Yes-- Ohio's industrial base was crushed, partially by trade policies that have been far more important in undermining wages for less-skilled workers than anything immigration should have caused.

So if trade and other policies effecting Ohio played such a large role compared to immigration's possible effects, why spend tens of billions on border enforcement when we haven't been willing to spend similar amounts dealing with the effects of trade on such workers? Or to deal with the power to undermine wages given to employers by anti-union courts that have reinterpreted labor law continually to undercut labor rights?

I keep asking why there are "jobs Americans won't take". Should there be such jobs? I answer: "No."

I certainly find your arguments and the studies you adduce to support them fragmentary at best. I am convinced that illegal immigration does have a depressive effect on wages. There are a slew of local conditions in Ohio (and California) which can skew the results; your putting them forward in this demonstrative way reminds me of the studies put forward (and paid for) by the cigarette industry to defend against government curbs on smoking. I am sure the big corporate powers are financing all these wonderful economic studies that globalization, offshoring labor, and unrestricted immigration all are both inevitable and are wonderful for everybody. There are jobs fo immigrants "which American will not take" because they do not pay a living wage; we should be fighting to increase the pay on all jobs and regulate immigration. Certainly we do not want to criminalize illegals; but even if they do not cause the lowering of real income, they do contribute to this trend, as well as to the weakening of labor's organizations of defense primarily the unions. Even if the studies showed that wages were not worse off with the presence of large number of illegals, (and it is very harde to isolate contributing factors, especially since wages seem to be lower everywhere), how can you KNOW that the wages would not be still higher without the presence of large number of illegals?

Don't miss the point of the California-Ohio comparison. It isn't that immigration has no effect on wages - even Card finds small downward pressure from immigration. It is that the wage effect is very small and therefore is dwarfed by other effects.

That gives us better information about the tradeoffs we want to make. If we raise the minimum wage or EITC, for example, that will swamp the wage effects of immigration. Meanwhile, by allowing immigrants to enter we: (1) make a tremendous difference in their lives; (2) benefit from the creativity and energy of people who have self-selected to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to a new continent to better themselves; (3) contribute to the well-being of many immigrant families and countries from remittances that the immigrants send back; (4) add to America's cultural and political influence by being true to our self-image as the land of opportunity and liberty.

In fact, studies by folks like David Card come from economists who have also supported increasing the minimum wage and other pro-worker legislation.

In fact, those economists most concerned about economic inequality generally are those who are most skeptical of blaming it on immigrant labor. Which is why folks in the labor movement are so skeptical of all this agitation around immigration coming from the rightwing.

Do you really think that all of the labor unions, religious leaders and others supporting immigrant rights are somehow being duped by corporate studies? These are the same leaders who battle corporations to pass minimum wage legislation and other pro-worker legislation.

golambek,
No use parroting the orthodox line about the benefits of immigration to immigrants. What about Americans who're ready, willing, and able to work? Sounds like the typical arguments always made by "Good Samaritans who use other people's jobs and money as alms for the poor."

You think the Mexican government or people think we're grand because we wave them in in waves? They think we're weak, lacking in survival skills, and ready to take advantage of. Stupid, in other words.

Opening up a tidal wave of uneducated immigration is what happened in the past, when most good jobs required that type labor. Yesterday is gone.

The entire immigration debate needs to look to the future - what are we doing, and why are we doing it? It's not about your Grandma who came over on a boat. It's about how your neighbors and fellow citizens can survive and thrive in the face of international labor arbitrage. If they can.

Exactly. The reason Americans don't take these jobs is because employers who use undocumented labor feel free to dispense with their obligations to observe laws on wage and hour, workplace safety, and workers' compensation. These employers know their illegal immigrant workers will be too afraid to complain, unlike citizen workers. There are employers whose profitability relies entirely on their ability to exploit labor and flout the law.

True, but incomplete as an answer. Absent minimum-wage and unions, all wages would be much lower.
Low consumer prices are often portrayed as unalloyed good, but they are morally neutral. Lower price is preferred, all other things being held equal. There's the rub. Other things are not equal when price is low due to exploitative labor practice.
What is not neutral is the cost of low prices.

The Myth that Unions will stand by the American worker is just that , a Myth. Corrupt Unions are a big reason the Unions have failed in recent times. Just how many times in the recent past have you seen union workers have to accept wage, health care, and pension cuts just to keep their job ? Way too freaking many. Look at the Pilots in the News, in the last 2 union deals, they have lost 50% of their wages while the CEOs still make 6 figure salarys. My next couple points on this issue are exp. based. Until last yr., I spent close to 10 yrs in Las Vegas. I worked for the largest flooring company in Vegas. at least half of the crews spoke very little if any english, the rest were Hispanic, save a few exceptions that would quit after a week or 2 because of the low wages paid. I know for a fact the owners knew they had illegal workers, because I have personally seen them wire money to Mexico, so a worker could get some more friends here to work. These workers were paid daily, with no taxes taken out. I also know for a fact the Authoritys knew it to, since that same company put the new floors in most the Policemens homes in Vegas for a cut-rate. I had moved to Vegas after 20+ yrs in Ca., and moved back to Ca.. Upon my return, I found the price of labor in the Carpet business had lost appox 25% of wages paid when I had left.These are the " Facts" on the ground, not from some study made by someone looking at a bunch of numbers given them by someone else that doesn't use the true facts either. I'm a proud " Tradesman", I learned the flooring business when we still used a needle and thread, and were as respected as any Plumber, Electrician, or Doctor for that matter. Theses days the pride that was once the American trademark, has been ruined by hiring the "low-bidder". Because of my wifes and my own disabilitys, we have been force to use the County Clinic, where we are treated like the minority ( which we soon will be in Ca.) Both me and my wife are part Native American, so save me any racist remarks. The lowering of wages paid is directly caused by too much cheap labor. No matter how many times someone quotes some study, it just proves to me that they don't have the kind of job that has YET been threatened and really have no clue how abandoned the American Tradesmen really are. Why is it people never remember that the Middle Class Contruction/ Manuf. Labor has been the backbone of the Democratic Party ? Why is the Left so fast to dump us aside ? I have voted Dem. since 1972, and used to vote that way out of pride. Now I still vote Dem., but only because it is has been the lesser of 2 evils. The Dems. had better start to pander to us the way they are pandering to immigrant soon, or they may lose in 08 after the this coming big win in 06.

I'm not thinking about the past.

That's the point of the studies. They look at whether immigration causes wage and job loss today. And the answer is that if there is any effect, it's a small one. Period. You may disagree, and it's possible they're wrong. But if they are, point me to a flaw in their argument or some respectable contrary studies.

If you are concerned about your neighbors and fellow citizens, don't waste your time trying to keep immigrants out. Fight for national health care, higher minimum wage, and a better EITC.

And I'll add, finally, that you are way off on when my family came to the states.

The wage facts you cite are assumed.

Perhaps I should have mentioned that I do not think that low food prices are a good thing on the whole. Aside from the fact that they encourage labor exploitation, there are a host of economic and environmental downsides to cheap food.

Good point about food--among other things, worldwide air-cargo isn't real nice to the environment.
You think the statement about wages absent unions is not valid? Didn't think there was any argument about that.

Let's find a common channel. I was thinking less of overall effect than in a specific job.

As a liberal African American Democrat, i find it most disheartening that our country is willing to attempt to progress economically on the backs of people who can be coerced into working at "slave wages". If Americans "won't" work at certain jobs, it may be because it is more profitable to sit home and collect a welfare check along with food and some medical care, then to work at a sub-minimum wage job, where you could be easily fired without redress and have no medical benefits. No one in my family has been on welfare, but I can understand (not condone) the economic decision made by some White, Black and native born Latinos to make this choice. This is one of the benefits of US citizenship.
If we are a country, then there have to be rules for citizenship. Being born here imparts the benefits of citizenship. Non-native born people are citizens if a parent is a US citizen. Otherwise, get in line. Should immigration rules be modified to speed it up? Probably yes. should geographic proximity trump other issues in deciding how fast citizenship occurs? Probably not. Mexico does not freely allow people from other South American countries access to their borders, even if they merely want to pass through to get to the US.
Mexico should be pressured to improve their own economy, rather than passing their problem on to us.
I might ask Nathan why he is showing latent hostility to Haitian refugees. If he is supporting immigrant rights, than he should be trumpeting having Haitians come to work in the US. I even bet we could get them to work in the fields, in food services, in lawn care or as caregivers for children at a lower wage than South Americans would. Why is Nathan so compassionate to South Americans, but so silent on Caribbean peoples. (sorry for the cynicism)
The truth of the matter is that we need border security (borders define a country), we need a balanced immigration policy that treats South Americans, Europeans, Africans, Asians, etc equally, and provides for documentation of all immigrants. We need penalties for people who hire people not in the US legally.
The economic rationalizations are open to question, because methodology will always be open to question. If illegal immigrants aren't making April 15th payments, how can the ecomic impact be fully calculated since they may not be on an employers books. If health care is being provided to immigrants without health care how much of a drag on debt is that?
Finally, a person should be paid a living wage for a back-breaking job. There should not be a sense of pride in supporting employment of people at a subpar wage.
We should remember most Blacks were not "unemployed" during slavery. that did not make it a great economic plan worthy of repetition by other countries.
Pressure Mexico to work on it's economy
Protect our borders.
Raise the minimum wage.
Find a noncitizen willing to work for a lower salary and longer hours than Nathan Newman so we can get a cheaper and more authentic voice for his position.

The "H1-B" immigrants taking highly skilled engineering and other technical jobs are not illegal immigrants.  The problem there, just as in any other work field, is the lack of an effective union contract for that work class.  For most of my career in engineering, companies did not try to undercut their engineer salaries and benefits.  The importation of people from other countries to do that is relatively new.  But, we always understood it could happen and many of us wanted union representation to prevent that and other abuses.  Most of us never did get unionized.

My point is that undocumented Mexican workers are being scapegoated for a problem that is not caused by them, but by the weakening of the unions begun under Reagan and continued since then.  Today we have the smallest percentage of our workers in unions than at any time since I can remember. That is a problem we can solve, and once we do that, abuses such as those we have been discussing will mostly be a thing of the past.

Democrats should resist the temptation to pick out a defenseless group of workers and blame them for what is really not only not their fault, but which is a problem for them too. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

I was being intentionally provacative
I really don't think that you have no compassion for other immigrants.
I also agree that the US has been ham-handed and arbitrary in it's handling of foreign affairs. Part of our current situation is the unintended results of past actions. 1)Shah of Iran --> suppressing citizens --> deposed --> rise of the clerics + nuclear weapon seeking head of state 2)Osama --> supported and trained
--> now terrorist #1 ,etc
BUT the US can't take in everybody. We hav
Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that there are many people here in the US barely surviving. In our government's wisdom instead of using a part of the displaced people to help clean up NOLA, immigrants are used for much of the cleaning. The economics are that immigrants will work for a lower salary than US citizens would expect as a livable wage. While there may not be a study that low wage NOLA citizens were economically impacted. They probably feel differently.
Two disadvantaged groups are being used against each other. It is happening in front of our eyes. The NOLA residents and millions of others like them are invisible. Instead of being bold and saying that Americans will do any job that pays a living wage we remain silent. To say that there are jobs won't do is to take a GOP line that justifies "slave wages".
I apologize for the overall tone of my response above, in which I used your name, but it seems that poor Americans are being treated as an aferthought. I think they are the first ones to be considered in this debate. Count me as a liberal who is concerned about the impact of immigrants on wages.
I don't have easy solutions, but I am angered by conservatives basically say some Americans are lazy because thay want a living wage and progressives who seem to be arguing for an open arm policy and ignoring concerns of those who feel the plight low wage earners who will take the brunt of the decisions that we liberals and those conservatives make. Make sure they are given a primary role in any bill

If you think adding 11 million ( or 9 million, or 5 million, depending on the demographics) illegal workers does not drive down wages, you are crazy. Site some study about Ohio as much as you want, but one could use generalized statistics to prove any point. The number you bring up mean very little.

If you want to see the effect of illegal immigrants on wages, go talk to some unionized meatpacking workers. The ones who no longer have their jobs because they were fired and replaced with illegal workers bused in from Mexico. Talk to contractors who must pay cheaper wages to survive when competing against illegal workers.

On top of that, basic supply and demand dictates that more workers will absolutely drive down wages or keep them stagnant. A net of only a few thousand jobs were created in Bush's first term, a time during which a few million more illegal immigrants came here and found jobs. To say this had no part to play in the stagnation of working class wages is somewhat ignorant.