How To Make Yourself Very Unpopular Right Now

How To Make Yourself Very Unpopular Right Now

The February 2, 2009 Idaho Statesman reports on the consequences of bad timing:

Members of a new business group advocating immigration reform have been subjected to personal attacks and racist comments since announcing last month that they would advocate reforms to help secure an adequate labor supply, according to a lobbyist for the group.
Brent Olmstead of the Idaho Business Coalition for Immigration told the House Agriculture Committee on Monday that the group’s members have received disturbing feedback since announcing its aims on newspaper opinion pages across the state.
“Most of these letters and e-mails have ignored the issue of immigrant labor and instead have been based in personal insults and racist comments,” Olmstead said. “In response, the coalition promises to stick to the issue and what can be done to improve the availability of labor for Idaho’s employers.”
The coalition includes the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, agriculture groups, food processors and contractors.
Olmstead said some people have criticized the group for seeking “cheap slave labor.”
He said Idaho agriculture pays more than the minimum wage. Irrigators make more than $8 an hour, and the fast-growing dairy industry pays $10 to $14 an hour, he said. “These are good paying jobs in rural Idaho, and they often come with benefits,” he said.
Olmstead said his group opposes making mandatory the federal “E-verify” program, as some states have. E-Verify is an Internet-based system operated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Free to employers, it links to federal databases to help them determine employment eligibility of new hires and the validity of their Social Security numbers.

Gee, U.S. citizens and legal residents are losing their jobs--and a group arguing for immigration reform to increase the number of workers gets some upset letters? I am so surprised.
If U.S. citizens and legal residents are unemployed, why would any sensible person want to "reform" our immigration laws to let more workers into the country? If an employer hires $8 per hour workers, you can be pretty sure that they aren't going to be getting health insurance. The losers on this are the taxpayers who end up subsidizing emergency rooms and Medicaid so that employers can hire $8 per hour workers--instead of paying a market wage to hire those who are already legally present.
I'm not angry at illegal immigrants who want a job. I'm angry at employers that think that they have a right to socialize the costs, while enjoying the individual benefits of cheap labor. The only immigration "reform" that makes sense is enforcement of the existing laws. Either employers will have to pay legal workers better, or figure out how to automate those jobs. Either is a win for the U.S.
This would have been a bad idea last year. But now? Talk about a "tin ear." I am also disappointed to see IACI involved in this. Based on discussions that we had last year when I was running for State Senate, I am surprised to see them hostile to E-verify. Perhaps it was a good thing for them that I lost!
UPDATE: A reader points out that perhaps this crowd has learned from Citibank, which similarly has enjoyed individual benefits, and socialized costs.