Jun 11 2007
Florida Supports Immigration Plan’s Elements
Seems the ground swell of opposition to the immigration bill might be receding, if Florida is any indication:
More than half of those polled – 58 percent – didn’t believe illegal immigrants take jobs away from citizens but rather do work no one else wants to do.
…
The poll found strong support for elements of the Senate’s failed plan. Sixty percent of participants agreed that immigration reform should include a path toward citizenship for most illegal immigrants with no criminal record, if they pay a $5,000 fine and wait their turn behind legal immigrants to apply for permanent residency.
Is Rasmussen an outlier poll? So far it seems he is the only one seeing things the way he does. I am sure more polls will be out to possibly clear up the picture).
The basic math says that illegals don’t take jobs from Americans. There are less than 7 million unemployed according to the department of labor’s April stats. There are something more than 12 million illegals here.
While it is *possible* that an unemployed web developer in Sunnyvale, California *might* want to take a job picking Oranges in Florida or roofing apartments in Phoenix, somehow I doubt it. And the majority of the unemployed Americans are simply “between jobs” and are not unemployed for long. Of those 6 million unemployed, there are probably less than a million or two who will be unemployed for long.
You can’t kick out 12 million employed workers without hurting the economy no matter what their immigration status. It is not emotional or political, it is just plain math and economics.
WP Says Not Enough Illegal Aliens In Texas
June 11th, 2007
From the open borders lobby at the Washington Post:
In Texas, Frustration Over Senate Impasse
Collapse of Immigration Bill Concerns Region That Relies on Foreign Workers
By Sylvia Moreno
Monday, June 11, 2007; Page A10
WESLACO, Tex. — On the front line of securing the nation’s borders, the day after the collapse of a major overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws was business as usual — but better…
The bipartisan Senate measure that stalled late last week would have, once again, tightened border security, cracked down on the hiring of illegal immigrants and provided a path for such immigrants to stay and work legally in the United States. The legislation died when the Senate voted to end a new guest-worker program after five years.
The bill, and in particular the proposal for the guest-worker program, were watched closely by South Texans. Many of them are worried about labor shortages in the service industry and in the region’s multibillion-dollar produce industry.
“If we cannot get labor in this country because Congress is incapable of passing intelligent legislation, some people will struggle along, some will go out of business, and many will move production to Mexico,†said Texas Produce Association President John McClung of Alamo, in South Texas.
Already, 50 percent of Texas fruit and vegetable distributors contract with Mexican farmers across the border to plant and harvest produce that is then shipped across the United States, he said.
“People have to understand that a significant amount of fruits and vegetables is going to be planted and tended and harvested by Mexicans,†McClung said. “The question is only what side of the border is that going to happen on.â€
J Allen Carnes, whose family has farmed fruit and vegetables on 3,000 acres for more than half a century in Uvalde, in southwest Texas, said the company has traditionally depended on Mexican fieldworkers with various forms of legal work visas.
But recent security crackdowns have made it more difficult for those workers to cross the border or travel within the region. And fewer migrant workers from South Texas are coming up, for fear of immigration enforcement raids, Carnes said.
Last year the Carnes farm had to leave produce unpicked in the field for the first time because of a 20 to 30 percent shortage of farmhands. This year, the labor shortage is 40 to 50 percent, Carnes said…
The bill’s collapse in the Senate “was pretty disheartening,†Carnes said. “This country has a real problem when it can’t fix its problem.†…
We are told by the Washington Post that:
1) Enforcement doesn’t stop the flow of illegal aliens.
2) There aren’t enough illegal aliens to pick the crops.
Which is it?
We are also told by the growers who want slave labor:
Already, 50 percent of Texas fruit and vegetable distributors contract with Mexican farmers across the border to plant and harvest produce that is then shipped across the United States, he said.
But if the illegal aliens in the US are made legal and given minimum wage it will be far cheaper to grow produce in Mexico than in the US.
So how is this an argument for the amnesty legislation?
Apparently, neither logic or even consistency apply when you are driving an agenda.
AJ
I would have to find the link, but I believe the actual poll was done by the Miami Herald and then picked up by the Palm Beach “land of hanging chads” Pink Sheet.
Any poll in Florida as well as any vote here is controlled by 4 cities that have the bulk of the population.
Politicians know it here, for state wide office you only have to campaign in those 4 cities and do well and the rest of the state is delegated to second class status.
The polls here naturally fall to those 4 cities as to most of their random picks and guess what they end up in areas with a lot of immigrants or dem leaning areas.
As a non political pure documentation of this trend, just look at all the winner lists since the beginning of the various lottery payouts. Almost 94% end up in the same 4 cities, it’s just a pure numbers game.
AJ
If you look at the history, due to population clustering, polls which have a statistical error based on sample size of 3% have been off as much as 16 to 20% from actual demonstrated results.
It has forced the polling organizations here to put fudge factor adjustments in their base data if you read the fine print.
They are still working on it but are being blindsided by the 1K per day population growth the state has as a 10 year or more trend.
They are trying to make it better, but they are still trying to nail jello to a tree.
AJ
I saw an article the other day which backed up the Rasmussen poll with other polls and pointed out the Zogby differential.
I should have bookmarked it because it was a good retrospective about how the polls diverged in the 2006 race.
I don’t remember all the details, but based just on the data differentials and the history of Zogby himself and his ties to some campaigns and an analysis of is underlying poll data justifications, the article I read made a convincing case that there was a bias with a high degree of correlation to support the positions he personally supported.
I’m coming up empty on google search terms, so I guess I gotta troll through my browser history to try to jar my memory.
Also if my memory serves, Zogby was the poll group who had to make the biggest standard deviation dive from it’s norms to come close to the final results in the 2006 election and some suggested then that at the last moment they put in weighting factors to hit the ballpark average of all the other polling groups.
I will put it on my list of things to do , and if I find it I will post it here.
CP
You can’t just look at the number of unemployed.
Go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and look at the numbers of workers who have detached themselves from the workforce and are no longer actively seeking jobs. They are fudged out of the unemployment numbers.
When you examine the spreadsheets available there, you realize that if you put them into 3d graphs, that as illegal or soon neolegal workers flood the bottom end market the biggest impact is increased unemployment in the African American community.
Of the top of my head , for each 1% increase in neolegal workforce, it results in 4 to 7% increase in African American unemployment, especially in the teenage category.
I may have the numbers wrong here, but the general principal is correct in that the impact of growth of neolegals effects the African American community in a highly disproportional manner.
I saw an oped by Jeb Bush supporting this bill and he is still very popular in Florida. Of course it was an online oped so some moron had to immediately leave a comment about the man having sex with his “mex” wife. Tacky people.
There are no shortage of jobs for people in that category. The work is there, they have simply decided not to work for whatever reason. The existence if illegals would be of no impact to those. Take note on a regular day about town how many “help wanted” signs you might see. Practically all services businesses where I live have a sign out.
And there is another issue that people are not understanding. We are going to face a severe SHRINKAGE in the US workforce. The baby boomer generation has already started to retire at a trickle. That will soon increase to a flood. We will have workers pouring out of the workforce as fast as they were pouring into it in the 1970’s.
Businesses are going to be seriously hurting finding workers if they want to expand. We face a situation where business will be unable to expand at the same time medicare, medicaid, and Social Security payments will be ballooning. We will have fewer workers paying in, and more workers collecting payments out.
CP
I think you will find that a lot of those detached workers in some areas have been unable to find jobs because they are being undercut by the wages illegals are willing to take.
I see it in a lot of blue collar stuff, not maids and landscapers but in areas like framing carpenters and roofers and other similar occupations. I also see a lot of the grunt wire pullers on electrical crews in a similar manner.
Has anyone looked at Senator Martinez numbers in Florida? Perhaps it’s worth a look.