A Close Look at Illegal Aliens

Illegal immigrants have come to play a crucial--though not always welcome--role in Orange County’s economy. That was the underlying conclusion of a three-part series last week by Times reporters Carla Lazzareschi and Bob Schwartz.

The mixed reception that illegals often get was evidenced in the views of one Santa Ana businessman who decried their presence in an apartment building next to his home, but conceded that he depends on the low wages he pays them to keep his business competitive.

The fact is that illegal immigrants come here because there is a market for their services. Some residents may be unhappy about seeing illegals gather on a street corner waiting to be picked up for work, but illegals muster for the jobs because employers come to get them.

Still, the myth persists that illegal immigrants take jobs away from American workers, drive down wages and even raise the cost of keeping the peace by committing more than their share of crimes. Critics also contend that illegal immigrants don’t pay their own way, using more governmental services than would be covered by the taxes they pay.

Those fears are unsubstantiated. Many of the jobs that illegals fill are jobs that American citizens don’t want. That has been proven time and again. Often, after immigration officials raid workplaces, the jobs the illegals held remain unfilled by American workers. Moreover, working illegal immigrants often create even more jobs. Their low wages help hold down businesses’ operating costs, thus helping to prevent companies from relocating or going out of business.

One problem in trying to document fears of illegal immigration is the lack of credible figures from which sound judgments can be made. Most studies are based on estimates. For example, few school districts know how many children of illegal aliens are enrolled in school. Most illegal immigrants are hard-working, law-abiding residents here to find work. One police official in Santa Ana, where police estimate that one out of every four residents is an illegal, says “in many cases they are more victims of crime than we are.”

The view that illegals get more in services than they contribute in taxes also fails to hold up to hard analysis. In fact, illegal immigrants as a group pay more in taxes each year than they get back in public services, according to the most reliable studies available. A Rand Corp. study, for example, reported that Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, are assets to the California economy. In another survey 75% of the leading economists in the nation that were polled said that illegal immigrants have a net “positive impact” on the nation’s economy.

It may be true that much of the tax money paid by illegal immigrants goes to federal and state governments rather than for local government services. But illegal immigrants make the same contribution to local property taxes as do other renters, and their share of sales taxes paid is no less than that of Anglo or other minority residents with equivalent incomes.

There is no question that immigrants, both legal and undocumented, are changing the ethnic composition of the county. In the last 20 years, the population makeup has shifted sharply. It used to be predominantly Anglo; today, about one of every four residents belongs to a minority group. Most of that minority population is Latino. And many of them are here illegally.

That fact clearly upsets some people. Historically, Americans have looked less kindly on newly arrived immigrants.

Some Orange County residents share that attitude. But there also are signs of a growing awareness of the immigrants’ contributions.

In the last Orange County Annual Survey done by UC Irvine sociologist Mark Baldassare, nearly half of the residents interviewed countywide thought that the new ethnic diversity was changing the county “for the better.” That’s encouraging.