Monday, July 18, 2011

Immigration Audits' Effect on Small Businesses

The New York Times just recently posted an article about how small businesses can survive an immigration audit. The article raised a couple of interesting points. First, it points out that one of the main “narratives” behind programs like E-Verify and the Secure Communities initiative is one of “unscrupulous employers seeking cheap labor” as Craig Regelbrugge, a lawyer and lobbyist with the American Nursery and Landscape Association. However, as the article points out, many employers treat their undocumented employees just as well as they would treat documented ones. For example, an East Coast agricultural business owner was forced to fire several members of his management team, who were being paid $12 to $15 an hour, well above minimum wage; they had vacation pay as well.

Furthermore, the immigration audits are rather ineffective. ICE does not arrest all the workers that have just been fired. As a result, the workers oftentimes stay in the area and find another job. David Cox of L.E. Cooke Company nurseries knew for a fact that several of the workers he had to fire found other jobs nearby. In fact, ICE’s immigration audits seem to harm the small business owners more than anyone else. Mr. Cox estimates that his expenses went up 10% for the year, and the East Coast agricultural business owner had to reduce his 2011 sales goals by 15%. What do you think of ICE’s immigration audits? Have you or someone you know been affected by the audits, E-Verify, or the Secure Communities initiative?

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Mini-Legislation Update: So Close Yet So Far

Maryland was on the brink of joining the likes of California and Texas in passing its own version of the DREAM Act. It would have given undocumented immigrants the opportunity to attend in-state universities and pay an in-state tuition. However, opponents of the law have successfully gathered enough signatures (100,000) to send the law to the voters as a referendum during the next election in 2012. The law would have taken effect this month, but instead DREAMers in Maryland will have to wait more than a year just for the chance to get in-state tuition.


In other news, Alabama and Georgia are already feeling the economic backlash of their strict anti-immigrant laws. People have already started packing up and leaving because they (understandably) do not want to be around when the law takes effect. As a result, there is a severe shortage in workers despite relatively high unemployment rates. For example, there are not enough people to help rebuild and repair the damages left in the wake of Alabama’s recent tornados. Georgian farmers had to leave many crops to rot in the fields because of a lack of workers. The Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association estimates around $300 million in profits lost.

--Susan

Opportunity Costs of College

Today I’ve been reading about college admissions. More specifically admission boosts received by different “hooks” as they are called by potential college admits and counselors. Although there have been a few studies done about the benefits that each hook invests upon the applicants, the most definitive one I found was “The Opportunity Cost of Admission Preferences at Elite Universities” done by Princeton Professors Thomas J. Espenshade and Chang Y. Chung. They examined the profile of the applicant pool and the admitted students at five elite universities. Put simply, they found that affirmative action benefitted African-American and Hispanic applicants immensely at the cost of only Asian applicants. White students were unaffected by the policies.


If an applicant’s race were to affect their SAT score the boost would be the following:

African-Americans: +230

Hispanics: +185

Asians: –50

Whites: 0


They found that if affirmative action were to be eliminated the rate of admission of Hispanics would fall from 26.8 to 12.9 percent and that of African-Americans would fall from 33.7 to 12.2 percent. The admission rate of Asians would increase from 17.6 to 23.4 percent. The admission rate for Whites did not change. What this means is that Affirmative action does not affect White applicants, helps African-American and Hispanic applicants tremendously, and hurts Asian applicants.


Next the study looked at the effect of legacy admission. The study found that legacy admission had very little effect on the racial composition of the admitted class. The proportion of White students went from 49.4 to 51.5 percent. “Minority student effects go in the opposite direction, but they are not large. The African-American share among admitted students declines modestly from 9.2 to 9.0 percent, the Hispanic share falls from 8.3 to 7.9 percent, and Asians now account for 23.7 percent of all admitted students instead of 25.1 percent.” What this tells us is that legacy admission will probably change the composition of who gets in but will hardly change the racial composition of the class.


So if you ever get into a debate on affirmative action or legacy admission share these numbers! Otherwise, of course, you could just argue with truthiness.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

A new Calculus of Immigration

At the risk of being written off as naïve or not cynical enough, yesterday’s NYTimes article titled “Better Lives for Mexicans Cut Allure of Going North” gave me hope. It’s a long article so I wont summarize it for you but I would definitely recommend it. What I got from it was that times, as Bob Dylan famously sang, are a-changin’. The country we live, the draconian political climate around this country is neither sustainable nor permanent. Mexico’s economy is growing, there’s less poverty now than there was even five years ago and more people have access to better schools and better jobs.

Either way. Because I think a little celebration is healthy, take a look at the article!

Jacob

The STAPLE Act and the DREAM Act

I read an interesting opinion piece in the Daily Californian today about the DREAM Act and the STAPLE Act, which I’d never heard of before. STAPLE stands for Stopping Trained in America Ph.D.s from Leaving the Economy, and it’s an act designed to stop the brain drain of people with advanced degrees in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields from leaving the country. It would give automatic green cards to foreign students who gained a higher degree in those fields. It has been advocated by Bill Gates, President Obama, and both Democratic and Republican representatives. The writer of the article, Peggy Sands Orchowski, did not specify why the act did not pass originally, but it’s interesting to think of it in terms of the DREAM Act. She thinks that Democrats could try to attach the DREAM Act to the STAPLE Act, since it has more bipartisan support, and that the two acts could possibly pass together.


Another intriguing point she made was (I think) intended to be a throw away comment to start off the piece but really had me thinking. She said that immigration reform is not “dead” in the current Congress the way that people think. While it is true that comprehensive immigration reform has hit a brick wall, immigration reform in general still has a chance of happening piece by piece. This made me wonder, does immigration reform have to pass all at once? I’m aware that immigration is a really complex issue that requires multiple legislation changes and that the easiest way to do that would be to pass everything at once, but with the current political climate the way it is, would it be easier to pass things one at a time? What do you think? Let me know in the comments.


Click here to read the opinion piece.