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OPINION
SCOTTSDALE PROGRESS | WWW.SCOTTSDALE.ORG | OCTOBER 10, 2021
Opinion Letters Amnesty won’t heal Arizona, especially now
In January 2020, a young man returned to Arizona after traveling to Wuhan, China. Soon after, he fell slightly ill – becoming our nation’s �ifth of�icial case of Covid-19 and Arizona’s �irst. Over the ensuing 18 months, more than 18,500 Arizonans lost their lives to the pandemic. And hundreds of thousands have lost their livelihoods. Unemployment remains well above pre-pandemic levels. Unfortunately, many of our leaders in Washington seem intent on making the situation worse. They want to pass the largest amnesty for illegal immigrants in U.S. history. That’d increase competition for jobs – and spur even more illegal border crossings that
contribute to the spread of Covid-19. After all, roughly one in �ive illegal immigrants released from Border Patrol custody in late July and early August tested positive for the virus, according to a leaked White House document. An estimated 281,000 illegal immigrants live in our state, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute. Many already work under the table – but granting them full work authorization would allow them to compete for a wider range of jobs against citizens and legal immigrants. That’d make it even more dif�icult for over 225,000 unemployed Arizonans to �ind work. Meanwhile, overall wages would decline. Even before the pandemic hit, many Americans had already experienced stagnating wage growth. Research shows that an in�lux of immigrants lacking a high school diploma entering the workforce in recent decades resulted
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in native-born workers without high school diplomas seeing their earnings drop between $800 and $1,500 each year. Arizona’s stressed workers – many of whom voted for President Biden – are still reeling from the economic effects of the pandemic and need help. Consider the data. The number of employed Arizonans dropped from an all-time high of 3,409,624 in January 2020 to a low of 3,180,733 in June 2020 – a decrease of 228,891. We’ve since gradually clawed back those jobs. As of August 2021, there were 3,412,700 employed Arizonans. But with the Delta variant raging, the job market is unpredictable at best. Certain sectors have been hit harder than others. An estimated 80 percent of Arizona’s restaurant industry experienced layoffs last year. Families are hurting. The Tucson-based
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Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona saw a 121 percent increase in clientele last spring. In the Phoenix area, food banks also saw a surge in families seeking assistance. In just the �irst half of 2021, over 1 million illegal immigrants arrived. Dangling the promise of amnesty would entice millions more people to illegally cross the border, in the hopes that they too would gain work permits and eventually citizenship, either in this amnesty or the next one. That’d be a disaster for Arizona communities -- and many of these migrants themselves, who are preyed upon by vicious cartels along the way. Our politicians should be focused on helping Arizona’s legal workers and their families, not illegal immigrants. I hope Senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema will rally against this amnesty proposal and instead work to get Arizona’s citizens back on their feet. -Judith Lawrence
