Stimulus Spin: Unauthorized Immigrants Will Get Construction Jobs

Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet at 1:21 PM on March 10, 2009.

Many immigrants' rights supporters are working hard today to debunk the latest nonsense from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) -- the pseudo-scientific "research" arm of the hate group FAIR. CIS estimated -- and by "estimate," I mean cherry-picked little bits of old data -- to make a case that 300,000 undocumented workers would get jobs under Obama's stimulus plan.

Here's Paco Fabian from America's Voice:

Proving that they can turn any public policy issue into an opportunity to bash immigrants, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and their mass-deportation allies are now attacking the stimulus package on anti-immigrant grounds.  The newest CIS report estimates that the recently-passed economic stimulus package will result in 300,000 construction jobs for undocumented immigrants.   But this junk “research” would not get a passing grade in a high school social studies class.  CIS takes inflated 2005 percentages related to the construction industry, combines them with inflated percentages regarding the 2007 construction industry, and concludes with an inflated outcome that has no credibility whatsoever. 

CIS, of course, issues junk "studies" daily, and unfortunately the legacy media often cite them as serious research. For a more complete take-down of CIS’s claims in this case, see this fact check from the Immigration Policy Center. 

Here's the thing: I don't care, and neither should you. Because the whole argument obscures the larger issue. Regardless of the merits of CIS's "estimate," there is no doubt that if we create a bunch of new jobs -- especially in construction -- unauthorized workers will get some of them. After all, they make up about 4-5 percent of the American workforce. And that's fine, because stimulus spending is not just about creating jobs.

It's about stimulating demand -- "stimulus" -- by putting dollars into working people's pockets that they can go out and spend in the economy, and a worker's legal status has nothing to do with the goods and services he or she purchases with those dollars. 

And forget whether CIS's numbers are even in the ballpark -- it's immaterial. What's really important is that those workers won't have any protection under the law. They'll have no guarantees of a minimum wage -- or a wage at all -- no workplace health and safety protections and no possibility of joining a union to negotiate for better pay and benefits. And let's face it: that's the real agenda of many of the politicians who oppose comprehensive reform -- to maintain a population of extraordinarily vulnerable workers rather than creating a process to bring them out of the shadows.

PS: USA Today's story claims that "experts on both sides of the issue" agree with CIS's figures. So, you may wonder, who, "on both sides of the issue," is quoted in the piece. Well, there's CIS's head Steven Camarota. Then there' a quote by Robert Rector, a fellow with the Heritage Foundation. So, yeah, both sides -- the right and the far-right. And, finally, there's this odd construct:

An advocacy group for immigrants, illegal and legal, did not disagree with the 300,000 estimate.

Which advocacy group? I don't know. That sentence is followed immediately by:

Camarota says the estimate is based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey and other independent findings that 15% of all construction workers in the USA are either illegal immigrants or lack the status of legal immigrant authorized to work.

And then there's this quote, by an "expert" on the other side of the debate. Only, he doesn't seem to agree with the validity of CIS's "estimate."

But Jorge-Mario Cabrera, director of education for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, said it is impossible to predict with certainty because it is unknown how many jobless immigrant construction workers may leave the U.S., frustrated by the economic recession, before the new spending produces jobs.

Finally, CIS is described in the article thusly: "The center is a Washington policy organization that, its website says, 'seeks fewer immigrants but a warmer welcome for those admitted.'" No mention of its connection to FAIR, which the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as a hate group.

And as for it's "welcome" for legal immigrants, CIS's executive director is Mark Krikorian, author of The New Case Against Immigration, Both Legal and Illegal.

Thanks, liberal media!

PPS: The immigration debate won't come up in Congress again until at least late summer; if you want to stay on top of what's happening in the interim, sign up for my free weekly immigration newsletter!

Tagged as: immigration, fair, stimulus, cis

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.