Study: Legalize migrants to boost economy

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Study: Legalize migrants to boost economy
Legalizing millions of undocumented immigrants would dramatically increase wages for illegal workers and expand the economy, a new study co-authored by two Inland economists concludes.
Legalization would allow many workers to change jobs to occupations that are better matches for their skills, and that would increase U.S. productivity, the report says.
The study is one of a number that have looked at the effects of a 1986 immigration amnesty. But the authors said it is the first to attempt to directly compare the wages of people who were eligible for the amnesty with those who were not eligible and presumably continued to live in the United States illegally.
The amnesty caused a 21 percent rise in wages for legalized workers, said Todd Sorensen, co-author of the study and an assistant professor of economics at UC Riverside. Almost all the difference in wages was due to workers finding different jobs rather than receiving pay hikes in the same job, he said.
The study was of Mexican immigrants age 18 to 45. It compared those who arrived in 1980 and 1981 and were eligible for the amnesty with those who arrived between 1982 and 1984 who were not.
The pattern would likely hold for women and non-Mexican immigrants, Sorensen said. Researchers used 1990 U.S. Census data and previous studies of Mexican migrants to determine which immigrants were likely to have been illegal workers and which were likely to have been legalized workers.
Previous studies found wage increases between 6 and 16 percent for those who gained amnesty, but those studies typically compared newly legalized immigrants with native-born Latinos, a less direct comparison, Sorensen said.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, which favors greater restrictions on immigration, said other studies also have found that granting residency to illegal immigrants expands the overall economy and increases tax revenue.
But, he said, that is offset by immigrants' newfound eligibility for government benefits, an effect that would be greater than in 1986 because far more illegal immigrants would be eligible for residency. In addition, he said, many U.S.-born workers with less education, fewer skills and lower wages would suffer.
"To argue that flooding the labor market with people who would compete for jobs won't have an effect on (U.S.-born workers') wages is absurd," he said.
Sorensen said most studies, including ones analyzing the 1986 amnesty by Princeton University researchers and Federal Reserve Bank economists, have shown that legalization would have little effect on the income of native-born and legal-resident workers.
The co-author of the new study, Fernando Lozano, an assistant professor of economics at Pomona College, said legalization also would allow immigrants to work in the occupations in which they would be most productive and useful to the economy.
"I was born in Mexico," Lozano said. "Had I been undocumented, I wouldn't be able to work as a professor. I would be picking strawberries or would be working in construction. I'd be in a job that is not my best match."
Ivan Rosales, a 22-year-old undocumented Cal State San Bernardino student who arrived in the United States at age 10 months, wants to become a doctor. He said that unless the law changes, his job options in the United States will be limited.
"I don't know exactly what I could do," he said.
Rosales said he likely will work in the short term in another occupation in the hope that a legalization law is enacted. But he said that if he wants to realize his dream of becoming a cancer researcher, he might be forced to emigrate, probably to another English-speaking country because his formal Spanish isn't good enough to work in his native Mexico.
Laura said she received her master's degree in guidance and counseling from Cal State San Bernardino in June. But the 29-year-old Redlands woman is in the country illegally and she cannot find work in her field. Instead, she survives by cleaning houses and tutoring. She volunteers a few hours a week as a counselor at a Redlands elementary school.
"It's very frustrating," said Laura, who declined to reveal her last name because some of her employers do not know her immigration status. "I worked so hard to get the master's degree and that's all I ever wanted to do -- to be a counselor."
Laura said that when she applied for the master's program she hoped that either the law would change or the application she filled out for residency 13 years ago would have been approved.
"I just want to go out and help kids," she said.
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