Borjas’s claim that a “significant segment of the American population is economically harmed by mass immigration” however this is a necessary evil as “benefits reaped by others, as well as the unquestionable value of increasing cultural pluralism, outweigh those negative effects” is most certainly well-founded and the tradeoffs should be taken into account as the American government dictates its immigration policies. The dynamic places the American working class against the more powerful corporations and business owners who employ not only the working class but also illegal and legal immigrants that will typically work for lower pay and in inferior conditions. It is completely understandable to see why this is problematic for working class citizens who have incrementally worked for safer and more reasonable conditions and a fairer pay. This is why Borjas’s statement is flawed, because it does not have any conditions of governmental regulation to ensure the existing safer working conditions as well as it indirectly advocates for illegal immigration which is problematic due to the absence of a minimum wage for these individuals.
The direct impact to the labor market of unregulated immigration is staggering for the native working-class individual who is depending on their occupation to support his or her family. The reasoning for this is instead of taking whatever wage and position is offered out of desperate need native workers are “more likely to complain about working conditions and aggressively assert what they believe to be legal pay and workplace rights”. This is not to say that immigrants are not as skilled in negotiation or are weak willed but rather their legal status or lack of savings places them at no place to negotiate and leaves them vulnerable to whatever agreement that they can take to edge out their competition. And although this increase in the labor pool is great for businesses it is also very harmful for the American working class who take a hit to their wages, specifically a “10 percent increase in the size of a skill group probably reduces the wage of that group by at least 3 percent”. This is a clear downside to immigration that will affect a large portion of the lower class in America.
It is also clear that the vast majority of benefits of this immigration surplus profit at the expense of the less fortunate. For example, Borjas states that a 50.2-billion-dollar immigration surplus will cause a 515.7 billion dollar loss to native workers while the native firms gain 565.9 billion. This exchange, while overall profitable for America is debatable when those who are profiting are more fortunate and those who are losing are the less fortunate. While America is a capitalist society that is accepting of this trade off, government officials need to be asking if the turning of a blind eye to all of the illegal immigration for profit is worth the losses for native workers who depend on their wages. Borjas may be overlooking the fact that this acceptance of a norm may actually be harmful to America overall even if there are business profits.