Immigration: what part of ILLEGAL don't you understand?

Posted by Joshua Holland at 7:02 AM on October 24, 2006.

The title of this post appears in the comments of every article you'll read dealing with immigration, often several times. One reader recently wrote: "Exactly what part of ILLEGAL don't you understand? (AND YES I PUT THAT IN ALL CAPS!)"

These are the words, we are to believe, of fervent law-and-order types, people who welcome legal immigrants -- people who wait their turn and go through the naturalization process -- with open arms. They recognize that we're a nation of immigrants and have nothing against those who play by the rules. And they're mad -- mad I tell you! -- when anyone dares to suggest that most -- not all, but most -- of the antipathy we see these days towards immigrants really stems from hostility towards people of different ethnicities and darker skin tones.

The argument sounds nice, but there are two problems with it. First, most people are not law-and-order absolutists who become outraged at other minor infractions. Being in this country illegally is not (currently) a violation of the criminal code, it's a civil code violation like letting your car's registration lapse. It's not a felony and it's not a misdemeanor. Most people simply don't work themselves into a lather about similar offenses (entering the country illegally is a misdemeanor, but many undocumented aliens entered legally and allowed their visas to expire).

Second, immigrants who are perfectly legal -- who did wait their turn in line and did go through the process -- face job discrimination every day, strongly suggesting that it's not just about (or mostly about) legal status.

More to the point -- and this is key -- the level of discrimination increases the further an immigrant's appearance is from the dominant white Anglo-Saxon ideal. That hip, sexy British bartender with the blond hair and blue eyes (you know the one I'm talking about) is welcomed in American society, yes, but the little brown guy cleaning the bar after closing time gets the shaft, even if he's gone through the exact same legal channels to get here.

That comes from a new study of LEGAL immigrants (my keyboard has a caps hold key too) by Vanderbilt University economist Joni Hersch. I came by the study via the WaPo's Richard Morin:

Vanderbilt University economist Joni Hersch found that legal immigrants to the United States who had darker complexions or were shorter earned less money than their fair-skinned or taller counterparts with similar jobs, training and backgrounds. Even swarthy whites from abroad earned less than those with lighter skin.

Immigrants with the lightest complexions earned, on average, about 8 to 15 percent more than those with the darkest skin tone after controlling for race and country of origin as well as for other factors related to earnings, including occupation, education, language skills, work history, type of visa and whether they were married to a U.S. citizen.

In fact, Hersch estimated that the negative impact of skin tone on earnings was equal to the benefit of education, with a particularly dark complexion virtually wiping out the advantage of education on earnings.

Taller immigrants also earned more, she found, with every extra inch worth about 1 percent in earnings. […]

Why should pale people earn more? "I don't think that any explanation other than discrimination is possible -- and I am not one to draw such inferences lightly," Hersch said in an e-mail.

Hersch said she had controlled for "everything that could possibly matter." But there it was: skin-tone and height -- the more different from "us" -- from our ideal phenotype -- legal immigrants are, the less they earn.

All of which leads me to say: Yes, I hear the argument that it's all about being ILLEGAL and I’ve given it due consideration. Now, what part of 'I'M NOT BUYING IT!' don't you understand?

Tagged as: race, immigration

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.