Workers Independent News: Immigrants Good for Economic Growth

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November 29, 2009 - 5:43pm

By Doug Cunningham

Funded by SEIU 32BJ and the Carnegie Foundation, the Fiscal Policy Institute report assessed immigrant economic impact in the 25 largest U.S. metro economies. It found that instead of hurting the economy, immigrants contribute to the economy in the same proportion as their numbers in the population. Hector Figeuroa is Secretary-Treasurer of SEIU 32BJ in New York City.

[Figueroa]: “What we are finding with this study and a lot of other studies out there who look at the impact if immigrants in the economy is that immigrants are not part of the problem. They’re really part of the solution.”

The report finds that areas with the highest levels of immigration growth also have experienced among the highest economic growth. Figueroa says while employers do exploit undocumented workers to drive wages down, the answer to that is unionization and giving equal labor law protections to all immigrants.

[Figueroa 2]: “What we’re saying is that the problem will never go away until we change the laws and it allows millions of people -who are contributing to our economy like this reports suggest - to be able to do that with the same rights as everybody else.”

Other studies have indicated that immigrants primarily affect jobs that Americans who lack high school education seek. The employer really has the primary responsibility for verifying that a person is qualified to work in the US.

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Mexican migrants return home

Workers have been returning to Mexico from Florida for two to three years because they were unable to find work. Most of the jobs these men and women take only affect Americans who lack a high school education.



The hillside of indigenous town of San Juan Mixtapec has traditionally had the highest number of migrants going to the US in all of Mexico.

In a town where nearly half of the people are illiterate and more than 60 per cent do not even have a primary education going north always meant that they could send money back home to their families who were in desperate need.

However, with the current economic recession nearly a quarter of the migrants have returned.

In need of jobs, the local government is trying to create employment programmes but it's not enough.

Al Jazeera's Rachel Levin profiles San Juan Mixtapec and its people to see how thee reverse flow of migration is affecting them.

source: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/08/20098255408341891.html

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California Legislature apologizes for past Chinese treatment

Updated: 2009-07-23 07:31


SACRAMENTO, California: The California Legislature unanimously apologized for the state's past persecution of the Chinese immigrants who built the state's railroads, gold mines and agriculture industry.


California apologizes for past Chinese treatment

In this file photo from the 1920s, a group of Chinese and Japanese women and children wait to be processed as they are held in a wire mesh enclosure at internment barracks in Angel Island, California. 

Chinese immigrants were essential to the founding of California. They built the transcontinental railroad over the Sierra Nevada, worked mines during the Gold Rush, and helped spread agriculture and build the network of levees in the Central Valley. They also suffered decades of discrimination. [Agencies]

California apologizes for past Chinese treatment

The Senate earlier this month approved the resolution expressing regret for 19th Century and early 20th Century laws that "resulted in the persecution of Chinese living in California." The Assembly backed the measure in late June, and California's secretary of state put it on the state's official record Friday, the San Jose Mercury News reports.

The resolution lists the specific laws aimed at stemming immigration from China and intimidating immigrants already in the country.

Assemblyman Paul Fong, the grandson of a Chinese immigrant, says he now will try to persuade the US Congress to pass a similar resolution.

The Chinese started coming to California in large numbers during the Gold Rush in the mid 1800s, hoping to strike it rich and return home. Many stayed and more came, working in the mines or taking other jobs, including helping build the transcontinental railroad. In 1882, they were made the targets of the United States' first law limiting immigration based on race or nationality, the Chinese Exclusion Act.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2009-07/23/content_8461236.htm


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