Fortress America?

Tuesday December 03, 2002 21:41

by vngelis

A return to the 19th Century?

For the last few years the leftists who are subjects of the US new world order have pranced about declaring that immigration NEVER actually occurred in the numbers it did, that we have had no wave, no flood, no return to the past (19th century).

In the same light they also argue that the US agenda of deregulation, segregation and living hell for millions is a fabrication by those who have views linked to the BNP- the bogeyman to fit all bogeymen. But the real bogeymen, the large transnational corporations which drive deregulation and the globalisation of labour are consistently left off the hook. After all as has been stated many times over if mass immigration in an era of declining capitalism doesn't profit big business but the working class, why is it that we have a return to the 1930's system of the unemployed hanging round street corners waiting for gangmasters to hire them and why the so-called US boom has only benefited the people at the top.

If what has happened in America hasn't happened in Europe (figures below are conservative estimates anyway!) one would have to ask themselves where now for the globalists? Open the borders is a defunct slogan as they are open. The line will be in Britain at least, why the public sector will need more immigrants to keep up with the 'shortages', to replace militant workers in the Post Office (Sawyer report), the Firefighters (Bain inquiry) as has already happened in teaching and nursing. The globalists are now entering new territory. One which will force them into an open and unholy alliance with the Murdochs of this world and against their own working class which so far has been relatively concealed due to the myth that immigration only occurred in relatively small numbers... yet it has now surpassed the 19th century...
vngelis

Greatest wave of migrants drives US engine

Huge influx in the 1990s plugs gap in labour force

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Tuesday December 3, 2002
The Guardian

America's economic boom of the 1990s was created on the back of foreign workers and a decade that saw the highest number of immigrants in the country's history, a new study says.
"We would not have been able to fuel the economic expansion of the 1990s with our labour supply in the absence of that foreign immigration," Paul Harrington, associate director of the Centre for Labour Market Studies at Boston's Northeast University and one of the authors of the study, said yesterday.

"We need to recognise that part of our economic strength and prosperity is associated with our ability to get a high level of labour supply."

The study estimates that more than 13.5 million people immigrated to the United States in the 1990s, arriving in even greater numbers than the three decades of the "Great Wave" of immigration at the turn of the 19th century, and accounting for 40% of America's population growth.

But because of America's ageing population and the high number of job seekers among their ranks, the new immigrants accounted for an even greater share of the growth of the labour market, more than 50%.

As the baby boom in America fizzles out, the new workers are younger than the average American.

They stepped in to help fill the gap left by the 4.5 million decline in the number of workers aged between 25 and 34. Some 2.8 million foreign workers in that age group joined the economy during the 1990s. Without them, the labour force in that key age group would have declined by 21%.

In contrast, relatively few of the new immigrants were elderly, and male workers outnumbered women more than among native-born Americans.

Nearly 4.7 million of the newcomers gravitated towards the west, with 3.3 million settling in California alone. Some 4.1 million others moved to the southern states of the eastern seaboard.

Although fewer newcomers arrived in the north-east, they accounted for the bulk of the population growth in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the study finds.

Were it not even for these arrivals, which provided the engine for growth, the north-eastern states would have had a much smaller share of the boom, Mr Harrington argues.

"Really New England is increasingly becoming an economic backwater because we haven't been able to generate new labour supply."

The study does not explore where the new workers came from, although the general pattern of immigration has shown an increase in arrivals from Asia and Central and South America.

It also estimates that 9 million of the 13.5 million arrivals were undocumented workers, living in the US illegally.

That shadowy status, and a lack of education, forced many of the new immigrants into low-skilled and low-paid jobs, driving down wage rates, the study finds. A third of the new immigrants arrived in America without finishing secondary school. Unlike their native-born American counterparts, they were more successful in finding jobs, in the manufacturing industry and in the low-end service occupations.

But their arrival saw the return of a phenomenon unknown in America since the depression years of the 1930s: the street corner labour exchanges where men line up in the early morning waiting for day labouring jobs.

The better educated had an easier landing, the study finds. Some 27% of the new immigrants arrived with degrees and found private sector jobs in services, health, engineering, and business. They were over-represented in science, engineering and IT, and under-represented in teaching.

Mr Harrington argues that the study shows the need for America to adopt an immigration policy that takes into account the needs of the job market, as do Canada and other countries.

He also says the study suggests the need for continued immigration even during times of economic slowdown, and that those imperatives should not be sacrificed to security concerns that could limit further immigration.

"Even if we are going to achieve the modest rate of growth forecast for the next 10 years we are going to have to see a substantial level of immigration," he said.