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SALEM (Oregon) STATESMAN-JOURNAL January 27, 2008 Do migrants help or hurt? Critics say loss of immigrants would harm the state's economy, but supporters of clamping down say Americans would benefit Immigration long has been a source of controversy, roiling politics and public policy for years. With Congress' failure to enact immigration reform last year, states have been left to themselves to consider their own measures, such as cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants. In Oregon, the debate has attached itself to driver's licenses and the necessary documentation needed to get one. Thousands of Latinos and migrant workers -- many of them without documentation to show whether they are here legally -- fear the new rules will prevent them from getting licenses and getting to their jobs in the agriculture, construction and hospitality industries. During an interim legislative session next month, lawmakers will revisit proposals that call for proof of legal presence to get an Oregon's driver's license or identification card. Supporters of a crackdown on undocumented immigrants argue that American workers would benefit if illegal immigrants were to leave the state because employers would be forced to raise wages to attract a work force of legal residents. But critics of that approach say the loss of illegal immigrants would hurt the state's economy, adding that undocumented immigrants do jobs that native-born workers won't do.
Undocumented work force Either way, advocates on both sides of the issue predict economic change if illegal immigration is curtailed. "If illegal immigration is all that helpful to the (state's) economy, then it must mean that it's being helpful at the expense of those undocumented immigrants, that is, they're being shunted into low-paying, undocumented jobs," said Kevin Mannix, a Salem attorney and former Republican gubernatorial candidate. Well known for his advocacy of statewide ballot measures, Mannix, a former chairman of Oregon's Republican Party, most recently crafted an immigration-related initiative aimed at ending state policies that allow noncitizens to vote, get driver's licenses and prohibit police from reporting illegal immigrants to federal authorities. Jeff Stone, the director of government relations for the Oregon Association of Nurseries in Wilsonville, disputes that illegal immigrants suppress wages. He said Oregon's nursery industry pays the highest wages of any state, yet an estimated half of its workers may be undocumented. "We pay our workers $10.50 an hour," Stone said. "We also withhold taxes from all of our workers, which go the state and federal government." Oregon's nursery industry employs a total of 30,000 workers, with 18,000 of those being seasonal workers and the remaining 12,000 working at least 10 consecutive months out of the year, Stone said. Last year, the greenhouse and nursery industry -- Oregon's leading agricultural industry -- generated $1.2 billion in revenue, according to the Oregon Agricultural Statistics Service in Portland. "We ship 75 percent of our products out of state, and that money comes right back to benefit Oregon's economy," Stone said. "Losing half of our work force would be devastating to the industry and to a large portion of Oregon's economy." To ensure that doesn't happen, the Oregon Association of Nurseries and the Oregon Restaurant Association started a coalition of more than 20 Oregon businesses that will work at the state and national level in support of a long-term immigration solution that would allow employers to hire foreign workers, Stone said. "An entire community of workers has been vilified, and we've been silent for too long," Stone said. "It's time for Oregon businesses to speak up." If illegal immigrant workers were to leave the state, businesses that rely on them probably would leave, too, Stone said. "Businesses will go where the labor force is," he said. Called the Oregon Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, the employers plan to add their voices to the immigration debate beginning with next month's special session in Salem. As part of their lobbying efforts, coalition members in February will commission an economic study on immigration's effect on Oregon businesses. Lee Moyer, the owner of Moyer Construction in Salem, is not a coalition member but supports their efforts. "Whether they be documented or undocumented, these are indispensible, key workers, not just in the construction industry but in many industries," Moyer said. "The state would be severely impacted if there were to be an exodus of these workers." Opponents of illegal immigration disagree, saying the undocumented are a fiscal drain on the state. "Illegal aliens tend to take in more in benefits than they contribute to the economy," said Bob Dane, the press secretary for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national nonprofit in Washington, D.C., opposed to illegal immigration. The organization estimated in 2006 that Oregon taxpayers were burdened with annual costs of about $401.8 million because of illegal immigrants. The estimate was only for the cost of educating children of illegal immigrants or undocumented children, for incarceration of foreign-born criminals and for health care, Dane said. It does not take into account the cost of housing, food stamps and other social services, he said. FAIR predicts that those costs will rise in Oregon to $830 million per year in 2010 and to $1.466 billion per year in 2020. In a fact sheet released last year, the Oregon Center for Public Policy in Silverton estimated that undocumented workers in Oregon paid $134 million to $187 million in taxes in 2006, including state income, Social Security, Medicare, property and excise taxes. The center also estimated that Oregon employers paid $97 million to $136 million in state unemployment, Social Security and Medicare taxes on the wages of undocumented workers. In addition, a substantial portion of the state's unauthorized workers' roughly $2 billion earned in annual income is spent on goods, services and taxes, which benefit the state's economy, the center's researchers said. Looking for work Nationally, nearly 12 million unauthorized immigrants are estimated to be living in the United States, according to 2005 Census figures. It's difficult to pinpoint the number of undocumented people in Oregon. Estimates have run from 75,000 to 600,000. It's even harder to determine how many undocumented immigrants are in the work force. In 2005, the Oregon Employment Department estimated that 70,000 to 88,000 illegal immigrants were working or looking for work. Of those, the OED estimates that between 63,000 to 83,000 could be employed. Oregon's mild climate makes it an ideal place for farmers to grow myriad crops that fill dinner tables and is a big draw for people from south of the border. Toiling each year under the Oregon sun, farmworker Jose López, a Mexican immigrant who lives in Independence, says he doesn't think he's taking jobs from U.S. workers. "If Americans really wanted these jobs, farmers wouldn't hire people like me," López said in Spanish. "The only Americans I see are the ones who tell us what to do, our bosses." Finding a stable supply of workers such as López already is a problem for a number of industries, Stone said. Experts say the combination of baby boomers moving out of the work force and families having fewer children has created a shortage of workers. But Jim Ludwick, the president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, which opposes illegal immigration, calls that the "biggest canard of all." "The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said there are 860,000 field workers in the nation," Ludwick said. "If we have between 10 million to 20 million illegal aliens here, how can there be a labor shortage?" Business that hire undocumented people simply do not want to pay working wages, Ludwick said, adding that illegal immigrants who are willing to work for those businesses in turn suppress wages for American workers. "Cheap labor is cheap only to the companies that hire these workers, and not to the rest of society," Ludwick said. Mannix added that it could be the case that some illegal workers may not be getting what most legal workers get, which is signing up for Social Security benefits and having all the proper taxes withheld. "What happens is, you create a back-room economy, an underground economy, which allows for the exploitation of those workers," Mannix said.
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