Sometimes I get criticized by other progressives for my stands on immigration. I think folks at Vdare.com should know that I’m not the only one. Here are some articles from CommonDreams.org–a leading progressive publication.

Recently George W. Bush insulted working Americans by saying that we need eleven million illegal immigrants here in the United States because (in a slightly cleaned-up version of the more blatantly racist comments of Vicente Fox) there are some jobs that “American’s won’t do.” As the modern-day Sago miners, and the 1950s Ed Norton character Art Carney played on the old Jackie Gleason show (who worked in the sewers of NYC) prove, the reality is that there are virtually no jobs Americans won’t do - for an appropriate paycheck.
Illegal Workers - the Con’s Secret Weapon

If illegal immigrants could no longer work, unions would flourish, the minimum wage would rise, and oligarchic nations to our south would have to confront and fix their corrupt ways.

Between the Reagan years - when there were only around 1 to 2 million illegal aliens in our workforce - and today, we’ve gone from about 25 percent of our private workforce being unionized to around seven percent. Much of this is the direct result - as Caesar Chávez predicted - of illegal immigrants competing directly with unionized and legal labor. Although it’s most obvious in the construction trades over the past 30 years, it’s hit all sectors of our economy.
Today’s Immigration Battle - Corporatists vs. Racists (and Labor is Left Behind)

Assuming Congress could ever escape the moneyed clutches of the immigration lobbies, what would an effective immigration policy be?

It could follow Hunter and build a triple fence from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, 1,275 miles, complete with lighting, border towers and hundreds of guards. Based on the cost of the present fence, that would cost around $227 million, and probably force Mexicans, like Cubans and Haitians, into the seas.

Or we could introduce forge-proof identity cards, like a biometric Social Security card, at a fraction of the cost and the humiliation.

It’s up to you, Congress. Serious immigration policy or more grandstanding?
A Fence Won’t Stem the Tide of Immigration

Colorado’s open borders Gov. Bill Owens’ (RINO) appearance last Friday on Lou Dobbs’ Show may have some thinking that our globalist Guv is on our side (not!). In the past three years, Owens’ surrendered both the Republican-held State Assembly and Senate to pro-invasion Democrats, and cast a key Republican US Senate seat to Democrat Ken Salazar–who is rated D- on immigration.

Owens was on Dobbs on the 3rd Anniversary of a key victory for him: the 2003 Good Friday passage of Colorado’s misnamed Secure and Verifiable ID Act, which his minion — former State Senator John Andrews (R) — amended to create de facto sanctuary for many criminal aliens and to extend unlimited benefits for illegals with anchor babies/children up to age five. (See Colorado Revised Statutes, Applicability section 24-72.1-106 and 42 USC sec 1786.)

Dobbs reported that Colorado has the fastest growing population of illegal aliens in the country, noting that, “In a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal this week, Gov. Owens wrote, “Perhaps the most significant transformation of our state’s economy, culture and character is the extraordinary growth in the number of illegal aliens.”[Transcript]

Owens himself has engineered a massive illegal invasion of Colorado, expressly inviting via his warm welcome and signed endorsement of a Spanish-only How-To-Guide for illegals, the aforementioned statute, and his total failure to act on behalf of Americans in this matter. His “solutions” to the monumental problems he has created include his support for a guest worker program, and last December, the Denver Post revealed his plan: “

Owens said choosing reputable corporations such as American Express or First Data [parent company of Western Union] to administer the [guest-worker visa program] would preclude fraud.”

Recently, in a tax-grab (Ref. C), CEO Owens — who likes to say he is the “most fiscally conservative governor in the West” – admitted he had no clue how much illegal aliens cost Colorado taxpayers. As for those of us who, on October 6, 2005, hand-delivered to Owens’ office at the State Capitol signed petitions asking him to declare a state of emergency in Colorado in response to the illegal alien crisis, and issue Executive Orders allocating overflow holding areas for criminal aliens (stopping dangerous catch-and-release policies) and ending State and local sanctuary polices….well, we’re still waiting for Owens’ reply.

In the meantime, Owens is pointing a crooked finger south, saying we just might need a border fence (he guessed on radio that the Mexican-American border measured about 900 miles, and was discreety corrected by the talk show hosts that it is twice that length.) He has said nothing about deporting the hundreds of thousands of illegals his personal efforts have brought here.

Owens, a Texas native and reportedly a long time friend of President Jorge must be recognized for what he is: an open-borders adversary.

That’s a wrap, Lou.

Economic View

Cost of Illegal Immigration May Be Less Than Meets the Eye
By Eduardo Porter

CALIFORNIA may seem the best place to study the impact of illegal immigration on the prospects of American workers. Hordes of immigrants rushed into the state in the last 25 years, competing for jobs with the least educated among the native population. The wages of high school dropouts in California fell 17 percent from 1980 to 2004.

But before concluding that immigrants are undercutting the wages of the least fortunate Americans, perhaps one should consider Ohio. Unlike California, Ohio remains mostly free of illegal immigrants. And what happened to the wages of Ohio’s high school dropouts from 1980 to 2004? They fell 31 percent.

As Congress debates an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, several economists and news media pundits have sounded the alarm, contending that illegal immigrants are causing harm to Americans in the competition for jobs.

Yet a more careful examination of the economic data suggests that the argument is, at the very least, overstated. There is scant evidence that illegal immigrants have caused any significant damage to the wages of American workers.

An accompanying graphic shows that a high school dropout in California, where supposedly 6.9% of the population are illegal immigrants, averages $8.71 per hour in wages versus merely $8.37 in Ohio, where only 1.0% are illegal immigrants.

Case closed!

Well, no, not exactly. What about the cost of living difference between California and Ohio? Don’t they tell you in Econ 101 and in Journalism 101 to always adjust for the cost of living?

According to the data gathered by the nonprofit organization ACCRA, which measures cost of living so corporations can fairly adjust the salaries of employees they relocate, California has the highest cost of living in the country with an index of 150.8 (where 100 is the national norm). Ohio is below average at 95.4. So, relative to the national average cost of living, high school dropouts in Ohio average $8.77 versus $5.78 for the equivalent in California. That means they are 52% better off in Ohio.

So, the Law of Supply and Demand hasn’t been repealed after all…

One obvious cause of this huge difference in the cost of living is that during the same 1980 to 2004 period, housing inflation in California was 315% versus 155% in Ohio, according to the Laboratory of the States.

Even failing to adjust for the striking disparities in the inflation rate between Ohio and California, one obvious differences is that high school dropouts used to be paid a lot more in Ohio, probably due to greater unionization. In contrast, Southern California was traditionally anti-union. The 1980 wage in Ohio was $12.13 versus $10.49 in California. Obviously, the decline in unionized heavy industry jobs hit rust belt Ohio harder than growing California, which had fewer unionized heavy industry jobs to lose.

Here’s the data from the NYT’s graphic, in which 9 states were cherry-picked to make it look like the higher the percentage of illegal immigrants in a state’s population, the better off high school dropouts are (r=+0.58). I’ve added the two right hand columns to adjust for the big cost of living differences. We then find a negative correlation of r = -0.46 between the percentage of illegal immigrants and the cost-of-living-adjusted median wage for high school dropouts. Quite a difference!

The point that is constantly overlooked is that American citizens ought to be compensated with higher wages for moving from their native state to fast growing states to meet the demand for labor. But, instead, illegal immigrants are beating them to the boomtowns, driving down wages.

You might expect that economists will write in to the New York Times en masse to protest this fiasco of an “Economic View” article. But you would be wrong, because professional standards mean nothing when the topic is immigration.

Interpreting these numbers sensibly doesn’t require a mastery of quantum mechanics. It’s all just Econ 101, but the American upper middle class so despises the American working class today that self-evidently shoddy thinking deleterious to the welfare of the American working man is routinely trumpeted in both conservative newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and liberal newspapers like the New York Times.