Believe it or not there is actual evidence that illegal immigration does depress wages for the native-born but you are not likely to hear about it in the multitude of classes that touch on various “diasporas.”
“In studies at meat-packing plants, when illegal immigrants are taken out, wages went up,” Professor Philip Cafaro pointed out in a panel discussion at the National Press Club last Thursday sponsored by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). Cafaro teaches philosophy at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.
He has amassed a multitude of research on the subject, much of it on display in his book, How Many Is Too Many? The Progressive Argument for Reducing Immigration into the United States.
The preference of some employers for cheap labor that amounts to little more than three hots and a cot particularly hurts African-Americans, Cafaro avers. Consequently, this self-proclaimed progressive backs many policies that resemble wish lists of Pat Buchanan rather than the Center for American Progress (CAP).
For example, he would like to bring the cap on legal immigration down from more than a million a year to about 300,000, and he supports some version of e-verify as well as stiff penalties for employers who violate immigration laws.
