Immigration Reform Is Critical To Florida - Elizabeth Ricci (Managing Partner Rambana Ricci P.L.L.C.)

It's been a year since the Senate passed immigration reform. If it adopted, the plan could have ended illegal employment through the use of biometric Social Security cards, boosted enforcement, controlled future immigration to correspond to economic realities, and called for hard- hitting but reasonable path toward legalization not only for the 720,000 undocumented aliens in Florida, but for the 11 million people illegally in the U.S. But the House failed to act. The President recently threatened that if Congress does not act soon, he will tackle the immigration conundrum through his constitutionally granted executive powers. Florida better hope he does. But why is immigration reform important to the Sunshine State? Politics and economics. About 3.5 million immigrants currently reside in our state. The top three countries from which most of our immigrants hail are Cuba, Mexico and Columbia. While Florida ranks third nationally among states in terms of numbers of undocumenteds, half of Florida’s immigrants are eligible to vote. About 15 percent of registered Florida voters are naturalized citizens or first- generation Americans, making out state’s current immigration population an electoral force to be reckoned with. Comprehensive immigration reform could increase wages for all Floridians, grow our state’s economy and increase both Florida’s and the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), making our state’s immigration population even more essential. Immigrants contribute about $20billion in combined sales, property and federal taxes every year. Hispanic consumers make up 15 percent of Florida’s purchasing power, exceeding $100 billion in purchases each year, while Asian consumers spend over $15 billion yearly on Florida’s good and services. Any reform that includes legalization of unauthorized immigrants and the creation of workable channels for prospective legal immigration would add a minimum of $75 billion to Florida’s GDP and $1.5 trillion in cumulative U.S. GDP over a decade. In the first few years, increased personal income would produce enough additional consumer spending to sustain 750,000 to 900,000 jobs nationwide, plus an additional $4.5 billion to $5.4 billion in tax based revenues. Immigrants make up 24 percent of our state’s labor force. If immigrants were granted the labor rights of their legal counterparts, it would mean increased wages for all workers in industries that employ large numbers of immigrants. As a result, American workers’ pay would increase- an average of about $162 annually for lesser-skilled workers and $74 per year for higher-skilled workers- because the wage floor for all workers would rise. Right now, employers of illegal workers undercut their competitors and do not pay their fair share of taxes, thereby worsening working conditions of all workers, illegal and legal alike. Don’t be fooled. More foreign workers does not mean fewer jobs for Floridians. An economy with more workers does not mean lower pay or higher unemployment- just a bigger economy. (Just because Florida is bigger than Fresno does not mean, in and of itself, that workers in Florida are worse off than workers in Fresno.) In fact, there is little credible evidence that high immigration rates coincide with high unemployment rates at either local or state levels. Moreover, immigrants’ jobs are not interchangeable with American workers’ jobs due to cultural, educational and geographic differences that play major roles in who applies for what jobs. The political and economic importance of immigration to our state is indisputable, and two out of three of Americans agree that a comprehensive immigration reform is better for the economy than a deportation – only solution. With Congress’ failure to work together, the President’s threat to fix an abysmally broken system that would undoubtedly improve Florida’s political and economic landscape should be welcomed. * Elizabeth Ricci is a managing partner of Rambana & Ricci P.L.L.C., Immigration Attorneys in Tallahassee. She has appeared on CNN, CBS, Fox, Al Jazeera and has been quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Contact her at Elizabeth.ricci@rambana.com or follow her on Twitter @LizIsNeXt.

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