these are ineffectual, or as in the above case, employers routinely continue to hire cheap sources of illegal labor despite the imposition of fines for having previously done so. One study conducted at Rice University and reported in Cacas (1994) contends that “2.07 million American workers were displaced in 1992 by immigrants.”
The percentage of undocumented or illegal workers compared to legal workers is quite high according to the literature. In another study conducted by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), researchers investigated the meatpacking industry, one in which many illegal immigrants find employment. The study found that “a test project involving 234 employers in Santa Ana and the City of Industry, California, found 3,000 illegal immigrants among 11,400 workers checked.” This study found that most employers want to hire lawful workers, but it is often hard for them to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants. All four meatpacking companies, IBP, Monfort, Inc., Excel Corp. and BeefAmerica have worked together with the INS to devise a computer system that will help detect illegal immigrants and deny them jobs.
One study examines illegal immigration in the United States from Mexico over a twenty year period. The results of this study are interesting because it demonstrates that there are push-pull factors which impact the illegal immigration situation. Economics is key. Because the economy in the U.S. is good and the economy in Mexico is not, immigrants are pushed from Mexico and pulled by the lure of American prosperity. In this study by Spilimbergo and Hanson, the researchers found that “a 10% decrease in the Mexican real wage leads to a 7.5% to 8.8% increase in apprehensions at the border”; however, “it is the purchasing power of U.S. wages in Mexico, not the purchasing power of U.S. wages in the United States, that matters for border apprehensions.”
There are ma...