The article misses the point. It isn't about the relative worth of an illegal vs a legal immigrant. It's about law. We have immigration laws on the books, and there are ways to immigrate legally. If you don't have a skill we need then we don't want you here.

Hell, it's tough to get here legally if you DO have a skill that's in demand. My fiancee is British, an occupational therapist with an advanced university degree and licensed to work in three countries. It's going to cost us over 7 grand to get her here legally, and will take at least another 6 months. In the meantime I'm living here and she's in the UK. The U.S. is woefully short of allied health workers yet we still have to jump through hoops, spend a huge amount of money, and live apart for months on end. I resent this. The proposed Z visas, even with the $4000 fine, are still cheaper than what we're doing.

It's also about social costs.

While it's true that illegal immigrants aren't covered by Medicare or Medicaid (yet, anyway), we do provide free health care for them. In Sarasota county our primay public hospital is Sarasota Memorial, with an annual budget in excess of 400 million. It's primary mission is to provide indigent health care. Before anyone jumps on it, I'm not implying that all illegals are indigent, but they certainly do use Sarasota Memorial. I went to the emergency room a few months ago with an injured shoulder, and the waiting room was completely full, with the line running out the door. The only languare (literally) I heard spoken was Spanish. Now, I'm sure some of those folks were card-carrying workers, but I'll bet 10 bucks to a box of stale donuts there were plenty of illegals. After all, if you're willing to break the law by coming to our country illegally, why would you hesitate to break the law by using indigent care facilities when you aren't truly indigent?

There is a huge cost to the school system. Yes - illegals rent property, so they indirectly pay property taxes. But that argument ignores population density. If you drive through the lower-rent districts in Sarasota and Bradenton, you'll see 5 or 6 cars parked in front of a single apartment. This impiles, to me anyway, that there are a lot of people living in that low-rent apartment. So they're NOT paying a fair share of property taxes on a per capita basis. Also, because so many of the illegal (and legal, for that matter) immigrants don't speak English, there is the cost of interpreters, textbooks in other languages, etc.

The article states that the average loss to a $10 an hour American worker is $3 and hour, while the illegal gains $7 an hour, and that the $7 gain is worth about 5 times the American's loss. Now, I doubt there are very many illegal economists out there dragging down Mr. Landsburg's wages, so it's easy for him to sit in his ivory tower and justify that loss on some grand macro-economic level but it ignores the cost to the legal, law-abiding AMERICAN citizen. If I were making $10 and hour and someone took $3 and hour away from me it would make a huge impact on my household budget, even if it were only for a shot time while the economy 'adjusted'. So I'd ask Mr. Landsburg - are you willing to take a 30% pay cut? I can tell you I'm not.

It's about public safety. The fastest growing gang in the U.S. is MS13, an Hispanic gang that originated in El Salvadore. It is composed mostly of illegals. I won't bother with a citation - just type 'MS13' into Google. Are these people 'worth' as much as an American citizen? I personally know three people in the Sarasota area who have been involved in auto accidents with illegal immigrants, and in all three cases the illegals were at fault. Uninsured, unlicensed illegal immigrants. Is that fair? There's a huge, underground economy that's sprung up to service the illegal population, do we really need that?

It's also about stupidity. The proposed immigration bill eliminated several classes of visas, particularly the 'E' type visas that are for exceptional individuals in the arts and sciences. These are the sort of visas someone like Hawkings would use if he were to immigrate. So what we're basically saying is we want your yard workers and citrus pickers, but keep your physicists and ballet dancers? What sort of stupid, myopic nonsense is that?

Why is it that high-paid liberals are so willing to spend the average American's hard-earned money?

Write your congressional reps and senators, folks. Let them know that anyone who supports this short-sighted, politically expedient horse hockey will be looking for a job come next election.

OK so if The Law Is The Law, then I take it Bull Connor's was right and Rosa Parks wrong according to you. Correct?

I didn't think so.

So now onto your "facts"

I'm not implying that all illegals are indigent, but they certainly do use Sarasota Memorial. I went to the emergency room a few months ago with an injured shoulder, and the waiting room was completely full, with the line running out the door. The only languare (literally) I heard spoken was Spanish. Now, I'm sure some of those folks were card-carrying workers, but I'll bet 10 bucks to a box of stale donuts there were plenty of illegals.

Based on what? Remember that EMTALA only requires Private hosptials to take only immediate emergencies. Now Sarasota Memorial is a Public Hospital. Which means it is funded by Sales and Property taxes primarily. Which EVERY resident pays - otherwise they don't eat or don't have a roof over their heads. And we know that undocumented residents underutilize healthcare resources so that's not a "social cost" that is being driven there. Add into the mix that the MAJORITY of uninsured who use Public ERs as primary are legal residents. IOW this is a health policy issue, not an immigration issue.

There is a huge cost to the school system. Yes - illegals rent property, so they indirectly pay property taxes. But that argument ignores population density. If you drive through the lower-rent districts in Sarasota and Bradenton, you'll see 5 or 6 cars parked in front of a single apartment. This impiles, to me anyway, that there are a lot of people living in that low-rent apartment. So they're NOT paying a fair share of property taxes on a per capita basis.

This is a classic arguement that has been used against ALL immigrants for about 125 years. It also applies to most working and lower economic class individuals in general. My sister lived in a house with 4 others in her early 20s., my other sister shared a 2 BR apartment with 3 other women when she first lived and worked in NYC. This is standard practice for ALL citizens and residents. Hence using it against immigrants was racist 125 years ago and it is racist now. In point of fact, while latino undocumenteds tend to have larger families WHEN THEY HAVE THEM, as a rule most of the undocumented residents in the USA do not have families. So while there may be 6 guys living in a 2 bedroom apartment, they are paying for schools they don't have kids going to.

The reality is that if you go and dig through the historic data at the National Center for Educational Statistics you'll find that schools have been underfunded on a per-capita basis by about 30% for the last 40 years.

Also, because so many of the illegal (and legal, for that matter) immigrants don't speak English, there is the cost of interpreters, textbooks in other languages, etc.

The cost of a textbook is fixed irrespective of the language. ESL teachers don't get extra money (my wife is a certified ESL instructor) and interpreters are needed for legal residents anyway. So these aren't extra costs.

Now, I doubt there are very many illegal economists out there dragging down Mr. Landsburg's wages, so it's easy for him to sit in his ivory tower and justify that loss on some grand macro-economic level but it ignores the cost to the legal, law-abiding AMERICAN citizen. If I were making $10 and hour and someone took $3 and hour away from me it would make a huge impact on my household budget, even if it were only for a shot time while the economy 'adjusted'. So I'd ask Mr. Landsburg - are you willing to take a 30% pay cut? I can tell you I'm not.

This is somewhat a fair point. Except that Landsburg probably CHOSE not to go to a beer party in HS and instead studied for exams. He CHOSE to finish HS (something about 50% of Citizens CHOSE not to). He CHOSE to go onto college (something 65% of Citzens don't bother to do), and he CHOSE to go onto grad school (something 85% of citizens chose not to do). And each of these choices meant he had to give up some immediate gratification or payback.

I have a tough time feeling sympathy for the 35% Citizens who didn't bother to finish HS or get a GED. And only slightly less difficulty for those who would rather spend $200/mo on their F-350 truck, instead of going to community college and getting an associates.

Those are PERSONAL choices. Now if you want to bring up the wages of the lower end, the simplest way is to enable ALL low-end workers to be protected by Fair Labor, Fair Wage and Collective bargaining. IOW legalize all of them and make all states "closed shop".

It's about public safety.

No its not. Undocumented Residents according to DOJ statistics, have abouta 1.7% incarceration rate compared to 4% for the general US resident population. IE 1/3 the rate of criminality. Sure MS13 is a problem. But that is largely caused by the silly War on Some Drugs - and hence is a DEA policy issue, not tied to immigration of any sort.

As for uninsured motorists - simple solution, no insurance, no plates. NY has done that for decades, but states like FL and WA still don't have that. Furthermore, unisured motorists are not restricted to undocumenteds. We have a "stunt" kid living with us (de facto foster kid) who is now having to work out payments on a $500 fine for driving uninsured. And his brother had the same thing happen as well. And these are native born anglos. Its not a problem restricted to "hispanics".

It's also about stupidity. The proposed immigration bill eliminated several classes of visas, particularly the 'E' type visas that are for exceptional individuals in the arts and sciences. These are the sort of visas someone like Hawkings would use if he were to immigrate. So what we're basically saying is we want your yard workers and citrus pickers, but keep your physicists and ballet dancers? What sort of stupid, myopic nonsense is that?

This is the ONLY legitimate gripe you've leveled. I agree its overall a bad bill. The points system and the recreation of the 'bracero' program are two more bad things about this bill. But your other reasons are nonsense.

I agree there are good laws and bad laws, and no one in their right mind would argue that what Bull Conners did was morally defensible. Legally - that's another story. He was acting within the limits of his legal authority. Rosa Parks broke the law - in her case what she did was morally correct if technically illegal. Drug laws are another stupidity, and interdiction efforts can't be defended on any logical grounds I can think of. And MS13 is funded largely by illegal drugs. Simple solution here - legalize it (all of 'it'). But that's another discussion.

Whether illegals underutilize or overutilize the public health system isn't germane. If they weren't here they wouldn't be using those services.

You make a couple of reasonable points about the cost to the school system. However, having spent a lot of time dealing with bureaucracies I'd have to believe there's some cost associated with dealing with multiple languages. I'll bet there are all sorts of administrative positions that deal with it. But I'll defer to you on that one. However, the Texas Education Agency estimated that the cost of dual-language instruction was between $290 and $879 per pupil, depending on class size (i'll put the links at the bottom since it seems to highlight EVERYTHING as a link once you put one in). According to the old INS and the US department of education, the cost of educating illegal immigrants in FLrida was 1.2 billion dollars in the year 2000. It will be a hell of a lot more now.

I disagree that using the population density argument is racist. I don't have kids in school either, and pay property taxes to fund schools I get no immediate, tangible benefit from. I'm also paying a much, much higher per capita rate then the 6 guys sharing a flat, though. The point about health care costs also applies here. If they weren't here, they wouldn't be in school, and they wouldn't be costing us additional money. I don't mind funding education - it's an investment in the future and blah de blah - but a smaller student population means a smaller outlay overall. Or better schools for the same money.

Florida does mandate auto insurance. But - it's easy enough, given the huge underground economy, for an illegal to buy a car with valid plates. Since the address they give are seldom correct, the state has a very hard time enforcing the law.

I've seen several of your other posts where you argue that low-wage employees have no one to blame but theirselves for their prediciment. I have to agree, at least to a point. However, a high school diploma really doesn't prepare you for much other than a 10 or 12 buck an hour job. An associates degree is jujst a bit better. To actually make any reasonable money you need a bachelors at a bare minimum. At least in any technical field, which are the only ones I can speak to. I still don't see why even a slacker should have to suffer due to illegal immigration. This is a 'free' country, and if they choose to work at a low paid job they have a right to do so.

We're in agreement on the stupidity of the current bill. Shows those of different stripes can agree on something, eh? lol. I enjoy your posts - nothing like a good discussion on a Sunday morning, I always say.

Where are you writing from? Are you in NY?

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Forgot to address collective bargaining. I agree that unions and collective bargaining are a means to an end. But I completely disagree with the idea of a closed shop. I should not be forced to join a union in order to screw bolts onto a car or put handles on widgets. At one point in the 70s the total cost of a Detroit auto-worker to the company was somewhere around $30 an hour. Is doing a job a robot does cheaper and better actually worth $30 and hour? The net result of all that collective, closed-shop bargaining was the export of tens of thousands of jobs to other countries. Same thing happened to the U.S. steel industry.

On the one hand you say that those who don't get a HS diploma or further education are their own worst enemy. Doesn't that imply a laissez-faire approach to wage economics? Without the diploma you are at the mercy of market forces. If what you can do is only worth $5 and hour then go get some education. OTOH, closed shop bargaining is anything but laissez-faire. Though in my dealings with the telecom unions I must say there was a lot of lazy and not a lot of fair.

Whether it's a union or the government, artifical wage controls do little except price the labor force out of the international market. Once that happens the only cure is restrictive trade practices. The argument that illegal immigration and lower wages on the bottom rungs of the employment ladder actually benefits us in the form of lower prices for consumer goods only works in a free-trade environment. Once factories in China or Indonesia are producing DVD players for less than $30, sales of U.S. made machines will drop. U.S. companies, whose labor costs are dictated by collective bargaining agreements, cannot compete and either outsource their labor or go out of business. So what's better - a factory full of people making $10 an hour, or abandoned rust-belt factories?

Well actually I'm writing from the left coast - though I originally hail from NYC and still have family up and down the east coast including a brother in Manhattan.

I won't challange that multi-lingual education increases costs somewhat. But the reality is that every SD pretty much is faced with providing multi-lingual education for LEGAL RESIDENTS. Just the Azerbaijani and Kahzak asylees (ones who have had asylum granted) in LA were a significant part of my wife's ESL classes. So the question really is not what is the cost of multi-lingual education, but what is the DELTA in cost driven by undocumented residents. And given the polyglot nature of our culture, both now and historically, that's not going to be that significant an amount.

And the research on language assimilation by immigrant children is that among latinos, assimilation is faster than historical patterns (at least according to my wife who has done the research on this as part of her PhD in Ed Policy)

Your popl density arguement would only hold water if that were 6 families with children in that one apartment. But if it is 6 single adults, while each adult may not be paying as much prop tax as if they rented an apartment each, they still are paying prop taxes they don't get any direct return on. And what makes it racist is ignoring the fact that the same co-housing is practiced by white college and newly graduated students (like my sisters). Again, that's an issue of tax policy and making SDs rely on prop taxes for funding. Not on undocumented residents use of Public Schools.

Now $1.2 Billion sounds like a lot, but what are the tax revenues collected by the state from ALL undocumented residents? In TX they estimate something like $10 Billion added to the TX GDP by undocumenteds (I provided a link elswhere and can go dig it up if you'd like).

Mea culpa on the FL insurance law. I wrongly assumed that it was like WA law where you are only required to carry Proof Of Insurance in the vehicle, but there is no database tying it to vehicle registration. So the real issue then is the fake license plate availability. And that's always gonna be an issue. But its also a risk, since fake plates can easily get looked up by the FHP as they drive by.

Well I have a mix of both a lack of sympathy for poor personal choices, as well as a recognition that sometimes one is faced with "choiceless choices", so while I hold those who chose to "do up a doobie" instead of taking a test with a reduced level of respect, I also don't want to live in a society that then sets up the rest of their lives as an inescapable trap.

So that leads to collective bargaining. The problem with your logic is that in a true free market (ie the academically discussed one) - each side of the supply/demand equation has equal access to information and equal access to alternative choices. IE the power relationship is equal.

But the problem is that corporations are inherently "collective bargaining" agents. They are collectives of capital.

Thus for there to be an equitable negotiation between commodity suppliers to a corporation, either those suppliers themselves must be collectives of supply, or they have to be differentiated in a way that eliminates the commodity nature of their resource. The latter is true of specialist and executive salaries.

But the former is not true of normal individual laborers. Thus the only way you can actually have an UNDISTORTED supply/demand economy in a marketplace where one side is a collective of capital, is for the other side to be a collective of labor. Otherwise you have an imbalance of powers. And whatever long term agreements Capital comes to with Labor, is then the free market.

The problem Detroit faced was that its products weren't very good. While Detroit was getting clobbered by Nissan and Toyota, both Nissan and Toyota had much more onerous labor support costs than Detroit. But they had a better vehicle and better MFG processes. And hence their per-worker productivity was higher. Detroit's problem wasn't the $30/hr labor cost, but rather the fact that their products were so poor that the product being built couldn't command a high enough margin price.

And in some cases an abandoned rust-belt factory IS a better outcome than a factory full of $10/hr workers.

BTW I too enjoy a discussion where referencable facts are used, not just inflammatory rhetoric