The Faulty Logic of the Anti-Immigration Rhetoric
Hinojosa, Raúl & Schey, Peter
Prop 187 advocates ignore the binational nature of immigration. If we take into account who pays for the social reproduction of the state's low-wage labor force, it is indisputable that...
...VOL XXIX, No 3 NoVIDEC 1995 19 VOL XXIX, No 3 Nov/DEC 1995 19REPORT ON IMMIGRATION In a particularly egregious, but oft-cited 1993 study, ignore the taxable goods and services that immigrant Donald Huddle of Rice University ignores the money labor creates...
...export jobs since Mexicans would have money to spend on U.S...
...Despite the current denied social services and face expulsion without accompanying xenophobic climate, such an alternative administrative hearings to actually determine their status...
...V immigration policy that is capable of mobiSince most undocumented children eventually become V lizing broad political support on both sides of lawful permanent residents, and later U.S...
...The optimal scenario for pro-187 voters is that undocumented immigrants continue to come to the United States, work at even lower wages, and do not use any social services...
...migrant labor is in fact a major subsidy to California, especially for the prototypical pro- 187 voter...
...The same binational framework which long-term costs to California of implementing Prop 187 exposes the problems with Prop 187 can be used as a guide for constructing such a policy...
...In addition to the 1.9 million the first time...
...products...
...These have the potential to immigrant children in that state...
...citizens alike regardless of their immigration status...
...including 456,000 undocu- These studies all acknowledge mented children between the that undocumented immigrants ages of 5 and 17...
...more likely scenario since immigrants are not drawn to the United States because of the presumed availability of social services...
...Meanwhile, skilled workers and property-owning classes on both sides of the border have reaped the Prop 187 In Brief greatest rewards...
...4. Douglas Massey and Audrey Singer, "New Estimates of Undocumented Mexican Migration and the Probability of Apprehension," Demography, forthcoming...
...To achieve this, proponents of the measure make the far-fetched claim that the denial of essential services to undocumented immiRaul Hinojosa is research director of the North American Integration and Development Center at the University of California at Los Angeles...
...Of course, none of these people izens with communicable diseases will rise by $47 mil- have the training to make such determinations...
...Northern and Southern Europe...
...The Chief of Staff of the Los Angeles Employees of schools, medical clinics, social-service County Medical Center, the largest public hospital in agencies, and state and local law-enforcement agencies California, predicts that while Proposition 187 may would all be required to ferret out suspected undocusave the state about $9 million annually, the costs for mented residents and report them to the INS and the emergency care as well as for the treatment of U.S...
...69-108...
...Using this esti- responsible for providing the mate and the methodology of bulk of social services...
...While perhaps a rosy short-term outcome for Governor Wilson's business supporters, the overall long-term impact on Californian society would be negative in a variety of ways...
...Moreover, they economic and legal status...
...The real attending public schools in issue is that the federal governCalifornia...
...Starting on January 1, 1995, each school district rural workers on both sides of the bormust verify the legal status of each child enrolling in the district for der...
...dren from attending public schools...
...In the first scenario, the proponents of Prop 187 get what they say they want: all undocumented migrants go back to Mexico and no more come to California...
...Some of the largest consumers of immigrant low-cost services are, ironically, typical pro187 voters: older white property owners with high levels of disposable income to spend on gardeners, nannies and housecleaners...
...RH & PS upward...
...voters have of their future position in a rapidly integrating world economy and an increasingly multicultural society...
...the State of California [Governor's Office of Planning and Research, "The Net Fscal Impact of Illegal Imm gration in California," September, 1994., California Department of Finance, "Ca ifornia's Growing Taxpayer Squeeze," Finance Report, 1991...
...7. UCLA Study, "Tracking the Economic Impacts of North American Integration...
...The studies don't, for example, take law, these linkages generated a pattern of uneven develinto account the economic benefits of immigrant- opment...
...Mexican immiscale...
...They will point out the legal United States that are remarkably comprecedent of the Texas school case (Plyler v. Doe), a 1980 Supreme plementary to those occurring in Court decision which mandated the education of undocumented Mexico...
...Several lawsuits have been filed in both the California state courts benefit from increased integration, the and the federal courts questioning the proposition's constitutionali- political and labor rights of low-wage, ty...
...ber of undocumented immi- These anti-immigrant studies grants, undocumented children then move on to their main attending schools, and the per- mission: producing a cost-bencentage of these immigrants efit analysis with high estiwho are actually deportable by mates of the cost of providing federal law...
...Not bother to estimate how many of A mother seeks services at a public health clinic in Los only is immigration irrelevant the so-called "illegal aliens" are Angeles...
...The real income of all California residents, particularly pro-187 voters, would fall in ways unheard of in the post-World War II era...
...In one of the principal challenges, League of United Latin unskilled workers continue to be highly American Citizens (LULAC) v. Wilson, several community-based orga- restricted on both sides of the border...
...6. UCLA Study, "Tracking the Economic Impacts of North American integration...
...If the citizens and the taxpayers of our state wait for the politicians in Washington and Sacramento to stop the incredible flow of ILLEGAL ALIENS, California will be in economic and social bankruptcy...
...Notably, if such a formula were used to determine Persons...
...ulation...
...Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, "The North American Development Bank: Forging New Directions in Regional Intergration Policy," Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol...
...population, meanwhile, is aging and shrinking so rapidly that new immigrants will soon be needed to sustain economic growth and care for the elderly, particularly in California.10 Energy should not be expended on stopping Mexican immigration to the United States, but rather on improving the social conditions of those people who will carry Children California into the next century...
...The primary limitation on capital and labor flows, as well as a Congress' power to regulate immigration is the fundamental right binational agreement on labor and of every individual to a full and fair proceeding before facing depor- human rights that is enforceable...
...First of all, public health would be seriously compromised...
...1 Sustained growth in Mexico would generate a big increase in high-wage U.S...
...6 If one factored in how much Mexico spends on medical services, housing, and urban infrastructure, the amount that California owes Mexico would grow even larger...
...Californians, however, have been led by politicians to believe that the state's fiscal crisis is rooted in its North-South relations, particularly its long-term dependence on immigrant labor from Mexico and Central America...
...Job competition between undocumented immigrants and the bulk of pro- 187 voters is virtually non-existent...
...The upsurge of support in California for Proposition 187, the so-called "Save Our State" ballot initiative, is an ominous manifestation of the fear many U.S...
...It found that the U.S.-Mexican migration is the largest and most longannual taxes paid by immigrants to all levels of gov- lasting mass-migration process in the history of capitalernment total $25 to $30 billion more than the costs of ism...
...9. Affidavit provided to the plaintiffs in the legal challenge to Prop 187...
...Los Angeles Counties [Internal Services Division (ISD), "Impact of Undocumented Persons and Other Immigrants on Costs, Revenues and Services in Los Angeles County," Report prepared for Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, November, 1992...
...9 would open the door to greater discrimination against Proposition 187 would also bar undocumented chil- all those who "look like immigrants...
...Peter Schey is executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law...
...What is California's Department of not mentioned, of course, is that Finance, one finds that the this disproportionate burden Governor overestimates by upon localities is true for most 111,528 (or 24%) the number working-class households in of undocumented children the United States...
...8 J.E...
...Wilson used Proposition 187 to energize the Republican Party's political base of older white male conservative voters who are openly anxious about the dwindling white majority in the state...
...We have to act and ACT NOW...
...payments), and then calculated the percentage spent on One of the more sinister methodological tools used in undocumented immigrants and the children of undocuthese studies is the creation of a separate accounting mented immigrants based on their share of the populacategory for "Citizen Children of Undocumented tion...
...Migration between Mexico and the Prop 187's Dubious Constitutionality United States is the result of an overall pattern of demographic and economic The drafters of Proposition 187 were not oblivious to its constitu- interdependence...
...Thiry-five years ago, the wage gap between the United States and Mexico was similar to that between participate in an anti-Prop 187 demonstration in Oakland orgathe city's janitors' union a month before the elections...
...3. Michael Fix and Jeffrey S. Passel, "Immigration and Immigrants," The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., May, 1994...
...Interestingly, contribute a significant amount the Immigration and Natur- in taxes once federal, state and alization Service (INS), reput- local taxes are added together...
...This represents a fantastic bargain for Governor Wilson because to educate these same workers in California would cost $3.2 billion a year.' This is more than double the amount that the Governor complains that the state spends on educating undocumented immigrants...
...This movement must demand transnational social pacts for sustainable and equitable development...
...Researchers generally agree that this is the rers in west Los Angeles stand on a street corner waiting for work...
...Since the Mexican birth rate has declined precipitously over the last 25 years, the number of new entrants into the labor force will fall over the next decade...
...ed for its excessively high esti- California agencies, however, mates of the nation's undocu- argue that immigrants pay a mented population, reported greater proportion of taxes to only 1,441,000 undocumented the federal government even immigrants in California in though local governments are October, 1992...
...Moreover, recent residence in the United States...
...Taylor and Phillip L. Martin, "Immigration Reform and U.S...
...Testimonials from teachers and educators throughout the country speak of " 'Te need an economically sound and humane the irreparable harm this would cause these children...
...This would guarantee basic human and labor rights to Mexican and U.S...
...residents would mean big price hikes for numerous products and a collapse in output not experienced since the Great Depression...
...would skyrocket under Prop 187 since health workers If implemented, Prop 187 will also move California are mandated to provide expensive emergency services well along the road towards a police state...
...Given this shift, the top priority should be fighting poverty in the migrant-sending regions of Mexico...
...citizens than it is for immigrants...
...RH & PS average 15 to 20% less for comparable work generates significant price subsiNACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 20REPORT ON IMMIGRATION dies for the consumers of the goods and services which immigrants provide...
...nizations and Latino political leaders have asked a federal court in The key challenge is thus to tackle the Los Angeles to issue a judgment, without requiring a trial, that poverty and lack of basic rights of this Proposition 187 was enacted to control immigration into California most vulnerable sector of the workand thus infringes on Congress' exclusive power to regulate immi- force...
...that immigrants give to the government in the form of social-security taxes, unemployment insurance, vehi- I hese cost-benefit analyses also have a deeper, cle-registration fees, and state and federal gasoline more fundamental flaw: they are oblivious to the taxes...
...This is exactly nized by the opposite of what Prop 187 does...
...Special programs were implemented such as the European Regional Development Funds and the European Social Fund, which together have invested 23% of the region's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the poorer countries while also addressing the adjustment costs in the richer European countries...
...Raul Hinojosa, "New Perspectives on Integration and Development: The North American Development Bank," Journal of the American Planning Association, 1994...
...60, No...
...The Faulty Logic of the Anti-immigration Rhetoric 1. The principal studies include for San Diego [Richard A Parker and Louis M. Rea, "II egal Immigration in San Diego County: An Analysis of Costs and Revenues," Rea and Parker, Inc., 1993...
...This will win summary judgment on that count...
...in fact, they looked forward to having another made clear that while higher-paid, chance to bring anti-immigrant arguments before a more conserva- skilled workers in the two countries tive Supreme Court...
...The United States and Mexico are on the verge of a radical new form of economic integration which could, if properly managed, produce a pattern of upward growth as well as convergence in productivity and income levels across North America...
...By contrast, there is evidence of competition with other Latino legal residents, the majority of whom voted against the proposition...
...These tation...
...The formal argument for the ballot initiative states this mission in militaristic language: WE CAN STOP ILLEGAL ALIENS...
...The Californian economy is undergoing radical changes whose origins lie principally in shifting East-West and North-North relations-the end of the Cold War, the new Pacific economy, and the passage of the GATT...
...grams, and be more likely to turn to crime to support Medical experts point out that the cost of health care themselves...
...grants will deter new migrants as well as encourage undocumented residents already in the country to leave voluntarily...
...immigration ing to a 1994 Rand Corporation study, undocumented law allows many categories of undocumented people to immigrants actually buffer the effect because they use legalize their status by, for example, obtaining political social services far less than the typical working-class asylum, amnesty, "adjustment of status" through close household...
...They intend to argue that several provisions of Proposition 187 violate procedural due-process require long-term agreements on trade, rights guaranteed by the Constitution...
...These categories may immigrants tend to be healthier than the typical U.S...
...If we take into account who pays for the social reproduction of the state's low-wage labor force, it is indisputable that the government of California is indebted to Mexico-not the reverse...
...Long before the North grants contribute to the U.S...
...If we begin to calculate exactly who owes whom for the social reproduction of this lowwage labor force, it is indisputable that the government of California is heavily indebted to Mexico-not the reverse...
...Proposition 187 prohibits public post-secondary educational insti- This circular flow of people dwarfs the tutions from enrolling or permitting the attendance of students who 4.6 million entries recorded under the are not in the United States legally...
...In Mexico, real wages-particularly in the poor rural sectors-would suffer the greatest decline, acutely exacerbating social and political tensions...
...Pregnant women would be denied prenatal care while children who have been abused or neglected would not receive social services...
...18NAULA REPORT ON ThE AMEXILA NACIA REPORT ON TH S 18REPORT ON IMMIGRATION First of all, each of these in apartheid South Africa to difstudies can be faulted for their ferentiate the rights of particuinflated estimates of the numlar legal-ethnic categories...
...The other possible outcome is that Prop 187 does not deter undocumented immigration and that the undocumented population in California is simply driven deeper underground...
...As an immigration must examine trade, capital and migration Urban Institute study points out, Huddle's underestima- flows as well as state institutions, social relations, and tion of revenue from immigrants by $50 billion more legal structures in both the sending and receiving counthan offsets his total annual "net cost" of $42.5 billion...
...cit- Justice Department...
...Inspired in part by the European example, the North American Development Bank was created as a part of NAFTA to address the environmental and development gaps between the United States and Mexico...
...While the $3 billion bank is the largest U.S.-Mexico institution ever created, the original proposal called for a capitalization of $40 billion to put it on a par with the European scale of development support.13 The existing institutional structures and political forces in both the United States and Mexico are standing in the way of alternative policy approaches...
...Bustamante, C.W Reynolds, and R. Hinojosa-Ojeda, eds., Labor Market Interdependence Between the United States and Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992...
...The real challenge facing Californian society is whether it can reject the short-term politics of racial division, and take on the long-term task of building an economically and socially just North America...
...If the proposition is implemented, wages for undocumented immigrants will probably fall, as they did after weak employer-sanctions provisions went into effect under the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986.8 As wages and working conditions for undocumented workers deteriorate, the demand for their labor will rise...
...to this phenomenon, but accordactually deportable under federal law...
...If the district 1990, there have been an estimated 36 determines or "reasonably suspects" that a student, parent or million undocumented entries from guardian is not in the United States legally, the district must notify Mexico into the United States and 31 the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Attorney General, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service...
...This lion, resulting in net costs of over $38 million...
...Whereas the gap in North America is virtually the same today, European integration achieved high economic growth, wage convergence, and a precipitous decline of migration from the south to the north...
...On our ballot, Proposition 187 will be the first giant stride in ultimately ending the ILLEGAL ALIEN invasion...
...The fact that tion or citizenship documents a felony punishable by a fine of undocumented immigrants are paid on $25,000 or a five-year prison term...
...The highly embedded binational labor Proposition 187 prohibits public schools from admitting and allow- market that has emerged inextricably ing the attendance of children who are not citizens or lawfully links the fate of millions of urban and admitted residents...
...Beginning in the nineteenth century, both docuservices they receive...
...Not only do Prop 187 advocates exaggerate the fiscal costs of immigration, but Mexican-U.S...
...Agencies must clandestine...
...Prop 187, however, provides absolutely no procedural safe- pacts must be crafted with the clear guards to protect a person from being erroneously deported...
...residents to rapidly fill jobs formerly held by undocumented migrants, the higher wages required by U.S...
...notify the authorities regarding the undocumented status of clients Undocumented immigrants contribute seeking services...
...economy apart from the American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) became payment of taxes...
...R. Hinojosa-Ojeda, and S. Robinson, "Labor Issues in a North American Free Trade Area," in Nora Lustig, etal., eds., North American Free Trade: Assessing the Impact (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute, 1992), pp...
...Agricultural Labor" in Choices published by the American Agricultural Economics Association (forthcoming...
...citizens or lawfully admitted aliens...
...In order to be politically viable, gration as set down in the Constitution...
...Mexico and the United States could thus finally be weaned away from their dependence on an exploitative labor system that denies these rights to the binational low-wage migrating labor force...
...Free trade by itself will never generate this type of development 2 NAFTA needs to be accompanied by social and economic reforms modeled after those that the European Community has successfully implemented...
...essence, the United States has been The measure limits the provision of public social services and of sponsoring the world's largest guestpublicly funded health care (except emergency care required by fed- worker program-albeit unofficial and eral law) to U.S...
...These youngsters would become largely ical care when sick...
...roughly 7% of the state's $900 billion The measure requires every law-enforcement agency in the state to Gross State Product...
...Research shows that if moderately high economic growth in Mexico can be sustained for the next ten years and if investment is directed towards social infrastructure and the poorer regions, Mexican real wages would rise to the point where potential migrants would begin to choose to stay in Mexico even if the United States legalizes its undocumented immigrants...
...This sort of blood-lineage accounting is not the cost-benefit contribution of all California residents, only contrary to the constitutional definition of what the gap between what is received from the government constitutes citizenship rights in the United States, but and what is contributed in taxes would be wider for also echoes the kind of fiscal accounting that was used U.S...
...If Prop goal of promoting sustainable and equi187 becomes law, suspected undocumented immigrants will be table development...
...Any legitimate study of legal immigrants and using inaccurate tax rates...
...In the end of every term after January 1, 1995...
...The employers of undocumented workers, traditionally strong supporters of Governor Wilson, also likely believe this will be the outcome...
...5. North American Integration and Development Center, UCLA, "Tracking the Economic Impacts of North American Integration: Trade, Capital and Migration Flows," forthcoming...
...California's economy-in particular Proposition 187 makes the manufacture of false immigration or cit- agriculture and the garment industryizenship documents a felony punishable by a fine of $75,000 or would simply not be viable without imprisonment for five years...
...A booming Mexican economy would also help close the gap between high- and lowwage labor in the United States since there would no longer be a downward pull on low-end wages prompted by competition from impoverished migrants...
...policy approach is not a pipe dream...
...mented and undocumented migration has linked famiThese immigration studies also systematically lies, communities, regions and economic sectors in underestimate or ignore the diverse ways that immi- Mexico and the United States...
...ment has gradually shifted the Starting with inflated num- burden of social-service provibers, none of these studies sion to local governments...
...The United States and Mexico could then begin laying the groundwork for a new North American immigration visa system not unlike the system in place in Europe...
...5 Large parts of notify the Attorney General and the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the apparent illegal status of those arrested...
...This would be devastating to the Californian economy and the fiscal well-being of the state...
...Even assuming unrealistic conjectures of the ability of U.S...
...f Proposition 187 is implemented, the result would be one of two possible scenarios, both of which would spell disaster for California...
...The integration process has functionally releowned business or the national wealth generated by gated the Mexican migrant population to second-class consumer spending by immigrants...
...It also makes the use of false immigra- undocumented workers...
...In his 1994-95 social services to undocumentbudget, Governor Wilson, for ed immigrants, and low estiexample, stated that there were mates of local tax revenues col2,083,000 undocumented im- lected from this sector of the migrants in California in 1993, population...
...This economic crisis would set off a much larger fiscal crisis, making the current state deficit look small by comparison...
...It also explains Governor Wilson's call for a new bracero program in a speech at the right-wing Heritage Foundation in Washington immediately after the passage of Prop 187...
...intervention...
...Under the measure, each institu- bracero (seasonal farmworker) protion would be required to verify the legal status of every student at gram between 1942 and 1964...
...The proposition aspires to transport white voters back to manifest destiny: their God-given right to control and purify the Southwest borderlands...
...The NAFTA debate jtional problems...
...NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 22REPORT ON IMMIGRATION In the post-1945 period, the population explosion in Mexico prompted high levels of migration to the North and the current (delayed) backlash...
...2. George Vernez and Kevin McCarthy, "The Fiscal Costs of Immigration: Analytical and Policy Issues," Paper prepared for the Irvine Foundation by the Center for Research on Immigration Policy, The Rand Corporation, February, 1995...
...the approach must provide economic The LULAC plaintiffs plan to raise other legal issues if they fail to benefits for both countries...
...Huddle makes an additional $21.3 billion gration to California should be seen in the light of U.S.accounting error by underestimating the income of Latin American integration...
...Communicable diseases would unemployable, rely extensively on public-support prospread, endangering the health of all Californians...
...3 tries...
...The LULAC plaintiffs will also charge that the provisions in Significant demographic and economic Proposition 187 which deny services to undocumented children, including public school admission, violate the equal-protection transformations are underway in the clause of the Fourteenth Amemendment...
...represent a significant subset of the undocumented pop- citizen...
...To confront the powers that be, progressives in the United States and Mexico need to build a transnational social movement for economic and political empowerment...
...By January 1, 1996, each school district must verify the Mexicans admitted to the United States legal status of every child already enrolled in the district as well as as permanent residents from 1965 to that of the parents or guardians of those students...
...3 (Summer, 1994...
...Mexico spends $180 million annually to educate Mexicans who then Day labor migrate without documents to the United States for their prime working years...
...The differences between the European and North American approaches to integration can be seen clearly in the way that the European Community incorporated the poorer countries of Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland...
...These taxes total $28.8 billion on a national binational nature of immigration...
...Otherwise, they would have vocally opposed Prop 187 just as they have opposed efforts to limit their access to undocumented labor in the past...
...Undocumented residents with serious illnesses would be denied needed medical attention...
...citizens, the the border...
...Proponents of Proposition 187 drive Mexican productivity and wages specifically want to see that decision reversed...
...The Rand study drives this point home...
...and the Un ted States [Donald Huddle, "The Net National Costs of Imm gration in 1993," Department of Economics, Rice University, Houston, Texas, June 27, 1994...
...Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda and R. McCleery, "U.S.-Mexico Interdependence, Social Pacts, and Policy Perspectives: A Computable General Equilibrium Approach," in J.A...
...The image of Latin American welfare mothers jumping the border to live off taxpayers and to populate the schools with "illegal" non-English speaking children was too politically potent for Governor Wilson's fledgling and floundering re-election campaign to pass up...
...As imitation propositions, bills and campaigns begin to spring up across the country, national and local debates must be made to focus on the wildly false and fundamentally racist claims concerning the economic impact of U.S.-Mexican migration, as well as on the disastrous socioeconomic, transnational and human consequences of any attempt to actually implement these misguided policies...
...2 This is not surprising given that federal law family members who are legal residents, and "suspen- already renders undocumented immigrants ineligible sion of deportation" based on seven years of continuous for most social and health services...
...Others, fearVOL XXIX, No 3 Nov/DEC 1995 21REPORT ON IMMIGRATION ing deportation, would be deterred from seeking med- are enormous...
...The measure that could have been avoided by far less costly early mandates a vast state network of informants...
...studies conducted in the early 1990s which concluded that immigration is a burden on taxpayers and a growing part of the state's fiscal crisis.' All of these studies share a similar set of suspect estimating techniques concerning the number of undocumented immigrants, the cost of their use of social services, their tax contributions, and the overall economic benefits of Mexican immigration...
...The moment is ripe to create a new regime of human and labor rights...
...The U.S...
...Rebecca L. Clark, et al., "Fiscal Impacts of Undocumented Aliens: Selected Estimates for Seven States," The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., September, 1994...
...million undocumented departures...
...Donald Huddle, "The Net National Costs of Immigration," Carrying Capacity Network, July, 1993...
...This is, in fact, the policy approach that Pete Wilson advocated in 1986 when as a state senator, he pushed for special provisions to allow the entry of undocumented workers as part of IRCA...
...As was established during the 1980 Texas In order to inflate the cost of immigration, Governor school case argued before the Supreme Court, the Wilson's office added up all current state expenditures majority of undocumented children attending public (including roads, parks, corporate subsidies, and debt school eventually legalize their immigration status...
Vol. 29 • November 1995 • No. 3
