[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ROLE OF IMMIGRATION IN STRENGTHENING AMERICA'S ECONOMY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION,
CITIZENSHIP, REFUGEES, BORDER SECURITY,
AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 30, 2010
__________
Serial No. 111-155
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
----------
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Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan, Chairman
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California LAMAR SMITH, Texas
RICK BOUCHER, Virginia F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
JERROLD NADLER, New York Wisconsin
ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ZOE LOFGREN, California BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
MAXINE WATERS, California DARRELL E. ISSA, California
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee STEVE KING, Iowa
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
Georgia LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
PEDRO PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico JIM JORDAN, Ohio
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois TED POE, Texas
JUDY CHU, California JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah
TED DEUTCH, Florida TOM ROONEY, Florida
LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois GREGG HARPER, Mississippi
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
DANIEL MAFFEI, New York
JARED POLIS, Colorado
Perry Apelbaum, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Sean McLaughlin, Minority Chief of Staff and General Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees,
Border Security, and International Law
ZOE LOFGREN, California, Chairwoman
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California STEVE KING, Iowa
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas GREGG HARPER, Mississippi
MAXINE WATERS, California ELTON GALLEGLY, California
PEDRO PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois TED POE, Texas
LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas
JUDY CHU, California
Ur Mendoza Jaddou, Chief Counsel
George Fishman, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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SEPTEMBER 30, 2010
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and
International Law.............................................. 1
The Honorable Steve King, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Iowa, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration,
Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law.. 2
The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary. 4
The Honorable Anthony D. Weiner, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New York, and Member, Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and
International Law.............................................. 5
WITNESSES
The Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, New
York City Mayor's Office
Oral Testimony................................................. 7
Prepared Statement............................................. 10
Mr. Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, News
Corporation
Oral Testimony................................................. 12
Prepared Statement............................................. 15
Mr. Jeff Moseley, President and Chief Executive Officer, The
Greater Houston Partnership
Oral Testimony................................................. 20
Prepared Statement............................................. 22
Mr. Steven A. Camarota, Director of Research, Center for
Immigration Studies
Oral Testimony................................................. 32
Prepared Statement............................................. 34
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Material submitted by the Honorable Judy Chu, a Representative in
Congress from the State of California, and Member Subcommittee
on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and
International Law.............................................. 60
ROLE OF IMMIGRATION IN STRENGTHENING AMERICA'S ECONOMY
----------
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2010
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship,
Refugees, Border Security, and International Law
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:43 a.m., in
room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Zoe
Lofgren (Chairwoman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Lofgren, Conyers, Jackson Lee,
Waters, Chu, Gutierrez, Gonzalez, Weiner, Sanchez,
Sensenbrenner, Lungren, King, Poe, and Harper.
Staff Present: (Majority) Ur Mendoza Jaddou, Subcommittee
Chief Counsel; Traci Hong, Counsel; Tom Jawetz, Counsel; David
Shahoulian, Counsel; Danielle Brown, Counsel; Reuben Goetzl,
Clerk; (Minority) Andrea Loving, Counsel; and George Fishman,
Counsel.
Ms. Lofgren. So this hearing on the Subcommittee on
Immigration Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and
International Law will come to order. While we appreciate the
press taking pictures of our witnesses, we would ask if they
could recede a bit so that we may actually see them. Thank you
very much, photographers.
I would like to welcome our witnesses, Members of the
Immigration Subcommittee, and others who joined us today for
the Subcommittee's hearing on the ``Role of Immigration in
Strengthening America's Economy.''
Often lost among the passionate debate on immigration are
the facts on immigrant entrepreneurs that generate billions of
dollars for the U.S. economy and thousands of new American
jobs.
Immigrants are nearly 30 percent more likely to start a
business than non-immigrants. In California alone immigrants
generate nearly one-quarter of all business income, nearly $20
billion. They represent nearly 30 percent of all business
owners in California, one-fourth of business owners in New
York, and one-fifth in New Jersey, Florida, and Hawaii. In New
York, Florida, and New Jersey immigrants generate one-fifth of
the total business income.
Immigrants are not only bringing more income to the
economy, their businesses are creating new jobs. Businesses
started by immigrants have a higher rate of creating jobs than
the average for all businesses created by immigrants and non-
immigrants combined, 21 percent versus 18 percent.
As a resident of California, I have long been familiar with
the role immigrants play in growing the State's economy and
creating jobs for Americans. Over half, 52.4 percent, of
Silicon Valley startups had one or more immigrants as a key
founder. Statewide, 39 percent of startups had one or more
immigrants as a key founder.
Of the engineering and technology companies started in the
United States from 1995 to 2005, 25 percent had at least one
key foreign born founder.
Nationwide, these immigrant-founded technology companies
produced $52 billion in sales and employ 450,000 workers in the
year 2005.
Contributions of immigrants to the technology industry is
only just the beginning. Immigrants own more than one-fifth of
businesses in the arts, entertainment, and recreation industry
nationwide. They own more than 10 percent of business in
education, health and social services, professional services,
retail, trade, and construction. Overall they own 12.5 percent
of all businesses in the United States. Of businesses worth
$100,000 or more in sales, immigrants own 11 percent of such
businesses and 10.8 percent of all businesses with employees.
It is very important for Congress to review the facts on
immigrant entrepreneurship and their contributions to growing
the American economy and creating American jobs. This will help
Congress to appropriately determine how best to structure
immigration law to continue improving our Nation's economy.
I welcome today's witnesses who have unique perspectives on
immigrant participation in the American economy, and I look
forward to hearing from them today. I would now like to
recognize our distinguished Ranking minority Member,
Congressman Steve King, for his opening statement.
Mr. King. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank the
witnesses for appearing here today. I know you all have busy
lives and important things to attend to, and yet perhaps I have
sat through enough of these hearings now that I wonder why we
are holding this one.
According to the hearing title, the outcome is already a
foregone conclusion. That title is the Role of Immigration in
Strengthening America's Economy. I would point out, too, that
there has been, I believe, a concerted and willful effort to
conflate the terms ``immigration'' and ``illegal immigration''
to where now America in normal conversation doesn't really know
which we are talking about if there is a distinction in their
minds at all.
But it is my understanding that the hearings are held in
order to get information that will help us determine policy. So
I will chalk up the name to overzealousness and listen to the
witnesses.
I know that two of the witnesses here are already on record
determining that immigrants help the economy and therefore we
must legalize the entire illegal immigrant population in the
U.S. Again, I draw that distinction between legal and illegal.
But not everyone agrees. There are experts, including one who
will testify today, whose research has found that low-skilled
immigrants are actually a drain on the U.S. economy and amnesty
is not a good idea.
One of these experts who is not here today is Robert
Rector, the Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
One of Mr. Rector's definitive studies was on the cost of
illegal immigrants to Americans and legal immigrants. He looked
at households that were headed by low-skilled immigrants and
found that the average household headed by a low-skilled
immigrant receives $30,160 per year in government benefits, and
that is an average of course, but they pay an average of
$10,573 in taxes. So the net cost to the taxpayer is $19,588 a
year. Overall, the net cost to taxpayers is $89 billion a year.
I think that makes a strong case that America has become now a
welfare state and it is not the America that we think of a
hundred and some years ago when people came here on their
merits and had to provide their own input into the economy and
find a way to take care of themselves.
So after that Rector went on to find that amnesty would
have another staggering fiscal impact. He reasoned that once
illegal immigrants became citizens they have the right to
sponsor their parents for permanent residence with no yearly
numerical limitation. These parents could then themselves
become U.S. citizens and they would be eligible for two very
expensive Federal programs, Supplemental Security Income and
Medicaid. Rector estimates that the parents' participation in
just these two programs would add $30 billion a year in costs
to the Federal Government, and he goes to estimate that in all,
should illegal immigrants receive amnesty, that governmental
outlay in retirement costs, including Social Security,
Medicaid, Medicare, and Supplemental Security Income alone
would be at least $2.6 trillion.
So over the years this Subcommittee and the full Committee
have examined the effects of immigration on States and
localities on a number of occasions. San Diego, the full
Committee explored the impacts that the Senate-passed Reid-
Kennedy amnesty bill would have on American communities at the
State and local level. We heard testimony that Los Angeles
County is being buried with the health care, education,
criminal justice, and other costs associated with illegal
immigration.
We also heard from a witness from the University of Arizona
Medical Center at Tucson, and I have been to visit that center
on these immigration issues, who said that providing care to
the uninsured, uncompensated poor and foreign nationals cost
the hospital $30 million in 2006 and $27 million in 2005. He
also related to me in my visit that the hospital has been
filled up, and they have had to life flight the residents of
Tucson to Phoenix because there wasn't room in their hospital
because it was full of illegals.
And more than a decade ago, at a hearing on the same topic,
Michael Fix of the Urban Institute told the Judiciary Committee
that, and I quote, ``There is a broad consensus in the research
that the fiscal impacts of illegal immigrants; that is, their
impacts on local, State and Federal taxpayers are negative,
generating a net deficit when they are aggregated across all
levels of government.''
Despite the evidence already collected by this Subcommittee
the majority has decided it is time to look at this issue
again. Unfortunately for them the real expert on the panel
today concludes the opposite of what the majority asserts.
And I would lay another piece of this out, and that is that
as much as we might talk about the contribution to the economy
and the growth in our growth domestic product, and I agree that
any work productive work adds to that GDP, there is also a cost
to sustaining citizens in this society and we have to balance
those two things and take a look at how our culture evolves and
what we are like as a people in future generations. That has
been part of the considerations in previous immigration debates
that this country has had, and it has been some of the
foundation of the policy that has emerged and exists to this
day.
So I would ask this, whatever the analysis of the
economics, we have also the rule of law that to me is
priceless, and so I will stand on the rule of law and I will
take a consideration to the economic comments that are here
today and see if there is a balance to the two, but I am
certainly not going to sacrifice the rule of law for an
economic interest because I think that is more important to
this country.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I look forward to the testimony of
the witnesses, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time has expired. The Ranking
Member of the full Committee, Mr. Smith, has an opening
statement and is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. America has a wonderful
tradition of welcoming newcomers. We admit more than one
million legal immigrants every year, which is almost as much as
every other Nation in the world combined, and it is no surprise
that so many people want to come here. We are the freest and
most prosperous Nation in the world.
Immigrants have benefited America in many ways. They are
laborers, inventors, and CEOs, and include one of our witnesses
here today.
Our country is a better place because we have been able to
attract so many highly skilled immigrants. We should continue
to invite the world's best and brightest to come to America and
contribute to our economic prosperity.
However, there is a right way and a wrong way to come into
our country. Legal immigrants play by the rules, wait their
turn, and are invited. Others cut in front of the line, break
our laws, and enter illegally. Some people say that we need to
pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes
amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S., but
citizenship is the greatest honor our country can bestow. It
shouldn't be sold to lawbreakers for the price of a fine.
Amnesty will enable illegal workers to depress wages and
take jobs away from American citizens and legal immigrants. In
New York, for example, there are 800,000 unemployed individuals
and 475,000 illegal immigrants in the workforce, and in Texas
illegal immigrants in the workforce actually outnumber
unemployed individuals. There are 1,050,000 illegal immigrants
in the workforce and one million unemployed individuals. So we
could free up hundreds of thousands of jobs for American
workers in just those two States if we enforced our immigration
laws.
Also, the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that
low-skilled immigration has reduced the wages of the average
native born workers in a low-skilled occupation by 12 percent a
year, or almost $2,000. Why would we want to put the interest
of foreign workers ahead of the economic well-being of American
workers?
There is another cost to illegal immigration besides lower
wages and lost jobs. Taxpayers foot the bills for their
education, health care, and government benefits. Overcrowded
classrooms, long waits in hospital emergency rooms, and costly
government services would only become worse if millions of
illegal immigrants are legalized, and amnesty would further
bankrupt the already strained Social Security System.
The Social Security Administration calculates that a
typical unmarried illegal immigrant will receive between 15 and
$20,000 more in retirement benefits than they pay into the
system. A married illegal immigrant couple in which one spouse
works can expect $52,000 more than they pay into the system.
Paying Social Security benefits to illegal immigrants who
receive amnesty could cost hundreds of billions of dollars and
bankrupt the system.
Some say that the taxes illegal immigrants pay offset the
cost of providing them education, health care, and government
benefits, but at their low wages most illegal immigrants don't
even pay income taxes and even when they do, their taxes don't
cover other government services like maintaining highways,
providing for our national defense, and taking care of needy
and elderly. Every objective and unbiased study has come to
this conclusion.
Those who support amnesty are clearly on the wrong side of
the American people. A recent poll found that when given the
choice of immigration reform moving, quote, in the direction of
integrating illegal immigrants into American society or in the
direction of stricter enforcement of laws against illegal
immigration, end quote, 68 percent of those polled support
stricter enforcement.
U.S. immigration policy should reward those who come here
legally, not those who disrespect the rule of law. U.S.
citizens and legal immigrants should benefit from our
immigration policies. Illegal immigration already hurts
American workers and American taxpayers. Amnesty for millions
of illegal immigrants may be good for foreign countries, but it
is not good for America.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Smith. And Mr. Conyers has not
yet arrived, so I think we will reserve his opening statement
for his attendance.
As is our custom, we invite the Member of Congress whose
constituents are witnesses to introduce them, and so I would
like to turn to our colleague, Mr. Weiner, to introduce Mayor
Bloomberg and Mr. Murdoch, and I will of course introduce the
other two witnesses.
Mr. Weiner.
Mr. Weiner. Well, thank you, Madam Chair, and I welcome
them both. I am unfamiliar with both of them, so I will read
the prepared introduction you wrote.
Let me just first begin by welcoming the mayor of the City
of New York, Michael Bloomberg, who is well-known obviously as
the mayor of the city, but also is increasingly familiar to the
halls of Congress, to the many issues that impact big cities
and the many issues that impact our economy as a whole.
Bloomberg L.P., which he founded, provides financial news
and information services to over 285,000 subscribers and it has
11,000 employees worldwide. He is someone that is never afraid
to innovate, never afraid to think outside the box, and one who
is unconstrained by traditional party politics. His taking on
this issue is consistent with his efforts to persuade Congress
to invest more in infrastructure, to persuade Congress to take
stronger steps in fighting terrorism and crime in big cities,
and I very much welcome him here today.
We are also joined by Rupert Murdoch, who is the Chairman
and Chief Executive Officer of News Corporation, one of the
largest diversified media companies in the world. He, too, is a
large employer in my home city, and we are grateful for that. I
am told he also is behind the Fox Broadcasting Company,
although I only watch that when I am on it, and also the New
York Post and many other publications. Mr. Murdoch is also, in
addition to taking on this issue, is always someone who has
been willing to share his expertise with Members of Congress
and his considerable experience in the economies of other
countries, and we very much welcome them both here.
I think what we will find, Madam Chair, and my colleagues,
is as much heat is generated by the issue of immigration reform
on shouting television shows and here in Congress, in fact
there is a remarkable consensus among people who actually
create jobs about the relatively easy steps that we can take to
improve our immigration system, both for the benefit of our
economy and also to the benefit of the people who are in that
system, both those that have documentation now and those who
seek it. And I always think, and I always talk to Mr. Gutierrez
about this, that if you have got 10 regular Americans around
the table and said here are the imperatives that we have, we
want to create jobs, we want to have a system that works, we
don't want anyone to jump over someone else, we could probably
solve the immigration challenges relatively easily. If we leave
the demagoguery at the door, if we tell the people on one side
who want to provide amnesty for everyone we are not going to do
that and the people on the other side who just want to say
let's hire several hundred thousand immigration officers and go
round up people we are not going to do that either, there is a
broad swath in the middle of this country represented by the
two men I just introduced who really do understand these
problems are solvable if we roll up our sleeves, metaphorically
and literally, and get to work.
But I want to thank these two gentlemen for being here, and
we welcome their testimony.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Weiner, for introducing the two
witnesses, and now I will introduce the remaining witnesses.
Mr. Jeff Moseley is the President and Chief Executive Officer
of the Greater Houston Partnership. The Greater Houston
Partnership serves and is the primary business advocate for the
10-county Houston area dedicated to securing regional economic
prosperity. Prior to joining the Greater Houston Partnership,
Mr. Moseley served as CEO of the Office of the Governor for
Economic Development and Tourism and as the Executive Director
of the Texas Department of Economic Development. He was also
elected to three terms as the Denton County judge, and he has
served with the Greater Houston Partnership as President and
CEO since 2005.
Finally, I would like to introduce Mr. Steven Camarota. Mr.
Camarota is the Director of Research at the Center for
Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C. He has been with the
Center since 1996. His focus is economics and demographics. Mr.
Camarota holds a Ph.D., or I should say Dr. Camarota, from the
University of Virginia in public policy analysis and a Master's
degree in political science from the University of
Pennsylvania. He has testified before Congress numerous times
and has written many articles on the subject of immigration for
the Center.
Mindful of our time, other Members of the Committee are
invited to submit written statements for the record. We will
also submit the written statements of each witness for the
record, and we would ask that their oral testimony consume
about 5 minutes. When the little machines on the desk turn
yellow, it means you have consumed 4 minutes, and when it turns
red it means your 5 minutes are up, but we will not cut you off
in the middle of a sentence. We would ask that you try to
conclude and summarize at that point.
So first we will turn to you, Major Bloomberg. Thank you so
much for being here.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG, MAYOR OF NEW
YORK CITY, NEW YORK CITY MAYOR'S OFFICE
Mr. Bloomberg. Chairwoman Lofgren and Ranking Member King,
Ranking Member Smith, and Congressman Weiner, once again
congratulations on your recent marriage. I am sure there is an
act of Congress to say congratulations. And I did want to thank
Representative--all of the New York delegation, one Republican
in the New York City area and mostly Democrats, but all of them
who understand the needs of our city.
Our system of immigration I think it is fair to say is
broken, I think it is undermining our economy. It is slowing
our recovery and really is hurting millions of Americans, and
we just have to fix it. And I do believe that this is an issue
where Republicans and Democrats can come together and
Independents as well to find common ground. That has been our
experience in forming what we call the Partnership for a New
American Economy that Rupert Murdoch and I have started of
business people and mayors around this country. We have members
of every political background.
We believe that immigration reform needs to become a top
national priority, and we are urging members of both parties to
help us shift the debate away from emotions and toward
economics because the economics couldn't be any clearer. Many
studies have analyzed the economic impact of immigration. I
will just touch briefly on seven key areas that come out of
that data.
Since 1990 cities with the largest increase in immigrant
workers have had the fastest economic growth. New York City is
a perfect example. Immigrants have been essential to our
economic growth in every single industry. Immigrants are a
reason why New York City has weathered the national recession
much better than the country as a whole.
This year we account for one out of every 10 private sector
jobs created throughout the entire Nation, just New York City
alone.
Second, immigrants pay more in taxes than they use in
benefits. Immigrants come to America to work, often leaving
their families behind, and by working they are paying Social
Security taxes, supporting our seniors. Immigrants also tend to
be younger and have a lot less need for Social Services. One
wonders where some of this research comes from. It just does
not jibe with what we see in New York City.
Third, immigrants create new companies that produce jobs.
Studies show that immigrants are almost twice as likely as
native born Americans to start companies, and from 1980 through
the year 2005 nearly all net job creation in the United States
occurred in companies less than 5 years old and many of these
new companies have defined the 21st century economy, such as
and Google and Yahoo and Ebay. They were founded by immigrants.
Immigrants also create small businesses and in New York City we
desperately need them to come and create the jobs that will put
New York City people back to work.
And this is not a new story. History shows that every
immigrant generation in the United States has fueled the
economic engine that makes the United States the strongest
economy in the world.
Fourth, more and more countries are competing to attract
entrepreneurs and high-skilled workers. Chile is offering
American entrepreneurs $40,000 and a 1-year visa to say to stay
in the country. China has recruited thousands of entrepreneurs,
engineers, and scientists to return and join the surging
economies of Shanghai and Beijing. Yet in America we are
literally turning them away by the thousands or making the visa
process so tortuous that no one wants to endure it.
Fifth, the more difficult we make it for foreign workers
and students to come and stay here the more likely companies
will move their jobs to other nations. And just look what has
happened in Silicon Valley. Many companies have not been able
to get workers into the country and have been forced to move
their jobs to Vancouver, Canada. And just as troubling, more
and more foreign students are reporting plans to return home
because of visa problems. We educate them here and then in
effect we tell them to take that knowledge and start jobs in
other countries. It makes no sense whatsoever. I have described
this as national suicide.
Sixth, we know that our businesses need more high and low-
skilled work labor that we are letting this country right now,
and they are the ones that will provide the employees for the
high-skilled jobs that we have to fill, and allowing companies
to far more easily fill those jobs would be perhaps the best
economic stimulus package Congress could create.
At the same time many other companies are seeking to fill
low wage jobs that Americans just will not take, from fruit
pickers to groundskeepers to custodians.
And seventh, and finally, creating a path for citizenship
for illegal immigrants will strengthen our economy. Both the
Cato Institute and the Center for American Progress have found
that a path to legal status will add billions to our GNP in the
coming decades.
So in summary, in the economy case for immigration couldn't
be stronger and our Partnership for a New American Economy has
adopted a core set of principles that we hope will guide the
Members of this Committee by drawing up legislation. I don't
think there is any doubt that we need to secure our borders. It
is essential that America be able to decide who comes here, who
we want, and who we don't. But it is impossible to secure our
borders without an overall package of reforms that reduces
demand and holds companies accountable to verify workers
rights. No matter how many border people we send, if you take
away the incentive to come here it will make that easy, and
then we have to go and give visas to those that will create the
jobs and keep our economy growing to keep America competitive
in the global marketplace. We just have to recognize that our
economy has changed and our immigration policy needs to change
with it.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bloomberg follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much, Mayor.
Mr. Murdoch, we would be pleased to hear from you.
TESTIMONY OF RUPERT MURDOCH, CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, NEWS CORPORATION
Mr. Murdoch. Thank you, Chairwoman Lofgren, Ranking Member
King, and Members of the House Judiciary Immigration
Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you
this morning to discuss the Role of Immigration in
Strengthening America's Economy.
As an immigrant, I chose to live in America because it is
one of the freest and most vibrant nations in the world. And as
an immigrant, I feel an obligation to speak up for immigration
that will keep America the most economically robust, creative,
and freedom loving nation in the world.
Over the past 4 decades I have enjoyed all the benefits of
living, working, and building a business in America. I have had
the freedom to pursue my dreams, secure the best opportunities
for my children, and to participate in the open dialogue that
is essential to a free society.
Today America is deeply divided over immigration policy.
Many people worry that immigrants will take their jobs,
challenge their culture, or change their community. Others want
to punish those who fled poverty or oppression in their native
countries and came to the U.S. outside the legal system.
I joined Mayor Bloomberg in organizing the Partnership for
a New American Economy because I believe that all Americans
should have a vital interest in fixing our broken immigration
system so we can continue to compete in the 21 century global
economy.
While supporting complete and proper closure of all our
borders to future illegal immigrants, our partnership advocates
reform that gives a path to citizenship for responsible, law
abiding immigrants who are in the U.S. today without proper
authority. It is nonsense to talk of expelling 11 or 12 million
people. Not only is it impractical, it is cost prohibitive.
A study this year put the price of mass deportation at $285
billion over 5 years. There are better ways to spend our money.
We need to do more to secure our borders. We can and should
add more people, technology and resources to ensuring that we
have control over who comes into this country, but I worry that
spending alone will not stop the flow of illegal immigrants.
The U.S. has increased border security funding almost every
year since 1992, while at the same time the estimated
population of illegal immigrants has more than tripled. That
number only started to decline when our country hit a recession
and there were fewer jobs. So our border security must also be
matched with efforts to make sure employers can't hire illegal
immigrants.
A full path to legalization requiring unauthorized
immigrants to register, undergo a security check, pay taxes,
and learn English would bring these immigrants out of a shadow
economy and add to our taxpayers. According to one study, a
path to legalization will contribute an estimated $1.5 trillion
to the gross domestic product over 10 years. We are desperately
in need of improving our country's human capital.
We want to bring an end to the arbitrary immigration and
visa quotas that make it impossible to fill the labor and
skilled needs of our country. We have to return to an America
that is a magnet for many of the best young brains in the
world. America needs to keep the door open to those who come
here to get an advanced degree and then allow them to join the
ranks of our most productive scientists, entrepreneurs,
innovators, and educators.
Today we attract some of the world's smartest people to our
shores, give them the best that American higher education can
offer, and then put them on planes back to their own countries.
That is self defeating and has to stop. We need to make it
easier for them to stay so they can make their contributions to
America.
These are young people who are inventing the next
generation of big ideas. In fact, a full 25 percent of all
technology and engineering businesses launched in America
between 1995 and 2005 had an immigrant founder, and these
businesses have created hundreds of thousands of new American
jobs.
As America's baby boomers approach 65, immigrants are
helping to keep our workforce young and growing. Today more
than 40 percent of our immigrant population is age 25 to 44.
These are consumers who generate considerable spending on goods
and services and housing.
In sum, America's future prosperity and security depends on
getting our immigration policy right and doing it quickly. From
all across the country, from the public and private sectors,
and from every political persuasion, our partnership is
bringing leaders together for one purpose: To ensure that
America's doors remain opening so that our economy remains
strong.
I appreciate the opportunity to share my views with you
today, and I thank you for listening.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Murdoch follows:]
Prepared Statement of Rupert Murdoch
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Murdoch.
Now we would be pleased to hear from you, Mr. Moseley. We
need your microphone on.
TESTIMONY OF JEFF MOSELEY, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, THE GREATER HOUSTON PARTNERSHIP
Mr. Moseley. Good morning, Madam Chair, Representative
King, Chair Conyers, and our good friend from Texas, Ranking
Member Smith, Members of the Committee. Thank you for your
leadership and for your commitment to reforming America's
immigration laws.
As the chair introduced me, my name is Jeff Moseley and I
serve as President and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership,
and I want to say thank you for allowing me to be a part of
this very distinguished panel. A lot of pleasure to be with
Mayor Bloomberg and Mr. Murdoch and Dr. Camarota.
I have submitted a written testimony, and these comments
that I am giving is just a quick summary of the written
statement. And while each of us may not agree on specifics, we
certainly appreciate the fact that there is a conversation with
the American people, a conversation that focuses on the role of
immigration, a conversation on strengthening America's economy,
and a conversation about fixing a broken immigration law.
The Greater Houston Partnership is a business association.
We have 3,000 members, and these represent companies that do
more than $1.6 trillion in annual revenues. The partnership
seeks to bring a grassroots voice for the business community
and for industry into this American dialogue, a voice that we
recognize has quite frankly been missing from the debate.
During the last several years we have witnessed several
failed attempts to pass immigration reform and admittedly,
Madam Chair, the business community bears some responsibility
for standing by the sidelines. So we are here today to commit
to stand up and to make sure the business voice is a part of
this reform process.
As you have heard already from our distinguished witnesses,
we are certainly all of immigrant stock and we recognize that
America's immigration system today is just not working. The
best solution toward reforming our laws require a bipartisan
action of Congress, but this national debate really goes back
to our earliest days as a Nation. I don't know if your history
teacher taught you this, mine didn't, but apparently in the
1750's, while America was still a colony and part of the
British Empire, Pennsylvania was seeing a tremendous number of
German immigrants and they were arriving in droves. And guess
what? They were opening their own schools and their own houses
of worship. They had their own printing presses, which produced
German language newspapers. Well, this was really too much for
Americans of British stock to tolerate. Someone even as
moderate as the reasonable Benjamin Franklin was positively
undone over these German newcomers. In fact, he called them
Palatine Boors, and he warned that if English speaking
Pennsylvanians did not take drastic steps to preserve their
language and culture they would find themselves submerged in a
Teutonic tide. And Franklin said, why should Pennsylvania,
founded by the English, become a colony of aliens who will
shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of us
Anglifying them and will never adopt our language or our
customs any more than they can acquire our complexion.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it? It almost sounds as though Ben
Franklin could be one of the news entertainers that take this
very complex issue of immigration reform and take out and
sensationalize the dialogue.
But we are here, Mr. King, to talk about how we can be a
positive force in fixing this broken law, and we think that a
law that does not recognize market forces or labor demand
really is really doomed from the beginning.
In fact, in 1986 the intent of the Immigration Control and
Reform Act was to make employers responsible for verifying the
legality of the workforce. However, the current system by which
employers are asked to determine if a worker is in fact
authorized is no better than the Social Security card. Madam
Chair and Members, this card was produced in the 1930's. This
is what employers are asked to use to verify if a worker is
authorized to work in the Nation. And as many will tell you,
the forgeries are better than what the U.S. Government are
producing, and so it puts the employer in a very, very
difficult position.
We must strike a balance between securing our borders and
safeguarding our prosperity. The Greater Houston Partnership
recognizes the need to secure our borders. Make no mistake, we
strongly support that.
But we also support an immigration law that will allow
employers, through an efficient, temporary worker program, to
recruit both the skilled and the unskilled immigrant workers
where there is a shortage of domestic workers. We further
believe that employers should be responsible for verifying the
legal status of those that they hire.
Believe it or not, we believe that there should be
penalties and fines for businesses that willfully and knowingly
hire undocumented workers. To this end we support the creation
of a fast, reliable employment verification system. We oppose
laws that would increase civil and criminal penalties on
employers that don't provide viable, legal options for hiring
these skilled and semi-skilled workers.
Our partnership has 130 board members, and we unanimously
have approved a resolution that has involved our involvement,
and the America's immigration reform is a part of that
creation.
I know my time has expired, Madam Chair. So I will withhold
any further comments.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Moseley follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jeff Moseley
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much.
Dr. Camarota, we would be happy to hear from you now.
TESTIMONY OF STEVEN A. CAMAROTA, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, CENTER
FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES
Mr. Camarota. Well, first I would like to say that I would
like to thank the Subcommittee for inviting me to testify today
on this important issue. I have to say that I am getting over a
bad case of pneumonia so if I cough a lot you will just have to
understand. Maybe I will do it in dramatic fashion and add to
the seriousness of my testimony.
My primary goal today is to clear up some of the confusion
that often surrounds the issue of immigration and the economy.
In particular, I will try to explain the difference between
increasing the overall size of the U.S. economy and increasing
the actual per capita GDP of the United States. I will also
touch on the separate but a related issue of taxes paid versus
services used, the impact on taxpayers.
Now, if we wish to know the benefit of immigration to the
existing population, then of course the key measure is the per
capita GDP of the United States, or I should say the per capita
GDP particularly of the existing population, if that is what we
want to know, not how much bigger immigration makes the U.S.
economy, which it clearly does do.
We could see the importance of per capita GDP just by
remembering that Mexico and Canada have very roughly the same
size economies, but they are not roughly equally rich because
Mexico has three times as many people and thus its per capita
income is much lower.
Now, there is actually a very standard way in economics to
calculate the benefit from immigration that actually goes to
the existing population of people that is either the native
born or the immigrants already here when you begin your
analysis. It is based on a noncontroversial formula laid out by
Harvard economist George Borjas. The method was used by the
National Academy of Sciences in its 1997 study. It was used by
the President's Council of Economic Advisors in their 2007
study. It is very much agreed on by economists.
Now, although the economy is much larger because of
immigration, the formula shows that only a tiny fraction of
that increased economic activity goes to the native born
population. Based on 2009 data, this simple calculation shows
that the net benefit to natives from immigration should be
about one-fourth of 1 percent of GDP, or about $33 billion.
Thus, the net benefit of immigration to the existing population
is very small relative to the size of the economy.
Second, and this is very important, the benefit is entirely
dependent on the size of the wage losses suffered by the
existing population of workers. If there is no reduction in
wages for the native born, there is no benefit. Now the wage
losses suffered by American workers based on the same formula
is about $375 billion, about 12 times bigger than the benefit,
but what is important to understand is the wages don't
disappear into thin air. They are retained either by employers
in the form of higher profits or they get passed on to
consumers, or more skilled workers who aren't in competition
with immigrants may benefit as well.
So the way it works out is that wages for those in
competition with immigrants are reduced by about $375 billion,
given the size of the immigrant population today, but the
people who gain, the business owners and so forth, gain about
$408 billion for the $33 billion net benefit.
Now, sometimes people say, well, I don't think Americans
and immigrants compete ever for jobs, but the fact is that is
not what the research shows. There are about 465 occupations in
the United States, based on the Department of Commerce
classification, and only four are majority immigrant. The vast
majority of nannies, maids, busboys, and forth, meat packers,
construction laborers, janitors in the United States are all
U.S. born. And unfortunately, there has been a very troubling
long-term decline in wages for less educated people who do this
kind of work, and this is exactly what we would expect to see
as a result of immigration. As immigration has increased, wages
at the bottom end of the U.S. Labor market have generally
fallen, which is certainly an indication that we don't have a
shortage of that kind of workers.
Now, there is also the fiscal impact. When the National
Academy of Sciences tried to look at this question, they found
that the fiscal impact was enough to eat up the entire economic
gain. So if you put the economic gain with the fiscal impact,
you get no benefit at all, it would seem.
Now, the problem is you have also made the low income
population poorer in the United States. They absorb a lot of
that $375 billion in wage losses.
In conclusion, if we are concerned about low-skilled
workers, and that is only one thing to think about, then
reducing the level of immigration would certainly make sense,
particularly unskilled immigration. Certainly we can do so
secure in the knowledge that it won't harm the U.S. economy. At
the very least, those who support the current high level of
immigration should understand that the American workers harmed
by that policy they favor are already the poorest and most
vulnerable.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Camarota follows:]
Prepared Statement of Steven A. Camarota
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much, and thanks to all of the
witnesses for your testimony.
Now is the time when Members of the Subcommittee have an
opportunity to pose questions to our witnesses, and I would
turn first to the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Mr. King,
for 5 minutes and whatever questions he may have.
Mr. King. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. It is interesting
testimony. I was watching the witnesses as they listen. I would
first ask Mayor Bloomberg, what did you think of Dr. Camarota's
testimony and how would you respond to the presentation that he
has made?
Mr. Bloomberg. I am not a----
Ms. Lofgren. Could you turn your microphone on, please.
Mr. Bloomberg. I am not an expert on the whole country. I
can just tell you about New York. I run a city of 8.4 million
people, 40 percent of which were born outside of the United
States and 500,000 we think are undocumented.
Number one, Mr. Camarota must have a different cohort that
he is studying. If you take a look at this country, if we have
11 or 12 million undocumented, it is because there are jobs
that are going unfilled here. We did have comprehensive
immigration reform in 1986 with no teeth whatsoever.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mayor. I am sorry, my clock is
ticking.
I see that is in your testimony, the statements that you
made and there is references to studies, but it doesn't say
which studies would be rebuttals to Dr. Camarota. Do you know
which studies you referenced?
Mr. Bloomberg. Yeah, the study is what goes on every day in
New York City. Rupert and I together employ about 75,000
people, so we know a little bit about job creation. And he is
an immigrant, I am an immigrant to New York from Boston. I
don't know whether that makes me a real immigrant or not. But I
can just tell you in New York City the issue is not the
undocumented, the issue is how we create jobs for the people in
New York who are unemployed and can't find jobs.
Mr. King. And when you use the term ``immigrant'' in your
testimony, does it mean, does it include illegal immigrant?
Mr. Bloomberg. It does. And the reason we have illegal
immigrants here is because of Congress' inability and
unwillingness to pass laws where employers can figure out who
is documented and who isn't. And it is just duplicitous for
Congress to sit there and say they shouldn't do it and then not
give them the tools.
All of us have the problem of trying to figure out whether
or not that Social Security card was bought for 50 bucks or
issued by the Federal Government.
Mr. King. It seems to be universal here among the witnesses
that--or at least unanimity about closing and securing the
borders. I see that in your testimony, Mr. Murdoch's, I believe
it was in Mr. Moseley's testimony, and I don't know that Dr.
Camarota addressed that.
Here is where the tension is in this. We have more than a
generation of promises to enforce immigration law, and that
includes specifically securing the border. And as I hear this
presentation, it includes also that same promise, but why
should Americans--I am going to ask Mr. Murdoch this question--
why should Americans accept a promise again that we would
enforce immigration laws in exchange for a path to citizenship
to people that, if I remember your language in here, was for
people that were illegals who are responsible and law abiding.
I think that actually precludes those people from being
included in that, but why should Americans accept that promise
again? There have been empty promises going far back to not
quite--I think Dwight Eisenhower is the last man that actually
followed through on enforcement.
Mr. Murdoch. Congressman----
Ms. Lofgren. Could you turn your microphone on, please, Mr.
Murdoch?
Mr. Murdoch. I am sorry.
With respect, you don't have to accept any promises. You
are the people who make the laws in this country, and you are
the people who have to make sure they are enforced. It is not
up to me as a private citizen. I will support you if you do it
of course. But you say why should you accept a promise. It is
up to you to keep the promise.
Mr. King. Okay, let me respond to that, and it is this,
that I have been in the business now and closing out my eighth
year of seeking to embarrass the Administration into enforcing
immigration law. I mean, Congress can't enforce the laws, we
can only appropriate or not appropriate, set the policy and
then seek to embarrass the Administration into enforcing if
they don't have the will, and it has gotten worse.
So I appreciate your point and your testimony.
I turn to--watching the clock tick--Dr. Camarota. Here is
the tension, and I just ask the question this way, and that is
we have a net cost that I talked about in my opening statement
of 19,000 and a half for the immigrant costs of--the low-
skilled immigrant costs of Dr. Robert Rector's testimony, or
his study. And you have your economic analysis here that makes
sense to me, and you make the point that--and I have said
often--that we need to be in the business of increasing the
average annual productivity of our people.
Now, but the question that comes back is how many are too
many? How much can this country sustain? No one seems to be
asking the question of when have we opened our borders too much
so that we get--the overburden of this economy can't recover
from it. Do you have any numbers on that? Do you have an
analysis of it? Do you have an opinion of it?
I mean, I would just imagine this, that if we let a billion
people into America next year that would bury us. We would not
be able to sustain that and it would change our culture
forever. So where is the line, in your opinion? Do you have any
analysis that addresses that?
Mr. Camarota. Well, like most people, I just think that we
should have an immigration policy that seeks to benefit the
existing population of the legal immigrants and the natives
here, and we should try as much as possible to avoid hurting
the people at the bottom. There is about 24 million people with
no education beyond high school, these are working age people,
who are currently not working in the United States. Their
situation has gotten worse and worse. And to keep flooding the
unskilled labor market with immigrant works just doesn't make
sense from that point of view.
Mr. King. Thank you. Thank you, all the witnesses. Madam
Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time has expired. I would
recognize now the gentlelady from California, Ms. Waters, for 5
minutes for questions unless she would like to defer.
Ms. Waters. Well, no. Thank you very much, Madam Chair,
very much for holding this hearing. And I thank our witnesses
here today, Mayor Bloomberg and Mr. Rupert Murdoch, Moseley and
Camarota.
I think that the outline of your proposed immigration
reform approach is a good one and it really mirrors pretty much
what many of us have been discussing here in Congress. I don't
see any great difference in what appears to be evolving here.
But I am curious about one thing.
Mr. Murdoch, both you and Mr. Bloomberg have the
possibility of doing a lot of education. You are very powerful,
with your media networks, and you are able to disseminate a lot
of information, and to flame issues. And for Mr. Murdoch, it
does not appear that what you are talking to us about today and
the way that you are discussing it is the way that it is
discussed on Fox, for example.
Why are you here with a basically decent proposal, talking
about the advantage of immigrants to our economy, but I don't
see that being promoted on Fox. As a matter of fact, I am
oftentimes stunned by what I hear on Fox, particularly when you
have hosts talking about anchor babies and all of that. Explain
to me, what is the difference in your being here and what you
do not do with your media network?
Mr. Murdoch. Ms. Waters----
Ms. Waters. I can't hear you.
Ms. Lofgren. Could you turn your microphone on, please?
Mr. Murdoch. I am sorry.
Ms. Waters. Yes.
Mr. Murdoch. We have all views on Fox. If you wish to come
and state these views, we would love to have you on Fox News.
Ms. Waters. No, I don't want to be on Fox News. That is not
what I am talking about. I am talking about----
Mr. Murdoch. We don't censure that or take any particular
line at all. We are not anti-immigrant on Fox News.
Ms. Waters. What do you do to promote the same views that
you are here talking with us about? How do you see that?
Mr. Murdoch. We do it in the Wall Street Journal every day.
Ms. Waters. I beg your pardon?
Mr. Murdoch. We do it in the Wall Street Journal every day.
Ms. Waters. Not really.
Mr. Murdoch. I can't----
Mr. Bloomberg. Let me also say Rupert is one of the
founders of our coalition of mayors and business people to
encourage Congress to give us comprehensive immigration reform
so that we can get the people that we need to create the jobs
that are----
Ms. Waters. Mr. Major, I appreciate that. And that is why I
started out by saying, I am very grateful that you guys are
here and what you are saying, but I am trying to point out the
contradiction between Mr. Murdoch being here saying these
wonderful things about immigration reform and the contribution
that immigrants make to our economy and our society, and I
don't see you promoting that in any way with all of the power
and ability that you have to do that. And I am trying to find
out what is the difference, what is the contradiction, why
don't you use your power to help us to promote what you are
talking about?
Mr. Murdoch. Well, I would say that we do with respect--we
certainly employ a lot of immigrants on Fox, and in all arms of
Fox, but you are talking about Fox News. We have many
immigrants there, and we do not take any consistent anti-
immigrant line. We have certainly debates about it from both
sides.
Ms. Waters. So let me just be clear about what you are
saying. You are saying that the position that you have with
this coalition that you guys are leading is a position that you
are an advocate for and you would support daily with your
ability to disseminate news and information, you think you are
doing that?
Ms. Lofgren. The witness can answer. The gentlelady's time
has expired.
Mr. Murdoch. I have no trouble in supporting what I have
been saying here today on Fox News and would go do so
personally, nor would a great number of the commentators on Fox
News.
Ms. Waters. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Murdoch, I would
just suggest that you do that. Thank you so very much.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman from Texas, the Ranking Member
of full Committee, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mayor Bloomberg, you and
I agree that highly skilled immigrants do create businesses, do
create jobs and we need to welcome more of them. You had this
statement--this sentence in your statement: There are one
million high-skill jobs that companies cannot fill because they
cannot find the workers.
To my knowledge, we have only had 39,000 applications for
the highly skilled H-1B visas and I just wondered what your
source was of one million.
Mr. Bloomberg. We have done a survey of high-tech companies
of what the needs are for doctors in this country. Doctors and
nurses, for example----
Mr. Smith. If you can share that survey with us, because
you would assume that if they had the need they would be
applying for these visas, and that doesn't seem to be the case.
Mr. Bloomberg. No, we would be happy--one of the problems
we are having, I can just tell you in my company, is that when
we try to get overseas workers to come here, a lot of them say,
I don't need the aggravation of going through the American
bureaucratic process at the border, and I don't want to go to a
country that is less welcoming.
Mr. Smith. For good or for bad, we do need to have
individuals who want to come to this country fill out forms. We
just can't let everybody in.
Mr. Bloomberg. Nobody is suggesting that we shouldn't do
that.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Give me the study that seems to conflict
with the actual actions about high-tech companies themselves,
if you would.
Mr. Murdoch, I have a study that is going to be delivered
in just a minute because there was an independent study done
that actually showed that Fox was the most fair of all
television news programs. If you are coming from a liberal
perspective, it might seem conservative. But to the objective
observer, Fox actually has both sides more often than the three
networks, and I will put that in the record in just a minute.
My question, Mr. Murdoch, is this, and let me preface it by
saying I know you are familiar with the E-Verify program that
is used by businesses to make sure that they hire legal
workers. The Federal Government uses it, 13 States use it, over
200,000 businesses voluntarily use the E-Verify program. And I
am hoping that the businesses you own also use the E-Verify
program, which is about 95 percent accurate. The 5 percent are
either people in the country illegally or fraudulent Social
Security cards. But you don't have to answer if you don't want
to, but maybe let's just say I encourage you to have your
businesses use the E-Verify. -
Mr. Murdoch. We do not have any illegal immigrants on our
payroll.
Ms. Lofgren. Could you turn your microphone on please, Mr.
Murdoch?
Mr. Murdoch. I think I can guarantee you that we have
absolutely no illegal immigrants on our payroll.
Mr. Smith. Okay. And is that because of the E-Verify
program or----
Mr. Murdoch. On my personal payroll or anything.
Mr. Smith. How do you know that to be the case? Do you
screen them out using the E-Verify program?
Mr. Murdoch. Certainly.
Mr. Smith. Okay, great. Good to hear.
Mr. Moseley, your testimony reminded me not only of the
influence of immigrants and their contributions but of the fact
that in San Antonio, my hometown, in the early 1900's there
were street signs in three languages. The first language was
German, the second language Spanish, and the third language was
English. And so we can all appreciate our heritage in that
respect.
Mr. Camarota, let me ask a couple of questions to you, and
that is--two questions. First of all, who is hurt by our
current immigration policies and who might be hurt if we were
to suddenly legalize say 12 million people? So two separate
questions there.
Mr. Camarota. Immigration has a much larger affect on the
bottom end of the U.S. Labor market. For example, 5 percent of
attorneys in the United States are foreign born and less than 1
percent are illegal. Maybe 8 percent of journalists in the
United States are foreign born. So they don't face much job
competition, but it looks like around 40 percent of maids and
housekeepers are foreign born. And similar statistics for, you
know, taxi drivers, 25 percent of janitors are. So they are the
people who are hurt, nannies maids, busboys. These are mostly
people who have a high school degree, or they are people who
didn't graduate from high school. And their situation looks
terrible over the last 3 decades in terms of real wages, in
terms of benefits, and in terms of the share holding a job,
which is what exactly what we exact if immigration was
adversely affecting them.
Mr. Smith. You say in your testimony that $375 billion in
wage losses are suffered by American workers because of
immigration. How do you reach that figure?
Mr. Camarota. Well, it is a pretty straightforward formula,
and like you said, it is what the National Academy of Sciences
use. It is called a factor proportions approach, pretty
straightforward. You have to estimate what you think the impact
is on wages, then you have to know what fraction of the economy
are workers; that is, wages, and then you can estimate the
overall size of that impact. And then you can also estimate
what are the gains that come from that impact.
But the important point, if you are interested in the
losers, is that a lot of that lost wages is absorbed by people
at the bottom end of the labor market, and a lot of winners are
the most educated. They are people with a college degree. They
are like journalists and lawyers. They are owners of capital,
and that is something we should be thinking about.
Immigration is primarily a redistributive policy from
people at the bottom sort of to everybody else, and it depends
on how you feel about that, but that is a big question that
needs to be answered.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Camarota. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time has expired. I would turn
now to the gentleman from Chicago, Mr. Gutierrez, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you very much. First, I want to thank
you all for taking time. I want to give a special thanks to
Mayor Bloomberg for visiting with me on Martin Luther King's
birthday in Chicago. It was a wonderful meeting. It was a quiet
meeting, but it was a productive meeting. And you told me then
you were going to engage mayors and others in a campaign to
bring about comprehensive immigration reform to fix our system.
And you know something, you have done it and I a congratulate
you and tell you that I wish you Godspeed in all of your
endeavors.
And to the men sitting immediately to the left of you, to
Mr. Rupert Murdoch, I thank you for being here this morning and
for joining with Mayor Bloomberg in this effort. I think it is
an important effort from the business community to talk about
how it is we transform America and make it a vital, energetic,
economic engine of the future.
Mr. Moseley, I look forward to coming back and visiting
with you back in Houston. You have a wonderful group of people.
Again, who do we have here this morning? Businessmen, men
who create jobs of commerce and industry. And that should be
the focus, I think, about a lot of the debate around
immigration.
Let me just say, look, the good thing about the three
proponents of comprehensive immigration is that we don't deny
the fact that undocumented workers do reduce the wages of
American workers. Nobody is going to deny that fact. So how do
we fix it? Well, when we legalize all of the workers, the
salaries of all of the workers rise at the same time, and you
have fairness and parity. As long as you have an underclass of
people that is exploited, you know who benefits? Unscrupulous
employers and others, and the wages go down.
I like the fact that businessmen have come here, one of the
few times businessmen have come here to say I figured out a way
to increase wages for American workers because that is
essentially what they have said here today. So we don't
disagree with that.
But they come with a fundamental, I think, fairness in
saying we are going to secure--I heard Mr. Murdoch say, We are
going to secure our borders, and that is critical and essential
to any comprehensive immigration bill. I heard them say we are
going to have a verification system that punishes corporations
and companies. That is what they said. I have got businessmen
coming here telling me, I want a law to punish businessmen who
hire undocumented workers here in the United States of America.
I think that is what is wrong with the debate. We don't
listen to one another, and we don't listen and find that common
ground which does exist in our debate.
And lastly, we have people who come here with some
sensible, because here is one thing, E-Verify? Madam
Chairwoman, we had a hearing here. We spent millions of
dollars, and here is what we found about E-Verify. In half of
the instances, it had a false reading. That means you are just
as likely to hire an undocumented worker as not if you use E-
Verify even though the government has said that that is the--it
is not the road. The road is to bring everybody and take those,
as Mr. Murdoch has suggested earlier today, those that are law
abiding, and by that we mean yes, they have an immigration
problem but in every other instance they are just as much
Americans as everyone. They need a piece of paper. Because in
2004, what did we read? We read about that young Corporal
Gutierrez, the first to die--illegally entering the United
States and the first to die in Iraq. Let us tell.
So I just want to transition back to you, Mr. Murdoch, and
ask you a question because I think it is like that.
What is it? That proverbial 9,000-pound gorilla that is in
the room, elephant that is in the room. I wake up really early
sometimes. 6:10 in the morning in Chicago means I have got to
get up at 4:15 so I can get down to Fox News for those 30
seconds that I am there in the morning. And I have gotta tell
you I have been on many programs. I am invited all the time,
and I take the opportunity. And I don't do it because I believe
that somehow I am going to reach voters that like Mr. Gutierrez
that day. The phone calls I get back at my office are not
positive phone calls generally when I am on Fox News.
Now, I just want to share with you that I am happy you are
here. I thank you for everything, but I have to tell you that
many times, how do we find that we tell the story of Corporal
Gutierrez on Fox News more often? How do we tell these stories
so that there is more of a balance, so there is security and we
get to talk, because I see many times--I just share with you
and I speak to you as someone who welcomes you, who embraces
your effort to say to you as your partner in this effort that
we do more.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time has expired.
We will turn now to Mr. Poe for his 5 minutes of questions.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Madam Chair.
For some reason I don't understand why some of the
witnesses do not make the distinction between people that are
here legally from other countries and people that are here
illegally from other countries. There is a difference between
people that are here legally, came the right way, did the right
thing, even waited, and those people who just flaunted the laws
and other reasons and came into the United States and now
expect us to give them amnesty.
I want to make it clear. I think amnesty is a bad idea.
History has proven it hasn't worked. So what do we do? The
proposal is let's do it again. Maybe the results will be
different. I don't think so.
Houston area, just a couple of that statistics. Eighteen
percent of the people in county hospitals in Houston, Texas,
are illegally in the United States. Sixty-seven percent of the
births in LBJ County Hospital over the last 4 years, 67
percent, are born to mothers who are illegally in the United
States.
Now, somebody pays for that. And who pays for it? It is
citizens and it is legal immigrants.
I represent southeast Texas, and these are about real
people. I have an individual who runs a carpet laying business.
He is a legal immigrant. He hires legal immigrants. They all
got here the right way. They are all paying taxes, including
him. But his competition is down the road where a person hires
only illegals, undercuts the legal immigrant and what he is
paying the legal immigrants that work for him and putting him
out of business.
Now, that is the competition. It is not between Americans
and immigrants. In this case, it is between legal immigrants
and people that are here illegally. And that is because nobody
is being held accountable for being here illegally. And the
employer is not being held accountable for knowingly and
intentionally hiring folks so he can undercut whoever his
competition may be.
And so I see a distinction and I think we have to resolve
that issue. This is a three-part problem, and I have always
seen it as three parts.
The first solution is we have to stop folks coming here
without permission. It is called border security. We don't have
border security. If you believe we have border security, I will
take you to the Texas-Mexico border and you can watch for
yourself. Of course it is not safe down there. You won't want
to go down there. But we don't have border security, we need to
have it, including, as I believe, the National Guard if
necessary.
But the second issue is not what do we do with the illegals
that are here. The second issue is we have got to reform the
immigration system. In my opinion, it is a disaster. It takes
too long to get people in here the right way. My office spends
more time on immigration issues helping people come into the
United States the right way than it does any other issue except
military issues.
So the model, the immigration model we operate under, in my
opinion, doesn't work. We gotta fix that. That is the second
thing that has to be done.
What do we do with the people that are here? Well, many of
them we talk about amnesty and making citizens out of them. Not
all of them want to be citizens. They just want to have the
opportunity to work in the United States. But they don't want
to be citizens. They aren't asking to be Americans. So we can't
lump them all into the philosophy we need to make citizens out
of them because they have been here so long. I don't agree with
that at all.
But we go after the employers and make sure that they are
held accountable and the attrition and not being able to work
in the United States unless you have permission to be here,
that might solve part, not all of the problems.
So it is a three-part process. I think we can solve those
problems in that way.
Mayor, I want to ask you one question. Do you make a
distinction between people here legally--just a second. Let me
ask the question, Mayor.
Mr. Bloomberg. Congressman, I think you laid it out better
than I could have possibly laid it. There are three prongs
here. We have to do it.
What frustrates the American public and the reason you see
the frustration in the polls, both to throw the incumbents out
on both sides of the aisle, is that we can't understand why you
guys complain about immigrants coming over the borders
illegally and then don't do anything about it. It is a
Republican and Democratic President that you have talked about
here who have not stopped illegal immigrants, they have not put
the forces at the border we need, and we have not given the
business community the tools they need to stop the demand. It
is a supply and demand problem.
Number two, we do not give the visas we need. This country
is hollering out for doctors because we won't give green cards
to the doctors that we train and we need. You couldn't be more
right.
And number three, you have this problem of 11-odd million
people here who are undocumented, who broke the law to get
here--and incidentally so did their employers who encouraged
them to come, so did Congress that passed immigration reform in
1986 without any teeth, of all of the duplicitous things it has
ever done. Yes, we have a problem. Let us do something about
it. But anybody that thinks that we are going to go and deport
11 million people, it is just literally impossible.
Mr. Poe. Reclaiming my time. Excuse me, Mayor, I am
reclaiming my time.
May I have unanimous consent for 1 minute?
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman is recognized by unanimous
consent for an additional minute.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mayor. You didn't hear me say anything
about deporting anybody. It is a three-part process. Just a
second, Mayor, I am talking. Sorry.
Just go to the first one. What do you think about putting
the National Guard on the border? Do you support a concept like
that or not to secure the border?
Mr. Bloomberg. I support the Federal Government putting
whatever resources they need, and I don't know whether that
should be the National Guard or Homeland Security. That is not
my job. I don't know that. But they should have forces on the
border.
But you will never be able to put enough forces there
unless you end the demand, and that is where companies hire
undocumented and the companies say that they can't tell the
difference, and Congress does not help them in being able to
tell the difference and having a penalty if they break the law
as well. People are coming in and breaking the law and the
people who are hiring are breaking the law and we should be
after both. I think you are 100 percent right.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mayor. I yield back.
Ms. Lofgren. The Ranking Member of the full Committee
wanted to be recognized for a unanimous consent request.
Mr. Smith. I would like to ask unanimous consent to put
into the record a study by the nonpartisan Center for Media and
Public Affairs that found that coverage on Fox News was more
balanced than any other network and also a public policy
polling survey that found that half of Americans trust Fox 10
percentage points more than any other. And a separate poll by
McLaughlin and Associates found that 36 percent of Americans
list Fox as the most trusted source of news about politics and
government, by far the highest total of any network. ABC, CBS,
NBC, and MSNBC each received less than 7 percent.
That is a long UC.
Ms. Lofgren. It is a very long UC. I would note that
although I am sure that Mr. Murdoch is pleased by the comments,
the relevance to the hearing is a bit tenuous, but without
objection, the surveys will be made part of the record.
[The information referred to follows:]
******** COMMITTEE INSERT ********
Ms. Lofgren. I would now turn to the gentlelady from Texas,
Ms. Jackson Lee, for her 5 minutes of questions.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Madam Chair, I think it is appropriate to
thank you for your continuing persistence. We have been on this
journey I believe for a long time and in your leadership. I
think we can count, if you will, tens upon tens of hearings on
this issue.
To the gentlemen who are gathered, thank you so very much
for your presence here today, and I have to express, Mayor
Bloomberg, a sense of pride having first started out my
educational tenure at New York University for a brief period of
time but certainly having the great affection for the city, but
proudly now with the City of Houston, expressing a great sense
of pride in the greater Houston partnership, their leadership,
and Jeff Moseley for frankly taking the lead.
I will answer the question. Congress should do something.
Lamar Smith knows that we sit together on this Committee myself
as the Ranking Member and Lamar Smith during that time as the
Chairman on the Subcommittee on Immigration, and frankly we
should have done something then.
It is difficult to bark and have no teeth. Congress has
been barking. We have been in conflict. We have opposed each
other, the two distinct sides of the aisle, if you will, and
done nothing.
And I would ask myself the question, how many National
Guard and border security can you put at a border and think
anything is going to occur for people who are struggling and
desperate and are coming into this country to work?
So it is a chicken-and-egg situation and frankly you need a
system of laws that allows people to enter the country fairly
so that you can stop the onslaught of those of who say I am
simply coming, and we know it is because during this recession,
Mayor, Jeff, and to all of you, you have seen a downsizing of
sorts of those coming across the border. They want to work.
So I think the question that I would like to build on and
the series of questions is one, I think the business community
has a remarkable opportunity to be able to speak eloquently to
this issue that we must do something. Mayor Bloomberg, you have
communities in the City of New York that live alongside of each
other and it is called the ``little this'' and the ``little
that'' in terms of communities. They develop business and
tourists come there because of the enrichment of the diversity
of New York City.
So my question is to you, first of all, is how do we get
past the enforcement-only concept, which does not work? If we
go to the border of Mexico, we will find bloodshed on the
Mexican side as it relates to drugs as much heavy equipment and
enforcement that that poor government has implemented. They
tell us we have to stop being consumers. They have a point.
What is your input about enforcement--only?
Mr. Bloomberg. Congresswoman, I thought actually
Congressman Poe laid it out. There are three issues here, and
unless you address all three issues at the same time, you
cannot solve the problem. It will just be another photo op and
another chance to pander for Congress. Congress has got to
stand up and do something and the American public, if there is
any message coming out of what looks like what is going to
happen in November, it is that the public is tired of Congress
talking about things and not doing anything. You have got to
get border security, which means enforcement but also reducing
the demand. You have got to give the visas to people that we
need to grow our economy, to provide medical care, to create
jobs, and you have got to do something about 11 million people
who broke the law admittedly to get here, but did so with the
outright complicity of Congress and the business community.
And unless you do all three at the same time,
Congresswoman, we are going to be here talking about this again
and again and again.
Ms. Jackson Lee. You cannot do law enforcement only.
Mr. Bloomberg. You cannot do law enforcement only.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I have occasions to agree with my good
friend from Texas, but I do believe that we are not going to
get away from looking at the benefit side of the question and
enforcement is not the only issue.
Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Moseley.
Mr. Murdoch, I will come on Fox News if, as Mr. Lamar Smith
has indicated, that you are overly fair. But I think the story
needs to be told as you are fair, you have to be convincing to
your viewers. I don't know how convincing you have been to your
viewers.
But the question is you have your story to tell of
immigration success, and I would ask the question do you have
one thing that you think the Congress should immediately
address?
And Mr. Moseley, would you talk about the business
investment and are you familiar with the EB-5 employment based?
That is something that has been a valuable tool that is in
complete confusion. Tell us how Houston has benefited on this
question of that kind of investment.
Mr. Murdoch, can you give us what you think should be the
first attack or approach that we need to have the American
dream for immigrants as you have secured?
Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady's time has expired. So we will
ask the witness to answer briefly.
Mr. Murdoch. I am sorry?
Ms. Jackson Lee. You have indicated that the American dream
is now part of your life. What should Congress do, who should
we be impacting as it relates to fixing the immigration system?
What should be the first thing we should do? You recognize you
are undocumented here in this country. You want us to find a
way for pathway to citizenship for them? You want us to get
more visas for those who come in that are professionals? What
do you want us to do?
Mr. Murdoch. All of the above, I think. Obviously we know
about the enforcement has to be done, at the same time whether
it be at the border or whether it be against employers hiring
illegal people.
But you know we are in urgent need in this country. Our
education system is failing us very badly. Thirty-five percent
of children in high school are dropping out and dropping out
and committed to the underclass for life. That is another
national scandal. And there is so much to do in this country if
you want to restore the American dream.
Ms. Jackson Lee. But not deportation of the 11 million.
Mr. Murdoch. I am not for deporting 11 million, no.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. May I yield an additional 30 seconds for
my constituent from Houston to answer?
Ms. Lofgren. Yes, you may.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Moseley. Congresswoman, Madam Chair, Houston is putting
in place the EB-5 application to Homeland Security. That is a
tool that we are very pleased the U.S. Government has fine-
tuned over time to allow foreign investors to strategically
invest in census tracks that have high unemployment. This
follows a model that worked very well for Chinese capital that
was leaving Hong Kong about a decade ago when there were
questions about the central party taking over Hong Kong, and
that money went to Canada and Australia because our law wasn't
as flexible as it is now. So we are very pleased that EB-5 is
going to allow foreign investors to come and invest in the
American economy and grow jobs through that investment.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much. The gentlelady's time has
expired, and we will recognize now the gentlelady from
California, Ms. Sanchez, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank
our panelists for being here this morning to talk about this
issue.
I want to begin with Mayor Bloomberg. There is a lot of
debate in Congress and there has been for quite some time over
what the best solution is, and while people fight over what the
best solution is the status quo continues, and I am of the
personal opinion that the status quo is simply not acceptable
any longer. But I am interested in knowing if you think that it
is a better idea to try to fix our immigration system through a
series of stand-alone bills or whether or not you favor a
comprehensive approach that would try to hit all the parts at
once.
Mr. Bloomberg. Congresswoman, it just depends on whether
you want it to work or not. If you don't want it to work, do
separate ones and I guarantee you we will be back here 10 years
from now. If you want to fix the problem, you have to do it all
together.
I also think from a political point of view probably the
only way that you would get it through Congress and through the
White House is one comprehensive bill where everybody gets
something, not everybody gets everything they want.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Mr. Bloomberg.
Mr. Murdoch, I am interested in knowing and I am pleased to
see you here today talking about this issue. How you feel about
some of the anti-immigrant positions that are promoted by your
network on issues like Arizona's recent immigration law?
Mr. Murdoch. I don't think we do take an anti-Democratic
position. We are very happy to welcome any Democrats onto Fox
News.
Ms. Sanchez. No, I didn't say anti-Democrat. I said anti-
immigrant stances on legislation such as the Arizona law.
Mr. Murdoch. Well, I would not agree with that, but I will
certainly go back and look at it.
Ms. Sanchez. Do you favor Arizona's approach to
immigration?
Mr. Murdoch. My position on immigration is what I stated
earlier, what I have restated here again. I am totally pro-
immigrant.
Ms. Sanchez. I appreciate the answer.
Mr. Moseley, one of the arguments that is often thrown
about, particularly by many of my Republican colleagues here in
Congress, is that illegal immigrants are bad people, that they
should do it the legal way or do it the right way. And I am
interested in knowing in your experience and perhaps experience
of working with other businesses on the issue of immigration
reform, do you think that our current immigration system is
efficient? Do you think that it allows businesses to plan
prospectively for future labor needs? Do you think that it is
timely? Do you think it is well-tailored to fit the business
needs in our country? Can you shed any light on that.
Mr. Murdoch. No, I think it is terrible. I think the fact
is we are missing a huge opportunity to be draining the best
brains out of Asia and Europe to come and contribute to the
human capital of this country and therefore the financial
capital of everybody.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you. Mr. Moseley.
Mr. Moseley. We would feel like the law is entirely broken.
It is helter-skelter, and it is really catch is as catch can.
There is an important time, as you heard testimony this
morning, to really thoroughly take a look at the law. It is
outdated. It needs to be contemporized. So the challenges are
real, but the opportunities are tremendous.
And one of the things that is not being discussed, and I
think is left out of the calculus is that the American
workforce is by and large getting to an age where there will be
massive retirements. So the question becomes who shall do these
jobs. If we look at Japan, which is demographically the oldest
Nation in the world, which is also a closed community, their
choice is they have to export their jobs because they are not
importing their workforce.
So we will come to that point where we are realizing the
workforce is providing tremendous opportunities to those of us
who are looking toward retirement, and the realities are
dramatic. Now in the skilled workforce, we hear this regularly
and often in Houston, particularly in the engineering
community, where engineers are starting to retire and there is
a huge need to find these workers to come in. Otherwise we have
to export our jobs.
Ms. Sanchez. I appreciate you talking about that specific
point. I am just going to drill a little bit deeper on that.
My understanding is that the birth rates in this country
are not of a replacement rate, and yet we have a large number
of the workforce that is getting ready to retire in the not too
distant future. So if we are not replacing ourselves by having
children, there is going to be a huge labor gap, and the
question becomes where do we get those folks from.
My understanding also is that many of the students that we
teach and learn at our universities and many of skilled
professions oftentimes come on student visas. After they have
been here and obtained their degrees and they want to stay,
then our immigration system effectively kicks them out of the
country and says go back to where you came from.
Does it make any sense to make that investment in the
workforce and then send them out of the country?
Mr. Moseley. No, we would argue that the DREAM Act should
be enacted very quickly. We have had some incredible stories in
the Houston area where children really have no choice. They are
brought to this country as infants. They are educated with
public taxpayer dollars all the way through university and
cannot find a job because they are not legally documented. This
is a tremendous resource for our workforce.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you very much, and Madam Chair, I yield
back.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady's time has expired. I would
recognize now the gentleman from California, Mr. Lungren, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Lungren. I am sorry. I had to go away for something
else.
I have been informed, Mr. Murdoch, you have referred
several times to the fact that the Simpson-Mazzoli bill didn't
have any teeth. I was here and we voted on it. It had teeth. It
was never enforced, which I guess is the same thing.
But that being the case, is there not a context in which we
have to consider any legislation with respect to immigration?
And that context is formed in part by the failure of Congress
and subsequent Administrations to enforce the Simpson-Mazzoli
bill.
When I worked on that bill and delivered the Republican
votes to pass that bill, one of the big arguments was that we
had a balanced bill. We had the largest legalization in the
history of the United States and we had enforcement. The
legalization program worked fairly well. The enforcement was an
absolute disaster.
Doesn't that set a context in which to the world it has
been said the United States will have these legalization
programs every generation and therefore after if we have a
similar legalization now, put people on the pathway to
citizenship, won't that inevitably send a message that, well,
even though they promised to enforce it in the future, the
history has been that they have legalizations maybe every 20
years, so isn't there an incentive for people to violate the
law to come to the United States with the expectation that
there will be a legalization in the future?
Mr. Murdoch.
Mr. Murdoch. Well, that is a problem of reputation, I
guess. No, I think you have to start somewhere. You can't just
say well, we haven't done it in the past so why shouldn't
people trust us. You have got to start somewhere and make sure
they do trust you by constant enforcement.
Mr. Lungren. Let me ask another question for you and Mr.
Bloomberg, and that is are the American people so out of--are
the American people so disconnected with the reality that you
and Mr. Bloomberg have expressed here that that is the reason
why they, at least in the polls I have seen, reject the notion
of a legalization program that would allow people who have come
here illegally to get in front of the line of those who have
waited to come here legally under the system.
Mr. Bloomberg. You keep talking about Congress not doing
anything and you are asking us. You guys should sit down
together and say we have had Republican and Democratic
Congresses and Presidents and you don't do anything. And then
you say well, people think you are not going to do anything. So
do something.
Mr. Lungren. No, that is not my question. That was not my
point at all. My point is are the American people so
disconnected with the facts that you presented; that is, of
the, it appears, unvarnished positive aspect of immigration,
whether it is legal or illegal, that benefits our economy, that
raises our GNP, that that is the reason why they believe that
there is a distinction between legal and illegal immigration
and its impact on their standard of living and the economy and
the society in general?
Mr. Bloomberg. Congressman, I think this is all about
leadership. We need immigrants. That is the future of this
country, and whether the public understands that or not, it is
Congress' job to lead and to explain to them why our--we are
going to become a second rate power in this world unless we fix
our public education system and fix immigration.
Mr. Lungren. Mayor Bloomberg, you have repeated that
several times. That was not my question. My question was are
the American people misguided in terms of their view of the
fact of unvarnished benefit of immigration irrespective of
whether it is legal or illegal, or is there a valid position
taken by the majority of Americans that there is a distinction
between legal and illegal immigration without then deciding
what we should do?
That is my question.
Mr. Bloomberg. There is no question. You are right. There
is a difference. People understand the difference and they want
Congress to solve both problems. More legal immigrants, stop
the illegal immigrants from coming here and do something about
those who are already here. And I thought Congressman Poe
really summed it up really nicely and Congresswoman Jackson Lee
as well.
Mr. Murdoch. May I just add, Congressman. Excuse me, Madam
Chairman.
You said that Americans were against illegal immigrants
going ahead of legal ones.
Mr. Lungren. Right, correct.
Mr. Murdoch. No one has suggested that. That may be some
pollster, the way they ask the question. You can get any result
from a poll if you know how to ask the question.
Mr. Lungren. I am sorry. That is not my point. My point is
that when you talk about a pathway to citizenship as it has
been articulated in the programs presented by the Congress and
the previous Administration, it results in people who violated
the law getting in front of people who had not violated the
law.
Mr. Murdoch. They shouldn't be in front of them.
Mr. Lungren. Well, that is an important point.
Mr. Bloomberg. I don't think anybody thinks they should.
Mr. Lungren. Well, I beg to differ with you. The way a
number of the proposals come forward when people are put on the
path to citizenship, let us say they are from Mexico. Right now
it takes 10 years to get--if you get in line in Mexico, you are
going to have 10 years before you are going to have an
opportunity to come to the United States. If you are in the
Philippines, it is as much as 18 years. If we have a program
that says because you have been in the United States illegally
for X-amount of time, we are going to give you a special
program by which you end up being able to go on the path to
citizenship before those periods of time, it does result in
people getting in the front of the line.
Look, I provided the votes for the legalization last time.
I want to see us work out a situation, a solution. The problem
is that details often will determine whether or not you do have
the reality of getting in front of the line or not and whether
the American people will then be with us--yeah, we have to lead
but I want the American people to be with us so that we have a
successful law so we can take care of the problem.
That is the point I am trying to make.
Mr. Bloomberg. If you would like to work on an agreement, I
would be happy to help you to do it.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time has expired. I would turn
now to the gentleman from New York City, Mr. Weiner.
Mr. Weiner. Thank you very much. I think you gentleman are
seeing how some of the demagoguery around this issue really
stops this issue at a point, and Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Mayor and
Mr. Moseley--Mr. Moseley, isn't it Houston? You are sure it is
Houston?
Mr. Moseley. I am pretty sure it is Houston.
Mr. Weiner. You know, Richard Florida in his books and
writings about the creative class talks about what makes
successful cities and what makes successful suburbs as well.
And he talks about the idea of creating social networks where
people from around the world and around countries want to come
to be with other people who have the same level of creativity
and the same energy, and that is how cities like New York and
Houston are made and that is how companies like Fox are made
and the like.
Can you talk perhaps, Mr. Mayor, you can start, about the
idea that some of this debate that goes on creates an
environment where people say you know what, I am a brilliant
programmer in hydrobod, I am going to stay in hydrobod now. Or
I am a brilliant creative writer and maybe I won't come to the
United States now because there is this environment of frankly
intolerance that kind of emerges in this debate that that
division between legal and illegal, documented, undocumented
just becomes a general sense that we have become a country in
our national dialogue that sounds very much that we don't want
anyone coming here and how that impacts.
And perhaps Mr. Mayor, as a jumping off point, you talked
recently at a townhall meeting in Forest Hills about a common
sense idea that if you come in here and you want to create
jobs, we want you, and that kind of a welcoming thing. But can
you talk a little bit, whether it is from attracting people to
a business like Bloomberg or News Corps or to a city like
Houston, how this environment that does strike people as
frankly being unwelcoming in a global economy people will stay
in other countries and help them become more successful.
Mr. Mayor, perhaps you can start.
Mr. Bloomberg. There is a great danger that we will lose
the reputation as the land of the free and the home of the
brave. Congressman Sanchez, let me address one thing. I know it
is on Anthony's time, but You talked about the birth rate. What
you are looking at--you are going in the right direction but I
think you are going slightly the wrong number.
Look at the rate of kids going through the public school
system that have the skills because whether we have the bodies
is not the issue. We need bodies that have skills, and that is
the other part, the other leg of this.
The Congressman is right. We are not as attractive to an
awful lot of people. They are afraid to come here. They are
afraid that if they are legal here somebody is going to look at
the color of their skin or the way they speak or the language
they speak and go after them just because they are different.
America is a land that for the last 235-some-odd years
people have come here, they have given up their language from
home, they have adopted English, they have adopted American
customs. We forget it just takes a generation to do it, but we
are desperate in this country as employers to get the highly
educated people but also those people at the other end of the
spectrum who are willing to take jobs that nobody else will
take. And if there is an issue as to whether that exists, just
take a look. The 11 million undocumented generally have the
low-skilled jobs and they are here because there is demand, and
that demand is not being filled by people who are already in
this country.
Mr. Weiner. Mr. Murdoch, do you want to add anything to
that?
Mr. Murdoch. No. No. I agree entirely.
Mr. Weiner. Also, it seems to me that we also have an odd
dynamic now that because of our focus that solely looking at
enforcement and solely at this notion of let's try to figure
out a way to round up the undocumented in some way that we
actually are creating immigration laws that keep people in
rather than keeping them from coming in. And I say that because
I think a lot of people in our economy would not mind coming to
the United States, taking temporary and seasonal jobs, and then
returning to their home country. I think a lot of people would
not mind having that type of relationship. And in many cases
they can't do that right now because of the way that we have
structured our immigration laws.
Mr. Murdoch. I think that in many instances in Silicon
Valley, particularly the Indians, have come and made great
contributions for 10 or 15 years and then seen greater
opportunities back in India while having contributed to America
a lot first.
Mr. Weiner. We also saw, in furthering Ms. Sanchez's point,
there a lot of people come here, go to college here, take
advantage of our education system, and then because of again
because of a lot of the rhetoric and a lot of just a general
sense that the legal immigration system is also in disrepair
say you know what, I don't want the aggravation. I will take
less money to be in my home country.
Let me make one final point, and I think that Mayor
Bloomberg touched upon this. If you think of the DNA of a
person who says I am going to get up from my home country, I am
going to pack my bags, kiss my family goodbye, take my skills
over to the United States, go to Houston or go to New York or
go take a job with News Corps, and you put all those people
with that similar type of energy and desire to make things
better, you almost by definition have a population of people
that are going to do much better and that is why.
But I think in just yielding back to the chair, what you
have seen here in a microcosm from my colleagues on the other
side is why this debate has been stalemated. It is so easy to
demagogue this issue. You can probably get applause in any town
hall meeting in this country by saying, They broke the law,
they ought to go, and the conversation stops.
Real mature law making--and it won't happen between now and
the first Tuesday in November--involves all of us saying you
know what? There are some things that Mr. Smith wants perhaps
on his side that I find troublesome. There are things I want
from my experience as a New York City Member of Congress that
he may find troublesome.
I believe that the American people realize there is a lot
of area of agreement on this issue, and if this panel helps us
get there, then it would certainly be worth the morning.
Thank you, Ms. Lofgren, for having the hearing.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Weiner.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gonzalez, is now recognized.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Doctor Camarota, you seem to stand for the proposition
that--and for the most part it would be the undocumented
worker, the illegal resident takes jobs from Americans, number
one, and secondly, depress wages.
So what the Mayor has been saying is that I think he
recognizes that we are pretty much on the same page on securing
our borders, doing something to give some sort of reliable
verification system to the employers. But the issue still
remains that we have, by some estimates and numbers, 12 million
illegal workers and their families in the United States. It
seems to me that you are saying it is those particular workers
that are depressing the wages and costing the jobs and such.
Now, the only way, I am just assuming, to remedy that
situation is to get rid of the 12 million workers and their
families or whatever we have out there. I mean, is that
accurate in what I am saying in representing your position? I
mean, what do we do with the individuals that are here?
I think Mayor Bloomberg keeps coming back to that and
saying look, the issue here is what are we going to do with the
folks that we have got here. We have got to take care of that.
We have got to work on the others.
Now, my Republican colleagues believe that we won't do
anything. We will pass the law and we will do what we did in
1986 simply by not enforcing the employer sanctions part of it.
I don't believe that.
But is that what you are proposing, we need to do something
about the 12 million that are here, and what do we do? I guess
that is my question. What are you proposing we do?
Mr. Camarota. If you are asking an economic question----
Mr. Gonzalez. No, no.
Mr. Camarota. Or a policy question----
Mr. Gonzalez. It all translates to money one way or another
at the end of the day.
So let's just hear what do you do with the people that are
here in the United States today that don't enjoy legal status?
Mr. Camarota. I think the first thing you are going to have
to do is take the several years and put in place an enforcement
regime that isn't just about the border, right? You are going
to have to go after the employers who hired them.
Mr. Gonzalez. I know that. I already know that. Let's go
and raid the workplace, let's go and put the employer in jail
along with the worker. We can do all that. Is that what you are
proposing? Are you proposing to do something about this
workforce that you say has such a detrimental effect on the
economy of the United States of America? I am asking you what
is your solution?
I will tell you what our solution is. Congressman Gutierrez
was here a minute ago. It is an earned pathway to legalization.
You don't get in front of the line. You are here. I understand
what my colleague Mr. Lungren is getting at.
But there is a huge political equation, which if I still
have 30 seconds at the end of my 5 minutes, I will tell you
where all of this is going. It is all about where you are
politically and what you fear what the future might hold for
your party. That is what this is all about.
But Let's talk about the best interest of the American
people. What do you want to do with the 12 million undocumented
residents and their families?
Mr. Camarota. Let me be clear. If your concern is taxpayers
and if your concern is people at the bottom end, encouraging as
many of those illegal aliens to go home--If your concern is
about the illegals, letting them stay is the best. That is the
choice you have to make.
Mr. Gonzalez. So you say that this is going to be one of
those self-selection things where people will one day just say,
well, I have been here 12 years, I have children here that are
citizens. I have a job and such because obviously I have been
able to be kept employed by someone, a willing and able
American citizen that violates the law every day. You are
saying that the answer is just for these 12 million folks to
voluntarily go back to wherever they came from. Are you really
suggesting that?
Mr. Camarota. I am suggesting we enforce the law.
Mr. Gonzalez. Doctor Camarota, if it is not voluntary, and
I will tell you right now, it is not going to be voluntary.
Mr. Camarota. It fell by a million----
Mr. Gonzalez. We have all been on Earth longer than 12
years and we know that it is not going to be a voluntary
situation.
So what you are saying is deportation is the only other
thing?
Mr. Camarota. No. I am not saying deportation. If you can't
take a job, you can't access public benefits, if you get the
cooperation of local law enforcement, if you penalize people
for overstaying visas and all these other things, you can
increase them going home.
Mr. Gonzalez. If there is another way of maybe
incorporating and assimilating this huge population which would
be good for all Americans, why not grant them some sort of
legal status that allows them to have legal rights, then maybe
they won't depress the wages, because they do have legal
remedies. They can't be exploited.
And if you believe the whole answer is about a verification
system, you have got to come to Texas. And some of my fellow
Texans, including the Ranking Member, we come from the same
city. Now when we have our positions and we express them you
wouldn't believe we are from the same city. That is what party
affiliation will do to you in America today.
But the truth is what you are proposing is unrealistic. It
is not workable. Yet what we are proposing actually will
address some of your very serious concerns about depressed
wages. It addresses the concerns of a needed labor force.
Mr. Camarota. That is what you are missing. The basic
economics. If you add workers to the bottom end of the U.S.
labor market, regardless of legality, you push down wages. That
can be very bad for business.
Mr. Gonzalez. I think you might have a heck of a good
argument. But you still have people that are in this country
today that are not going to voluntarily absent themselves
because you have got Americans giving them the jobs. We need to
do something about those individuals. And I understand where
you are coming from, but it is not reality based.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time has expired, and we turn
now to the gentlelady from California, Ms. Chu.
Ms. Chu. Mr. Murdoch, you have been such an outspoken
advocate for fair and sensible immigration reform policies,
policies that would certainly take care of the challenges that
we face today and ensure that we face tomorrow challenges. I
have before me a Wall Street Journal op-ed that you authored in
that so eloquently described the contributions that immigrants
and children of immigrants make to our society every day, and I
would like to enter that into the record for today's hearing.
Ms. Lofgren. Without objection, it will be entered into the
record.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Ms. Chu. Thank you.
With so much on your plate why have you chosen to direct so
much energy to this issue?
Mr. Murdoch. I am just a concerned citizen. I devote a lot
of energy to a number of public issues and this is one of them.
Ms. Chu. In your written testimony you state that it is
nonsense to talk of expelling 12 million people and citing a
study by the Center for American Progress. You note that it
would cost $285 billion over 5 years to forcibly remove our
entire undocumented population and continue our border and
interior enforcement efforts.
But is it really the extent of the cost to our society? I
mean, speaking as a businessman, what would it mean to our
country's economy if 12 million employers and employees, all of
whom are consumers who generate spending on goods and services
and housing, disappear from our society over the next 5 years.
Mr. Murdoch. What would happen if?
Ms. Chu. If these 12 million employers and employees
disappeared from our society over the next 5 years.
Mr. Murdoch. I think it would be a disaster. I am not for
that.
I don't know what article you put in there, but I would
just like to say it was at least 3 years before I had anything
to do with the Wall Street Journal.
Ms. Chu. Okay.
Mr. Murdoch. I am not responsible. I haven't seen it. I may
agree or I may not. I don't know what it says.
Ms. Chu. Well, actually let me take this wonderful op-ed
that you did for the Wall Street Journal before you owned it
and say that it talks about your--how you were an immigrant and
how the Murdochs were immigrants.
Mr. Murdoch. Yeah, sure.
Ms. Chu. And how the Murdochs were immigrants. And it talks
about the less tangible ways in which the immigrants benefit
our society.
You talk about Eddie Chen, an ethnic Chinese Marine who was
born a week after his family fled Burma and that when Baghdad
fell he was the Marine that we all watched shimmy up the statue
of Saddam Hussein to pull it down.
And you talk about Lance Corporal Ahman Abraham and how he
wanted to put his Arabic language skills in the services of our
country and how he came from Syria and hoped to be deployed to
Iraq.
And you talked about Corporal Jose Gutierrez, who was
raised in Guatemala and came to America as a boy illegally.
Corporal Gutierrez was one of the first Marines killed in
action in Iraq. And as his family told reporters, he enlisted
with the Marine Corps because he wanted to give back to
America, and yet he was one of the first Marines that was
killed in action in Iraq.
And so you describe the entrepreneurial spirit and the
ingenuity of many of the immigrants who want to give not only
to the economy but also in other ways to America.
And so in what ways did immigrants like Corporal Gutierrez
benefit our country.
Mr. Murdoch. I think people come here of course basically
maybe for economic reasons but for a lot more. I think that
they believe in the freedom they are going to have here, they
believe in the American dream, they believe that their children
are going to have an opportunity to do a lot better than they
have done. And I don't think there is any question about the
motivation.
The only thing I would add is that what Congressman Weiner
said earlier, that there has been so many demagoguery about
this there is really danger outside the world that people don't
believe the American dream is still here waiting for them. I
don't know that that has gone as far as he says yet, but there
is a real danger of it.
Ms. Chu. In fact with all the impassioned discussion about
this issue, how do we have a level-headed discussion about
immigration?
Mr. Murdoch. Well, I think we have had a reasonably level-
headed discussion this morning. We have had different points of
view. Clearly we have got to get together. Someone has got to
start it. We are trying to start something, but in the end it
is going to have to come from the White House trying to draw
the parties together and find some good compromise system which
we can all get behind.
I mean, this is a matter of major national policy, and it
cannot be done without the President being involved and the
Senate and the Congress and business leaders, union leaders,
everybody.
Ms. Chu. Thank you.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady's time has expired.
I would like to just ask a couple of closing questions.
I certainly want to give credit to our colleague, Mr.
Lungren, for the work he put in in 1986 on the last bill. I
wasn't in the Congress at that time. There has been criticism
of what happened since then. Oftentimes the criticism is
focused on the enforcement effort, but I have always thought
that one of the issues really is that there was no provision to
meet the economic needs of the United States in the bill.
And Mr. Moseley, in your testimony, your written testimony,
you point out that there is just 5,000 permanent resident visas
a year for skilled individuals who lack a college degree. Now,
we have a population in the United States of 310 million people
and there are 5,000 skilled visas a year for everything. I mean
ag, everything.
How realistic is that figure, that 5,000 figure a year, to
meet the economic needs of the United States for skilled
immigrants? Would that even meet Houston's needs?
Mr. Moseley. Madam Chair, it really is not realistic, and
quite frankly, it may not have been realistic when it was
adopted back in the day.
There are even 140,000 unskilled workers that are allowed,
but they are allowed to bring in spouses and children so you
can do the calculus on that nationwide. The law just is not
reflective of the need for a workforce to take care of the
economy of the United States.
We have actually hired Dr. Ray Perryman, and he went to the
question that has been asked across different venues today, and
the question is what would happen if 12 million workers were
not a part of the American workforce? And Dr. Perryman
concludes that you would see an immediate loss of some 8.1
million jobs. So the 12 million are producing about 8.1 million
jobs. And of the 8.1 million, eventually those could be
absorbed, as my colleague here would talk about, and you would
still have 2.1 million jobs lost. And the impact to our economy
would be $1.76 trillion.
Ms. Lofgren. I thank you for that testimony.
Mayor Bloomberg, we do appreciate, we know how difficult it
is. Many of us served in local government and being mayor of a
big city is a hard job, so we appreciate that you took your
time this morning to be here with us and also the time that you
are spending with this partnership to advance this issue.
You know, some people suggest that because the economy is
terrible now--and it is, we are fighting to improve this
economy--that it is the wrong time to discuss immigration. But
your testimony was that immigration actually saved New York
with stimulation of the economy.
Can you just briefly describe how that worked?
Mr. Bloomberg. Madam Chairman, I can't speak with authority
on anyplace outside of five boroughs of New York City, but I
can tell you that we think we have roughly 500,000
undocumented. They have a very low crime rate because they
don't want to go near the INS. They pay taxes, 75 percent of
them pay taxes. There is withholding and there is no place to
send the refunds. The Social Security Administration's chief
actuary actually estimated that Social Security will go
bankrupt 6 years earlier if you didn't have the undocumented in
this country. But the undocumented, because they pay Social
Security but they don't get any benefits.
In New York City, the undocumented typically are young
people who come here to work. They don't bring their children,
so they don't use the public schools. There are some
exemptions, but generally that is true. They are young people
who work.
People that work aren't using the hospitals. Most of us use
most of our medical care in the last few years of our life, and
these are people who are of working age that come here.
And lastly, every study we have ever done says they take
jobs that nobody else will take. Not totally. I am sure you can
find some exceptions. But generally speaking, the undocumented
are critical to our economy, and the fact that New York City's
economy is doing better than the rest of the country, our
unemployment rate is now lower than the country's as a whole,
life expectancy is now higher in New York City is now higher
than the country as a whole, we created 10 percent of all of
the private sector jobs in this country in the last 10 months,
says we are doing something right.
And what is right is we have attracted not just from
overseas but from the rest of the country immigrants who want
the chance to participate in the great American dream. That is
the great strength of New York City. And I, for the life of me,
don't understand why other people don't look at it and say
maybe they should try it. It might not be right for the rest of
the country. I am not here to preach for them. I am telling you
our experience in New York City.
Ms. Lofgren. I appreciate that very much.
As Mr. Weiner mentioned earlier, I often think of some of
the traits of Americans that we value the very most--optimism,
risk taking, entrepreneurship, commitment to family--those are
really the traits of immigrants that really define our country.
And to turn our back on our rich immigrant tradition is just
deadly for the future of our country. And to be afraid of that
is really to lack faith in the strength of our country.
Mr. Bloomberg. It is national suicide.
Ms. Lofgren. I agree. I come from Silicon Valley, and we
have, as I say, half the businesses in the Valley were started
with an American born someplace else, and I agree that we need
those people creating jobs to lead us out of this bad economy.
I am hopeful that you have seen today that there is not
unanimity on this Committee and certainly in the Congress and
really even in the country on this subject. But I do believe
that your presence here and that of others who have been here--
we had growers and union last week; we had faith-based
individuals. We can pull together with the help of all of you,
and create a reform that will serve this country, which is what
we have all pledged to do when we become Members of Congress.
So I would like to note also for the record, and we thank--
--
Ms. Jackson Lee. Madam Chair, can I have a personal
privilege for 30 seconds.
Ms. Lofgren. Yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the chairwoman very much. We have
had these hearings, Madam Chairwoman, and I just want to make
this point to the four witnesses and particularly to Mr.
Moseley because if we were having viewers look at this hearing,
some would have consternation by saying all they are talking
about is immigrants and I need a job.
I think the point I was trying to make, Mr. Moseley, is
when we have investments such as an EB-5, Mr. Murdoch, to the
Mayor, and I hope Mr. Camarota will look at his numbers, we
create American jobs and as well Americans fair well.
Can I get a quick answer Mr. Moseley, do Americans fair
well and jobs are created when we have a reasoned immigration
system that is contrary to the Arizona law that scares people
and sends tourism away?
Mr. Moseley. Yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady yields back.
I would just like to close by noting that we have had a
number of hearings, and although we appreciate Dr. Camarota's
testimony today, I would also like to draw the attention of the
public to the other testimony we have received that is really
quite contrary to his testimony, specifically in May of 2007,
where a number of economists reached very different conclusions
than he has. All of the testimony we have ever received is on
our Web site, and I would invite Members to look at it.
I would again like to thank every member of the witness
panel today. Many people do not realize that the witnesses who
come before the Congress are volunteers. They are volunteers to
inform us and to help us do a better job for our country. I am
hopeful that in the coming months we will have an opportunity
to come together to have a comprehensive immigration plan that
solves the problems that have been outlined, that is good for
America, that creates a better economy and lots of jobs.
So thank you very much. The record will be open for 5 days.
If additional questions are posed, we would ask that you answer
them, and we thank you once again.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]