CHAPTER 15 THE "QUESTION" OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND GUESTWORKERS Illegal immigration is reaching alarming dimensions...the United States is probably undergoing now the greatest surge of immigration in its history...totally out of control...They often hold good paying jobs at the expense of a citizen...displacing citizens and legal resident aliens by working at less than standard wages...Immigration fraud is rampant...illegals cost our taxpayers over $13 billion a year in services, welfare, unemployment and costs of citizens displaced from jobs...illegal aliens send about $3 billion each year out of the country...hundreds of millions of dollars each year are lost to our nation's treasury through earnings paid to illegal aliens, on which little, if any, income tax is paid. Leonard Chapman, then-Commissioner, Immigration and Naturalization Service (1976) The subject of illegal immigration raises emotions and-- aside from studies of the volume of illegal immigration--is of little theoretical interest. But the subject must be dealt with because it distracts attention from legal immigration; one can hardly mention legal immigration without the conversation immediately shifting to illegals. There is less solid data about illegals than we would like.1 But it should be noted that we are not entirely without data. There is far more information on the subject than is often supposed, enough to put to rest many of the prevailing myths about illegals. Even when they apparently are addressing themselves to the more general question of legal immigration, the most active anti- immigration organizations -- Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR), Zero Population Growth (ZPG), and The Environmental Fund (TEF) -- constantly harp on the theme that we are being "overwhelmed" by a horde of illegal Mexican entrants. They dwell on the "loss of control of our borders". The frightening assertions in the press feed upon each other as one newspaper simply refers to a story in another paper as its "evidence." For example, in the Christian Science Monitor (reprinted in the C-U News Gazette, March 28, 1983, p. A-4), Richard Strout, often called by some of his colleagues the "most respected" reporter in Washington, quotes the New York Times as saying: "The stream of illegal aliens pouring into the United States has become a torrent...the Border Patrol is inundated." And an Associate Attorney General says, without supporting evidence, that: "In the next 20 years the Caribbean world may attempt to empty out much of its population on our shores as political and economic pressure throughout the area continues to build," and then is so quoted by Strout. This image of the situation as being--in ex-Commissioner Chapman's words quoted above--"totally out of control" inspires fear of chaos and social breakdown, as well as concern about large-scale loss of jobs by natives. Illegal immigration allegedly hurts everyone except business and agriculture. And for good measure, everyone is supposedly hurt in more than one role-- as American workers, property owners, taxpayers, teenagers, users of government services, and so on. Even scarier is the plight of future Americans who will face supposed shortages of food and resources, caused by a horde of alien mouths to feed and bodies to house. Moreover, the illegal immigrants themselves, by being induced to break the law, are said to be--in the words of FAIR's executive director (Conner 1980), "exploited and mistreated, denied ... rights and privileges." And Conner continues with the dark allegation that "powerful economic forces are benefiting" from the illegal immigration, and presumably are the cause of its continuation. Senator Alan Simpson, driving force behind the 1986 congressional legislation, said "we had something like that [illegal immigration] about 125 years ago; it was called slavery," (Cato Policy Report, September, October, 1986, p. 8). It is outside an economist's professional competence to speculate about why the organizations which are generally against population growth and immigration constantly shift the discussion to illegals. There is no doubt, though, that this focus on illegals and their alleged ill effects colors people's views about the subject of legal immigration. (See Appendix B.) The stock and flow of illegal persons working and living in the United States in any given period, thorny and vexing questions, will be discussed first. Presented next are the data on the extent of use by immigrants of welfare services, and the incidence of payment of taxes by them. Next comes a brief discussion of the labor-market effects of illegals. Then follows analysis of the effect of a guestworker program on the flow of illegals and upon the economy. Last is a discussion of the issue of illegality and its social effects. ESTIMATES OF THE TOTAL AND MEXICAN ILLEGAL POPULATIONS Stocks of Immigrants The number of aliens illegally residing and working in the United States is a issue that enters into the discussion in many ways. It is the focus of the writings of those who oppose immigration, and it is used to generate strong feelings on the grounds that it causes a breakdown in law and order in the country, and corrupts attitudes toward the law. Huge numbers are thrown around to suggest that the United States is vulnerable to invasion or other unnamed dangers because Americans have "lost control of our borders". Let us, then, examine the available research on the number of aliens illegally in the United States, beginning with a brief history of such estimates. We shall see that the evidence for the largest and most frightening estimates that have been given is shockingly flimsy or even non-existent. There seems to be a strong inverse relationship between the quality of the research and the size of the estimate. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has given a variety of high estimates, starting as high as 12 million. But as noted by a study made by the Bureau of the Census staff at the request of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy: "A description of the `methodology' underlying Commissioner Chapman's estimate of 4-12 million for 1975 has never been made available by the INS" (Siegel, Passel and Robinson, 1980, p.16). Apparently this estimate was based on nothing more than a wild guess based on the number of illegals apprehended either crossing the border or on the job. The INS gave no reference to evidence in support of this estimate. And apprehension records are obviously a fallacious basis on which to make any such estimate; the same person may be apprehended several times during a single week. The INS later shifted its estimate to 8.2 million persons as of mid-1975, deriving the figure from a Lesko Associates study (1975) it had commissioned. The basis for the estimate was the "Delphi technique", a fancy name for asking a small panel of people for a series of opinions. The technique may be quite appropriate for such tasks as forecasting technological developments. But for a subject such as the number of illegals, the technique fits Samuel Johnson's stricture that a compendium of gossip is still gossip. Even Lesko called the estimate "not analytically defensible." Yet for a long time this estimate was the basis for much of the political debate on the subject. The INS then offered an estimate of 6 million illegals as of 1976. This was derived by asking INS District Directors to estimate the number of illegals residing in their districts. According to the Bureau of the Census description: The district offices were asked to provide, in addition to estimates of illegals for their districts, a description of the methodology used to generate the estimates. None gave specific procedures. Rather, all but one referrred to the `experience' of officials as the basis for the estimate; the other claimed no `scientific' basis at all for his estimate. Thus, the overall estimate may be characterized as `synthetic speculation'. (Siegel et. al., 1981, p.17). Ingenious statisticians have tackled the question in a variety of interesting ways, including: analysis of alien deaths in the United States (Robinson, 1979); changes in Mexico's population (Goldberg, 1974); comparisons of data such as Social Security and income-tax records in which illegal aliens are fairly sure to be counted (Lancaster and Scheuren, 1978; Korns, 1979); analysis of changes in the Mexican-origin population reported by the Current Population Survey (Heer, 1979); and surveys of persons returning to Mexico, and of Mexican families, concerning their migration histories (Ceniet, 1979a; 1979b). This is a summary of information on the stock of illegals: 1) The admirably careful and thoughtful survey of literature by Siegel et al. concluded that "The total number of illegal residents in the United States for some recent year, such as 1978, is almost certainly below 6.0 million, and may be substantially less, possibly only 3.5 to 5.0 million" (1981, p.19). 2) Siegel et. al. also concluded from the variety of studies they surveyed that a considerable proportion of the illegals are not Mexican. "The available evidence indicates that the size of the Mexican population living illegally in the United States is smaller than popular estimates suggest. The Mexican component of the illegally resident population is almost certainly less than 3.0 million, and may be substantially less, possibly only 1.5 to 2.5 million." 3) Of the Mexicans illegally in the United States at any given time, a very large proportion are here for a matter of months and will return voluntarily. "The gross movement into the United States of Mexican illegals is considerable, as is reflected in the large unmbers of apprehensions made by INS, but this `immigration' is largely offset by a considerable movement in the opposite direction...Apparently, most of the Mexican nationals who enter the United States illegally in any year return to Mexico..." (pp. 33-34). The quotation marks that Siegel et. al. put around "immigration" in the citation just above are worth noting. Their aim is to distinguish the number of persons presently living in the U. S. at any given mement -- "possibly only 3.5 to 5.0 million" -- from the number of permanent illegal immigrants, which is a considerably smaller number. But the INS blurs the distinction which leads to higher numbers rather than lower numbers. 4) Korn's study (1979) of illegal-alien employment suggested that there was no increase in the total number of illegals after an expansion period that occurred between 1964 and 1969. And the Census Bureau's Associate Director for Demographic Fields, George E. Hall, commented that "To date, the Census Bureau has not been able to detect explosive growth in the illegal population in any of its data collection systems." (1981, p. 8). It is because most immigrants who enter illegally leave when their jobs end or when they have earned what they came to earn, usually after a half-year or less, that there can be a constant inflow and yet little or no increase in the total number of immigrant residents. 5) In contrast to the Mexicans, the non-Mexican illegals -- who typically either overstay their visa periods or enter with fraudulent documents, rather than by crossing the border clandestinely without documents -- are much less likely to return to the home countries. "Hence, non-Mexican illegal immigration may add to the permanent resident population to a far greater extent than the Mexican migration flows", conclude Siegel et. al., on the basis of the studies surveyed. This last point suggests that expensive efforts to reduce clandestine border crossing may be a waste. Some valuable studies done since the Siegel et. al. review in 1980 must be described in some detail because, whereas the earlier studies summarized above were reviewed by Siegel et. al., the reader cannot rely upon Siegel et. al.'s assurance that the procedures render these newer studies worthy of attention. 6. Warren and Passell compared the 1980 census count of aliens "with estimates of the legally resident alien population based on data collected by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in January 1980" (1983, abstract). This comparison yielded estimates of the minimum total number of all illegals (about 2 million) and of Mexican illegals (over 900,000) living in the U.S. as of 1980. On the basis of what the Census Bureau has learned about the rate of undercounting of various other groups, however, the authors are able to make some reasonable suppositions beyond the observed magnitudes. For example, they note (p.12) that if there were to be six million illegals in the country, a 60% undercount rate by the Census would be implied, and they add that "undercount rates of this magnitude seem improbable in light of the characteristics of the illegals counted [large proportions of women and children, and almost 30% of the counted having been in the U. S. more than 10 years] and of persons usually missed in the census". They note that (a) "the highest undercount rates measured recently for any group in the U. S. are roughly 20 percent for adult black males in their 30's", (b) very few housing units were missed, and (c) the undercount was about one percent for the legal population. They conclude that "the assumption of extreme undercount rates for the illegal population would require substantial evidential support". In other words, estimates far above the minimum levels they estimated would run counter to their evidence.2 Muller (1984) corroborates part of the Warren-Passell assumptions about the rates of undercount, finding that "School enrollment data for all children and for children of Hispanic origin correspond closely with the Census estimates in both Los Angeles County and California [as a whole] suggesting that the Census did enumerate most Mexican immigrant families with children, whatever their legal status" (p.5). This implies that it is only the more recent immigrants, many of whom do not themselves know how long they intend to stay, who are substantially undercounted. Among those more recent immigrants, who tend to be single young males, Muller believes the undercount is "considerable", based on a sex-ratio comparison. (In total, he estimates that "between 200,000 and 300,000 undocumented persons were not enumerated in Southern California, with Mexicans probably accounting for somewhat over one-half of the total;" [p.5]). Another implication of Muller's estimates of undercounts is that there is little underenumeration among those illegal immigrants who use schools, which are the most expensive public services for immigrants. "Most of the immigrants not counted by the Census will have no effect on such public services such as school and social services relevant for families. In fact those immigrants probably pay more in taxes and compulsory public program contributions than they receive" even though their incomes and tax payments are considerably lower than the average for natives (p.5). Muller's overall estimate is a total of 1,086,000 illegal net immigrants entering into California in the 1970-1980 period, of whom he estimates 589,000 to be from Mexico and 497,000 from elsewhere. What this implies for all-U. S. estimates was not worked out by Muller. 7. Bean, King, and Passell (1983) calculated the number of illegal Mexicans in the U. S. in 1980 from the Mexican census, from assumptions about sex ratio at birth, the proportion male of emigrants age 15-39, and the proportion of all emigrants that are age 15-39, together with U. S. data on the number of legal immigrants (subtracted from the total of all emigrants). Their estimates range from 1.5 million to 3.9 million, depending upon the assumptions. The lower end of the range -- rather than their midpoint of 2.7 million -- would seem the most likely in view of the undercount analysis of Warren and Passell. Even 2.7 million Mexicans would imply an undercount of 2.7 million-.93 million = (1.77/2.7 =) 62%, which is higher than seems plausible. If we assume that half of the Mexicans illegally in the U. S. stay for only a short time and are not therefore immigrants, an assumption backed by various surveys reviewed by Siegel et. al., then the maximum number of Mexican illegal immmigrants as of 1980 was less than 2 million. Even that number, together with the Warren-Passell findings above, would imply an undercount in the census of about 50%, which does not seem plausible in light of undercount experience, Warren and Passel suggest. If we take the midpoint of the Bean et. al. estimates, 2.7 million, and consider that half -- 1.35 million are permanent immigrants -- then this would imply an undercount of 31%, which is still high but perhaps plausible. The implication of these findings about the number of permanent illegal Mexican immigrants in the country is surprising. If, say, half of 5 million illegals in the country at any one time are Mexican, this implies 2.5 million illegal Mexican residents. And if more than half of them intend not to remain permanently, then something less than 1.25 million Mexicans are true illegal immigrants -- less than a million if the lower estimate of the Census Bureau study is correct. This certainly is not a large number by any economic test, and it certainly is far less than the frightening figures promulgated widely in the past decade. In reflecting on these stocks of illegals in the country at any time, one should keep in mind that the number of workers is less than the total number of persons. 9. The most recent study of immigration statistics, by the National Academy of Sciences, concluded as follows about the stock of illegals: "As a result of this review of empirical estimates of the size of the illegal population of the United States, what can we conclude? First, the procedures that have been used, though often imaginative and sometimes elaborate, all invoke numerous assumptions that often cannot be adequately justified and to which the estimates obtained are sensitive. Second, even the commonly quoted range of 3-6 million illegals may to too high, though none of the procedures reviewed produces compelling upper or lower limits. The study by Warren and Passell suggests that it is unlikely that less than 1.5 million or more than 2.5 million illegal aliens were included in the 1980 census; locations data suggest that a figure under half a million is unlikely; Mexican census data fail to confirm the permanent absence in 1980 of more than half a million Mexicans who might be illegally resident in the United States, and the figure could be substantially lower. Though no range can be soundly defended, a population of 1.5 to 3.5 million illegal aliens in 1980 appears reasonably consistent with most of the studies." (Levine, Hill, and Warren, 1985, p. 243.) The most recent, and probably the best estimate, then, is l.5 to 3.5 million illegal aliens resident in the U.S. as of 1980. Rate of Entry in Various Periods Information about the rate of entry of illegals in various periods in the past is of interest for several reasons, perhaps chief among them that it may help to estimate the stock of illegal alien residents and of illegal immigrants in the past and present. Here follow some relevant materials: 1. Between the expansion that occurred between 1964 and 1969 and the end of his study period, Korns' study (1979) of illegal alien employment, (of sufficiently high quality that Siegel et. al. include it in their review), implied a zero rate of entry, suggesting that there has been no increase in the total number of illegals. This estimate provides a lower limit to the range of estimates in other studies, which suggest that there has been an increase. (Compare FAIR's Conner about the same date: "Any estimate of the number of illegal immigrants living in the United States is only a guess, but we know that the trend is upward" [1980].) 2. The Census Bureau's then-Associate Director for Demographic Fields, George E. Hall, commented that "To date [1981], the Census Bureau has not been able to detect explosive growth in the illegal population in any of its data collection systems" (p. 8), implying a low rate of net entry. 3. Warren and Passel's study (1983) offers some insight into the rate at which illegals who have remained in the U. S. have entered in various periods. They counted 570,000 as having entered 1960-1969, 551,000 as having entered 1970-1974 (roughly double the rate in the earlier period), and 890,000 as having entered 1975-1980. The comparable numbers for Mexico alone are 138,000, 280,000, and 476,000 (see their Table 3). Two offsetting forces must be considered when we consider the latest period's data: On the one hand, the undercount is likely to be more severe among those here a shorter time and therefore less well- established; on the other hand, a substantial number counted as being here in the most recent group are not permanent but rather will be returning home, especially Mexicans. Taken altogether, these data suggest some rise in the rate of entry, but not an explosive rise. On the basis of the Current Population Survey, Woodrow, Passell and Warren (1987) summarize the situation since 1980 as follows: "Comparing the November 1979 and June 1986 estimates, the estimated annual change is 218,000, with 115,000 for Mexico as country of birth. The annual changes estimated for other regions of birth are low, but positive. The estimated average annual change in the undocumented population between the 1980 census and June 1986 was 176,000. The estimated annual change in the Mexico-born undocumented population was 170,000. . . The annual average change in the undocumented population is likely to be in the range of 100,000 to 300,000. More than half of the growth is likely to be of Mexican birth." (1987, p. 3). Passage of the 1986 immigration legislation may have altered the situation significantly, but information on the matter has not yet come to light. 4. It has been common among both laymen and demographers to infer rates of gross and net illegal from the rates of apprehensions by the INS. And frequently, authors show the data starting, say, 1965 as proving a rising rate of entry (e. g. Fogel, 1977). Perhaps so. But a longer time series puts the recent data in perspective, as seen in Figure 15-1. The very high rates in 1953 and 1954 and before were due to an INS campaign to "apprehend all illegal agricultural workers, return them to Mexico and enter them in the official program" (Keely, 1982, p. 44), and hence one cannot infer rates of entry from these observations. Nevertheless, the rates of apprehension prior to 1960 stand as a warning about the use of apprehensions data as the basis for inference about rates of gross and net entry. Figure 15-1 also suggests a strong relationship between illegal entry and a legal guestworker program, corroborating that the two kinds of labor are close substitutes for each other. And all else being equal, employers would prefer to hire legal workers in preference to illegals because the wages paid tend to be the same (for data on illegal female workers in Los Angeles, see R. Simon and DeLey, 1984) and there is less uncertainty about how long legal workers will remain on the job because they are not in danger of being apprehended. Care must be taken in extrapolating the relationship seen in Figure 15-1, however, because the nature of illegal immigration Figure 15-1 ----------- changes over the years as networks between the U.S. and places of origin build up, as learning takes place, and as attachments form within the U.S. This complex process is well-described by Massey (1986). DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF THE ILLEGALS The staff of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy surveyed the available studies of illegals and compiled the following generalizations about their age and sex: 1. The illegals are "predominantly male" (1981, Staff Report, p. 485). The proportion varies from study to study. A survey of the most recent literature found that "Estimates of the percentage of males among Mexican migrant workers range from 67 percent to 91 percent" (Taylor, 1985, p. 7). Among Mexicans the male proportion is higher than among non-Mexicans. 2. The illegals are "young (between the ages of 15 and 45)" (p. 485). The median age is in the middle to late twenties (Taylor, 1985, p. 7). Extremely few children are apprehended by the Border Patrol after illegal crossings. 3. The illegals are "as likely to be married as unmarried" (Select Commission, p. 485). 4. Mexico-U.S. migrants in general do not originate from households at the very top nor at the very bottom of the rural income distribution (Cross and Sandos, 1981:76). Households at the top of their village income distribution, in general, have fewer motives for sending illegal migrants to the United States than households at the bottom and middle of the income distribution. The former typically enjoy both income-earning opportunities and social status without having to make the material and psychological sacrifices associated with sending family members clandestinely into an unfamiliar foreign labor market. At the other income extreme, although the poorest rural households might stand to benefit significantly from Mexico-U.S. migration, they often lack the financial resources and economic security to risk sending members illegally across international frontiers. Members of these households are more likely to supplement their family's income through seasonal migration within Mexico, often returning home to assist in critical agricultural tasks on the family farm. (Taylor, 1985, pp. 10- 11.) 5. Length of average stay depends upon the distance to the border. "Of undocumented Mexican male migrants apprehended within 25 miles of the southern border in 1979, only seven percent had been in this country for more than six months." (p. 503). But further from the border in California, the proportions who had been in the country for several years were much larger. 6. Unlike legal immigrants, illegals have on average less education and skills than the native labor force. Part of the explanation is that lower-income Mexico shares a border with the U.S. But Canada does, too, and sends fewer illegals. Chiswick offers another explanatory element: A creditable threat of apprehension and deportation will influence investment decisions. Deportation means the loss of human capital investments made in the destination that are specific to the employer or to the destination labor market in general. Meanwhile, skills specific to the country of origin that were acquired prior to the illegal immigration depreciate during the time spent in the destination. The potential depreciation of skills associated with immigration and apprehension/deportation is of course least for workers without skills or with skills that have perfect international transferability. The absolute magnitude of human capital investments specific to a country (including firm-specific skills) tends to rise with a worker's skill level. It is, therefore, not surprising that apprehended illegal aliens tend to have a lower level of skill than legal immigrants, other things the same, and that the difference in the relative skill levels between illegal and legal immigrants is greater for immigrants from countries with higher levels of skill. (Chiswick, 1985, p. 15.) 7. Mexicans illegally in the U.S. earn less than do Mexicans in the U.S. legally. Kossoudji and Ranney (1986) studied a 1978- 1979 survey carried out by the Mexican government of return migrants (See Ceniet [1982] and Garcia y Griego [1983] cited by Kossoudji and Ranney) in which the average daily wage differential was 27%." Of the 27% observed wage differential in daily wage rates in the U.S. for legal and illegal temporary migrants from Mexico, roughly 9% can be attributed to differences in observed characteristics and the different returns to those characteristics in the legal and illegal migrant labor markets. The remainder of the wage differential appears to be associated with unobserved variables that affect both illegal wage rates and legal status. (p. 21) That is, some of the 18% differential associated with illegal status after observed background characteristics are allowed for may be due to unobserved characteristics that affect both legal status and earning capacity. WELFARE SERVICES USED AND TAXES PAID I apologize for this section being as argumentative as it is. The tone is not pleasant or appropriate to a scholarly book. And controversy dates as fast as today's newspaper. But because of the wide public interest in the topic, and because it is necessary to meet attacks on the position presented here lest that position be impugned, some argumentative material seems necessary. The headnote quote of former INS director Chapman typifies the view of many Americans that illegals are a drain upon the taxpayer by way of the use of welfare services. Or as FAIR's Conner puts it, "Taxpayers are hurt by having to pay more for social services" (1980). Nothing could be further from the truth. By now a considerable number of studies have been done, using a variety of unrelated techniques such as interviewing illegals who are being sent back home, and studying persons in their home villages who had at one time been in the U. S. illegally. These studies may be discussed in two groups, those that provide data on whether immigrants do or do not use services and pay taxes -- that is, yes-or-no data -- and studies that calcualte the net dollar effect of what immigrants take from, and give to, the public coffers. I shall discuss the two groups of studies in that order. Studies of Rates of Use of Services There is general agreement among studies of the proportions of illegals using services and paying taxes, as conveniently summarized by the Select Commission (1981, Staff Report, pp.549- 551): Very small proportions of illegals receive free public services. The data collected by North and Houstoun may be considered as representative: ---------- TABLE 15-1 ---------- There are two persuasive explanations of the observed low use of public facilities. First, the immigrants typically are young adults who need relatively little health care. And second, illegals are afraid of being apprehended if they apply at government offices. The other studies cited by the Select Commission also corroborate the previous findings of North and Houstoun about the proportions of illegals that pay taxes: 77 percent of illegal workers in their sample paid Social Security taxes, and 73 percent had federal income tax witheld. The proportions are likely to have risen since then as a smaller proportion of illegals have worked in agriculture. Table 15-1.1 is the Select Commission's summary. ------------ Table 15-1.1 ------------ Cost Benefit Analyses Before beginning to consider the balance of illegals' taxes and costs, I refer again to the analysis of (mostly legal) immigrants using Census Bureau data discussed in Chapters 5 and 6. In brief, those data show that, aside from Social Security and Medicare, immigrant families average about the same level of welfare servces as do citizens. When programs for the elderly are included, immigrant families use far less public services than do natives. Immigrants also pay more than their share of taxes. Within three to five years, immigrant-family earnings reach and pass those of the average American family. The tax and welfare data together indicate that, on balance, immigrants contribute to the public coffers an average of $1,300 or more per year each year. And what is true for legal immigrants necessarily is even more true for illegals, who are not in position to use most welfare services and who are more likely to be in the United States without wives and children who are heavier users of welfare services. That is, the main reason that immigrants make net contributions to the public coffers is that they tend to come when they are young and strong, and this is even more true of illegals as a group than of legals. It is regrettable that research which has not the slightest claim to scientific reliability is often presented in public discussion of these issues, and muddies the waters; it therefore must be discussed here. For example, a memo by the Western Regional Office of the INS ("Illegal Immigration Costs to U.S. Taxpayers," INS Central Office, Washington, D.C., 1983) is cited by FAIR as a "study" done by "The Immigration Service" which supposedly indicates a "net cost to the taxpayers for every million illegals in the country in excess of $900 million." However, this estimate is mainly driven not by the costs of welfare services used by illegal aliens, but by an estimated cost of supposed "job displacement"; of the $2.2 billion gross cost estimated for a million illegals, $1.5 billion is attributed to displacement, and only $700 million to welfare services, which is less than the $995 million that the same document estimates the illegals pay in taxes. Let us begin our quantitative assessment by clearing up a frequent confusion. Though with respect to all the public coffers taken together the balance of illegal immigrants is positive, the picture may well be different with respect to a particular local or state jurisdiction. For example, the Urban Institute's study of families that the census managed to interview in California found that the costs to the State of California are greater than the state's tax revenues. Mexican immigrants (both legal and illegal) "contribute less to the state [of California] than is spent on public services for their use" (Muller, 1984, p. 28). This is due partly to their average income being lower than the average of all households, and partly to their larger-than- average number of children in public schools (1.09, somewhat more than twice the household average for Los Angeles County). However, The Urban Institute's sample excluded immigrants not counted by the Census, and about that group Muller says, "those immigrants probably pay more in taxes and compulsory public program contributions than they receive in benefits." It is reasonable to speculate that the immigrants who were easy for the Census to find, and hence were overrepresented in the sample, were those immigrants with families, whereas those without families use much less services but may pay almost as much in taxes. Muller and Espenshade (1985, Chapter 5) also estimated state and local revenues from, and expenditures for, Mexican-immigrant families by carefully pulling together a wide variety of pertinent data, though the authors are candid about the difficulties of the method and the consequent uncertainty of the estimates. Their estimates generally confirm the aforementioned findings, and indicate a state-and-local shortfall of $2245 per Mexican immigrant household, in comparison to a state-and-local shortfall of $139 for all households in Los Angeles County. The immigrants' relatively large number of children in school, and relatively low earnings, mainly account for the shortfall. Though illegal and legal immigrants may cost a state or city more than they pay in taxes, the same is not true for the community at large when federal taxes and Social Security contributions (as well as federal services) are included; federal levies dwarf state and local levies. These results may be interpreted as suggesting that states and cities with heavy immigration should receive additional aid from the Federal government to spread the burden more evenly. But this is not grounds for concluding that illegals as a whole are a net cost to the U. S. as a whole; just the opposite is true. Weintraub and Cardenas deal explicitly with these two issues. They provide reliable evidence that the taxes paid by the immigrants considerably exceed the cost of the services they use. "Despite our biasing the costs upward and the revenues downward, tax revenues from undocumented aliens clearly exceed costs to provide public services to them". (p. xxxi). For the sum of the impacts upon the state and local coffers, their estimates are as follows: Cost -- high estimate: $132 million dollars; low estimate: $63 million. Revenue -- high estimate: $286 million; low estimate: $162 (p.xxx). But even these figures greatly understate the overall positive effect of these illegal immigrants upon natives because they completely omit the Social Security taxes paid to the federal government by them, and omit 32% of the federal income tax paid by them. (The authors assume that 68% of federal income tax returns to the state; p.79). And these omitted quantities are large relative to the quantities included in their calculation; including them makes the low and high estimates of revenues $359 million and $580 million, that is, more than twice the state revenues alone. And the federal costs left out of their state calculations cannot be large; food stamps is the only major federal program used by individuals as individuals. So the overall excess of government revenues over government cost caused by the illegal aliens is very great, absolutely as well as relatively; the magnitude of the effect in dollars may be roughly assessed by observing that the average undocumented worker has more than $1,000 withheld each year in income and Social Security taxes (p.51; this is after allowing for the roughly one third of workers who do not pay such taxes); all other taxes are about the same amount as the cost of all state services, and hence the federal taxes are pure gain to natives, figuring roughly. On a household basis the contributions to the public coffers are even greater, because there are two workers in a large proportion of households.3 It may also be relevant that Weintraub and Cardenas find that an overwhelmingly large proportion of the costs for services used by the illegals -- somewhere between 85% and 93% -- goes for education. This should effectively demolish the myth that illegals come to the U. S. and immediately become leeches on the public by living on welfare and unemployment compensation. Even more direct evidence on this point is the low rate of unemployment among the illegals (l.5%; page not found again); the high rate of labor-force participation among all adults, male and female (76%; p.47); and the high rate (over 6%; p.27) of all respondents holding two or more jobs. The Congressional Budget Office was asked the cost of services used by illegals, and the widely-publicized response seemed to suggest that illegals are a net cost. In fact, all that the CBO study did (because of the way the question from Congress to CBO was framed) was to estimate how much more services the illegals would use if their status were made legal. As Rudolph Penner, CBO's director wrote (correspondence, May 11, 1984): "CBO's estimated cost for the [Simpson-Mazzoli] bill in no way implies that aliens use more in services than than pay in taxes. Nor does it account for secondary effects on the economy, but only on direct effects on federal and state and local government budgets. Precisely because unauthorized aliens contribute to the U. S. economy on balance, [italics added] the bill's costs might be even higher if secondary effects were considered; the employer sanction provisions of the bill, if effective, would reduce numbers of unauthorized aliens in the U. S., possibly reducing GNP and government revenues....the immigration estimate in no way implies that aliens do not make a net contribution to the economy." The anti-immigration organization FAIR (See e.g. Conner, 1984) has tried to negate the findings of the various studies of the use of welfare and payment of taxes by illegals in two ways. First, it has adduced a study by North (1981) of the receipt of unemployment compensation by a group of illegals who gave Social Security numbers when they were apprehended. Indeed, that group shows a raw figure for unemployment insurance use far higher than the previous studies, though probably lower than native Americans. There are two key points about that study that FAIR does not mention, however: First, when one considers dollars -- which are the "bottom line" -- rather than proportions of users, even in this group the illegals are seen to be net contributors to the public coffers on a staggering scale. North's own calculations suggest that the estimated tax contributions on their account for unemployment insurance alone exceed the cost of that program (p. 57). And contributions to the state for unemployment insurance are only a drop in the bucket compared to the contributions for Social Security and income tax, which are not counterbalanced by any use of services. North estimates that the contributions for Social Security alone were twelve times the unemployment benefits obtained, and this group of people "drew no [other] benefits" (p.71) [Check]. Even if North's study had shown that this group was on a balance a net cost to the public coffers -- which it certainly does not show -- these data would not be relevant evidence, however, because they are startlingly unrepresentative. Recall that the group was selected by choosing only those who gave Social Security numbers at apprehension. It is reasonable that on average these are persons far more integrated into American society over a long period of time that most illegals, especially those from Mexico. And indeed, North's data shows that more than forty percent of this group were paying Social Security for at least six years at the time the study was conducted. Just how unrepresentive they are is shown by one of North's footnotes: "a recent review of more than 500 I-213s of illegal immigrants apprehended by the Livermore (CA) detachment of the INS Border Patrol hundreds of miles north of the border during 1977 turned up exactly two SSNs." (p. 5) And North does not indicate how many forms he searched through to obtain his sample of 580. A second way that FAIR has tried to argue away the body of evidence on the low use of welfare services by illegals has been to say that recent studies show a higher rate of use than did the earlier studies. "In this monograph, FAIR reports upon recent studies of welfare use by illegals. These force a blunt conclusion: later and sounder examination reveals high and increasing levels of welfare utilization by illegal immigrants" (Graham, 1982, p.7). This line of argument is seen to be wrong on several grounds. First, the recent studies by Weintraub and Cardenas, and by Muller, which are better methodologically than are most of the earlier studies, show low levels of usage. Second, the earlier studies are not, as FAIR tries to say, less representative than are the studies that FAIR relies on -- North (1981), Van Arsdol (1979) and Heer and Falasco (1982). Rather, it seems to me that these latter three studies deal with far less representative populations -- North's as discussed above, Van Arsdol's as a group of "covered aliens who sought to regularize their civil status in the U. S. at the offices of One-Stop Immigration, a legal assistance agency in Los Angeles" (Conner, 1982, p. 14) and Heer-Falasco's as a group of "women of Mexican descent who had live births in Los Angeles County hospitals" (Conner, 1982, p. 15). Third, and the most compelling reason why FAIR's argument that new studies show a new picture is not persuasive: The percentage rates of use are only imperfect proxies for the total dollar effect upon the public coffers. And every study that provides dollar estimate shows that when the sum of the tax contributions to city, state and federal government are allowed for, those tax payments vastly exceed the cost of the services used, by a factor of perhaps five, ten, or more. This is the true "bottom line," and it is found in the studies that FAIR relies on such as North's (1981) as well as Weintraub and Cardenas, and Muller's. This argument takes precedence over all the others, and should end the discussion -- though it surely will not. On balance, then, the conclusion is quite the opposite of what is commonly supposed: Natives exploit illegal immigrants through the public coffers by taking much more from the illegals in taxes than is spent on them in public expenditures. LABOR-MARKET EFFECTS OF ILLEGALS Loss of jobs by natives, and reduction in natives' wages, constitute the most emotional economic charges against immigrants in general and illegals in particular. This news item is representative: Teamsters union President Jackie Presser met Wednesday with presidential counselor Edwin Meese III and several other White House aides. . . Presser's main concern, the source said, was the negative impact of deregulation, not only in trucking but in the airline industry, and of foreign imports and illegal aliens on the jobs of American workers. (The Washington Post, October 14, 1983, p. A11.) And another: The AFL-CIO long has been the prime backer of the bill's main element, which would make the hiring of illegal aliens by U.S. employers a federal offense. (The Wall Street Journal, December 2, 1982, p. 7.) As FAIR puts it: "American workers are hurt by being forced into competition with illegal immigrants who work hard and scared and sometimes `off the books', who don't complain about unsafe conditions or low pay." (Conner, 1980). Extraordinary claims are made about the benefits of ending illegal immigration, such as "If illegal immigrants were not taking so many jobs in America, unemployment could be brought under 4% " (FAIR letter, no date), and "If the 4 million illegal aliens estimated to be working in the country were replaced by U. S. citizens, the unemployment rate would drop by almost four percentage points" (Business Week, June 23, 1980, p.80). And the harm supposedly is not just to the poor, but rather "They often hold good paying jobs at the expense of a citizen" (Chapman, 1976, p. 6). Many of the assertions about the labor-market effect of illegals are incredible, in the original sense of that word, such as the Business Week hypothesis that each illegal could be replaced on the job by an unemployed U. S. citizen. Some of the assertions are simply uninformed, such as Chapman's statement about the "foreign student program". Often the evidence is anecdotal, without supporting logic or statistics, such as this story related by the then-commissioner of the INS: One such example is an East Indian national located in Houston, Texas. He held a masters degree in engineering obtained from Stanford University and when he came to our attention was earning $17,000 per year as a product development engineer with an electronics firm. His employment was a loss in two ways. His own country was denied the use of his needed skills -- the original intent of the foreign student program was to help developing countries gain these skills-- and he was displacing an American on a job. (Chapman, 1976, p.6) Another story was related by the "official AFL-CIO spokesperson on matters concerning immigration and refugee policy" who served on the Select Commission: ...an example of the terrible exploitation that takes place...a raid, let personally by Secretary of Labor Donovan, on sweatshops in New York City's Chinatown. The secretary and his Sweatshop Strike Force found more than sixty illegal aliens, many from Hong Kong, including a young girl in the sixth grade and a ninety- year-old woman, both working for only one dollar an hour. In all, they found twenty-two children illegally employed, including ten-year-olds who used sharp trimming shears and twelve-to-fifteen-year-olds who operated sewing machines (Otero, 1981, p. 40). A different impression is left by another news story: IN THE SILICON VALLEY, L'ENFANT TERRIBLE IS ALSO L'ENFANT RICHE SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. -- The spotlight shivers on a fuming wall of dry ice. A drum roll sounds, the crowded ballroom falls silent. Even the guests ripping slabs of meat from the whole roast pig on the buffet turn to watch. Eventually, the night's host glides into center stage, his considerable girth draped in a purple and gold tent --er, toga -- and a wreath of grape leaves on his head. "All hail Bacchus," someone bellows. He hoists his saxophone in salute and begins to play. The saxophonist and host is Philippe Kahn, the founder and owner of Borland International and the self- appointed court jester of Silicon Valley. Even here, where extravagant indulgence and eccentricity are commonplace, the expansive software publisher has become a legend within two years of his arrival from his native France. An illegal alien here until he received his "green card" recently, the 33-year-old Mr. Kahn has made a fortune in millions almost overnight by publishing some of the biggest hits on the software charts. (The Wall Street Journal, June 4, 1985, p. 1.) The INS Western Regional Office memo mentioned earlier in this chapter provides an opportunity to assess the quality of the evidence that is offered concerning job displacement by illegals. The INS document says that "This cost was developed from a weighted average of the displacement rates estimated by the U.S. Department of Labor and the San Diego County Report of 1980. The Department of Labor postulates a displacement rate of 20%; the San Diego County report postulates low and high rates of 32% and 41% respectively." No source is given for these estimates, and empirical studies of the topic described in Chapter 12 are wholly inconsistent with such estimates. The term "postulates" suggests that these numbers were picked out of the air on the basis of who-knows-what logic. But having been disseminated by those sources, they have become a reputable basis for further calculations by INS. And then INS's "estimates" become the basis for statements by FAIR, which are then disseminated by other organizations and media, and on and on. And that is how the public "learns" of the damage supposedly done to natives by illegal aliens, and by immigrants in general. (See Appendix for poll data.) The labor market effects of illegals are similar to, and an inextricable part of, the effects of all immigrants. Therefore the main treatment of the subject is with the discussion of unemployment ("displacement") effects in Chapters 11 and 12, and with the discussion of wage effects in Chapter 12. But particularly appropriate for this chapter on illegal immigrants are DeFreitas's work and the experiments sending illegals home. DeFreitas's Study of 1980 Census Data DeFreitas investigated the effects of Hispanic immigrants who arrived 1975-1980, "the majority [of whom] appear to be illegal" (p.16) using micro-data from the 1980 census. He found that "For all low-skilled native men the results indicate that there are no significant negative effects on their wage levels from recent Hispanic immigration. In fact, such migration has a significantly positive influence on the Anglo-male earnings .... The only persons whose wages appear to have been somewhat adversely affected by illegal migration since the mid-70's are black women," but this effect is "relatively small." (1983, p. 23. He also found that "For no racial/ethnic group, male or female, is there a discernible negative effect of illegal immigration on employment. In fact, most of the estimated co- =efficients are positive." (p. 24) Experiments Removing Illegals From Jobs Consider this news story: Foreign accents prevail among dishwashers at many restaurants. Increasingly, immigrants--some of them illegal aliens--take over the low-paying jobs that many natives shun. "It's hard to find somebody who is dependable and good and speaks any English at all," says an executive of Restaurant Associates Inc., which operates 70 East Coast eateries. Even "high school kids" don't want dishwashing jobs any more, complains an International House of Pancakes official--"they want to be president of the company." (The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 10, 1978, p. 1) The implication of the news story--that natives do not want and will not take many or most of the jobs that illegals fill--is a matter of hot dispute. Some light is shed by two experimental programs designed to fill with unemployed citizens or legal aliens those jobs formerly held by illegal aliens. In one case, 2154 illegal aliens were removed from jobs, and the California State Human Resources Agency tried to fill the jobs with U.S. citizens, but without success. This is the explanation given in a report of the County of San Diego Human Resources Agency: Some of the reasons for the failure were: (1) most employers paid less than the minimum wage rate, (2) the job categories were not appealing to the local resident (a matter of prestige), and (3) applicants were discouraged by not only the low wages but also the difficulty of some jobs, and the long hours demanded by the employers. (Villalpando, p. 59) A somewhat different explanation is, however, given by the California Employment Development Department: Almost all employers who have lost illegals to the immigration authorities say they don't want to use our services, or give us substandard job orders to which we cannot refer American citizens because they pay less than the minimum wage laws allow or pay less than the wage rates prevailing in their industries. (Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1975, p. 1ff.) The second experiment was as follows: On November 16, 1975, the Immigration and Naturalization Service in San Diego initiated the "Employer Cooperation Program". This program was to assist employers to identify illegal aliens on the job, remove them from the payroll, and fill the job slots with local unemployed residents. Since the inception of the special project in November, 1975, through the termination of the program in April, 1976, 340 illegal aliens were identified and terminated from their places of employment... The major jobs being performed by the 340 illegal aliens were in the area of hotel maintenance, food handling, food processing, laundryman and operative. The highest number of illegal aliens (160) were found working in hotel related situations. One hundred- nineteen aliens were located in light manufacturing businesses, 41 in food processing locations, and 20 in general service situations. The largest percent (81%) of the illegal alien workers were earning $2.00 or less an hour. The hourly wages of the vacated job slots ranged from $l.75 to $7.05... The results were as follows The San Diego "Employment Cooperation Program" was successful in getting all the 340 vacancies filled. The newly created 340 job opportunities, however, were not occupied by unemployed San Diegans. Instead 90 percent of the positions were occupied by "commuter workers" from Baja California, Mexico. (Villalpando, pp. 61-62) Though these two experiments are far from conclusive, they support the view that many, if not most, of the jobs that illegals hold would not be filled by natives in the absence of illegals, and therefore the illegals do not much natives harm by working at them. Furthermore, the experiments imply that many of those jobs would simply disappear -- some would be automated, and still others would not be filled if employers had to pay higher wages -- if illegals were not to be available. The result would be a deleterious effect upon total output and industrial activity. REMITTANCES The headnote quote from ex-Commissioner Chapman castigates illegals for sending remittances abroad. His suggestion that this is somehow a drain upon the native public is simply without foundation. Sending remittances abroad is hardly more troublesome to natives than is expenditure of immigrant income for consumption within the country. This topic is explored in the afternote to Chapter 2; illegals are no different than legals in this respect. LAWLESSNESS, AND THE GUEST WORKER ALTERNATIVE An argument given for enacting strong sanctions to prevent Mexican immigrants from entering the United States illegally is that the presence of illegals promotes lawlessness and disregard ("flouting") of society's rules. This raises the spectre of a breakdown of order and a loss of social control. As the Final Report of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy put it, "Most serious is the fact that illegality breeds illegality...As long as undocumented migration flouts U. S. immigration law, its most devastating impact may be the disregard it breeds for other U. S. laws" (p.42). And again, "It is this undermining of national values that poses the greatest threat to U. S. society, not the displacement of U. S. workers or use of social services by undocumented workers." (Staff Report, p. 560). The lawlessness issue makes a persuasive argument, and I myself agreed with it until recently. But upon reflection, I now think that for many who raise it, it is a smokescreen, a convenient way of avoiding having to deal with the attitudes many Americans have toward Mexicans and other immigrants. Disregard of the law certainly is bad. But any fair-minded person must agree that the speed limit of 55 miles per hour, and even more so, the present structure of income-tax laws, breed incomparably more lawlessness than does illegal immigration. So do laws against marijuana and betting. The existence of a worse problem is not a reason for ignoring a lesser problem, but attending to the lesser problem may reveal something about the motives of those who attend to it. Also, illegal immigration must be the most victimless of crimes. Neither natives nor illegals are injured, even in their pocketbooks, by the illegal immigration. And one cannot make the argument that preventing illegal immigration reduces moral corruption, as one might (or might not) with prohibition and vice laws, or that it saves people from injuring themselves, as is the case with laws against high speeds or suicide. So why all the zeal about purging the society of it? Let us agree nevertheless that it is not good for people to knowingly break the law. Well, then, if illegality is bad, and if the persons who now enter illegally do not place burdens upon natives but rather mostly confer benefits, why not let them in legally? The standard answer to this question is that unless there are barriers to immigration, vast numbers of Mexicans and others will flood into the U. S. Letters to the newspaper say such things as: "We cannot make it easy for the millions of potential immigrants to come to this country. We would be overwhelmed", and "Lifeboat U. S. would quickly sink". The demand for immigration is discussed in Chapter 3, which concludes that it is much less of an open-and-shut question that it might seem. But no matter what the actual overall demand for immigration by persons all over the world, there is good reason to doubt that large numbers of Mexicans would come to the U. S. as permanent residents even if there were no barriers at all. As the estimates concerning illegal immigration discussed earlier in this chapter show: a) There are many fewer Mexican illegals at any one time than is popularly believed. b) The number of illegals in the country at any time overstates the number who intend to remain permanently, especially among Mexicans. And c) a large proportion of the illegal aliens residing permanently in the U. S. are from countries other than Mexico. These findings imply that we could do away with the lawlessness involved in the present situation, and not increase the number of Mexicans in the U.S. very much, if we would allow potential immigrants to enter legally. A legal guestworker program would not resolve the entire problem, however, because if all who wished to were allowed to enter legally, there might (though by no means surely) be a much larger number of persons who would come permanently from countries other than Mexico. Whether or not that would be a good thing for the United States is not easy to know--even though we can be pretty sure that somewhat larger numbers of immigrants than now arrive would be beneficial -- because we have had no experience with immigration on a very large scale since before World War I. So let us take the more cautious course and assume that we are not willing to simply throw open the doors to the U. S. That seems to leave us on the horns of a dilemma, being ready to let Mexicans come freely, but not being ready to freely admit persons from all countries. There is, however, a path between the horns of the dilemma: Legalize temporary stays for the purpose of working in the U. S., that is, create a guestworker program similar to the Bracero program that operated from 1942 to 1964. Experience with the Bracero program5 provides solid evidence that a legal temporary worker program will indeed reduce illegal immigration, as seen in Figure 15-1. A temporary worker program for Mexicans meets with two objections. First, it is said that once in the U. S., they will not go home. Though as we have seen, most Mexicans who come to the U. S. do return to Mexico, European countries have been troubled by this phenomenon. But if temporary workers are brought in for specified reasonably short4 periods of time, various arrangements can provide considerable incentive to return. One possibility is making the receipt of their Social Security benefits from their U. S. work dependent on leaving at the appointed time. (See Neal, 1981, for a review of several such plans.) Or, an arrangement might be made with Mexico conerning Mexican pension payments. Yet again, some sort of deposit scheme for part of the earnings could be established. Certainly, some will stay, just as some illegals do not go home even now. But there is little reason to think that the number of stayers will increase relative to the present situation (the appropriate comparison) because after their period of temporary work expires, the temporary workers would not have any more secure status than illegals do now. (The number of stayers may well decrease because of the financial incentives to go home under the proposed program.) The unions have fought the Bracero and proposed guestworker programs by saying that temporary workers damage the work prospects of U. S. citizens. But there seems little reason to believe that legal guestworkers would more heavily damage natives than do illegals, who have reasons to work even cheaper than legal temporary workers. Perhaps -- just perhaps -- the labor unions will some day finally put aside this hobgoblin in the name of generosity, even if it is really no sacrifice for them at all. Another reason given for opposing temporary workers is that such a program wrongs and exploits the temporary workers themselves. Here we must ask the fundamental practical and moral question: Compared to what? Participating in the program must be better for at least some persons than not participating, or else there would be no participants in the program. The program must be better than being an illegal; if this is not obvious, then the fact that many Mexicans chose the Bracero program rather than entering illegally should be evidence enough. Being a temporary worker may well be inferior, and may even seem "unfair", compared to full admission as a legal immigrant, but this simply is not a realistic alternative; to compare a temporary worker program unfavorably against a non-existent alternative is either thoughtless or dishonest. ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND DANGERS TO THE PUBLIC Related to the issue of lawlessness is the implied threat of street crime, riot, and other disturbance of the peace due to illegals. Terrorism and disease threats are joined to these. In Texas, [U]nsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Kent Hance appealed to voters' fears that illegal immigration would increase the crime rate as well as the unemployment rate. And last month in Brownsville, the City Commission sent a resolution to the president seeking more federal immigration officers to help fight "an alarming and ever-increasing number of robberies, rapes, physical assaults and thefts." (The Wall Street Journal, May 14, 1986, p. l). And the legislator mainly responsible for the 1986 immigration legislation, Alan Simpson, said "The word `security' is entering the debate" (The Wall Street Journal, May 14, 1986, p. 1). FAIR plays up the Cuban boatlift where, they say, "we were forced to take a large number of Castro's `undesirables'. He emptied his prisons, his mental hospitals, and we took them...As a result, serious crime in the Little Havana section of Miami jumped 138% in August 1980 over the same month in 1979" (FAIR letter, no date). And using terms like "invasion" and "swarm", Mumford writes, for instance, that "Maintenance of U. S. security and global peace is at stake. The Roman Catholic Church, whatever its original humane intest, through its activities concerning illegal migration, seriously threatens the security of the United States" (1981, p.30). Congressman Dan Lungren, using the rhetorical device of taking no responsibility for the assertion that he was putting forth, said: While I do not believe that the United States faces a genuinely imminent threat from a terrorist march across our border, one cannot ignore the empirical roots that give rise to worry among border area residents. (Spotlight, August 4, 1986, p. 17) A recent pamphlet puts in this way: Although immigration into the United States from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean has led to serious problems of law enforcement and crime in some areas, there has as yet been little politically motivated terrorism as a result. Given the extreme left orientation of the Sanctuary movement, however, its sympathy for Marxist insurgencies in Latin America, and its development of cadres skilled in clandestine techniques and willing to violate the law for political purposes, it cannot be excluded that Sanctuary will evolve or splinter into a support movement for Central American terrorists who seek to operate in the United States or even into a violent movement itself. (Francis, 1986, p. 49.) A former governor of New Hampshire warns of danger to public health if amnesty is extended to illegals: [T]he fatal AIDS virus has been linked back to Haiti. Yet an estimated 30,000 Haitians illegally came into the U.S. last year. If we grant amnesty to all Haitians, how many will bring the AIDS virus into the U.S.? (Thomson, undated.) The only study I could find on the rates of crime among contemporary illegals is Muller's, and his summary does not indicate much about the methods used (1984). Muller found that "In the city of Los Angeles, crime rates in the two police districts with the highest Hispanic population were somewhat below the city average in 1982." And he goes on to speculate that "Undocumented immigrants in particular are understandably reluctant to be involved in criminal activities that attract the attention of the authorities" (p. 12). It seems reasonable that the record of crime among all immigrants, as reviewed in Chapter 4, should throw light on the matter. For the period around the turn of the century, Steinberg concludes that, by any measure, the rate of serious crime has been less among immigrants than among natives, though the rate of petty crime (vagrancy, disorderly conduct, breach of the peace, drunkenness) has sometimes been greater among immigrants. When age and sex are controlled for, the rate of all crime has been less among immigrants than among natives. And one would expect petty crime among illegals to be even less than among legal immigrants because of their fear of being sent out of the country. For the 1930's, Taft found that crime among both immigrants and among children of immigrants was lower than among natives. All this would suggest a relatively low rather than a relatively high rate of crime among illegals. CONCLUSION The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and The Environmental Fund (TEF), the two organizations most active in fighting against immigration, focus on illegal immigrants and dwell upon the word "control." In its newsletter TEF uses headlines such as "Uncontrolled Borders Cost the U. S. $12 Billion", and phrases such as "If the current situation of uncontrolled immigration were to continue..." (TEF Data, May, 1982). We read "We are losing control of our future because of uncontrolled illegal immigration," and "`Uncontrolled' is indeed the word to describe the results of current U. S. immigration policy," and "Do we truly want `open borders'?" (Conner in FAIR letter, no date). This rhetoric plays to a fear of chaos and social breakdown, a fear found especially among those who believe that unless social and economic activities are governmentally planned they will not function well. And the supposed large-scale loss of jobs by natives due to illegals is a major objection to immigration generally, including that by labor unions; discussions of illegals and of immigration often blur the two topics, whether unintentionally or disingenuously. The analysis of the economic effects of illegal immigrants is quite similar to the analysis for legal immigrants, and leads to the same mainly-positive judgments with respect to native economic welfare. There are two important differences. First, the illegals, and especiallly those from Mexico, tend to have less education and less skill relative to legal immigrants. This means that they have a disproportionate negative effect on natives with low skills and education. This might seem to call for reduction in the number of illegals. But this should be seen in the broad context of protection of all lower-skill groups threatened by imports and immigration and technological change; if such protection were afforded to all, all persons in the society would be damaged. The second major difference between legals and illegals -- especially among those from Mexico -- is that illegals are thought to cause a sense of lawlessness. This can be avoided rather effectively by a guestworker program. 86-87 Ille14 1/21/87 FOOTNOTES 1Please forgive this unattractive shorthand, but no other term is nearly as accurate. Interesting journalism accounts of many aspects of illegal immigration are given by Crewdson (1983). 2For a summary of the recent work by Passell and associates see Passell (1986). 3As example of how the all-important federal taxes are systematically omitted from popular discussion is shown by Richard Lamm, a governor of Colorado who is one of the leading anti-immigration campaigners: Almost all public services provided to illegal aliens are the responsibility of local city and county governments. Researchers Sidney Weintraub and Gilberto Cardenas directed the Undocumented Workers Policy Research Project at the University of Texas at Austin. In their 1984 study of illegal aliens' use of public services in Texas, they concluded that the state of Texas received more money in tax revenues from illegal aliens than it paid to provide direct services to them. The state received tax revenues that were 1.75 to 2 times its cost for services. But they also found that Texas cities and counties paid 1.8 to 2.7 times more to provide services to illegals than they received in tax revenues from them. 4Massey (1984, following on the hypothesis of Bohning, 1972, and Piore, 1979) has shown with a survey of four Mexican sending communities, that the propensity to return to Mexico decreases with the length of time in the United States. 5For an excellent short survey of the Bracero program, see Garcia y Griego (1983) and references therein. 86-87 Ille14 1/21/87 REFERENCES W. R. Bohning, The Migration of Workers in the United Kingdom and the European Community (London: Oxford U. P., 1972) Barry R. Chiswick, "Methodological Issues In The Analysis Of Immigrant Adjustment and Impact," Working Papers in Economics No. E-85-16, The Hoover Institution, June 1985, p. 15. John Crewdson, The Tarnished Door (New York: Times Books, 1983). Cross, H. E. and J. A. Sandos. 1981. Across the Border: Rural Development in Mexico and Recent Migration to the United States. Berkeley, California: Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California at Berkeley. George E. Hall, testimony before the House Subcommittee on Census and Population, April 27, 1981 Keely ("Illegal Migration", Scientific American, V. 246, No.3, March 1982) contains an excellent discussion of this issue, though a bit dated by now. Douglas S. Massey, "The Settlement Process Among Mexican Migrants to the United States: New Methods and Findings", report prefored for the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Immigration Statistics, June, 1984 Thomas Muller, Summary of California's Newest Immigrants, The Urban Institute Press, Washington, 1984. The volume itself is still in press. Stephen Mumford, "Illegal Immigration, National Security, and the Church", The Humanist, Vo. 41, Nov/Dec 1981, pp. 24-30. Neal 1983? Michael J. Piore, Birds of Passage: Migrant Labor and Industrial Societies (New York: Cambridge U. P., 1979). J. F. Otero, "A Labor View of U. S. Immigration Policy", The Humanist, Nov/Dec, 1981,pp. 39-46, cite on p. 40 J. Edward Taylor, "Selectivity of Undocumented Mexico-U.S. Migrants and Implications for U.S. Immigration Reform," The Urban Institute Policy Discussion Paper PDS-85-4, December, 1985, pp. 10-11. Robert Warren and Jeffrey S. Passel, "Estimates of Illegal Aliens from Mexico Counted in the 1980 United States Census", paper presented to PAA, April, 1983) 86-87 Ille14 12/1/86