Benefits of Illegal Immigration

Based on government labor statistics over the last five years, a report by the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors less immigration, found that employment of illegal immigrants with a high school diploma or less has grown as employment of Americans with the same credentials has dropped.

Steve Camarota, the author of the report, said illegal immigrants are gaining jobs in a competitive low-skilled labor market that Americans aren't.

"The people taking it on the chin are the people at the bottom," Camarota said.

As the number of immigrants in the U.S. work force grew by 3 percent, or 1.5 million, the number of Americans who were unemployed or not in the labor force increased by 4 percent, or 2.6 million.

Industries like construction, farming and food preparation are increasingly becoming dominated by immigrant workers, leaving some American-born workers jobless, he said. The unemployment rate in those industries hovers around 11 percent, while the employment of illegal immigrants is around 18 percent.

According to the report, states such as California, Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee have received the largest influx of immigrant workers over the last five years, while at the same time charting the largest increases in the unemployment rates of American-born workers.

The report uses statistics compiled by the Department of Labor and the U.S. Census Bureau between 2000 and 2005. It looks at American-born workers and illegal and legal immigrants between the ages of 18 and 64.

The next-to-last paragraph corresponds precisely with my own observations in my neck of the woods, which is the great state of Tennessee. This report belies the notion that illegals are doing jobs Americans ignore. In reality, they're being hired in the average American's stead because they work for much lower wages. I work in the construction business, and I can tell you for certain that this is the case. Entire work crews that consisted of American whites or blacks a few years ago now are made up of Mexicans. Their contractor employers admit that they accept far lower wages, and that this is a deciding factor in the hiring process.

Such patriotism would make George Washington blush at his inadequacy.