THE FAULTY LOGIC OF THE ANTI-IMMIGRATION RHETORIC
By calculating how much Mexico spends on the schooling and health care of Mexicans who migrate north for their prime working years, it becomes clear that California is indebted to Mexico–not the reverse.
By Raul Hinojosa and Peter Schey
The upsurge of support in California for Proposition 187, the so-called “Save Our State” ballot initiative, is an ominous manifestation of the fear many U.S. voters have of their future position in a rapidly integrating world economy and an increasingly multicultural society. The Californian economy is undergoing radical changes whose origins lie principally in shifting East-West and North-South relations–the end of the Cold War, the new Pacific economy, and the passage of the GATT. Californians, however, have been led by politicians to believe that the state’s fiscal crisis is rooted in its North-South relations, particularly its long-term dependence on immigrant labor from Mexico and Central America.
The inmage of Latin American welfare mothers jumping the border to live off taxpayers and to populate the schools with “illegal” non-English speaking children was too politically potent for Governor Wilson’s fledgling and floundering re-election campaign to pass up. Wilson used Proposition 187 to energize the Republican Party’s political base of older white male conservative voters who are openly anxious about the dwindling white majority in the state.
The proposition aspires to transport white voters back to manifest destiny: their God-given right to control and purify the Southwest borderlands. To achieve this, proponents of the measure make the far-fetched claim that the denial of essential services to undocumented immigrants will deter new migrants as well as encourage undocumented residents already in the country to leave voluntarily. The formal argument for the ballot initiative states this mission in militaristic language:
WE CAN STOP ILLEGAL ALIENS. If the citizens and the taxpayers of our state wait for the politicians in Washington and Sacramento to stop the incredible flow of ILLEGAL ALIENS, California will be in economic and social bankruptcy. We have to act and ACT NOW! On our ballot, Proposition 187 will be the first giant stride in ultimately ending the ILLLGAL ALIEN invasion.
As imitation propositions, bills and campaigns begin to spring up across the country, national and local debates must be made to focus on the wildly false and fundamentally racist claims concerning the economic impact of U.S.-Mexican migration, as well as on the disastrous socioeconomic, transnational and human consequences of any attempt to actually implement these misguided policies. Not only do Prop 187 advocates exaggerate the fiscal costs of immigration, but Mexican-U.S. migrant labor is in fact a major subsidy to California, especially for the prototypical pro-187 voter.
Prop 187 proponents like to point to a series of studies conducted in the early 1990s which concluded that immigration is a burden on taxpayers and a growing part of the state’s fiscal crisis.] All of these studies share a similar set of suspect estimating techniques concerning the number of undocumented immigrants, the cost of their use of social services, their tax contributions, and the overall economic benefits of Mexican immigration.
First of all, each of these studies can be faulted for their inflated estimates of the number of undocumented immigrants, undocumented children attending schools, and the percentage of these immigrants who are actually deportable by federal law. In his 1994-95 budget, Governor Wilson, for example, stated that there were 2,083,000 undocumented immigrants in California in 1993, including 456,000 undocumerited children between the ages of 5 and I7. Interestingly, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), reputed for its excessively high estimates of the nation’s undocumented population, reported only 1,441,000 undocurnented immigrants in California in October, 1992. Using this estimate and the methodology of Califorma’s Department of Finance, one finds that the Governor overestimates by 111,528 (or 24%) the number of undocumented children attending public schools in California.
Starting with inflated numbers, none of these studies bother to estimate how many of the so-called “illegal aliens” are actually deportable under federal law. U.S. immigration law allows many categories of undocumented people to legalize their status by, for example, obtaining political asylum, amnesty, “adjustment of status” through close family members who are legal residents, and “suspension of deportation” based on seven years of continuous residence in the United States. These categories may represent a significant subset of the undocumented population. As was established during the 1980 Texas school case argued before the Supreme Court, the majority of undocumented children attending public school eventually legalize their immigration status.
One of the more sinister methodological tools used in these studies is the creation of a separate accounting category for “Citizen Children of Undocumented Persons.” This sort of blood-lineage accounting is not only contrary to the constitutional definition of what constitutes citizenship rights in the United States, but also echoes the kind of fiscal accounting that was used in apartheid South Africa to differentiate the rights of particular legal-ethnic categories.
These anti-immigrant studies then move on to their main mission: producing a cost-benefit analysis with high estimates of the cost of providing social services to undocumented immigrants, and low estimates of local tax revenues collected from this sector of the population.
These studies all acknowledge that undocumented immigrants contribute a significant amount in taxes once federal, state and local taxes are added together. California agencies, however, argue that immigrants pay a greater proportion of taxes to the federal government even though local governments are responsible for providing the bulk of social services. What is not mentioned, of course, is that this disproportionate burden upon localities is true for most working-class households in the United States. The real issue is that the federal government has gradually shifted the burden of social-service provision to local governments. Not only is immigration irrelevant to this phenomenon, but according to a 1994 Rand Corporation study, undocumented immigrants actually buffer the effect because they use social services far less than the typical working-class household.[2] This is not surprising given that federal law already renders undocumented immigrants ineligible for most social and health services. Moreover, recent immigrants tend to be healthier than the typical U.S. citizen.
In order to inflate the cost of immigration. Governor Wilson’s office added up all current state expenditures (including roads, parks, corporate subsidies, and debt payments), and then calculated the percentage spent on undocumented immigrants and the children of undocumented immigrants based on their share of the population. Notably, if such a formula were used to determine the cost-benefit contribution of all California residents, the gap between what is received from the government and what is contributed in taxes would be wider for U.S. citizens than it is for immigrants.
In a particularly egregious, but oft-cited 1993 study, Donald Huddle of Rice University ignores the money that immigrants give to the government in the form of social-security taxes, unemployment insurance, vehicle-registration fees, and state and federal gasoline taxes. These taxes total $28.8 billion on a national scale. Huddle makes an additional $21.3 billion accounting error by underestimating the income of legal immigrants and using inaccurate tax rates. As an Urban Institute study points out, Huddle’s underestimation of revenue from immigrants by $50 billion more than offsets his total annual “net cost” of $42.5 billion.’ The Rand study drives this point home. It found that the annual taxes paid by immigrants to all levels of government total $25 to $30 billion more than the costs of services they receive.
These immigration studies also systematically underestimate or ignore the diverse ways that immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy apart from the payment of taxes. The studies don’t, for example, take into account the economic benefits of immigrant-owned business or the national wealth generated by consumer spending by immigrants. Moreover, they ignore the taxable goods and services that immigrant labor creates.
These cost-benefit analyses also have a deeper, more fundamental flaw: they are oblivious to the binational nature of immigration. Mexican immigration to California should be seen in the light of U.S.-Latin American integration. Any legitimate study of immigration must examine trade, capital and migration flows as well as state institutions, social relations, and legal structures in both the sending and receiving countries.
U.S.-Mexican migration is the largest and most long-lasting mass-migration process in the history of capitalism. Beginning in the nineteenth century, both documented and undocumented migration has linked families, communities, regions and economic sectors in Mexico and the United States. Long before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) became law, these linkages generated a pattern of uneven development. The integration process has functionally relegated the Mexican migrant population to second-class economic and legal status. Meanwhile, skilled workers and property-owning classes on both sides of the border have reaped the greatest rewards.
The highly embedded binational labor market that has emerged inextricably links the fate of millions of urban and rural workers on both sides of the border. In addition to the 1.9 million Mexicans admitted to the United States as permanent residents from 1965 to 1990, there have been an estimated 36 million undocumented entries from Mexico into the United States and 31 million undocumented departures.[4] This circular flow of people dwarfs the 4.6 million entries recorded under the bracero (seasonal farmworker) program between 1942 and 1964. In essence, the United States has been sponsoring the world’s largest guestworker program–albeit unofficial and clandestine.
Undocumented immigrants contribute roughly 7% of the state’s $900 billion Gross State Product.[5] Large parts of California’s economy–in particular agriculture and the garment industry–would simply not be viable without undocumented workers. The fact that undocumented immigrants are paid on average 15 to 20% less for comparable work generates significant price subsidies for the consumers of the goods and services which immigrants provide.
Some of the largest consumers of immigrant low-cost services are, ironically, typical pro-187 voters: older white property owners with high levels of disposable income to spend on gardeners, nannies and housecleaners. Job competition between undocumented immigrants and the bulkof pro-187 voters is virtually non-existent. By contrast. there is evidence of competition with other Latino legal residents, the majority of whom voted against the proposition.
If we begin to calculate exactly who owes whom for the social reproduction of this low-wage labor force, it is indisputable that the govemment of California is heavily indebted to Mexico–not the reverse. Mexico spends $180 million annually to educate Mexicans who then migrate without documents to the United States for their prime working years.[6] If one factored in how much Mexico spends on medical services, housing, and urban infrastructure, the amount that California owes Mexico would grow even larger. This represents a fantastic bargain for Governor Wilson because to educate these same workers in California would cost $3.2 billion a year.7 This is more than double the amount that the Governor complains that the state spends on educating undocumented immigrants.
If Proposition 187 is implemented, the result would be one of two possible scenarios, both of which would spell disaster for California. In the first scenario, the proponents of Prop 187 get what they say they want: all undocumented migrants go back to Mexico and no more come to California. This would be devastating to the Californian economy and the fiscal well-being of the state. Even assuming unrealistic conjectures of the ability of U.S. residents to rapidly fill jobs formerly held by undocumented migrants, the higher wages required by U.S. residents would mean big price hikes for numerous products and a collapse in output not experienced since the Great Depression. This economic crisis would set off a much larger fiscal crisis, making the current state deficit look small by comparison. The real income of all California residents, particularly pro-87 voters, would fall in ways unheard of in the post-World War II era. In Mexico, real wages–particularly in the poor rural sectors–would suffer the greatest decline, acutely exacerbating social and political tensions.
The other possible outcome is that Prop 187 does not deter undocumented immigration and that the undocumented population in California is simply driven deeper underground. Researchers generally agree that this is the more likely scenario since immigrants are not drawn to the United States because of the presumed availability of social services. The employers of undocumented workers, traditionally strong supporters of Governor Wilson, also likely believe this will be the outcome. Otherwise, they would have vocally opposed Prop 187 just as they have opposed efforts to limit their access to undocumented labor in the past.
If the proposition is implemented, wages for undocumented immigrants will probably fall, as they did after weak employer-sanctions provisions went into effect under the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986.[8] As wages and working conditions for undocumented workers deteriorate, the demand for their labor will rise.
The optimal scenario for pro-187 voters is that undocumented immigrants continue to come to the United States, work at even lower wages, and do not use any social services. This is, in fact, the policy approach that Pete Wilson advocated in 1986 when as a state senator, he pushed for special provisions to allow the entry of undocumented workers as part of IRCA. It also explains Governor Wilson’s call for a new bracero program in a speech at the right-wing Heritage Foundation in Washington immediately after the passage of Prop 187.
While perhaps a rosy short-term outcome for Governor Wilson’s business supporters, the overall long-term impact on Californian society would be negative in a variety of ways. First of all, public health would be seriously compromised. Pregnant women would be denied prenatal care while children who have been abused or neglected would not receive social services. Undocumented residents with serious illnesses would be denied needed medical attention. Others, fearing deportation, would be deterred from seeking medical care when sick. Communicable diseases would spread, endangering the health of all Californians.
Medical experts point out that the cost of health care would skyrocket under Prop 187 since health workers are mandated to provide expensive emergency services that could have been avoided by far less costly early intervention. The Chief of Staff of the Los Angeles County Medical Center, the largest public hospital in California, predicts that while Proposition 187 may save the state about $9 million annually, the costs for emergency care as well as for the treatment of U.S. citizens with communicable diseases will rise by $47 million resulting in net costs of over $38 million.[9]
Proposition 187 would also bar undocumented children from attending public schools. Testimonials from teachers and educators throughout the country speak of the irreparable harm this would cause these children. Since most undocumented children eventually become lawful permanent residents, and later U.S. citizens, the long-term costs to California of implementing Prop 187 are enormous. These youngsters would become largely unemployable, rely extensively on public-support programs, and be more likely to turn to crime to support themselves.
If implemented, Prop 187 will also move California well along the road towards a police state. The measure mandates a vast state network of informants. Employees of schools, medical clinics, social-service agencies, and state and local law-enforcement agencies would all be required to ferret out suspected undocumented residents and report them to the INS and the Justice Department. Of course, none of these people have the training to make such determinations. This would open the door to greater discrimination against all those who “look like immigrants.”
We need an economically sound and humane immigration policy that is capable of mobilizing broad political support on both sides of the border. The same binational framework which exposes the problems with Prop 187 can be used as a guide for constructing such a policy.
Migration between Mexico and the United States is the result of an overall pattern of demographic and econoinic interdependence. The NAFTA debate made clear that while higher-paid, skilled workers in the two countries benefit from increased integration, the political and labor rights of low-wage, unskilled workers continue to be highly restricted on both sides of the border.
The key challenge is thus to tackle the poverty and lack of basic rights of this most vulnerable sector of the workforce. In order to be politically viable, the approach must provide economic benefits for both countries. This will require long-term agreements on trade, capital and labor flows, as well as a binational agreement on labor and human rights that is enforceable. These pacts must be crafted with the clear goal of promoting sustainable and equitable development. Despite the current xenophobic climate, such an alternative policy approach is not a pipe dream. Significant demographic and economic transformations are underway in the United States that are remarkably complementary to those occurring in Mexico. These have the potential to drive Mexican productivity and wages upward. The moment is ripe to create a new regime of human and labor rights.
In the post-1945 period, the population explosion in Mexico prompted high levels of migration to the North and the current (delayed) backlash. Since the Mexican birth rate has declined precipitously over the last 25 years, the number of new entrants into the labor force will fall over the next decade. Given this shift, the top priority should be fighting poverty in the migrantsending regions of Mexico.
The U.S. population, meanwhile, is aging and shrinking so rapidly that new immigrants will soon be needed to sustain economic growth and care for the elderly, particularly in California.[10] Energy should not be expended on stopping Mexican immigration to the United States, but rather on improving the social conditions of those people who will carry California into the next century. This is exactly the opposite of what Prop 187 does.
The United States and Mexico are on the verge of a radical new form of economic integration which could, if properly managed, produce a pattern of upward growth as well as convergence in productivity and income levels across North America. Research shows that if moderately high economic growth in Mexico can he sustained for the next ten years and if investment is directed towards social infrastructure and the poorer regions, Mexican real wages would rise to the point where potential migrants would begin to choose to stay in Mexico even if the United States legalizes its undocumented immigrants.” Sustained growth in Mexico would generate a big increase in high-wage U.S. export jobs since Mexicans would have money to spend on U.S. products. A booming Mexican economy would also help close the gap between high- and low-wage labor in the United States since there would no longer be a downward pull on low-end wages prompted by competition froin impoverished migrants.
The United States and Mexico could then begin laying the groundwork for a new North American immigration visa system not unlike the system in place in Europe. This would guarantee basic human and labor rights to Mexican and U.S. citizens alike regardless of their immigration status. Mexico and the United States could thus finally be weaned away from their dependefrce on an exploitative labor system that denies these rights to the binational low-wage migrating labor force.
Free trade by itself will never generate this type of development.[12] NAFTA needs to be accompanied by social and economic reforms modeled after those that the European Community has successfully implemented. Thiry-five years ago, the wage gap between the United States and Mexico was similar to that between Northern and Southern Europe. Whereas the gap in North America is virtually the same today, European integration achieved high economic growth, wage convergence, and a precipitous decline of migration from the south to the north.
The differences between the European and North American approaches to integration can be seen clearly in the way that the European Community incorporated the poorer countries of Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland. Special programs were implemented such as the European Regional Development Funds and the European Social Fund, which together have invested 23% of the region’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the poorer countries while also addressing the adjustment costs in the richer European Countries. Inspired in part by the European example, the North American Development Bank was created as a part of NAFTA to address the environmental and development gaps between the United States and Mexico. While the $3 billion bank is the largest U.S.-Mexico institution ever created, the original proposal called for a capitalization of $40 billion to put it on a par with the European scale of development support.[13]
The existing institutional structures and political forces in both the United States and Mexico are standing in the way of alternative policy approaches. To confront the powers that be, progressives in the United States and Mexico need to build a transnational social movement for econornic and political empowerment. This movement must demand transnational social pacts for sustainable and equitable development. The real challenge facing Californian society is whether it can reject the short-term politics of racial division, and take on the long-term task of building an economically and socially just North America.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Raúl Hinojosa is research director of the North American Integration and Development Center at the University of California at Los Angeles. Peter Schey is executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.
NOTES
1. The principal studies Include for San Diego [Richard A. Parker arid Louis M. Rea, “Illegal Immigration in San Diego County: An Analysis of Costs and Revenues,” Rea and Parker, Inc., 1993]; Los Angeles Counties [Internal Services Division ISD), “Impact of Undocumented Persons and Other Immigrants on Costs, Revenues and Services in Los Angeles County,” Report prepared for Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, November, 1992]; the State of California [Governar’s Office of Planning and Research, “The Net Fiscal Impact of Illegal Immigration in California,” September, 1994.; California Department of Finance , “California’s Growing Taxpayer Squeeze,” Finance Report, 1991]; and the United States [Donald Huddle, “The Net National Costs of Immigration in 1993,” Department of Economics, Rice University, Houston, Texas, June 27, 1994; Donald Huddle, “The Net National Costs of Immigration,” Carrying Capacity Network, July, 1993].
2. George Vernez and Kevin McCarthy, “The Fiscal Costs of Immigration: Analytical and Policy Issues,” Paper prepared fur the Irvine Foundation by the Center for Research on Immigration Policy, The Rand Corporation, February, 1995. Michael Fix and Jeffrey S. Passel, “Immigration and Immigrants,” The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C , May, 1994. Rebecca F. Clark, et al, “Fiscal Impacts of Undocumented Aliens: Selected Estimates for Seven States,” The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., September, 1994.
4. Douglas Massey and Audrey Singer, “New Estimates of Undocumented Mexican Migration and the Probability of Apprehension,” Demography, forthcoming
5. North American Integration and Development Center, UCLA, “Tracking the Economic Impacts of North American Integration: Trade, Capital and Migration Flows,” forthcoming.
6. UCLA Study, “Tracking the Economic Impacts of North American Integration.”
7. UCLA Study, “Tracking the Economic Impacts of North American
8. J. E. Taylor and Phillip L. Martin, “Immigration Reform arid U.S. Agricultural Labor” in Choices published by the American Agricultural Economics Association (forthcoming).
9. Affidavit provided to the plaintiffs in the legal challenge to Prop 187.
10. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, “The North American Development Bank Forging New Directions in Regional Intergration Policy,” Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Summer, 1994).
11. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda and R. McCleery, “U.S.-Mexico Interdependence, Social Pacts, and Policy Perspectives: A Computable General Equilibrium Approach,” in J.A. Bustamante, C.W. Reynolds, and R. Hinojosa-Ojeda, eds., Labor Market Iinterdependence Between the United States and Mexico (Stanford Stanford University Press, 1992).
12. R. Hinojosa-Ojeda, and S. Robinson, “Labor Issues in a North American Free Trade Area, ” in Nora Lustig, et al, eds , North American Free Trade: Assessing the Impact (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute, 1992), pp 69108.
13. Raúl Hinojosa, “New Perspectives on Integration and Development. The North American Development Bank,” Journal of the American Planning Association, 1994.
