Thursday, February 5, 2009 1:30 PM
By: Dave Eberhart Article Font Size
A watchdog group warns that illegal immigrants might end up filling many of the estimated 2 million-plus new construction jobs featured in the Senate stimulus bill.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) estimates that about 15 percent of workers employed in construction in the United States are illegal immigrants. If no effort is made to bar illegal immigrants from these vital jobs, it is extremely likely that about 300,000 of the coveted jobs will go to them.
“If more people know Congress was going to let illegal aliens get these jobs, there would be even less support for the bill,” Steven A. Camarota of CIS told Newsmax.
The Senate stimulus bill being considered contains about $104 billion in new government funding for construction projects, including highways, schools, and public housing, with the goal of creating jobs for millions of unemployed Americans.
But there is no provision in the Senate bill to bar illegal immigrants from getting these taxpayer-funded jobs, said Camarota, author of “Dropping Out: Immigrant Entry and Native Exit from the Labor Market, 2000-2005” and other CIS white papers. This could result in several hundred thousand illegal immigrants receiving jobs, he warns.
“Business groups and the ACLU, and ethnic advocacy groups all don’t want it [the U.S. workers only provision], so if it is not there, I would guess there might be a political reason. I can think of no good policy reason for not keeping the jobs with legal workers,” Camarota said.