Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

11/28/03  Opinion -- HispanicVista.com

The hiring of undocumented workers is a criminal offense, prohibited by Federal Law - The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986. Hiring undocumented workers, in substance, is the equivalent of illegally importing labor.

The unemployed and underemployed workers to the south of our border, primarily from Mexico and Central America, are lured to our country by employment opportunities at wages, albeit below our living wages, which in fact are significantly higher than wages these workers could earn, assuming they could find employment, in their country of origin. Our Department of Labor estimates that some 5 million undocumented workers infiltrate our workforce. Assuming an average living wage to be $15 per hour and that the undocumented worker average wage is one-half of that, the net value of the imported worker to the employer is $37.5 million per hour, over $1.5 billion per week. Illegal labor imports have a net value of $80 billion per year!

This criminal conduct: The hiring/importing of labor illegally and the illegal immigration by undocumented workers, underscores how pervasive and wide spread this practice is. It demonstrates how lax our enforcement of the IRCA federal Law is.

Who is the real culprit in this egregious misconduct? Is it the American consumer who benefits from lower cost products and services? Is it the households that hire domestic servants in order to enhance their standard of living? Is it the manufacturer who seeks lower labor costs to compete in a global economy? Is it the service industry and the other labor intensive sectors that seek lower labor costs to stay competitive? Is it our government that indirectly subsidizes the above in order to maintain a competitive position and to enhance the standard of living of its populace through the lax enforcement of the law? Is it the undocumented worker who crosses our border illegally in order to find employment? Or is it all of the above?

America needs to come to terms with this issue. The illegal importation of labor and illegal immigration are a cancer on our society. Our Rule of Law is mocked openly.

But we should not lay the blame on the illegal immigrant without also holding accountable the illegal importer of labor. For every undocumented worker there is an illegal labor importer who unlawfully hires the undocumented worker. We must all share in the blame and not single out any one culprit. Possibly the illegal immigrant who seeks the opportunity to earn a living not facilitated in his county of origin may the least blameworthy.

The real question is: Can we afford to enforce the law prohibiting the hiring of undocumented workers? What are the economic consequences if we absorb the $80 billion labor subsidy? What are the consequences to our neighbors who benefit from remittances to their homeland - $14.5 billion this year to Mexico alone? And what would be the social upheaval if these laborers returned home and found no jobs?