Legalizing Undocumented Workers Would Generate $1.5 Trillion - UCLA Study

So Americans won't do the jobs they do, but Americans have no problem collecting a government check for doing nothing. This is where your welfare state has gotten us. Pathetic.

There ARE no jobs Americans wont do,.....for the "developed world" price per hour,....at (what should be) the developed world's health and safety minimum standards. I would pick apples for 12$ an hour for 30 hrs a week. You might get 40 hrs a week out of me for 15$ an hour. No WAY 60 hrs. for 10$,.....and if I don't like it YOU DEPORT ME?!? If I break an arm,....YOU DEPORT ME!? F that. Find that employer,....and throw his ass in jail for a long,....long time. NO FINES,....JAIL!

Maybe just giving citizenship status could have risk towards it. If we put a choice of standards that illegals must do to retrieve citizenship we can shape the lower class of America in a positive way. I propose to receive citizenship illegals should either 1.) Receive at least a 2-year education in the US. or 2.) Join the military. (Learn English for both) That way we would both be happy. Not only would we have a class of higher educated citizens suddenly appear but we would have a good amount of jobs open for the labor class. Military would grieve generals for having more troops better yet bilingual. Then we can easily develop a strategy to fight the drug war in Mexico. As for the newest breed of illegals taking the labor market... I agree, we need to crackdown on these employers and jail them AND secure our border patrol.

There are many reasons why illegal immigrants would love to have citizenship. I don't need to go in depth with this as my family and friends are illegals in California.

Make the one's who are qualified enlist in the military.

You guys are crazy. In dallas alone the tax payers payed 80 million so they could visit the emergency room for aches and pains. I can only imagine what california pays for them everytime they get a cold.

$1.5 Trillion for who, Mexico? We have double digit unemployment now, their solution is to add more people looking for jobs to the mix? We're supposed to add workers to a workforce that can't find enough jobs now, good thinking there. No, I don't think so.

The US can save a lot of money by eliminating or scaling down unnecessary branches of law enforcement. The DEA and our overcrowded prison system are some examples.

However, I don’t believe that immigration laws are something that we should give a pass on. We can also save a lot of money by deporting undocumented workers. You may be able to generate tax revenue by giving them legal status and making them pay into the system. You can also decrease the liability to state and federal governments by making it so they do not take advantage of social services.

"wait till all these illegal aliens take ur jobs, do it better, and for a far less amount that what you are willing to work for" -- rad62864

Well, if your deeply pro freemarket capitalism rad62864 -- which I assume you are via your slam against "socialized" Police Depts, er, I mean, healthcare -- then you should be in favor of "de-regulating" the labor market and getting government out of the way.

If Mexicans CAN do it cheaper, faster and better...then as a free-marketer you should be happy! Why use government influence (Immigration law) to unfarily give an advantage to over-paid/unskilled Americans? That's just an example of the government interfering in the free market.....isn't it?

Why should the government protect "us" from superior and/or cheaper workers?

In the eyes of a TRUE Conservative these pesky immigration laws banning foreign labor from freely competing in our lands should be viewed as Big Government.

Instead of "Big Government" expanding its power and creating huge "Bureaucracies" to infringe on the rights of small business owners to acquire the best labor at the cheapest price.......you SHOULD be demanding (as a good Republican) that government total dismantle the huge bureaucracy that is Immigrantion and adhere the strict Constitutionalist intreptreations that ban government from interfering with the rights of citizens to run a business any way they see fit.

Right?

this is fucking stupid and u idiots believe this shit!!!! How about all the socialized medicine that will have to be given becuase they pay taxes.... You think the economy is bad now!!! wait till all these illegal aliens take ur jobs, do it better, and for a far less amount that what you are willing to work for, then they will ship the money to mexico and beyond!!! Go ahead you lame brain frkn retards

I thought that it was illegal to hire someone without a valid U.S. birth certificate? or work permit?

If absolutely EVERY laborer working for ANY American or American company,.....anywhere,....doing anything,....was guaranteed the same health, safety, and wage standards,....then you could legalize every illegal in this country. As long as business COULD NOT by any means,....cheat a non citizen,....or pay less than the "standard continental domestic" wage,.....your going to improve the living standards of the laborer. Put employers who dont obey the labor laws in jail.Swiftly. Business will tend to choose english speakers if they HAVE to pay any laborer,...citizen or not,....the same wage.
( and the bastards could no longer use deportation as a lever to F the working man )

If we leaglize them then we would have to pay them minimum wages and they would also be paying taxes.

Right now we have millions of workers paying no taxes....but getting the benefits of services that legal workers pay for through taxation. If they pay taxes that revenue will allow ALL our tax rates to be LOWERED....wouldn't it?

I don't think anything would really change labor market-wise. The reason Mexicans DO some of the labor they do is because it's seasonal and transitory and they are (for a variety of reasons) mobile while most legal Americans aren't. We generally have houses, mortages, kids....we cant pick up and move to follow these temporary constructio/landscape jobs from state to state.

Who among us can really work 2 weeks and then relocate to another job site 100 miles away to work for another week?

If we legalize them they'd for all practical purposes still be doing the exact same jobs, just getting paid more and paying taxes which would benefit all of us.

Someone made the arguement that some businesses can't afford to pay workers more than $1/hr under than table and that if we leaglize them they'd go out of business.

GOOD!

If your company is so incompetently run that they only way you can make a profit is by using slave labor, knock off parts and cutting corners in construction....then it is a GOOD thing that your business fails.

Do you really want a "cheaper" roof installed using one of these fly-by-night operations only to have the thing totally redone 6 months later because the bullshit artist you hired was using untrained illegals, counterfiet parts and cut so many corners that the thing cavedi after the first snowfall? Would you really be saving any money in the long run if you just end up re-doing your roof TWICE?

Fuck the border. It's that simple. Freedom of movement for everyone.

If one reads the study I think they will conclude that she has some pretty over reaching assumptions, particularly concerning wages and how fast they will rise.

Legalizing the illegals is the stupidest idea I have ever heard. Millions of illegals bringing down the cost of labour isn't going to help the common man. Send them ALL back and maybe they can try and fix the screwed up countries they came from. Hasn't anyone heard of laws that's commenting here?

The fact is that the undocumented are in this country, like it or not. One of the major problems is that the immigration system in the U.S. is broken (like everything else in the US). It takes people 15 to 20 years just to become naturalized (a.k.a."legal"). They also pay millions of dollars in sales taxes in the meantime. So get the facts before you judge.

Like AC says, she doesn't know anything about immigrants and it looks like no one else here against this idea does either. Left or right has nothing to do with it. Why must someone always try to polarize people?

Great idea but I think it doesn't solve the problem as to why we're having so much immigration. It's kind of sad that we're more inclined to profit then to fix the problems. Truth be told, there is a lot of competition for jobs, even if they are taking jobs most americans wouldn't take (meat industry for example). But that is still assuming that we would tolerate inhumane profiteering. It's kind of sick.

Hell no, unless they can pay for the back tax they owe then they need to leave. So far they get better healthcare and education then I do and I'm a citizen of the USA! Not to mention that you're going to have to find them all and possibly have to force some of them to comply with this silly legalization. Also with the economy the way it is do you think employers are going to pay higher wages? Nope, they're going to start laying people off or find people to work for a low wage. The CEO's of corporate america arent going to take a paycut either, they're going to pass the savings on to you which means prices of goods are going to go up.

The options for not legalizing illegal immigrants don't seem viable. We can't realistically deport them. We can't imprison them. We can't fire them. We can't fine them. Contrary to a lot of popular right-wing rhetoric, most of them have jobs. Jobs you and I wouldn't want or settle for even if we are unemployed ($5 an hour working in a field 50 hours a week...$8 an hour doing dishes in LA). If you were raised in America and an illegal immigrant stole your job, who's fault is that? Many of them speak very little English. The few who have an expertise valuable for a high paying job can't use this expertise to get a job in the US anyway. A retroactive amnesty for existing illegal immigrants is the only realistic possibility.

Why are the legal immigrants, which 99% of us are, so pissed off at people who have so little and aren't that much different than the we are. We look at our forefathers that took great risks to come here and create a new life as heroes. These people aren't any different.

Barely nobody is from this country. Immigrants built it. It seems like it has more pros than cons. The study I guess proves it.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Something about this doesn't sound right. Not to mention, the speaker (Ira Mehlman) spoke over a few points I think should be addressed first.

When we say 'legalize' workers, what does this mean exactly? Does that mean we are granting only working Visas, or, are we giving workers citizenship?

Ira also stated that wages among (now illegal) workers would increase and that their legalization will prevent employers form taking advantage of cheap labor. Well I'm thinking this wage increase would lead to either 1)those companies going out of business or 2) those companies seeking workers who haven't be 'legalized'.

Ether way it seems to be a lose. I can't see companies that prey on illegal workers as those with a viable business model. Nor do I see them realizing the error in their ways and going, 'oh, I guess we're going to have to pay them more now!' Why wouldn't they just hire more undocumented workers?

Yes! Good Idea! Illegal immigrants are not going to slowly be fished out by ICE or the federal government. Its just impossible to take that many people out of the country. Even so, why keep destroying lives? Why make America worse? Especially because they play a huge role in our economy within the labor market, if all illegals were to be deported our economy would most certainly go down the drain even further. Realize that its not about illegals taking our jobs. There are labor jobs out there that citizens simply just don't want to take! It's time to just give them what they came here for, an opportunity to live a better life. Isn't this why Anglo-Americans came to North America anyway? To live a better life and future away from the aristocracies and monarchies in Europe? America is about to be one of the most diverse countries in the whole world if it isn't already. It's time for change, and this is a great way to address the problem.

and cost the US over 5 trillion

Now we're talking. That is boo koo bucks we need to pay down the National Debt. Legalize all aliens and get them paying into the system, what a genius idea.