AMERICA'S HOUSING CRISIS AND THE INVASION BY ILLEGALS

 

Study Finds Overcrowded Housing a Problem  Among Immigrant Workers Especially those employed in essential occupations

Washington, D.C. (October 8, 2020) –  A panel discussion on the Center for Immigration Studies new report, Overcrowded Housing Among Immigrant and Native-Born Workers, will be streamed live today at 11:00 a.m. EDT.  There is significant literature, including some new research on Covid-19, indicating that overcrowded housing increases the spread of communicable diseases. Of course, many factors having nothing to do with immigration have also contributed to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Center’s study finds that 14.3% of immigrant workers live in overcrowded housing, four times the 3.5% for native-born workers. Due to their high rates of overcrowding, immigrants account for nearly half of all workers living in overcrowded households. And, in a number of occupations, they are an outright majority. Many of these occupations are thought to be essential during the Covid-19 pandemic.   Dr. Steven Camarota, the Center’s director of research and co-author of the report, and Dr. Peter Skerry a professor of political science at Boston College and a past senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, will discuss the extent to which immigration has contributed to overcrowding and the value of reducing future immigration levels.   “Reducing future immigration levels would reduce overcrowding over time,” said the Center’s Director of Research Steven Camarota.  He added, “Less immigration would also help reduce crowding by putting upward pressure on wages for existing workers, immigrant and native-born [WU1] alike.”   The panel can be watched on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.   Among the findings: Immigrant workers are four times as likely as native-born workers to live in overcrowded housing. As a result, they comprise 17% of all workers, but 46% of workers living in crowded conditions.  Immigrant workers make up a large share of workers living in overcrowded housing in many sectors thought to be essential during the Covid-19 epidemic, including those in production, healthcare support, transportation and moving, food preparation, sales, and farming.  In specific occupations within these sectors, immigrants (legal and illegal) comprise a disproportionate share of workers in overcrowded conditions. For example: – Immigrants are 47% of farmworkers, but 76% of such workers in crowded housing. – Immigrants are 41% of packers/packagers, but 68% of such workers in crowded housing. – Immigrants are 32% of butchers/meat processors, but 64% of such workers in crowded housing. – Immigrants are 28% of cooks, but 57% of cooks in crowded housing. – Immigrants are 30% of bakers, but 53% of bakers in crowded housing. – Immigrants are 29% of health care aides, but 52% of health care aids in crowded housing. – Immigrants are 22% of food prep. workers, but 50% of prep. workers in crowded housing.  In 24 states immigrants account for more than one-third of workers in overcrowded households.  Overall, immigrants are much more likely than native-born workers to work in low-wage jobs, reside in urban areas, and live in larger households; this partly explains why they are much more likely to live in overcrowded conditions.  However, even taking into account wages, household size, and the population density where they live, immigrants are still much more likely to reside in overcrowded housing.  Cultural preferences about personal space and immigrants’ desire to send money home rather than spend it on hous­ing likely help to explain immigrants’ higher rates of overcrowding compared to the native-born, even when control­ling for several factors at once.  Despite the differences between immigrants and natives, it is clear that immigrants, as well as the native-born, have much lower rates of overcrowding the higher their wages.  Paying higher wages to workers would almost certainly reduce overcrowding. Curtailing the future flow of legal and illegal immigrants into the country would help raise wages and reduce the direct impact immigration has on crowd­ing. Other policies that raise wages should also be considered, such as increasing the minimum wage and strength­ening labor unions. Trump Campaign: Democrats Give Housing to Illegal Migrants, Penalizing Black Americans Spencer Platt/Getty Images NEIL MUNRO 28 Aug 202023 3:30 President Donald Trump’s campaign used the issue of illegal immigration on Thursday to seek votes from working-class blacks. A short video released by the Trump campaign Twitter account highlighted the president’s record on improving public housing in New York and other cities. “My name is Judy Smith,” said one black woman, who continued: I live in New York City public housing. I’m grateful for the spotlight that President Trump is putting on New York City public housing. I think it’s wrong that the Democrats put illegal immigrants before black Americans. How is it that we have people waiting on the waiting lists for New York City public housing for 10 years or more, but yet we have illegal immigrants living here? Something is wrong with that picture. President Trump is bringing real solutions to real problems.#RNC2020 pic.twitter.com/3Q7s2ZEchE — Team Trump (Text VOTE to 88022) (@TeamTrump) August 28, 2020 The comments were likely aimed at working-class blacks in many swing states, including several Midwest states. “Working-class African Americans are significantly more supportive of policies that seek to: decrease the number of immigrants coming to the United States, increase the federal role in verifying the employment status of immigrants, and attempts to amend the Constitution’s citizenship provisions,” said a 2013 peer-reviewed study by Tatishe Nteta, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The study continued: For African Americans who lost a job to an immigrant, working-class membership resulted in a 13 percentage point increase in the probability of support for an increased federal role in workplace oversight [against employment of illegal immigrants] when compared to middle-class African Americans who experienced a similar loss. Numerous polls show that blacks — like all other groups — say they wish to welcome migrants, but strongly prefer that Americans get jobs before companies import more migrants. Nationwide, the expanded supply of new migrants also cuts Americans’ disposable wages by inflating their housing costs. That reality is recognized by investor groups who are urging more immigration. For example, the Economic Innovation Group says, “The relationship between population growth and housing demand is clear. More people means more demand for housing, and fewer people means less demand.” Mike Bloomberg’s pro-migration advocacy group, New American Economy, pushed the same argument: The research shows that an increase in the absolute number of immigrants in a particular county from 2000–2010 results in corresponding economic gains—increased demand for locally produced goods and services, a corresponding inflow of U.S.-born individuals—that are reflected in the housing market. The video also included comments from other blacks in New York: My name is Manuel Martinez … Under the Trump administration, New York City Housing Authority has received an influx of cash that it has not seen since 1997. My name is Claudia Perez  I’m the resident council president of Washington Houses, which is in Spanish Harlem. [New York Mayor] Bill de Blasio and the way he has dealt with public housing residents is disgraceful. President Trump administration has opened their ears and has listened … [and] is bringing real solutions to real problems. The video ends with the claim, “More Funding: Better Housing: Promise Made: Promise Kept.” Donald Trump's labor & immigration promises for a 2nd term are vague but useful. They are also better for ordinary Americans than Joe Biden's business-backed, open-ended inflow of wage-cutting & rent-raising blue-collar workers & college-graduates. https://t.co/OmE4tRPf4T — Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) August 26, 2020     Another line they cut into: Illegals get free public housing as impoverished Americans wait   https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/04/another_line_they_cut_into_illegals_get_free_public_housing_as_impoverished_americans_wait.html   By Monica Showalter Want some perspective on why so many blue sanctuary cities have so many homeless encampments hovering around? Try the reality that illegal immigrants are routinely given free public housing by the U.S., based on the fact that they are uneducated, unskilled, and largely unemployable. Those are the criteria, and now importing poverty has never been easier. Shockingly, this comes as millions of poor Americans are out in the cold awaiting that housing that the original law was intended to help. Thus, the tent cities, and by coincidence, the worst of these emerging shantytowns are in blue sanctuary cities loaded with illegal immigrants - Orange County, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, New York...Is there a connection? At a minimum, it's worth looking at. The Trump administration's Department of Housing and Urban Development is finally trying to put a stop to it as 1.5 million illegals prepare to enter the U.S. this year, and one can only wonder why they didn't do it yesterday. According to a report in the Washington Times: The plan would scrap Clinton-era regulations that allowed illegal immigrants to sign up for assistance without having to disclose their status. Under the new Trump rules, not only would the leaseholder using public housing have to be an eligible U.S. person, but the government would verify all applicants through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, a federal system that’s used to weed illegal immigrants out of other welfare programs. Those already getting HUD assistance would have to go through a new verification, though it would be over a period of time and wouldn’t all come at once. “We’ve got our own people to house and need to take care of our citizens,” an administration official told The Washington Times. “Because of past loopholes in HUD guidance, illegal aliens were able to live in free public housing desperately needed by so many of our own citizens. As illegal aliens attempt to swarm our borders, we’re sending the message that you can’t live off of American welfare on the taxpayers’ dime.” The Times notes that the rules are confusingly contradictary, and some illegal immigrant families are getting full rides based on just one member being born in the U.S. The pregnant caravaner who calculatingly slipped across the U.S. in San Diego late last year, only to have her baby the next day, now, along with her entire family, gets that free ride on government housing. Plus lots of cheesy news coverage about how heartwarming it all is. That's a lot cheaper than any housing she's going to find back in Tegucigalpa. Migrants would be almost fools not to take the offering. The problem of course is that Americans who paid into these programs, and the subset who find themselves in dire circumstances, are in fact being shut out. The fill-the-pews Catholic archbishops may love to tout the virtues of illegal immigrants and wave signs about getting 'justice" for them, but the hard fact here is that these foreign nationals are stealing from others as they take this housing benefit under legal technicalities. That's not a good thing under anyone's theological law. But hypocrisy is comfortable ground for the entire open borders lobby as they shamelessly celebrate lawbreaking at the border, leaving the impoverished of the U.S. out cold. The Trump administration is trying to have this outrage fixed by summer. But don't imagine it won't be without the open-borders lawsuits, the media sob stories, the leftist judges, and the scolding clerics.   Los Angeles County Pays Over a Billion in Welfare to Illegal Aliens Over Two Years   BY MASOOMA HAQ In 2015 and 2016, Los Angeles County paid nearly $1.3 billion in welfare funds to illegal aliens and their families. That figure amounts to 25 percent of the total spent on the county’s entire needy population, according to Fox News. The state of California is home to more illegal aliens than any other state in the country. Approximately one in five illegal aliens lives in California, Pew reported. Approximately a quarter of California’s 4 million illegal immigrants reside in Los Angeles County. The county allows illegal immigrant parents with children born in the United States to seek welfare and food stamp benefits. The welfare benefits data acquired by Fox News comes from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services and shows welfare and food stamp costs for the county’s entire population were $3.1 billion in 2015, $2.9 billion in 2016. The data also shows that during the first five months of 2017, more than 60,000 families received a total of $181 million. Over 58,000 families received a total of $602 million in benefits in 2015 and more than 64,000 families received a total of $675 million in 2016. Robert Rector, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow who studies poverty and illegal immigration, told Fox the costs represent “the tip of the iceberg.” “They get $3 in benefits for every $1 they spend,” Rector said. It can cost the government a total of $24,000 per year per family to pay for things like education, police, fire, medical, and subsidized housing. In February of 2019, the Los Angeles city council signed a resolution making it a sanctuary city. The resolution did not provide any new legal protections to their immigrants, but instead solidified existing policies. In October 2017, former California governor Jerry Brown signed SB 54 into law. This bill made California, in Brown’s own words, a “sanctuary state.” The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the State of California over the law. A federal judge dismissed that suit in July. SB 54 took effect on Jan. 1, 2018. According to Center for Immigration Studies, “The new law does many things: It forbids all localities from cooperating with ICE detainer notices, it bars any law enforcement officer from participating in the popular 287(g) program, and it prevents state and local police from inquiring about individuals’ immigration status.” Some counties in California have protested its implementation and joined the Trump administration’s lawsuit against the state. California’s campaign to provide public services to illegal immigrants did not end with the exit of Jerry Brown. His successor, Gavin Newsom, is just as focused as Brown in funding programs for illegal residents at the expense of California taxpayers. California’s budget earmarks millions of dollars annually to the One California program, which provides free legal assistance to all aliens, including those facing deportation, and makes California’s public universities easier for illegal-alien students to attend. According to the Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers 2017 report, for the estimated 12.5 million illegal immigrants living in the country, the resulting cost is a $116 billion burden on the national economy and taxpayers each year, after deducting the $19 billion in taxes paid by some of those illegal immigrants. BLOG: MOST FIGURES PUT THE NUMBER OF ILLEGALS IN THE U.S. AT ABOUT 40 MILLION. WHEN THESE PEOPLE ARE HANDED AMNESTY, THEY ARE LEGALLY ENTITLED TO BRING UP THE REST OF THEIR FAMILY EFFECTIVELY LEAVING MEXICO DESERTED.   New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that more than 22 million non-citizens now live in the United States.