By John Tirman

Recent studies, in fact, suggest that immigrants -- including "out of status" workers -- actually increase jobs for native workers as a result of reducing "offshoring" (sending jobs overseas) and making firms more efficient.

 

Some economic activity is simply forfeited by the loss of illegal workers. Consider the case of Alabama. Like Arizona and a number of municipalities and states passing laws empowering police, schools, and other state agencies to demand proof of legal status, Alabama enacted one of the most far-reaching laws to dissuade illegals from coming to or remaining in the state. This is what Mitt Romney recently called "self-deporting." And, in a sense, it works, because the small fraction of the Alabama workforce -- one half of one percent -- that was comprised of illegal immigrants up and left.

Well, it turns out that the agricultural sector in Alabama is suffering mightily as a result. Reportedly, crops are rotting in the fields and attempts to hire native workers have failed. The tens of thousands who fled not only provide labor that is otherwise hard to find, but they spend their paychecks at the local grocery, pay rent and utilities, and so on -- the "multiplier effect" that creates economic growth

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