04/16/2007
A refreshing development in the Amnesty/Immigration Acceleration battle is the increasing evidence that the “jobs Americans won’t do” argument has become ineffective. Economics drive immigration issue — Steve Scauzillo pasadenastarnews.com 04/13/07 records the realization by the Opinion Page editor of the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers in immigrant-drenched southern California that things can be different:THERE’s nothing like a change of scenery to gain a fresh perspective on an issue. Take illegal immigration.I spent five days in eastern Kansas (Johnson County) and Kansas City, Mo., last week and guess what? There are no illegal immigrants hanging around the Home Depot stores. The people who bus and wait tables? Local residents, college students. Gardeners and domestic workers? Legal citizens.
Scauzillo does reflexively slip into standard immigrant-celebration, but corrects himself
They work hard and some may start their own businesses and soon, the economy adjusts, even prospers. There is also a price America pays in terms of health care and hospital emergency rooms, law enforcement and education costs. But that’s for another column. (VDARE.com emphasis.)
However, the key is that he has understood the income redistribution and wage competition effects:
Upper middle class and upper class residents in L.A. say prices of car washes, restaurant meals, day care and domestic help will rise if illegal immigration is curbed. Again, they've become conditioned to inexpensive labor. I say, these same jobs can be filled — eventually — but at legal wage by legal residents.I had a friend my age who grew up in the Central Valley. He was white and poor. He and his brothers would pick almonds in the summer. Now, these jobs are usually given to illegal immigrants.
Admittedly, Scauzillo seems somewhat uncertain about what do about the problem, and years of living with a cheap brown helot class makes him doubt if “white folks” would pick almonds, for social reasons. But for a southern Californian elite member to grasp mass immigration is not necessary is a serious intellectual achievement.
Applaud Steve Scauzillo.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.