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VOA \u2014 NEW ORLEANS, LA. – The colossal impact of immigrant labor in the United States extends to Louisiana\u2019s struggling fisheries.<\/p>\nVOA \u2014 NEW ORLEANS, LA. – The colossal impact of immigrant labor in the United States extends to Louisiana\u2019s struggling fisheries.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been hiring workers from Mexico, Honduras and everywhere else for 20 years,\u201d Dean Blanchard, president of\u00a0Blanchard Seafood, Inc., told VOA. Operating\u00a0on the\u00a0Gulf Coast, the company\u00a0accounts for 5-10% of\u00a0shrimp caught\u00a0annually\u00a0in the United States.<\/p>\n
Blanchard said\u00a0foreign workers\u00a0made his company more efficient\u00a0and profitable.\u00a0The difference wasn\u2019t a matter of wages. Rather, he said, it\u00a0was how much harder they worked than their non-immigrant peers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got to hire 12 Americans to do the same amount of work five Mexicans used to do for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n U.S. law allows companies to\u00a0petition to\u00a0hire\u00a0documented\u00a0foreign workers\u00a0for\u00a0temporary jobs.\u00a0Blanchard says\u00a0federal agents\u00a0raided his operation and informed him he lacked\u00a0the proper\u00a0paperwork for the immigrants he employed.<\/p>\n He\u2019s since hired\u00a0an entirely American crew\u00a0while rival outfits continue to employ immigrants.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s impossible to compete, man, I don\u2019t know how much longer I can do this for. They\u00a0[immigrants]\u00a0were so important to the work we did.\u201d<\/p>\n But Blanchard\u2019s sympathetic view of the importance of migrant labor is far from universal\u00a0in the U.S.<\/p>\n The impact of foreign-born workers on American jobs and wages remains a contentious issue\u00a0as\u00a0President Joe Biden\u00a0calls\u00a0for\u00a0an\u00a0overhaul of the U.S. immigration system\u00a0at a time when\u00a0the labor market continues to heal from severe pandemic disruptions.<\/p>\n Debate is also overshadowed by a steep increase in\u00a0mostly unskilled\u00a0migrants\u00a0arriving\u00a0at the U.S.-Mexico border.\u00a0The U.S. Border Patrol reported\u00a0apprehending\u00a0more than 170,000 people in March\u00a0attempting to enter the United States without\u00a0permission. It\u2019s a monthly figure unmatched since 2001.<\/p>\n Alex Nowrasteh, immigration policy analyst at the\u00a0Washington-based\u00a0Cato Institute\u2019s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity,\u00a0notes that\u00a0many\u00a0Americans\u00a0struggle to separate\u00a0objective\u00a0economic analysis from the passions surrounding\u00a0the larger immigration debate, one of America\u2019s thorniest hot-button issues.<\/p>\n \u201cSomething that a lot of people seem to miss,\u201d he explained, \u201cis that updating our immigration policy would be amazing for the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n Having more people in the economy, Nowrasteh said, helps\u00a0it grow. Barring immigrants has the opposite effect.<\/p>\n \u201cWithout robust immigration,\u201d he\u00a0added,\u00a0\u201cwe won\u2019t have enough workers, entrepreneurs and consumers to build the 21st century American economy we want.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s\u00a0good for\u00a0America?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Not everyone\u00a0sees\u00a0immigration benefiting\u00a0the entire country.\u00a0While immigration\u2019s role\u00a0as a driver of\u00a0economic growth is\u00a0well documented,\u00a0economists say\u00a0the benefits often aren\u2019t\u00a0evenly distributed across\u00a0the U.S. population.<\/p>\n And some sectors do\u00a0see\u00a0increased competition\u00a0when newcomers enter the labor pool.\u00a0A common complaint among U.S.-born tradesmen is that their bids for jobs are undercut by\u00a0outfits employing immigrants\u00a0willing to work for less money. Some U.S.-born workers believe their wages would be higher\u00a0with less immigration.<\/p>\n Rob\u00a0Sauerstein\u00a0drives trucks in the suburbs of New York City. While he believes legal\u00a0immigration\u00a0plays an important role in America\u2019s history and economy,\u00a0he feels unauthorized\u00a0immigration can be damaging.<\/p>\n \u201cI think some employers seek out illegal immigrants because they can pay them more cheaply,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if they couldn\u2019t find illegal immigrants, they\u2019d have to raise their wages to pay American workers more money, and that seems like it\u2019d be better for the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n George Barisich, a fisherman in the suburbs of New Orleans, Louisiana,\u00a0draws a distinction between lawful and undocumented immigration.\u00a0He\u00a0voted twice for former President Donald Trump, who championed restrictive immigration policies. Even so, Barisich agrees with Blanchard that\u00a0immigrants play a vital role in his industry.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring shrimping season,\u00a0we need legal immigrants to work in those factories,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard work, it\u2019s decent pay, and it\u2019s stuff young Americans just don\u2019t want to do anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n Immigrant workers aren\u2019t only in demand for low-skill, low-wage jobs.\u00a0They\u00a0also fill key positions in higher-paying sectors such as medicine and technology.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re only constrained by the supply of potential engineers available to us, not the demand\u00a0[for output],\u201d said Mills Baker who has been involved in hiring at tech companies such as Quora and Facebook.\u00a0\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of competition for talented American-born employees, so we also make sure to set our sights on the most exceptionally talented folks around the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n Economic\u00a0debate\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no economic evidence that immigrants take jobs from native-born American workers,\u201d Nowrasteh said. \u201cThey occupy jobs, of course, but they also create them.\u201d<\/p>\n They do that through entrepreneurship – 30% of small businesses in the U.S.\u00a0\u00a0are owned by immigrants, according to the National Immigration Forum – and through their purchasing power.<\/p>\n \u201cImmigrants are spending money in their communities and that creates work in America and supports small businesses,\u201d Nowrasteh explained, \u201cbut even when they send money back to their family in their home country, the United States benefits. Those families buy products with that money, many of which are American exports that American workers played a part in creating.\u201d<\/p>\n Barisich\u00a0said he\u2019s worked with immigrants from Mexico and Central America who started in the shrimping and oyster industries 20 years ago. Many of those workers eventually brought their families to join them and gained their citizenship.<\/p>\n But as the Gulf seafood industry has shrunk\u00a0in recent years, many of those workers have\u00a0moved on.<\/p>\n \u201cThey work in carpentry or some other job now, and I don\u2019t blame them. They\u00a0have to\u00a0take care of their families just like I do,\u201d Barisich said, \u201cbut they\u2019re competing for work against American-born workers in those other industries now. It\u2019s complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n Nowrasteh said that\u2019s exactly how a vibrant economy should work.<\/p>\n \u201cImmigrants come to America when there is work for them, and they find work in industries where jobs are available. Sometimes they even change jobs – just like we do. This isn\u2019t feudalism and that\u2019s a good thing. We all go where the opportunities are.\u201d<\/p>\n Contentious debate\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Economists like Nowrasteh\u00a0say,\u00a0if\u00a0U.S.\u00a0immigration policy isn\u2019t revamped to allow a larger number of immigrants at various skill and education levels\u00a0to\u00a0legally\u00a0enter\u00a0the country, the U.S. economy\u00a0could be constrained\u00a0for decades.<\/p>\n A\u00a0Gallup Poll from last year showed that Americans are more accepting of legal immigration than at any time since the poll was first conducted in 1965. For the first time, the percentage of Americans (34%) who would like to see\u00a0authorized\u00a0immigration to the country increase has eclipsed the percentage (28%) who want to see it decrease.<\/p>\n Unauthorized\u00a0immigration, on the other hand, is something\u00a0that provokes a viscerally negative reaction from\u00a0many Americans.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they need to go through the process to come here legally,\u201d Barisich said. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s okay for people – sometimes some bad people who are criminals – to just come into the country and not pay taxes. Then they get freebies like healthcare, and education for their kids, and American taxpayers have to foot the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n The idea that undocumented\u00a0newcomers\u00a0consume an\u00a0outsized proportion of U.S. social services and\u00a0don\u2019t pay taxes is a common talking point\u00a0in America\u2019s immigration debate.\u00a0Immigration experts say it\u2019s\u00a0not true.<\/p>\n \u201cThe IRS estimates as many as 75% of undocumented immigrants pay their taxes,\u201d said\u00a0New Orleans-based attorney\u00a0Salvador Longoria, referring to a report that estimated 50-75% of undocumented immigrants pay federal, state and local taxes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe estimate was more than $23 billion in federal taxes in 2016, alone,\u201d\u00a0said Longoria, who came to the United States from Cuba.<\/p>\n A 2018 Cato Institute study found,\u00a0with the exception of\u00a0food and nutritional\u00a0programs,\u00a0\u201cimmigrants are less likely to consume welfare benefits and, when they do, they generally consume a lower dollar value of benefits than native\u2010born Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n But\u00a0Longoria said\u00a0focusing\u00a0on the taxes\u00a0and welfare programs\u00a0misses so much more that\u00a0immigrants\u00a0bring to their adopted country.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re twice as likely as native-born Americans to start a business and 40% of U.S. Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry, Medicine and Physics since 2000 are immigrants,\u201d he said. \u201cAmerica was founded on the premise that it was a nation of diversity, and from that diversity comes its strength. We are the next chapter of immigrants in that history.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" VOA \u2014 NEW ORLEANS, LA. – The colossal impact of immigrant labor in the United States extends to Louisiana\u2019s struggling fisheries. \u201cI\u2019ve been hiring workers from Mexico, Honduras and everywhere else for 20 years,\u201d Dean Blanchard, president of\u00a0Blanchard Seafood, Inc., told VOA. Operating\u00a0on the\u00a0Gulf Coast, the company\u00a0accounts for 5-10% of\u00a0shrimp caught\u00a0annually\u00a0in the United States. Blanchard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recposts"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94257"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94260,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94257\/revisions\/94260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n![\"Blanchard](\"https:\/\/im-media.voltron.voanews.com\/Drupal\/01live-166\/styles\/sourced_737px_wide\/s3\/2021-04\/15226%20%281%29.jpeg?itok=5a2Iypfd\")
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