Group says low-wage U.S. workers hurt

WASHINGTON – Business, labor and immigrant-rights groups lobbying Congress to legalize millions of illegal immigrants and permit a future flow of foreign job seekers often cite low employment rates as proof of the economy’s voracious appetite for new workers.

Immigrants are filling the jobs Americans won’t take, they say, such as backbreaking work in farming and meatpacking.

Nonsense, says a think tank opposed to immigration increases. Competition from immigrant workers, the majority coming here with a high school diploma at most, may be proving harmful to native-born workers at the lower end of the educational and pay scales, the Center for Immigration Studies says.

In a report issued last week, the center said its analysis of Census Bureau data shows that of the 65 million native-born American adults with a high school degree or less, nearly 4 million are unemployed and 19 million more have stopped looking for work.

“It is extraordinarily hard to make the case that America is desperately short of less-educated workers,” said the report’s author, Center for Immigration Studies research director Steven Camarota.

Between 2000 and 2005, labor force participation for native-born adults without a high school degree fell from 59 percent to 56 percent, the center said, citing findings of the Current Population Survey conducted by the Census Bureau each March. Participation for native-born adults with a high school degree dropped from 78 percent to 75 percent, the report said.

At the same time, the number of adult immigrant workers with a high school degree or less increased by 1.5 million, rising from 15.5 percent of the work force to 17.4 percent, or about 11.6 million people.