This is total bunk...
PHILADELPHIA — The economy of the country's largest city and the entire nation would collapse if illegal immigrants were deported en masse, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a Senate committee hearing today.New York City is home to more than 3 million immigrants, and a half-million of them came to this country illegally, Bloomberg testified.
"Although they broke the law by illegally crossing our borders ... our city's economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported," he said. "The same holds true for the nation."
Bloomberg's statement, like many anti-deportation statements, is predicated on the idea that the deportation of illegal immigrants would take place immediately and en masse. That's just not true. It would be impractical, impossible, to attempt to round up and air-lift the 12 million or so illegal immigrants who live in this country back to the places where they came from. This is why serious advocates of deportation for illegal immigrants aren't calling for any such drastic measure.
Instead, people who favor deportation simply want current immigration laws enforced with a few policy tweaks that make capturing and deporting the illegals easier (empowering local law enforcement to arrest illegals is a good option here). If that were to happen all the illegal immigrants in this country wouldn't disappear tomorrow. Instead, their population would be whittled down as they are captured and deported, and new potential illegal immigrants would be deterred by new enforcement efforts.
This would be a good thing for the nation's economy, and New York's economy as well. For one thing, getting illegals out of the job market would cause wages to come up. Illegal immigrants often work under the table for wages far below what any American worker would be willing to accept. Those jobs worked by illegal immigrants would still have to be filled, so American workers could fill them at more appropriate wage levels.
For another thing, getting the illegals out of the country would significantly reduce social spending. Currently many illegal immigrants take advantage of many tax-funded services and entitlement programs while not contributing tax dollars back to the government like a normal citizen.
To put it bluntly, Mayor Bloomberg just doesn't know what he's talking about. There is no excuse for not arresting and deporting the illegal immigrants currently in this country. There is certainly no excuse for rewarding those illegals by allowing them to become citizens. When you are looking to stop a certain type of behavior from a group of people (illegal immigration in this instance) you do not reward the people who are engaging in that behavior.
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Comments: 4
Let's see.....
Michael Bloomberg: BS in EE, MBA from Harvard Business. Has been a Wall Street trader and became a billionaire by starting his own company, Bloomberg LLC. Ranked 94th on Forbes' 500 richest people on earth.
Rob Port: {{{crickets chirping}}}
The point is, Bloomberg has the business credibility to know of what he speaks.
And before Rob Port tries to claim this is some political gesture or pandering--Bloomberg is in the last term of term-limited office.
Oh, and Jade, I have a BS in Engineering and an MBA, but the curriculae covered nothing about public policy or foreign relations. Just because Hizzhonor is rich, doesn't make him an expert in everything applicable to New York.
BTW, just lighten up. This is serious stuff, but we'll all have to work together to reach and implement a solution that reconciles our nation's economic, security, social, and political interests. We may have to help Congress out, because they haven't made much progress so far. So, lets keep our cool and don't sweat the small stuff, like Mayor Bloomburg.
Goes to show you those correspondence courses are pretty limited.
Of course, RW is cherry-picking here. The sum of Bloomberg's experience doesn't end with his educational accomplishments. The fact is he has worked within the business community on a number of levels and risen to the very top of that world. Implying Bloomberg somehow doesn't understand the economic forces of business is simply ludicrous.