Roy Beck

An excellent resource to learn the effects that unfettered legal and illegal immigration has historically had and is currently having on the black population. The author tracks major immigration laws and subsequent effects on driving down black employment, as well as eliminating higher-paying jobs in the United States for many others. Not only does the unlimited number of immigrants push US citizens out of jobs, the latest immigrants push prior immigrants of the same ethnicity out of the jobs they have.
The author is very careful in trying to not demonize individuals that are entering the US, whether legally or illegally, which is a very fine tightrope to walk. He regularly re-emphasizes this in the book in order to not encourage any hatred or discrimination towards anyone. He portrays the real problem as the US Congress and Presidents in promoting the fallacy that there are insufficient workers to fill jobs in the US, and therefore an endless stream of immigrants is needed to “take on those jobs that US citizens are not willing to do.” How many times have we heard that mantra? This philosophy also permeates the high-tech industry that regularly says the USA does not have enough high-tech workers and therefore more work visas are required to fill those roles as well.
What the author is saying is that “big business” is in constant pursuit of workers who will not demand higher wages, unionization or any other significant employee benefits, and has used the “lack of citizens to fill the jobs” mantra to get Congress to allow more immigrant employees into the US every year to fill supposed unfillable job positions. The author states that instead of allowing such high levels of immigration, the number limits should be reduced to lower the supply of cheap labor, thereby forcing employers to look to unemployed citizens, provide training and better benefits and figure out how to bring them into the work force.
As an example, the author points to the meat industry in the US, which has seen higher paying jobs with benefits that were previously filled with a high percentage of black workers. Cheaper labor has filled those positions, and when those individuals start to demand better working conditions, wages, benefits or unionization, the meat industry just hires replacements at lower wages again.
I do not agree with everything the author states in the book, some of which is based on anecdotal commentary. However, his correlation analyses between time periods when immigration has been unfettered and the levels of black employment do appear to be valid.… (més)