreign cars use almost all FOREIGN ENGINEERS. Only Dodge, Chevy and Ford use mostly domestic engineers.
Asian Overlords control a lion’s share of our manufacturing today. Yes, American wages will be BUTCHER AXED for blue collar American manufacturing too….its already happenning. The Immigration Bill is the foreign corporate supply of CHEAP LABOR.
You might also note that the entire increase in poverty between 1996 and 2006 was due to the addition of 3 million Hispanics to the poverty rolls, paraphrasing Robert Samuelson from the Washington Post column of 9/5/2007.
Rubio is pushing the US Chamber of Commerce approach to immigration. This approach maximizes the negative impact immigration has on labor.