Most of our coverage on the pending immigration reform bill has dealt with its effects on the 11 million undocumented workers in the country. But what about the low-wage American residents who would likely be competing for jobs with these new citizens?
Contrary to most conservative hype and fear-mongering, most analysts say the reform of the arcane and draconian immigration system will see a net benefit for most American workers, including those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.
Bringing undocumented immigrants out of the shadows of society means they can partake in many of the protections afforded to Americans, and when some of us are safer, all of us are safer.
For example, let's look at wages. Currently, the agricultural, service and manufacturing sectors make use of unregulated cheap labor, paying undocumented workers as little as possible. This practice undercuts the wages of American workers, who must legally be paid a minimum wage, and robs entire communities of the taxes those employers would be paying for those workers.
The undocumented immigrants end up receiving far less money than they would if they were legalized, but so do the American workers they supposedly compete with. Under the current system, American workers are already competing for jobs with undocumented immigrants, and everyone except unscrupulous employers is losing.
After immigration reform, immigrant workers will be able to report wage violations without fear of being deported, and employers will need to adhere to minimum wage laws. Many employers will opt to hire Americans with better skills, since they no longer cost a premium over unregulated labor.
And employers who have tried to follow the law all along are no longer penalized for their honesty, since they won't need to unfairly compete with rivals who take advantage of cheap immigrant labor. Everybody wins.
Even workers who don't directly compete with immigrant laborers will see a benefit, since well-regulated legal immigration grows the economy and reduced the federal deficit.
"I've done some estimates that, for benchmark reforms, suggest you could have as much as nearly a full percentage point faster growth over 10 years. Faster growth reduces, using Congressional Budget Office rules of thumb, deficits by about $2.5 trillion over 10 years. And that's clearly a benefit that we ought to think about when we think about immigration reform." economist Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a conservative policy group, said before the Senate.
Even many conservatives agree it's time for reform, and time to do what's right for immigrants and American workers.