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butterbean · Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 2271

Stark evidence now exists that a crackdown on illegal immigration greatly benefits poor blacks. We have a teachable moment in the immigration debate, if only the movement to protect our borders has the wit to capitalize on it, and add a vital and potent constituency. It is one thing for theorists like me point out the basic economics, but it is quite another to have real people in a real town demonstrating that economic laws really work.

Elementary economics teaches us that augmenting the supply of low skill labor in the United States with the presence among us of millions of illegal immigrants has driven down prices (also known as wages). Other members of the low wage labor pool have suffered, prominently including blacks, and also those low skill workers who have legally immigrated.

Today, a Wall Street Journal article describes the effects of a crackdown on illegal immigrants and how it effected one company in particular.

After a wave of raids by federal immigration agents on Labor Day weekend, a local [Stillmore, GA] chicken-processing company called Crider Inc. lost 75% of its mostly Hispanic 900-member work force. The crackdown threatened to cripple the economic anchor of this fading rural town.

But for local African-Americans, the dramatic appearance of federal agents presented an unexpected opportunity. Crider suddenly raised pay at the plant. An advertisement in the weekly Forest-Blade newspaper blared "Increased Wages" at Crider, starting at $7 to $9 an hour -- more than a dollar above what the company had paid many immigrant workers. The company began offering free transportation from nearby towns and free rooms in a company-owned dormitory near to the plant. For the first time in years, local officials say, Crider aggressively sought workers from the area's state-funded employment office -- a key avenue for low-skilled workers to find jobs. Of 400 candidates sent to Crider -- most of them black -- the plant hired about 200.

continued:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/01/blacks_benefit_from_crackdown.html