IMMIGRANTS ARE:  CONSUMERS, ENTREPRENEURS,  and great WORKERS.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that the U.S. very much needs both low-end and high-end workers, that is, young and less skilled, as well as more educated and highly-skilled. Studies have shown that immigrants fill in gaps on the ends of the job demand spectrum, while U.S.-born residents fill in the middle.  One (1) million of the 2.5 million new jobs created in the U.S. in 2004 went to immigrants, mostly Hispanics. 56 percent of all immigrant workers in the U.S. are Hispanic 37 percent of these are Mexican.

A new Pew Hispanic Center study shows that Mexican immigrants are increasingly educated less likely to be farm workers and more likely to have a background in other industries, such as commerce and sales. They're coming here for better opportunities less than 5 percent of immigrants from Mexico were unemployed in their home country before coming here.  Illegal immigrants do make up 5 to 8 percent of the U.S. workforce: 1 in every 7 workers in the U.S. in 2004 was born elsewhere. 40 percent of these are Mexican.Possibly 6-7 million are here illegally.

CATO institute has also shown that immigrants do not take jobs away from Americans instead, they fill segments in the job market where most Americans are either over- or under-qualified.

Immigrants act as a safety valve for the U.S. labor market, allowing the supply of workers to increase relatively quickly to meet rising demand. Through NAFTA, we have free movement of goods and services we need to enact a temporary worker"s program that permits the free flow of workers also.

CONSUMERS:

Latino spending power in 2005, 700 billion; since 44 percent of Latinos are foreign-born, this means that the buying power of immigrants, which includes those here illegally and reaches into the hundreds of billions of dollars. That's money pumped into our economy.

Hispanic disposable income has risen 29 percent since 2001, TWICE the overall U.S. increase. Immigrants spend money and in turn help to grow our economy and grow our employment numbers.

Studies by the National Research Council and the President' s Council of Economic Advisors (1997 and 2002) estimate that immigrants raise the collective income of Americans by as much as $14 billion per year. Illegal immigrants most of them Hispanic add 700,000 new consumers to the U.S. market each year (compared to 600,000 new legal immigrant consumers added each year). 84 percent of illegals are in their prime spending years, 18-44 years old (versus 60 percent of legal residents).

 If immigration system was reformed, these people could take their money and put it in the formal economy, giving significant gains to banks, credit card companies, and insurance companies.  More undocumented immigrants paying income and property taxes would help pay for schools, health care, roads and other services that these people are already using. Hispanic households with more than $100,000 in annual earnings are growing at more than twice the pace of the general population.

ENTREPRENEURS

 A study released last September by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City showed that Latinos and immigrants start companies at higher rates than white non-Latinos.  550,000 business launch each month in the U.S. and this is an average of 0.36 percent of the adult population. 

This rate has remained unchanged since 1996, BUT the percentage of new business owners that are Latinos jumped to 0.48 percent greater than the 0.39 percent rate for white non-Latinos. 

Immigrants have substantially higher entrepreneurship rates than U.S. natives, at 0.46 percent compared to 0.39 percent. 

A study done in 2005 in Arizona proved that Latino entrepreneurs aren't just tortilla makers, restaurant owners and contractors they are moving into the general business market, operating manufacturing shops and service companies of all kinds.

One (1) in 3 Hispanic-owned businesses in Arizona is stared by an immigrant (source: SRP Arizona Hispanic-owned Business Study 2005).

Self-employment by Latinos grew 41 percent between 2000 and 2003, while overall self-employment in the U.S. grew just 6.2 percent.

Latina-owned businesses grew 63 percent from 1997-2004, compared to just 9 percent overall business growth during this same period. Famous immigrant entrepreneurs and inventors: Albert Einstein, Founders of Google, eBay and Intel. 

 Immigrants skills, work and innovation make our companies, our industries and our economy more competitive.

 WE ARE A COUNTRY OF IMMIGRANTS THE NUMBER OF IMMIGRANTS COMING INTO THIS COUNTRY TODAY IS LESS THAN THE NUMBER OF IMMIGRANTS THAT ENTERED THE U.S. DURING THE LAST CENTURY AND A HALF. 

 During the 1990s, 1.5 Mexican immigrants per 1,000 U.S. residents came to live in the U.S., both legally and illegally. In comparison, from 1841 to 1860, we had 3.6 Irish immigrants per 1,000 U.S. residents more than double. Same is true for German immigrants from the 1840s up until the 1890s, and at the turn of the last century we were welcoming Russians and Italians at much higher rates than the number of Mexicans that are currently entering. All of these groups assimilated and absorbed into our culture.

CURRENT IMMIGRATION LAWS ARE BAD LAWS THAT HURT GOOD PEOPLE. . .

 We should be spending money on intelligence, not on building a 2,000 mile fence along the Mexican border. That's not going to keep people out.  The CATO Institute has shown that our efforts to beef up border security have not stemmed the flow of information instead, they have made it more dangerous to cross the border nearly 90 percent of immigrants now use smugglers or coyotes to enter the U.S. and the underground smuggling industry is becoming more sophisticated, producing false documents that allow these illegal immigrants to appear legal.

The CATO Institute Center for Trade Policy Studies also has shown that before September 11, 2001, the U.S. government had stationed more than 4 times as many border enforcement agents on the Mexican border as along the Canadian border, even though the Canadian border is twice as long and has been the preferred border of entry for Middle Easterners trying to enter the U.S. illegally.

 Laws should be obeyed right? no question. However, the laws should also be in fundamental harmony with how most people choose to live their daily lives, and in harmony with common sense. When large numbers of otherwise law-abiding people routinely violate a law, it signals that the law itself may be flawed. To say that illegal immigration is bad simply because it is illegal avoids the broader policy question of: should this be illegal in the first place?

Economist Hernando de Soto said: The law must be compatible with how people actually arrange their lives."

Illegal immigration has become a big issue because the U.S. has made it very difficult for immigrants to enter the country legally. Hundreds of thousands of people who are legally qualified to come here cannot thanks to backlogs at the INS. 

The number of visas issued should be in line with demand in the U.S. labor market that has been estimated at about 300,000 visas per year.

Our immigration system is in direct conflict with the laws of economics! 

• Mexican leaders in the public and private sectors are eager to work with the U.S. on creating legislation that reflects the realities of the post-NAFTA, 21st century global economy.
• There's no point in pretending that illegal immigrants aren't here or that they will stop coming here anytime soon. We need to find creative, fair and beneficial ways to deal with them.
• ¡Este es el tiempo de Oracción!  ><>
• Pedimos que Dios obre en los corazones de los legisladores y a su vez abra los conciencias de aquellos que pueden hablar a favor de los necesitados.   Estamos pidiendo que llame a sus representantes y diga: "Me opongo a las leyes anti-imigrantes"    ¡EL TIEMPO DE AYUDAR A TU PROJIMO ES AHORA!