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ROLE OF IMMIGRATION IN STRENGTHENING 

AMERICA’S ECONOMY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, 

CITIZENSHIP, REFUGEES, BORDER SECURITY, 

AND INTERNATIONAL LAW 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010 

Serial No. 111–155 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan, Chairman 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

DANIEL MAFFEI, New York 

JARED POLIS, Colorado 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TOM ROONEY, Florida 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

PERRY APELBAUM, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

SEAN MCLAUGHLIN, Minority Chief of Staff and General Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP, REFUGEES, 

BORDER SECURITY, AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

ZOE LOFGREN, California, Chairwoman 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

PEDRO PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

JUDY CHU, California 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

UR MENDOZA JADDOU, Chief Counsel 

GEORGE FISHMAN, Minority Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, 

Refugees, Border Security, and International Law ........................................... 1 

The Honorable Steve King, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Iowa, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, 

Refugees, Border Security, and International Law ........................................... 2 

The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Texas, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......................... 4 

The Honorable Anthony D. Weiner, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of New York, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law .................................. 5 

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, New York 

City Mayor’s Office 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 10 

Mr. Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, News Corporation 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 12 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 15 

Mr. Jeff Moseley, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Greater Houston 

Partnership 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 20 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 22 

Mr. Steven A. Camarota, Director of Research, Center for Immigration Studies 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 32 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 34 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Material submitted by the Honorable Judy Chu, a Representative in Congress 

from the State of California, and Member Subcommittee on Immigration, 

Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law ...................... 60 

(1) 

ROLE OF IMMIGRATION IN STRENGTHENING 

AMERICA’S ECONOMY 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2010 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP, REFUGEES, BORDER SECURITY, AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:43 a.m., in room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Zoe Lofgren 

(Chairwoman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Lofgren, Conyers, Jackson Lee, Waters, 

Chu, Gutierrez, Gonzalez, Weiner, Sa ́nchez, Sensenbrenner, Lungren, King, Poe, and Harper. 

Staff Present: (Majority) Ur Mendoza Jaddou, Subcommittee 

Chief Counsel; Traci Hong, Counsel; Tom Jawetz, Counsel; David 

Shahoulian, Counsel; Danielle Brown, Counsel; Reuben Goetzl, 

Clerk; (Minority) Andrea Loving, Counsel; and George Fishman, 

Counsel. 

Ms. LOFGREN. So this hearing on the Subcommittee on Immigration Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law 

will come to order. While we appreciate the press taking pictures 

of our witnesses, we would ask if they could recede a bit so that 

we may actually see them. Thank you very much, photographers. 

I would like to welcome our witnesses, Members of the Immigration Subcommittee, and others who joined us today for the Subcommittee’s hearing on the ‘‘Role of Immigration in Strengthening 

America’s Economy.’’ 

Often lost among the passionate debate on immigration are the 

facts on immigrant entrepreneurs that generate billions of dollars 

for the U.S. economy and thousands of new American jobs. 

Immigrants are nearly 30 percent more likely to start a business 

than non-immigrants. In California alone immigrants generate 

nearly one-quarter of all business income, nearly $20 billion. They 

represent nearly 30 percent of all business owners in California, 

one-fourth of business owners in New York, and one-fifth in New 

Jersey, Florida, and Hawaii. In New York, Florida, and New Jersey 

immigrants generate one-fifth of the total business income. 

Immigrants are not only bringing more income to the economy, 

their businesses are creating new jobs. Businesses started by immigrants have a higher rate of creating jobs than the average for all 

businesses created by immigrants and non-immigrants combined, 

21 percent versus 18 percent. 

2 

As a resident of California, I have long been familiar with the 

role immigrants play in growing the State’s economy and creating 

jobs for Americans. Over half, 52.4 percent, of Silicon Valley 

startups had one or more immigrants as a key founder. Statewide, 

39 percent of startups had one or more immigrants as a key founder. 

Of the engineering and technology companies started in the 

United States from 1995 to 2005, 25 percent had at least one key 

foreign born founder. 

Nationwide, these immigrant-founded technology companies pro- duced $52 billion in sales and employ 450,000 workers in the year 

2005. 

Contributions of immigrants to the technology industry is only 

just the beginning. Immigrants own more than one-fifth of businesses in the arts, entertainment, and recreation industry nationwide. They own more than 10 percent of business in education, 

health and social services, professional services, retail, trade, and 

construction. Overall they own 12.5 percent of all businesses in the 

United States. Of businesses worth $100,000 or more in sales, immigrants own 11 percent of such businesses and 10.8 percent of all 

businesses with employees. 

It is very important for Congress to review the facts on immigrant entrepreneurship and their contributions to growing the 

American economy and creating American jobs. This will help Congress to appropriately determine how best to structure immigration 

law to continue improving our Nation’s economy. 

I welcome today’s witnesses who have unique perspectives on immigrant participation in the American economy, and I look forward 

to hearing from them today. I would now like to recognize our distinguished Ranking minority Member, Congressman Steve King, 

for his opening statement. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank the 

witnesses for appearing here today. I know you all have busy lives 

and important things to attend to, and yet perhaps I have sat 

through enough of these hearings now that I wonder why we are 

holding this one. 

According to the hearing title, the outcome is already a foregone 

conclusion. That title is the Role of Immigration in Strengthening 

America’s Economy. I would point out, too, that there has been, I 

believe, a concerted and willful effort to conflate the terms ‘‘immigration’’ and ‘‘illegal immigration’’ to where now America in normal 

conversation doesn’t really know which we are talking about if 

there is a distinction in their minds at all. 

But it is my understanding that the hearings are held in order 

to get information that will help us determine policy. So I will 

chalk up the name to overzealousness and listen to the witnesses. 

I know that two of the witnesses here are already on record determining that immigrants help the economy and therefore we 

must legalize the entire illegal immigrant population in the U.S. 

Again, I draw that distinction between legal and illegal. But not everyone agrees. There are experts, including one who will testify 

today, whose research has found that low-skilled immigrants are 

actually a drain on the U.S. economy and amnesty is not a good 

idea. 

3 

One of these experts who is not here today is Robert Rector, the 

Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. One of Mr. 

Rector’s definitive studies was on the cost of illegal immigrants to 

Americans and legal immigrants. He looked at households that 

were headed by low-skilled immigrants and found that the average 

household headed by a low-skilled immigrant receives $30,160 per 

year in government benefits, and that is an average of course, but 

they pay an average of $10,573 in taxes. So the net cost to the taxpayer is $19,588 a year. Overall, the net cost to taxpayers is $89 

billion a year. I think that makes a strong case that America has 

become now a welfare state and it is not the America that we think 

of a hundred and some years ago when people came here on their 

merits and had to provide their own input into the economy and 

find a way to take care of themselves. 

So after that Rector went on to find that amnesty would have another staggering fiscal impact. He reasoned that once illegal immigrants became citizens they have the right to sponsor their parents 

for permanent residence with no yearly numerical limitation. These 

parents could then themselves become U.S. citizens and they would 

be eligible for two very expensive Federal programs, Supplemental 

Security Income and Medicaid. Rector estimates that the parents’ 

participation in just these two programs would add $30 billion a 

year in costs to the Federal Government, and he goes to estimate 

that in all, should illegal immigrants receive amnesty, that governmental outlay in retirement costs, including Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and Supplemental Security Income alone would be 

at least $2.6 trillion. 

So over the years this Subcommittee and the full Committee 

have examined the effects of immigration on States and localities 

on a number of occasions. San Diego, the full Committee explored 

the impacts that the Senate-passed Reid-Kennedy amnesty bill 

would have on American communities at the State and local level. 

We heard testimony that Los Angeles County is being buried with 

the health care, education, criminal justice, and other costs associated with illegal immigration. 

We also heard from a witness from the University of Arizona 

Medical Center at Tucson, and I have been to visit that center on 

these immigration issues, who said that providing care to the uninsured, uncompensated poor and foreign nationals cost the hospital 

$30 million in 2006 and $27 million in 2005. He also related to me 

in my visit that the hospital has been filled up, and they have had 

to life flight the residents of Tucson to Phoenix because there 

wasn’t room in their hospital because it was full of illegals. 

And more than a decade ago, at a hearing on the same topic, Michael Fix of the Urban Institute told the Judiciary Committee that, 

and I quote, ‘‘There is a broad consensus in the research that the 

fiscal impacts of illegal immigrants; that is, their impacts on local, 

State and Federal taxpayers are negative, generating a net deficit 

when they are aggregated across all levels of government.’’ 

Despite the evidence already collected by this Subcommittee the 

majority has decided it is time to look at this issue again. Unfortunately for them the real expert on the panel today concludes the 

opposite of what the majority asserts. 

4 

And I would lay another piece of this out, and that is that as 

much as we might talk about the contribution to the economy and 

the growth in our growth domestic product, and I agree that any 

work productive work adds to that GDP, there is also a cost to sustaining citizens in this society and we have to balance those two 

things and take a look at how our culture evolves and what we are 

like as a people in future generations. That has been part of the 

considerations in previous immigration debates that this country 

has had, and it has been some of the foundation of the policy that 

has emerged and exists to this day. 

So I would ask this, whatever the analysis of the economics, we 

have also the rule of law that to me is priceless, and so I will stand 

on the rule of law and I will take a consideration to the economic 

comments that are here today and see if there is a balance to the 

two, but I am certainly not going to sacrifice the rule of law for an 

economic interest because I think that is more important to this 

country. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. I look forward to the testimony of the 

witnesses, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Ms. LOFGREN. The gentleman’s time has expired. The Ranking 

Member of the full Committee, Mr. Smith, has an opening statement and is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Madam Chair. America has a wonderful 

tradition of welcoming newcomers. We admit more than one million 

legal immigrants every year, which is almost as much as every 

other Nation in the world combined, and it is no surprise that so 

many people want to come here. We are the freest and most prosperous Nation in the world. 

Immigrants have benefited America in many ways. They are laborers, inventors, and CEOs, and include one of our witnesses here 

today. 

Our country is a better place because we have been able to attract so many highly skilled immigrants. We should continue to invite the world’s best and brightest to come to America and contribute to our economic prosperity. 

However, there is a right way and a wrong way to come into our 

country. Legal immigrants play by the rules, wait their turn, and 

are invited. Others cut in front of the line, break our laws, and 

enter illegally. Some people say that we need to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes amnesty for millions of 

illegal immigrants in the U.S., but citizenship is the greatest honor 

our country can bestow. It shouldn’t be sold to lawbreakers for the 

price of a fine. 

Amnesty will enable illegal workers to depress wages and take 

jobs away from American citizens and legal immigrants. In New 

York, for example, there are 800,000 unemployed individuals and 

475,000 illegal immigrants in the workforce, and in Texas illegal 

immigrants in the workforce actually outnumber unemployed individuals. There are 1,050,000 illegal immigrants in the workforce 

and one million unemployed individuals. So we could free up hundreds of thousands of jobs for American workers in just those two 

States if we enforced our immigration laws. 

Also, the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that lowskilled immigration has reduced the wages of the average native 

5 

born workers in a low-skilled occupation by 12 percent a year, or 

almost $2,000. Why would we want to put the interest of foreign 

workers ahead of the economic well-being of American workers? 

There is another cost to illegal immigration besides lower wages 

and lost jobs. Taxpayers foot the bills for their education, health 

care, and government benefits. Overcrowded classrooms, long waits 

in hospital emergency rooms, and costly government services would 

only become worse if millions of illegal immigrants are legalized, 

and amnesty would further bankrupt the already strained Social 

Security System. 

The Social Security Administration calculates that a typical un- married illegal immigrant will receive between 15 and $20,000 

more in retirement benefits than they pay into the system. A married illegal immigrant couple in which one spouse works can expect 

$52,000 more than they pay into the system. Paying Social Security 

benefits to illegal immigrants who receive amnesty could cost hundreds of billions of dollars and bankrupt the system. 

Some say that the taxes illegal immigrants pay offset the cost of 

providing them education, health care, and government benefits, 

but at their low wages most illegal immigrants don’t even pay income taxes and even when they do, their taxes don’t cover other 

government services like maintaining highways, providing for our 

national defense, and taking care of needy and elderly. Every objective and unbiased study has come to this conclusion. 

Those who support amnesty are clearly on the wrong side of the 

American people. A recent poll found that when given the choice 

of immigration reform moving, quote, in the direction of integrating 

illegal immigrants into American society or in the direction of 

stricter enforcement of laws against illegal immigration, end quote, 

68 percent of those polled support stricter enforcement. 

U.S. immigration policy should reward those who come here legally, not those who disrespect the rule of law. U.S. citizens and 

legal immigrants should benefit from our immigration policies. Illegal immigration already hurts American workers and American 

taxpayers. Amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants may be good 

for foreign countries, but it is not good for America. 

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Smith. And Mr. Conyers has not 

yet arrived, so I think we will reserve his opening statement for his 

attendance. 

As is our custom, we invite the Member of Congress whose constituents are witnesses to introduce them, and so I would like to 

turn to our colleague, Mr. Weiner, to introduce Mayor Bloomberg 

and Mr. Murdoch, and I will of course introduce the other two witnesses. 

Mr. Weiner. 

Mr. WEINER. Well, thank you, Madam Chair, and I welcome 

them both. I am unfamiliar with both of them, so I will read the 

prepared introduction you wrote. 

Let me just first begin by welcoming the mayor of the City of 

New York, Michael Bloomberg, who is well-known obviously as the 

mayor of the city, but also is increasingly familiar to the halls of 

Congress, to the many issues that impact big cities and the many 

issues that impact our economy as a whole. 

6 

Bloomberg L.P., which he founded, provides financial news and 

information services to over 285,000 subscribers and it has 11,000 

employees worldwide. He is someone that is never afraid to innovate, never afraid to think outside the box, and one who is unconstrained by traditional party politics. His taking on this issue is 

consistent with his efforts to persuade Congress to invest more in 

infrastructure, to persuade Congress to take stronger steps in fighting terrorism and crime in big cities, and I very much welcome him 

here today. 

We are also joined by Rupert Murdoch, who is the Chairman and 

Chief Executive Officer of News Corporation, one of the largest diversified media companies in the world. He, too, is a large employer in my home city, and we are grateful for that. I am told he 

also is behind the Fox Broadcasting Company, although I only 

watch that when I am on it, and also the New York Post and many 

other publications. Mr. Murdoch is also, in addition to taking on 

this issue, is always someone who has been willing to share his expertise with Members of Congress and his considerable experience 

in the economies of other countries, and we very much welcome 

them both here. 

I think what we will find, Madam Chair, and my colleagues, is 

as much heat is generated by the issue of immigration reform on 

shouting television shows and here in Congress, in fact there is a 

remarkable consensus among people who actually create jobs about 

the relatively easy steps that we can take to improve our immigration system, both for the benefit of our economy and also to the 

benefit of the people who are in that system, both those that have 

documentation now and those who seek it. And I always think, and 

I always talk to Mr. Gutierrez about this, that if you have got 10 

regular Americans around the table and said here are the imperatives that we have, we want to create jobs, we want to have a system that works, we don’t want anyone to jump over someone else, 

we could probably solve the immigration challenges relatively easily. If we leave the demagoguery at the door, if we tell the people 

on one side who want to provide amnesty for everyone we are not 

going to do that and the people on the other side who just want 

to say let’s hire several hundred thousand immigration officers and 

go round up people we are not going to do that either, there is a 

broad swath in the middle of this country represented by the two 

men I just introduced who really do understand these problems are 

solvable if we roll up our sleeves, metaphorically and literally, and 

get to work. 

But I want to thank these two gentlemen for being here, and we 

welcome their testimony. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Weiner, for introducing the two 

witnesses, and now I will introduce the remaining witnesses. Mr. 

Jeff Moseley is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the 

Greater Houston Partnership. The Greater Houston Partnership 

serves and is the primary business advocate for the 10-county 

Houston area dedicated to securing regional economic prosperity. 

Prior to joining the Greater Houston Partnership, Mr. Moseley 

served as CEO of the Office of the Governor for Economic Development and Tourism and as the Executive Director of the Texas Department of Economic Development. He was also elected to three 

7 

terms as the Denton County judge, and he has served with the 

Greater Houston Partnership as President and CEO since 2005. 

Finally, I would like to introduce Mr. Steven Camarota. Mr. 

Camarota is the Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C. He has been with the Center 

since 1996. His focus is economics and demographics. Mr. 

Camarota holds a Ph.D., or I should say Dr. Camarota, from the 

University of Virginia in public policy analysis and a Master’s degree in political science from the University of Pennsylvania. He 

has testified before Congress numerous times and has written 

many articles on the subject of immigration for the Center. 

Mindful of our time, other Members of the Committee are invited 

to submit written statements for the record. We will also submit 

the written statements of each witness for the record, and we 

would ask that their oral testimony consume about 5 minutes. 

When the little machines on the desk turn yellow, it means you 

have consumed 4 minutes, and when it turns red it means your 5 

minutes are up, but we will not cut you off in the middle of a sentence. We would ask that you try to conclude and summarize at 

that point. 

So first we will turn to you, Major Bloomberg. Thank you so 

much for being here. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG, 

MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK CITY MAYOR’S OFFICE 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. Chairwoman Lofgren and Ranking Member 

King, Ranking Member Smith, and Congressman Weiner, once 

again congratulations on your recent marriage. I am sure there is 

an act of Congress to say congratulations. And I did want to thank 

Representative—all of the New York delegation, one Republican in 

the New York City area and mostly Democrats, but all of them who 

understand the needs of our city. 

Our system of immigration I think it is fair to say is broken, I 

think it is undermining our economy. It is slowing our recovery and 

really is hurting millions of Americans, and we just have to fix it. 

And I do believe that this is an issue where Republicans and 

Democrats can come together and Independents as well to find 

common ground. That has been our experience in forming what we 

call the Partnership for a New American Economy that Rupert 

Murdoch and I have started of business people and mayors around 

this country. We have members of every political background. 

We believe that immigration reform needs to become a top national priority, and we are urging members of both parties to help 

us shift the debate away from emotions and toward economics because the economics couldn’t be any clearer. Many studies have 

analyzed the economic impact of immigration. I will just touch 

briefly on seven key areas that come out of that data. 

Since 1990 cities with the largest increase in immigrant workers 

have had the fastest economic growth. New York City is a perfect 

example. Immigrants have been essential to our economic growth 

in every single industry. Immigrants are a reason why New York 

City has weathered the national recession much better than the 

country as a whole. 

8 

This year we account for one out of every 10 private sector jobs 

created throughout the entire Nation, just New York City alone. 

Second, immigrants pay more in taxes than they use in benefits. 

Immigrants come to America to work, often leaving their families 

behind, and by working they are paying Social Security taxes, supporting our seniors. Immigrants also tend to be younger and have 

a lot less need for Social Services. One wonders where some of this 

research comes from. It just does not jibe with what we see in New 

York City. 

Third, immigrants create new companies that produce jobs. Studies show that immigrants are almost twice as likely as native born 

Americans to start companies, and from 1980 through the year 

2005 nearly all net job creation in the United States occurred in 

companies less than 5 years old and many of these new companies 

have defined the 21st century economy, such as and Google and 

Yahoo and Ebay. They were founded by immigrants. Immigrants 

also create small businesses and in New York City we desperately 

need them to come and create the jobs that will put New York City 

people back to work. 

And this is not a new story. History shows that every immigrant 

generation in the United States has fueled the economic engine 

that makes the United States the strongest economy in the world. 

Fourth, more and more countries are competing to attract entrepreneurs and high-skilled workers. Chile is offering American entrepreneurs $40,000 and a 1-year visa to say to stay in the country. 

China has recruited thousands of entrepreneurs, engineers, and 

scientists to return and join the surging economies of Shanghai and 

Beijing. Yet in America we are literally turning them away by the 

thousands or making the visa process so tortuous that no one 

wants to endure it. 

Fifth, the more difficult we make it for foreign workers and students to come and stay here the more likely companies will move 

their jobs to other nations. And just look what has happened in Silicon Valley. Many companies have not been able to get workers 

into the country and have been forced to move their jobs to Vancouver, Canada. And just as troubling, more and more foreign students are reporting plans to return home because of visa problems. 

We educate them here and then in effect we tell them to take that 

knowledge and start jobs in other countries. It makes no sense 

whatsoever. I have described this as national suicide. 

Sixth, we know that our businesses need more high and lowskilled work labor that we are letting this country right now, and 

they are the ones that will provide the employees for the highskilled jobs that we have to fill, and allowing companies to far more 

easily fill those jobs would be perhaps the best economic stimulus 

package Congress could create. 

At the same time many other companies are seeking to fill low 

wage jobs that Americans just will not take, from fruit pickers to 

groundskeepers to custodians. 

And seventh, and finally, creating a path for citizenship for illegal immigrants will strengthen our economy. Both the Cato Institute and the Center for American Progress have found that a path 

to legal status will add billions to our GNP in the coming decades. 

9 

So in summary, in the economy case for immigration couldn’t be 

stronger and our Partnership for a New American Economy has 

adopted a core set of principles that we hope will guide the Members of this Committee by drawing up legislation. I don’t think 

there is any doubt that we need to secure our borders. It is essential that America be able to decide who comes here, who we want, 

and who we don’t. But it is impossible to secure our borders without an overall package of reforms that reduces demand and holds 

companies accountable to verify workers rights. No matter how 

many border people we send, if you take away the incentive to 

come here it will make that easy, and then we have to go and give 

visas to those that will create the jobs and keep our economy growing to keep America competitive in the global marketplace. We just 

have to recognize that our economy has changed and our immigration policy needs to change with it. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bloomberg follows:] 

10 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG


MRB-1.eps
11 


MRB-2.eps
12 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you very much, Mayor. 

Mr. Murdoch, we would be pleased to hear from you. 

TESTIMONY OF RUPERT MURDOCH, CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, NEWS CORPORATION 

Mr. MURDOCH. Thank you, Chairwoman Lofgren, Ranking Member King, and Members of the House Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you this 

morning to discuss the Role of Immigration in Strengthening 

America’s Economy. 

As an immigrant, I chose to live in America because it is one of 

the freest and most vibrant nations in the world. And as an immiVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:08 Jan 03, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\IMMIG\093010\58480.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA

MRB-3.eps
13 

grant, I feel an obligation to speak up for immigration that will 

keep America the most economically robust, creative, and freedom 

loving nation in the world. 

Over the past 4 decades I have enjoyed all the benefits of living, 

working, and building a business in America. I have had the freedom to pursue my dreams, secure the best opportunities for my 

children, and to participate in the open dialogue that is essential 

to a free society. 

Today America is deeply divided over immigration policy. Many 

people worry that immigrants will take their jobs, challenge their 

culture, or change their community. Others want to punish those 

who fled poverty or oppression in their native countries and came 

to the U.S. outside the legal system. 

I joined Mayor Bloomberg in organizing the Partnership for a 

New American Economy because I believe that all Americans 

should have a vital interest in fixing our broken immigration system so we can continue to compete in the 21 century global economy. 

While supporting complete and proper closure of all our borders 

to future illegal immigrants, our partnership advocates reform that 

gives a path to citizenship for responsible, law abiding immigrants 

who are in the U.S. today without proper authority. It is nonsense 

to talk of expelling 11 or 12 million people. Not only is it impractical, it is cost prohibitive. 

A study this year put the price of mass deportation at $285 billion over 5 years. There are better ways to spend our money. 

We need to do more to secure our borders. We can and should 

add more people, technology and resources to ensuring that we 

have control over who comes into this country, but I worry that 

spending alone will not stop the flow of illegal immigrants. The 

U.S. has increased border security funding almost every year since 

1992, while at the same time the estimated population of illegal 

immigrants has more than tripled. That number only started to decline when our country hit a recession and there were fewer jobs. 

So our border security must also be matched with efforts to make 

sure employers can’t hire illegal immigrants. 

A full path to legalization requiring unauthorized immigrants to 

register, undergo a security check, pay taxes, and learn English 

would bring these immigrants out of a shadow economy and add 

to our taxpayers. According to one study, a path to legalization will 

contribute an estimated $1.5 trillion to the gross domestic product 

over 10 years. We are desperately in need of improving our country’s human capital. 

We want to bring an end to the arbitrary immigration and visa 

quotas that make it impossible to fill the labor and skilled needs 

of our country. We have to return to an America that is a magnet 

for many of the best young brains in the world. America needs to 

keep the door open to those who come here to get an advanced degree and then allow them to join the ranks of our most productive 

scientists, entrepreneurs, innovators, and educators. 

Today we attract some of the world’s smartest people to our 

shores, give them the best that American higher education can 

offer, and then put them on planes back to their own countries. 

14 

That is self defeating and has to stop. We need to make it easier 

for them to stay so they can make their contributions to America. 

These are young people who are inventing the next generation of 

big ideas. In fact, a full 25 percent of all technology and engineering businesses launched in America between 1995 and 2005 had an 

immigrant founder, and these businesses have created hundreds of 

thousands of new American jobs. 

As America’s baby boomers approach 65, immigrants are helping 

to keep our workforce young and growing. Today more than 40 percent of our immigrant population is age 25 to 44. These are consumers who generate considerable spending on goods and services 

and housing. 

In sum, America’s future prosperity and security depends on getting our immigration policy right and doing it quickly. From all 

across the country, from the public and private sectors, and from 

every political persuasion, our partnership is bringing leaders together for one purpose: To ensure that America’s doors remain 

opening so that our economy remains strong. 

I appreciate the opportunity to share my views with you today, 

and I thank you for listening. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Murdoch follows:] 

15 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RUPERT MURDOCH


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Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Murdoch. 

Now we would be pleased to hear from you, Mr. Moseley. We 

need your microphone on. 

TESTIMONY OF JEFF MOSELEY, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, THE GREATER HOUSTON PARTNERSHIP 

Mr. MOSELEY. Good morning, Madam Chair, Representative 

King, Chair Conyers, and our good friend from Texas, Ranking 

Member Smith, Members of the Committee. Thank you for your 

leadership and for your commitment to reforming America’s immigration laws. 

As the chair introduced me, my name is Jeff Moseley and I serve 

as President and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership, and I 

want to say thank you for allowing me to be a part of this very distinguished panel. A lot of pleasure to be with Mayor Bloomberg 

and Mr. Murdoch and Dr. Camarota. 

I have submitted a written testimony, and these comments that 

I am giving is just a quick summary of the written statement. And 

while each of us may not agree on specifics, we certainly appreciate 

the fact that there is a conversation with the American people, a 

conversation that focuses on the role of immigration, a conversation 

on strengthening America’s economy, and a conversation about fixing a broken immigration law. 

The Greater Houston Partnership is a business association. We 

have 3,000 members, and these represent companies that do more 

than $1.6 trillion in annual revenues. The partnership seeks to 

bring a grassroots voice for the business community and for industry into this American dialogue, a voice that we recognize has quite 

frankly been missing from the debate. 

During the last several years we have witnessed several failed 

attempts to pass immigration reform and admittedly, Madam 

Chair, the business community bears some responsibility for standing by the sidelines. So we are here today to commit to stand up 

and to make sure the business voice is a part of this reform process. 

As you have heard already from our distinguished witnesses, we 

are certainly all of immigrant stock and we recognize that America’s immigration system today is just not working. The best solution toward reforming our laws require a bipartisan action of Congress, but this national debate really goes back to our earliest days 

as a Nation. I don’t know if your history teacher taught you this, 

mine didn’t, but apparently in the 1750’s, while America was still 

a colony and part of the British Empire, Pennsylvania was seeing 

a tremendous number of German immigrants and they were arriving in droves. And guess what? They were opening their own 

schools and their own houses of worship. They had their own printing presses, which produced German language newspapers. Well, 

this was really too much for Americans of British stock to tolerate. 

Someone even as moderate as the reasonable Benjamin Franklin 

was positively undone over these German newcomers. In fact, he 

called them Palatine Boors, and he warned that if English speaking Pennsylvanians did not take drastic steps to preserve their language and culture they would find themselves submerged in a Teutonic tide. And Franklin said, why should Pennsylvania, founded 

21 

by the English, become a colony of aliens who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of us Anglifying them and will 

never adopt our language or our customs any more than they can 

acquire our complexion. 

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It almost sounds as though Ben 

Franklin could be one of the news entertainers that take this very 

complex issue of immigration reform and take out and sensationalize the dialogue. 

But we are here, Mr. King, to talk about how we can be a positive force in fixing this broken law, and we think that a law that 

does not recognize market forces or labor demand really is really 

doomed from the beginning. 

In fact, in 1986 the intent of the Immigration Control and Reform Act was to make employers responsible for verifying the legality of the workforce. However, the current system by which employers are asked to determine if a worker is in fact authorized is no 

better than the Social Security card. Madam Chair and Members, 

this card was produced in the 1930’s. This is what employers are 

asked to use to verify if a worker is authorized to work in the Nation. And as many will tell you, the forgeries are better than what 

the U.S. Government are producing, and so it puts the employer in 

a very, very difficult position. 

We must strike a balance between securing our borders and safeguarding our prosperity. The Greater Houston Partnership recognizes the need to secure our borders. Make no mistake, we strongly 

support that. 

But we also support an immigration law that will allow employers, through an efficient, temporary worker program, to recruit 

both the skilled and the unskilled immigrant workers where there 

is a shortage of domestic workers. We further believe that employers should be responsible for verifying the legal status of those that 

they hire. 

Believe it or not, we believe that there should be penalties and 

fines for businesses that willfully and knowingly hire undocumented workers. To this end we support the creation of a fast, reliable employment verification system. We oppose laws that would 

increase civil and criminal penalties on employers that don’t provide viable, legal options for hiring these skilled and semi-skilled 

workers. 

Our partnership has 130 board members, and we unanimously 

have approved a resolution that has involved our involvement, and 

the America’s immigration reform is a part of that creation. 

I know my time has expired, Madam Chair. So I will withhold 

any further comments. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Moseley follows:] 

22 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JEFF MOSELEY


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Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Camarota, we would be happy to hear from you now. 

TESTIMONY OF STEVEN A. CAMAROTA, DIRECTOR OF 

RESEARCH, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES 

Mr. CAMAROTA. Well, first I would like to say that I would like 

to thank the Subcommittee for inviting me to testify today on this 

important issue. I have to say that I am getting over a bad case 

of pneumonia so if I cough a lot you will just have to understand. 

Maybe I will do it in dramatic fashion and add to the seriousness 

of my testimony. 

My primary goal today is to clear up some of the confusion that 

often surrounds the issue of immigration and the economy. In particular, I will try to explain the difference between increasing the 

overall size of the U.S. economy and increasing the actual per capita GDP of the United States. I will also touch on the separate but 

a related issue of taxes paid versus services used, the impact on 

taxpayers. 

Now, if we wish to know the benefit of immigration to the existing population, then of course the key measure is the per capita 

GDP of the United States, or I should say the per capita GDP particularly of the existing population, if that is what we want to 

know, not how much bigger immigration makes the U.S. economy, 

which it clearly does do. 

We could see the importance of per capita GDP just by remembering that Mexico and Canada have very roughly the same size 

economies, but they are not roughly equally rich because Mexico 

has three times as many people and thus its per capita income is 

much lower. 

Now, there is actually a very standard way in economics to calculate the benefit from immigration that actually goes to the existing population of people that is either the native born or the immigrants already here when you begin your analysis. It is based on 

a noncontroversial formula laid out by Harvard economist George 

Borjas. The method was used by the National Academy of Sciences 

in its 1997 study. It was used by the President’s Council of Economic Advisors in their 2007 study. It is very much agreed on by 

economists. 

Now, although the economy is much larger because of immigration, the formula shows that only a tiny fraction of that increased 

economic activity goes to the native born population. Based on 2009 

data, this simple calculation shows that the net benefit to natives 

from immigration should be about one-fourth of 1 percent of GDP, 

or about $33 billion. Thus, the net benefit of immigration to the existing population is very small relative to the size of the economy. 

Second, and this is very important, the benefit is entirely dependent on the size of the wage losses suffered by the existing population of workers. If there is no reduction in wages for the native 

born, there is no benefit. Now the wage losses suffered by American workers based on the same formula is about $375 billion, 

about 12 times bigger than the benefit, but what is important to 

understand is the wages don’t disappear into thin air. They are retained either by employers in the form of higher profits or they get 

33 

passed on to consumers, or more skilled workers who aren’t in competition with immigrants may benefit as well. 

So the way it works out is that wages for those in competition 

with immigrants are reduced by about $375 billion, given the size 

of the immigrant population today, but the people who gain, the 

business owners and so forth, gain about $408 billion for the $33 

billion net benefit. 

Now, sometimes people say, well, I don’t think Americans and 

immigrants compete ever for jobs, but the fact is that is not what 

the research shows. There are about 465 occupations in the United 

States, based on the Department of Commerce classification, and 

only four are majority immigrant. The vast majority of nannies, 

maids, busboys, and forth, meat packers, construction laborers, 

janitors in the United States are all U.S. born. And unfortunately, 

there has been a very troubling long-term decline in wages for less 

educated people who do this kind of work, and this is exactly what 

we would expect to see as a result of immigration. As immigration 

has increased, wages at the bottom end of the U.S. Labor market 

have generally fallen, which is certainly an indication that we don’t 

have a shortage of that kind of workers. 

Now, there is also the fiscal impact. When the National Academy 

of Sciences tried to look at this question, they found that the fiscal 

impact was enough to eat up the entire economic gain. So if you 

put the economic gain with the fiscal impact, you get no benefit at 

all, it would seem. 

Now, the problem is you have also made the low income population poorer in the United States. They absorb a lot of that $375 

billion in wage losses. 

In conclusion, if we are concerned about low-skilled workers, and 

that is only one thing to think about, then reducing the level of immigration would certainly make sense, particularly unskilled immigration. Certainly we can do so secure in the knowledge that it 

won’t harm the U.S. economy. At the very least, those who support 

the current high level of immigration should understand that the 

American workers harmed by that policy they favor are already the 

poorest and most vulnerable. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Camarota follows:] 

34 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF STEVEN A. CAMAROTA


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Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you very much, and thanks to all of the 

witnesses for your testimony. 

Now is the time when Members of the Subcommittee have an opportunity to pose questions to our witnesses, and I would turn first 

to the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Mr. King, for 5 minutes and whatever questions he may have. 

Mr. KING. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. It is interesting testimony. I was watching the witnesses as they listen. I would first 


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ask Mayor Bloomberg, what did you think of Dr. Camarota’s testimony and how would you respond to the presentation that he has 

made? 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. I am not a—— 

Ms. LOFGREN. Could you turn your microphone on, please. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. I am not an expert on the whole country. I can 

just tell you about New York. I run a city of 8.4 million people, 40 

percent of which were born outside of the United States and 

500,000 we think are undocumented. 

Number one, Mr. Camarota must have a different cohort that he 

is studying. If you take a look at this country, if we have 11 or 12 

million undocumented, it is because there are jobs that are going 

unfilled here. We did have comprehensive immigration reform in 

1986 with no teeth whatsoever. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mayor. I am sorry, my clock is ticking. 

I see that is in your testimony, the statements that you made 

and there is references to studies, but it doesn’t say which studies 

would be rebuttals to Dr. Camarota. Do you know which studies 

you referenced? 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. Yeah, the study is what goes on every day in 

New York City. Rupert and I together employ about 75,000 people, 

so we know a little bit about job creation. And he is an immigrant, 

I am an immigrant to New York from Boston. I don’t know whether 

that makes me a real immigrant or not. But I can just tell you in 

New York City the issue is not the undocumented, the issue is how 

we create jobs for the people in New York who are unemployed and 

can’t find jobs. 

Mr. KING. And when you use the term ‘‘immigrant’’ in your testimony, does it mean, does it include illegal immigrant? 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. It does. And the reason we have illegal immigrants here is because of Congress’ inability and unwillingness to 

pass laws where employers can figure out who is documented and 

who isn’t. And it is just duplicitous for Congress to sit there and 

say they shouldn’t do it and then not give them the tools. 

All of us have the problem of trying to figure out whether or not 

that Social Security card was bought for 50 bucks or issued by the 

Federal Government. 

Mr. KING. It seems to be universal here among the witnesses 

that—or at least unanimity about closing and securing the borders. 

I see that in your testimony, Mr. Murdoch’s, I believe it was in Mr. 

Moseley’s testimony, and I don’t know that Dr. Camarota addressed that. 

Here is where the tension is in this. We have more than a generation of promises to enforce immigration law, and that includes 

specifically securing the border. And as I hear this presentation, it 

includes also that same promise, but why should Americans—I am 

going to ask Mr. Murdoch this question—why should Americans accept a promise again that we would enforce immigration laws in 

exchange for a path to citizenship to people that, if I remember 

your language in here, was for people that were illegals who are 

responsible and law abiding. I think that actually precludes those 

people from being included in that, but why should Americans accept that promise again? There have been empty promises going 

41 

far back to not quite—I think Dwight Eisenhower is the last man 

that actually followed through on enforcement. 

Mr. MURDOCH. Congressman—— 

Ms. LOFGREN. Could you turn your microphone on, please, Mr. 

Murdoch? 

Mr. MURDOCH. I am sorry. 

With respect, you don’t have to accept any promises. You are the 

people who make the laws in this country, and you are the people 

who have to make sure they are enforced. It is not up to me as a 

private citizen. I will support you if you do it of course. But you 

say why should you accept a promise. It is up to you to keep the 

promise. 

Mr. KING. Okay, let me respond to that, and it is this, that I 

have been in the business now and closing out my eighth year of 

seeking to embarrass the Administration into enforcing immigration law. I mean, Congress can’t enforce the laws, we can only appropriate or not appropriate, set the policy and then seek to embarrass the Administration into enforcing if they don’t have the will, 

and it has gotten worse. 

So I appreciate your point and your testimony. 

I turn to—watching the clock tick—Dr. Camarota. Here is the 

tension, and I just ask the question this way, and that is we have 

a net cost that I talked about in my opening statement of 19,000 

and a half for the immigrant costs of—the low-skilled immigrant 

costs of Dr. Robert Rector’s testimony, or his study. And you have 

your economic analysis here that makes sense to me, and you make 

the point that—and I have said often—that we need to be in the 

business of increasing the average annual productivity of our people. 

Now, but the question that comes back is how many are too 

many? How much can this country sustain? No one seems to be 

asking the question of when have we opened our borders too much 

so that we get—the overburden of this economy can’t recover from 

it. Do you have any numbers on that? Do you have an analysis of 

it? Do you have an opinion of it? 

I mean, I would just imagine this, that if we let a billion people 

into America next year that would bury us. We would not be able 

to sustain that and it would change our culture forever. So where 

is the line, in your opinion? Do you have any analysis that addresses that? 

Mr. CAMAROTA. Well, like most people, I just think that we 

should have an immigration policy that seeks to benefit the existing population of the legal immigrants and the natives here, and 

we should try as much as possible to avoid hurting the people at 

the bottom. There is about 24 million people with no education beyond high school, these are working age people, who are currently 

not working in the United States. Their situation has gotten worse 

and worse. And to keep flooding the unskilled labor market with 

immigrant works just doesn’t make sense from that point of view. 

Mr. KING. Thank you. Thank you, all the witnesses. Madam 

Chair, I yield back. 

Ms. LOFGREN. The gentleman’s time has expired. I would recognize now the gentlelady from California, Ms. Waters, for 5 minutes 

for questions unless she would like to defer. 

42 

Ms. WATERS. Well, no. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, very 

much for holding this hearing. And I thank our witnesses here 

today, Mayor Bloomberg and Mr. Rupert Murdoch, Moseley and 

Camarota. 

I think that the outline of your proposed immigration reform approach is a good one and it really mirrors pretty much what many 

of us have been discussing here in Congress. I don’t see any great 

difference in what appears to be evolving here. But I am curious 

about one thing. 

Mr. Murdoch, both you and Mr. Bloomberg have the possibility 

of doing a lot of education. You are very powerful, with your media 

networks, and you are able to disseminate a lot of information, and 

to flame issues. And for Mr. Murdoch, it does not appear that what 

you are talking to us about today and the way that you are discussing it is the way that it is discussed on Fox, for example. 

Why are you here with a basically decent proposal, talking about 

the advantage of immigrants to our economy, but I don’t see that 

being promoted on Fox. As a matter of fact, I am oftentimes 

stunned by what I hear on Fox, particularly when you have hosts 

talking about anchor babies and all of that. Explain to me, what 

is the difference in your being here and what you do not do with 

your media network? 

Mr. MURDOCH. Ms. Waters—— 

Ms. WATERS. I can’t hear you. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Could you turn your microphone on, please? 

Mr. MURDOCH. I am sorry. 

Ms. WATERS. Yes. 

Mr. MURDOCH. We have all views on Fox. If you wish to come 

and state these views, we would love to have you on Fox News. 

Ms. WATERS. No, I don’t want to be on Fox News. That is not 

what I am talking about. I am talking about—— 

Mr. MURDOCH. We don’t censure that or take any particular line 

at all. We are not anti-immigrant on Fox News. 

Ms. WATERS. What do you do to promote the same views that you 

are here talking with us about? How do you see that? 

Mr. MURDOCH. We do it in the Wall Street Journal every day. 

Ms. WATERS. I beg your pardon? 

Mr. MURDOCH. We do it in the Wall Street Journal every day. 

Ms. WATERS. Not really. 

Mr. MURDOCH. I can’t—— 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. Let me also say Rupert is one of the founders 

of our coalition of mayors and business people to encourage Congress to give us comprehensive immigration reform so that we can 

get the people that we need to create the jobs that are—— 

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Major, I appreciate that. And that is why I 

started out by saying, I am very grateful that you guys are here 

and what you are saying, but I am trying to point out the contradiction between Mr. Murdoch being here saying these wonderful 

things about immigration reform and the contribution that immigrants make to our economy and our society, and I don’t see you 

promoting that in any way with all of the power and ability that 

you have to do that. And I am trying to find out what is the difference, what is the contradiction, why don’t you use your power 

to help us to promote what you are talking about? 

43 

Mr. MURDOCH. Well, I would say that we do with respect—we 

certainly employ a lot of immigrants on Fox, and in all arms of 

Fox, but you are talking about Fox News. We have many immigrants there, and we do not take any consistent anti-immigrant 

line. We have certainly debates about it from both sides. 

Ms. WATERS. So let me just be clear about what you are saying. 

You are saying that the position that you have with this coalition 

that you guys are leading is a position that you are an advocate 

for and you would support daily with your ability to disseminate 

news and information, you think you are doing that? 

Ms. LOFGREN. The witness can answer. The gentlelady’s time has 

expired. 

Mr. MURDOCH. I have no trouble in supporting what I have been 

saying here today on Fox News and would go do so personally, nor 

would a great number of the commentators on Fox News. 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Murdoch, I would 

just suggest that you do that. Thank you so very much. 

Ms. LOFGREN. The gentleman from Texas, the Ranking Member 

of full Committee, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mayor Bloomberg, you 

and I agree that highly skilled immigrants do create businesses, do 

create jobs and we need to welcome more of them. You had this 

statement—this sentence in your statement: There are one million 

high-skill jobs that companies cannot fill because they cannot find 

the workers. 

To my knowledge, we have only had 39,000 applications for the 

highly skilled H-1B visas and I just wondered what your source 

was of one million. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. We have done a survey of high-tech companies 

of what the needs are for doctors in this country. Doctors and 

nurses, for example—— 

Mr. SMITH. If you can share that survey with us, because you 

would assume that if they had the need they would be applying for 

these visas, and that doesn’t seem to be the case. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. No, we would be happy—one of the problems 

we are having, I can just tell you in my company, is that when we 

try to get overseas workers to come here, a lot of them say, I don’t 

need the aggravation of going through the American bureaucratic 

process at the border, and I don’t want to go to a country that is 

less welcoming. 

Mr. SMITH. For good or for bad, we do need to have individuals 

who want to come to this country fill out forms. We just can’t let 

everybody in. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. Nobody is suggesting that we shouldn’t do that. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Give me the study that seems to conflict with 

the actual actions about high-tech companies themselves, if you 

would. 

Mr. Murdoch, I have a study that is going to be delivered in just 

a minute because there was an independent study done that actually showed that Fox was the most fair of all television news programs. If you are coming from a liberal perspective, it might seem 

conservative. But to the objective observer, Fox actually has both 

sides more often than the three networks, and I will put that in 

the record in just a minute. 

44 

My question, Mr. Murdoch, is this, and let me preface it by saying I know you are familiar with the E-Verify program that is used 

by businesses to make sure that they hire legal workers. The Federal Government uses it, 13 States use it, over 200,000 businesses 

voluntarily use the E-Verify program. And I am hoping that the 

businesses you own also use the E-Verify program, which is about 

95 percent accurate. The 5 percent are either people in the country 

illegally or fraudulent Social Security cards. But you don’t have to 

answer if you don’t want to, but maybe let’s just say I encourage 

you to have your businesses use the E-Verify. - 

Mr. MURDOCH. We do not have any illegal immigrants on our 

payroll. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Could you turn your microphone on please, Mr. 

Murdoch? 

Mr. MURDOCH. I think I can guarantee you that we have absolutely no illegal immigrants on our payroll. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. And is that because of the E-Verify program 

or—— 

Mr. MURDOCH. On my personal payroll or anything. 

Mr. SMITH. How do you know that to be the case? Do you screen 

them out using the E-Verify program? 

Mr. MURDOCH. Certainly. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay, great. Good to hear. 

Mr. Moseley, your testimony reminded me not only of the influence of immigrants and their contributions but of the fact that in 

San Antonio, my hometown, in the early 1900’s there were street 

signs in three languages. The first language was German, the second language Spanish, and the third language was English. And so 

we can all appreciate our heritage in that respect. 

Mr. Camarota, let me ask a couple of questions to you, and that 

is—two questions. First of all, who is hurt by our current immigration policies and who might be hurt if we were to suddenly legalize 

say 12 million people? So two separate questions there. 

Mr. CAMAROTA. Immigration has a much larger affect on the bottom end of the U.S. Labor market. For example, 5 percent of attorneys in the United States are foreign born and less than 1 percent 

are illegal. Maybe 8 percent of journalists in the United States are 

foreign born. So they don’t face much job competition, but it looks 

like around 40 percent of maids and housekeepers are foreign born. 

And similar statistics for, you know, taxi drivers, 25 percent of 

janitors are. So they are the people who are hurt, nannies maids, 

busboys. These are mostly people who have a high school degree, 

or they are people who didn’t graduate from high school. And their 

situation looks terrible over the last 3 decades in terms of real 

wages, in terms of benefits, and in terms of the share holding a job, 

which is what exactly what we exact if immigration was adversely 

affecting them. 

Mr. SMITH. You say in your testimony that $375 billion in wage 

losses are suffered by American workers because of immigration. 

How do you reach that figure? 

Mr. CAMAROTA. Well, it is a pretty straightforward formula, and 

like you said, it is what the National Academy of Sciences use. It 

is called a factor proportions approach, pretty straightforward. You 

have to estimate what you think the impact is on wages, then you 

45 

have to know what fraction of the economy are workers; that is, 

wages, and then you can estimate the overall size of that impact. 

And then you can also estimate what are the gains that come from 

that impact. 

But the important point, if you are interested in the losers, is 

that a lot of that lost wages is absorbed by people at the bottom 

end of the labor market, and a lot of winners are the most educated. They are people with a college degree. They are like journalists and lawyers. They are owners of capital, and that is something 

we should be thinking about. 

Immigration is primarily a redistributive policy from people at 

the bottom sort of to everybody else, and it depends on how you 

feel about that, but that is a big question that needs to be answered. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Camarota. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. LOFGREN. The gentleman’s time has expired. I would turn 

now to the gentleman from Chicago, Mr. Gutierrez, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Thank you very much. First, I want to thank you 

all for taking time. I want to give a special thanks to Mayor 

Bloomberg for visiting with me on Martin Luther King’s birthday 

in Chicago. It was a wonderful meeting. It was a quiet meeting, but 

it was a productive meeting. And you told me then you were going 

to engage mayors and others in a campaign to bring about comprehensive immigration reform to fix our system. And you know 

something, you have done it and I a congratulate you and tell you 

that I wish you Godspeed in all of your endeavors. 

And to the men sitting immediately to the left of you, to Mr. Rupert Murdoch, I thank you for being here this morning and for joining with Mayor Bloomberg in this effort. I think it is an important 

effort from the business community to talk about how it is we 

transform America and make it a vital, energetic, economic engine 

of the future. 

Mr. Moseley, I look forward to coming back and visiting with you 

back in Houston. You have a wonderful group of people. 

Again, who do we have here this morning? Businessmen, men 

who create jobs of commerce and industry. And that should be the 

focus, I think, about a lot of the debate around immigration. 

Let me just say, look, the good thing about the three proponents 

of comprehensive immigration is that we don’t deny the fact that 

undocumented workers do reduce the wages of American workers. 

Nobody is going to deny that fact. So how do we fix it? Well, when 

we legalize all of the workers, the salaries of all of the workers rise 

at the same time, and you have fairness and parity. As long as you 

have an underclass of people that is exploited, you know who benefits? Unscrupulous employers and others, and the wages go down. 

I like the fact that businessmen have come here, one of the few 

times businessmen have come here to say I figured out a way to 

increase wages for American workers because that is essentially 

what they have said here today. So we don’t disagree with that. 

But they come with a fundamental, I think, fairness in saying we 

are going to secure—I heard Mr. Murdoch say, We are going to secure our borders, and that is critical and essential to any comprehensive immigration bill. I heard them say we are going to have 

a verification system that punishes corporations and companies. 

46 

That is what they said. I have got businessmen coming here telling 

me, I want a law to punish businessmen who hire undocumented 

workers here in the United States of America. 

I think that is what is wrong with the debate. We don’t listen 

to one another, and we don’t listen and find that common ground 

which does exist in our debate. 

And lastly, we have people who come here with some sensible, 

because here is one thing, E-Verify? Madam Chairwoman, we had 

a hearing here. We spent millions of dollars, and here is what we 

found about E-Verify. In half of the instances, it had a false reading. That means you are just as likely to hire an undocumented 

worker as not if you use E-Verify even though the government has 

said that that is the—it is not the road. The road is to bring everybody and take those, as Mr. Murdoch has suggested earlier today, 

those that are law abiding, and by that we mean yes, they have 

an immigration problem but in every other instance they are just 

as much Americans as everyone. They need a piece of paper. Because in 2004, what did we read? We read about that young Corporal Gutierrez, the first to die—illegally entering the United 

States and the first to die in Iraq. Let us tell. 

So I just want to transition back to you, Mr. Murdoch, and ask 

you a question because I think it is like that. 

What is it? That proverbial 9,000-pound gorilla that is in the 

room, elephant that is in the room. I wake up really early sometimes. 6:10 in the morning in Chicago means I have got to get up 

at 4:15 so I can get down to Fox News for those 30 seconds that 

I am there in the morning. And I have gotta tell you I have been 

on many programs. I am invited all the time, and I take the opportunity. And I don’t do it because I believe that somehow I am going 

to reach voters that like Mr. Gutierrez that day. The phone calls 

I get back at my office are not positive phone calls generally when 

I am on Fox News. 

Now, I just want to share with you that I am happy you are 

here. I thank you for everything, but I have to tell you that many 

times, how do we find that we tell the story of Corporal Gutierrez 

on Fox News more often? How do we tell these stories so that there 

is more of a balance, so there is security and we get to talk, because I see many times—I just share with you and I speak to you 

as someone who welcomes you, who embraces your effort to say to 

you as your partner in this effort that we do more. 

Ms. LOFGREN. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

We will turn now to Mr. Poe for his 5 minutes of questions. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

For some reason I don’t understand why some of the witnesses 

do not make the distinction between people that are here legally 

from other countries and people that are here illegally from other 

countries. There is a difference between people that are here legally, came the right way, did the right thing, even waited, and 

those people who just flaunted the laws and other reasons and 

came into the United States and now expect us to give them amnesty. 

I want to make it clear. I think amnesty is a bad idea. History 

has proven it hasn’t worked. So what do we do? The proposal is 

47 

let’s do it again. Maybe the results will be different. I don’t think 

so. 

Houston area, just a couple of that statistics. Eighteen percent 

of the people in county hospitals in Houston, Texas, are illegally in 

the United States. Sixty-seven percent of the births in LBJ County 

Hospital over the last 4 years, 67 percent, are born to mothers who 

are illegally in the United States. 

Now, somebody pays for that. And who pays for it? It is citizens 

and it is legal immigrants. 

I represent southeast Texas, and these are about real people. I 

have an individual who runs a carpet laying business. He is a legal 

immigrant. He hires legal immigrants. They all got here the right 

way. They are all paying taxes, including him. But his competition 

is down the road where a person hires only illegals, undercuts the 

legal immigrant and what he is paying the legal immigrants that 

work for him and putting him out of business. 

Now, that is the competition. It is not between Americans and 

immigrants. In this case, it is between legal immigrants and people 

that are here illegally. And that is because nobody is being held accountable for being here illegally. And the employer is not being 

held accountable for knowingly and intentionally hiring folks so he 

can undercut whoever his competition may be. 

And so I see a distinction and I think we have to resolve that 

issue. This is a three-part problem, and I have always seen it as 

three parts. 

The first solution is we have to stop folks coming here without 

permission. It is called border security. We don’t have border security. If you believe we have border security, I will take you to the 

Texas-Mexico border and you can watch for yourself. Of course it 

is not safe down there. You won’t want to go down there. But we 

don’t have border security, we need to have it, including, as I believe, the National Guard if necessary. 

But the second issue is not what do we do with the illegals that 

are here. The second issue is we have got to reform the immigration system. In my opinion, it is a disaster. It takes too long to get 

people in here the right way. My office spends more time on immigration issues helping people come into the United States the right 

way than it does any other issue except military issues. 

So the model, the immigration model we operate under, in my 

opinion, doesn’t work. We gotta fix that. That is the second thing 

that has to be done. 

What do we do with the people that are here? Well, many of 

them we talk about amnesty and making citizens out of them. Not 

all of them want to be citizens. They just want to have the opportunity to work in the United States. But they don’t want to be citizens. They aren’t asking to be Americans. So we can’t lump them 

all into the philosophy we need to make citizens out of them because they have been here so long. I don’t agree with that at all. 

But we go after the employers and make sure that they are held 

accountable and the attrition and not being able to work in the 

United States unless you have permission to be here, that might 

solve part, not all of the problems. 

So it is a three-part process. I think we can solve those problems 

in that way. 

48 

Mayor, I want to ask you one question. Do you make a distinction between people here legally—just a second. Let me ask the 

question, Mayor. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. Congressman, I think you laid it out better 

than I could have possibly laid it. There are three prongs here. We 

have to do it. 

What frustrates the American public and the reason you see the 

frustration in the polls, both to throw the incumbents out on both 

sides of the aisle, is that we can’t understand why you guys complain about immigrants coming over the borders illegally and then 

don’t do anything about it. It is a Republican and Democratic President that you have talked about here who have not stopped illegal 

immigrants, they have not put the forces at the border we need, 

and we have not given the business community the tools they need 

to stop the demand. It is a supply and demand problem. 

Number two, we do not give the visas we need. This country is 

hollering out for doctors because we won’t give green cards to the 

doctors that we train and we need. You couldn’t be more right. 

And number three, you have this problem of 11-odd million people here who are undocumented, who broke the law to get here— 

and incidentally so did their employers who encouraged them to 

come, so did Congress that passed immigration reform in 1986 

without any teeth, of all of the duplicitous things it has ever done. 

Yes, we have a problem. Let us do something about it. But anybody 

that thinks that we are going to go and deport 11 million people, 

it is just literally impossible. 

Mr. POE. Reclaiming my time. Excuse me, Mayor, I am reclaiming my time. 

May I have unanimous consent for 1 minute? 

Ms. LOFGREN. The gentleman is recognized by unanimous consent for an additional minute. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mayor. You didn’t hear me say anything 

about deporting anybody. It is a three-part process. Just a second, 

Mayor, I am talking. Sorry. 

Just go to the first one. What do you think about putting the National Guard on the border? Do you support a concept like that or 

not to secure the border? 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. I support the Federal Government putting 

whatever resources they need, and I don’t know whether that 

should be the National Guard or Homeland Security. That is not 

my job. I don’t know that. But they should have forces on the border. 

But you will never be able to put enough forces there unless you 

end the demand, and that is where companies hire undocumented 

and the companies say that they can’t tell the difference, and Congress does not help them in being able to tell the difference and 

having a penalty if they break the law as well. People are coming 

in and breaking the law and the people who are hiring are breaking the law and we should be after both. I think you are 100 percent right. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mayor. I yield back. 

Ms. LOFGREN. The Ranking Member of the full Committee wanted to be recognized for a unanimous consent request. 

49 

Mr. SMITH. I would like to ask unanimous consent to put into the 

record a study by the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs that found that coverage on Fox News was more balanced 

than any other network and also a public policy polling survey that 

found that half of Americans trust Fox 10 percentage points more 

than any other. And a separate poll by McLaughlin and Associates 

found that 36 percent of Americans list Fox as the most trusted 

source of news about politics and government, by far the highest 

total of any network. ABC, CBS, NBC, and MSNBC each received 

less than 7 percent. 

That is a long UC. 

Ms. LOFGREN. It is a very long UC. I would note that although 

I am sure that Mr. Murdoch is pleased by the comments, the relevance to the hearing is a bit tenuous, but without objection, the 

surveys will be made part of the record. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

******** COMMITTEE INSERT ******** 

Ms. LOFGREN. I would now turn to the gentlelady from Texas, 

Ms. Jackson Lee, for her 5 minutes of questions. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Chair, I think it is appropriate to 

thank you for your continuing persistence. We have been on this 

journey I believe for a long time and in your leadership. I think we 

can count, if you will, tens upon tens of hearings on this issue. 

To the gentlemen who are gathered, thank you so very much for 

your presence here today, and I have to express, Mayor Bloomberg, 

a sense of pride having first started out my educational tenure at 

New York University for a brief period of time but certainly having 

the great affection for the city, but proudly now with the City of 

Houston, expressing a great sense of pride in the greater Houston 

partnership, their leadership, and Jeff Moseley for frankly taking 

the lead. 

I will answer the question. Congress should do something. Lamar 

Smith knows that we sit together on this Committee myself as the 

Ranking Member and Lamar Smith during that time as the Chairman on the Subcommittee on Immigration, and frankly we should 

have done something then. 

It is difficult to bark and have no teeth. Congress has been barking. We have been in conflict. We have opposed each other, the two 

distinct sides of the aisle, if you will, and done nothing. 

And I would ask myself the question, how many National Guard 

and border security can you put at a border and think anything is 

going to occur for people who are struggling and desperate and are 

coming into this country to work? 

So it is a chicken-and-egg situation and frankly you need a system of laws that allows people to enter the country fairly so that 

you can stop the onslaught of those of who say I am simply coming, 

and we know it is because during this recession, Mayor, Jeff, and 

to all of you, you have seen a downsizing of sorts of those coming 

across the border. They want to work. 

So I think the question that I would like to build on and the series of questions is one, I think the business community has a remarkable opportunity to be able to speak eloquently to this issue 

that we must do something. Mayor Bloomberg, you have communities in the City of New York that live alongside of each other and 

50 

it is called the ‘‘little this’’ and the ‘‘little that’’ in terms of communities. They develop business and tourists come there because of 

the enrichment of the diversity of New York City. 

So my question is to you, first of all, is how do we get past the 

enforcement-only concept, which does not work? If we go to the border of Mexico, we will find bloodshed on the Mexican side as it relates to drugs as much heavy equipment and enforcement that that 

poor government has implemented. They tell us we have to stop 

being consumers. They have a point. 

What is your input about enforcement—only? 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. Congresswoman, I thought actually Congressman Poe laid it out. There are three issues here, and unless you 

address all three issues at the same time, you cannot solve the 

problem. It will just be another photo op and another chance to 

pander for Congress. Congress has got to stand up and do something and the American public, if there is any message coming out 

of what looks like what is going to happen in November, it is that 

the public is tired of Congress talking about things and not doing 

anything. You have got to get border security, which means enforcement but also reducing the demand. You have got to give the 

visas to people that we need to grow our economy, to provide medical care, to create jobs, and you have got to do something about 

11 million people who broke the law admittedly to get here, but did 

so with the outright complicity of Congress and the business community. 

And unless you do all three at the same time, Congresswoman, 

we are going to be here talking about this again and again and 

again. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. You cannot do law enforcement only. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. You cannot do law enforcement only. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I have occasions to agree with my good friend 

from Texas, but I do believe that we are not going to get away from 

looking at the benefit side of the question and enforcement is not 

the only issue. 

Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Moseley. 

Mr. Murdoch, I will come on Fox News if, as Mr. Lamar Smith 

has indicated, that you are overly fair. But I think the story needs 

to be told as you are fair, you have to be convincing to your viewers. I don’t know how convincing you have been to your viewers. 

But the question is you have your story to tell of immigration 

success, and I would ask the question do you have one thing that 

you think the Congress should immediately address? 

And Mr. Moseley, would you talk about the business investment 

and are you familiar with the EB-5 employment based? That is 

something that has been a valuable tool that is in complete confusion. Tell us how Houston has benefited on this question of that 

kind of investment. 

Mr. Murdoch, can you give us what you think should be the first 

attack or approach that we need to have the American dream for 

immigrants as you have secured? 

Ms. LOFGREN. The gentlelady’s time has expired. So we will ask 

the witness to answer briefly. 

Mr. MURDOCH. I am sorry? 

51 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. You have indicated that the American dream 

is now part of your life. What should Congress do, who should we 

be impacting as it relates to fixing the immigration system? What 

should be the first thing we should do? You recognize you are undocumented here in this country. You want us to find a way for 

pathway to citizenship for them? You want us to get more visas for 

those who come in that are professionals? What do you want us to 

do? 

Mr. MURDOCH. All of the above, I think. Obviously we know 

about the enforcement has to be done, at the same time whether 

it be at the border or whether it be against employers hiring illegal 

people. 

But you know we are in urgent need in this country. Our education system is failing us very badly. Thirty-five percent of children in high school are dropping out and dropping out and committed to the underclass for life. That is another national scandal. 

And there is so much to do in this country if you want to restore 

the American dream. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. But not deportation of the 11 million. 

Mr. MURDOCH. I am not for deporting 11 million, no. 

Ms. LOFGREN. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. May I yield an additional 30 seconds for my 

constituent from Houston to answer? 

Ms. LOFGREN. Yes, you may. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mr. MOSELEY. Congresswoman, Madam Chair, Houston is putting in place the EB-5 application to Homeland Security. That is 

a tool that we are very pleased the U.S. Government has fine-tuned 

over time to allow foreign investors to strategically invest in census 

tracks that have high unemployment. This follows a model that 

worked very well for Chinese capital that was leaving Hong Kong 

about a decade ago when there were questions about the central 

party taking over Hong Kong, and that money went to Canada and 

Australia because our law wasn’t as flexible as it is now. So we are 

very pleased that EB-5 is going to allow foreign investors to come 

and invest in the American economy and grow jobs through that 

investment. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you very much. The gentlelady’s time has 

expired, and we will recognize now the gentlelady from California, 

Ms. Sa ́nchez, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank 

our panelists for being here this morning to talk about this issue. 

I want to begin with Mayor Bloomberg. There is a lot of debate 

in Congress and there has been for quite some time over what the 

best solution is, and while people fight over what the best solution 

is the status quo continues, and I am of the personal opinion that 

the status quo is simply not acceptable any longer. But I am interested in knowing if you think that it is a better idea to try to fix 

our immigration system through a series of stand-alone bills or 

whether or not you favor a comprehensive approach that would try 

to hit all the parts at once. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. Congresswoman, it just depends on whether 

you want it to work or not. If you don’t want it to work, do separate 

52 

ones and I guarantee you we will be back here 10 years from now. 

If you want to fix the problem, you have to do it all together. 

I also think from a political point of view probably the only way 

that you would get it through Congress and through the White 

House is one comprehensive bill where everybody gets something, 

not everybody gets everything they want. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Bloomberg. 

Mr. Murdoch, I am interested in knowing and I am pleased to 

see you here today talking about this issue. How you feel about 

some of the anti-immigrant positions that are promoted by your 

network on issues like Arizona’s recent immigration law? 

Mr. MURDOCH. I don’t think we do take an anti-Democratic position. We are very happy to welcome any Democrats onto Fox News. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. No, I didn’t say anti-Democrat. I said anti-immigrant stances on legislation such as the Arizona law. 

Mr. MURDOCH. Well, I would not agree with that, but I will certainly go back and look at it. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Do you favor Arizona’s approach to immigration? 

Mr. MURDOCH. My position on immigration is what I stated earlier, what I have restated here again. I am totally pro-immigrant. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I appreciate the answer. 

Mr. Moseley, one of the arguments that is often thrown about, 

particularly by many of my Republican colleagues here in Congress, is that illegal immigrants are bad people, that they should 

do it the legal way or do it the right way. And I am interested in 

knowing in your experience and perhaps experience of working 

with other businesses on the issue of immigration reform, do you 

think that our current immigration system is efficient? Do you 

think that it allows businesses to plan prospectively for future 

labor needs? Do you think that it is timely? Do you think it is welltailored to fit the business needs in our country? Can you shed any 

light on that. 

Mr. MURDOCH. No, I think it is terrible. I think the fact is we 

are missing a huge opportunity to be draining the best brains out 

of Asia and Europe to come and contribute to the human capital 

of this country and therefore the financial capital of everybody. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you. Mr. Moseley. 

Mr. MOSELEY. We would feel like the law is entirely broken. It 

is helter-skelter, and it is really catch is as catch can. There is an 

important time, as you heard testimony this morning, to really 

thoroughly take a look at the law. It is outdated. It needs to be 

contemporized. So the challenges are real, but the opportunities are 

tremendous. 

And one of the things that is not being discussed, and I think is 

left out of the calculus is that the American workforce is by and 

large getting to an age where there will be massive retirements. So 

the question becomes who shall do these jobs. If we look at Japan, 

which is demographically the oldest Nation in the world, which is 

also a closed community, their choice is they have to export their 

jobs because they are not importing their workforce. 

So we will come to that point where we are realizing the workforce is providing tremendous opportunities to those of us who are 

looking toward retirement, and the realities are dramatic. Now in 

the skilled workforce, we hear this regularly and often in Houston, 

53 

particularly in the engineering community, where engineers are 

starting to retire and there is a huge need to find these workers 

to come in. Otherwise we have to export our jobs. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. I appreciate you talking about that specific point. 

I am just going to drill a little bit deeper on that. 

My understanding is that the birth rates in this country are not 

of a replacement rate, and yet we have a large number of the workforce that is getting ready to retire in the not too distant future. 

So if we are not replacing ourselves by having children, there is 

going to be a huge labor gap, and the question becomes where do 

we get those folks from. 

My understanding also is that many of the students that we 

teach and learn at our universities and many of skilled professions 

oftentimes come on student visas. After they have been here and 

obtained their degrees and they want to stay, then our immigration 

system effectively kicks them out of the country and says go back 

to where you came from. 

Does it make any sense to make that investment in the workforce and then send them out of the country? 

Mr. MOSELEY. No, we would argue that the DREAM Act should 

be enacted very quickly. We have had some incredible stories in the 

Houston area where children really have no choice. They are 

brought to this country as infants. They are educated with public 

taxpayer dollars all the way through university and cannot find a 

job because they are not legally documented. This is a tremendous 

resource for our workforce. 

Ms. SA ́ NCHEZ. Thank you very much, and Madam Chair, I yield 

back. 

Ms. LOFGREN. The gentlelady’s time has expired. I would recognize now the gentleman from California, Mr. Lungren, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I am sorry. I had to go away for something else. 

I have been informed, Mr. Murdoch, you have referred several 

times to the fact that the Simpson-Mazzoli bill didn’t have any 

teeth. I was here and we voted on it. It had teeth. It was never 

enforced, which I guess is the same thing. 

But that being the case, is there not a context in which we have 

to consider any legislation with respect to immigration? And that 

context is formed in part by the failure of Congress and subsequent 

Administrations to enforce the Simpson-Mazzoli bill. 

When I worked on that bill and delivered the Republican votes 

to pass that bill, one of the big arguments was that we had a balanced bill. We had the largest legalization in the history of the 

United States and we had enforcement. The legalization program 

worked fairly well. The enforcement was an absolute disaster. 

Doesn’t that set a context in which to the world it has been said 

the United States will have these legalization programs every generation and therefore after if we have a similar legalization now, 

put people on the pathway to citizenship, won’t that inevitably 

send a message that, well, even though they promised to enforce 

it in the future, the history has been that they have legalizations 

maybe every 20 years, so isn’t there an incentive for people to violate the law to come to the United States with the expectation that 

there will be a legalization in the future? 

54 

Mr. Murdoch. 

Mr. MURDOCH. Well, that is a problem of reputation, I guess. No, 

I think you have to start somewhere. You can’t just say well, we 

haven’t done it in the past so why shouldn’t people trust us. You 

have got to start somewhere and make sure they do trust you by 

constant enforcement. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Let me ask another question for you and Mr. 

Bloomberg, and that is are the American people so out of—are the 

American people so disconnected with the reality that you and Mr. 

Bloomberg have expressed here that that is the reason why they, 

at least in the polls I have seen, reject the notion of a legalization 

program that would allow people who have come here illegally to 

get in front of the line of those who have waited to come here legally under the system. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. You keep talking about Congress not doing anything and you are asking us. You guys should sit down together 

and say we have had Republican and Democratic Congresses and 

Presidents and you don’t do anything. And then you say well, people think you are not going to do anything. So do something. 

Mr. LUNGREN. No, that is not my question. That was not my 

point at all. My point is are the American people so disconnected 

with the facts that you presented; that is, of the, it appears, unvarnished positive aspect of immigration, whether it is legal or illegal, 

that benefits our economy, that raises our GNP, that that is the 

reason why they believe that there is a distinction between legal 

and illegal immigration and its impact on their standard of living 

and the economy and the society in general? 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. Congressman, I think this is all about leadership. We need immigrants. That is the future of this country, and 

whether the public understands that or not, it is Congress’ job to 

lead and to explain to them why our—we are going to become a 

second rate power in this world unless we fix our public education 

system and fix immigration. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Mayor Bloomberg, you have repeated that several 

times. That was not my question. My question was are the American people misguided in terms of their view of the fact of unvarnished benefit of immigration irrespective of whether it is legal or 

illegal, or is there a valid position taken by the majority of Americans that there is a distinction between legal and illegal immigration without then deciding what we should do? 

That is my question. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. There is no question. You are right. There is a 

difference. People understand the difference and they want Congress to solve both problems. More legal immigrants, stop the illegal immigrants from coming here and do something about those 

who are already here. And I thought Congressman Poe really 

summed it up really nicely and Congresswoman Jackson Lee as 

well. 

Mr. MURDOCH. May I just add, Congressman. Excuse me, Madam 

Chairman. 

You said that Americans were against illegal immigrants going 

ahead of legal ones. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Right, correct. 

55 

Mr. MURDOCH. No one has suggested that. That may be some 

pollster, the way they ask the question. You can get any result 

from a poll if you know how to ask the question. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I am sorry. That is not my point. My point is that 

when you talk about a pathway to citizenship as it has been articulated in the programs presented by the Congress and the previous 

Administration, it results in people who violated the law getting in 

front of people who had not violated the law. 

Mr. MURDOCH. They shouldn’t be in front of them. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, that is an important point. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. I don’t think anybody thinks they should. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, I beg to differ with you. The way a number 

of the proposals come forward when people are put on the path to 

citizenship, let us say they are from Mexico. Right now it takes 10 

years to get—if you get in line in Mexico, you are going to have 

10 years before you are going to have an opportunity to come to 

the United States. If you are in the Philippines, it is as much as 

18 years. If we have a program that says because you have been 

in the United States illegally for X-amount of time, we are going 

to give you a special program by which you end up being able to 

go on the path to citizenship before those periods of time, it does 

result in people getting in the front of the line. 

Look, I provided the votes for the legalization last time. I want 

to see us work out a situation, a solution. The problem is that details often will determine whether or not you do have the reality 

of getting in front of the line or not and whether the American people will then be with us—yeah, we have to lead but I want the 

American people to be with us so that we have a successful law so 

we can take care of the problem. 

That is the point I am trying to make. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. If you would like to work on an agreement, I 

would be happy to help you to do it. 

Ms. LOFGREN. The gentleman’s time has expired. I would turn 

now to the gentleman from New York City, Mr. Weiner. 

Mr. WEINER. Thank you very much. I think you gentleman are 

seeing how some of the demagoguery around this issue really stops 

this issue at a point, and Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Mayor and Mr. 

Moseley—Mr. Moseley, isn’t it Houston? You are sure it is Houston? 

Mr. MOSELEY. I am pretty sure it is Houston. 

Mr. WEINER. You know, Richard Florida in his books and 

writings about the creative class talks about what makes successful 

cities and what makes successful suburbs as well. And he talks 

about the idea of creating social networks where people from 

around the world and around countries want to come to be with 

other people who have the same level of creativity and the same 

energy, and that is how cities like New York and Houston are 

made and that is how companies like Fox are made and the like. 

Can you talk perhaps, Mr. Mayor, you can start, about the idea 

that some of this debate that goes on creates an environment 

where people say you know what, I am a brilliant programmer in 

hydrobod, I am going to stay in hydrobod now. Or I am a brilliant 

creative writer and maybe I won’t come to the United States now 

because there is this environment of frankly intolerance that kind 

56 

of emerges in this debate that that division between legal and illegal, documented, undocumented just becomes a general sense that 

we have become a country in our national dialogue that sounds 

very much that we don’t want anyone coming here and how that 

impacts. 

And perhaps Mr. Mayor, as a jumping off point, you talked recently at a townhall meeting in Forest Hills about a common sense 

idea that if you come in here and you want to create jobs, we want 

you, and that kind of a welcoming thing. But can you talk a little 

bit, whether it is from attracting people to a business like 

Bloomberg or News Corps or to a city like Houston, how this environment that does strike people as frankly being unwelcoming in 

a global economy people will stay in other countries and help them 

become more successful. 

Mr. Mayor, perhaps you can start. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. There is a great danger that we will lose the 

reputation as the land of the free and the home of the brave. Congressman Sa ́nchez, let me address one thing. I know it is on Anthony’s time, but You talked about the birth rate. What you are looking at—you are going in the right direction but I think you are 

going slightly the wrong number. 

Look at the rate of kids going through the public school system 

that have the skills because whether we have the bodies is not the 

issue. We need bodies that have skills, and that is the other part, 

the other leg of this. 

The Congressman is right. We are not as attractive to an awful 

lot of people. They are afraid to come here. They are afraid that 

if they are legal here somebody is going to look at the color of their 

skin or the way they speak or the language they speak and go after 

them just because they are different. 

America is a land that for the last 235-some-odd years people 

have come here, they have given up their language from home, 

they have adopted English, they have adopted American customs. 

We forget it just takes a generation to do it, but we are desperate 

in this country as employers to get the highly educated people but 

also those people at the other end of the spectrum who are willing 

to take jobs that nobody else will take. And if there is an issue as 

to whether that exists, just take a look. The 11 million undocumented generally have the low-skilled jobs and they are here because there is demand, and that demand is not being filled by people who are already in this country. 

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Murdoch, do you want to add anything to that? 

Mr. MURDOCH. No. No. I agree entirely. 

Mr. WEINER. Also, it seems to me that we also have an odd dynamic now that because of our focus that solely looking at enforcement and solely at this notion of let’s try to figure out a way to 

round up the undocumented in some way that we actually are creating immigration laws that keep people in rather than keeping 

them from coming in. And I say that because I think a lot of people 

in our economy would not mind coming to the United States, taking temporary and seasonal jobs, and then returning to their home 

country. I think a lot of people would not mind having that type 

of relationship. And in many cases they can’t do that right now because of the way that we have structured our immigration laws. 

57 

Mr. MURDOCH. I think that in many instances in Silicon Valley, 

particularly the Indians, have come and made great contributions 

for 10 or 15 years and then seen greater opportunities back in 

India while having contributed to America a lot first. 

Mr. WEINER. We also saw, in furthering Ms. Sa ́nchez’s point, 

there a lot of people come here, go to college here, take advantage 

of our education system, and then because of again because of a lot 

of the rhetoric and a lot of just a general sense that the legal immigration system is also in disrepair say you know what, I don’t want 

the aggravation. I will take less money to be in my home country. 

Let me make one final point, and I think that Mayor Bloomberg 

touched upon this. If you think of the DNA of a person who says 

I am going to get up from my home country, I am going to pack 

my bags, kiss my family goodbye, take my skills over to the United 

States, go to Houston or go to New York or go take a job with News 

Corps, and you put all those people with that similar type of energy and desire to make things better, you almost by definition 

have a population of people that are going to do much better and 

that is why. 

But I think in just yielding back to the chair, what you have seen 

here in a microcosm from my colleagues on the other side is why 

this debate has been stalemated. It is so easy to demagogue this 

issue. You can probably get applause in any town hall meeting in 

this country by saying, They broke the law, they ought to go, and 

the conversation stops. 

Real mature law making—and it won’t happen between now and 

the first Tuesday in November—involves all of us saying you know 

what? There are some things that Mr. Smith wants perhaps on his 

side that I find troublesome. There are things I want from my experience as a New York City Member of Congress that he may find 

troublesome. 

I believe that the American people realize there is a lot of area 

of agreement on this issue, and if this panel helps us get there, 

then it would certainly be worth the morning. 

Thank you, Ms. Lofgren, for having the hearing. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Weiner. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gonzalez, is now recognized. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. 

Doctor Camarota, you seem to stand for the proposition that— 

and for the most part it would be the undocumented worker, the 

illegal resident takes jobs from Americans, number one, and secondly, depress wages. 

So what the Mayor has been saying is that I think he recognizes 

that we are pretty much on the same page on securing our borders, 

doing something to give some sort of reliable verification system to 

the employers. But the issue still remains that we have, by some 

estimates and numbers, 12 million illegal workers and their families in the United States. It seems to me that you are saying it is 

those particular workers that are depressing the wages and costing 

the jobs and such. 

Now, the only way, I am just assuming, to remedy that situation 

is to get rid of the 12 million workers and their families or whatever we have out there. I mean, is that accurate in what I am sayVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:08 Jan 03, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\IMMIG\093010\58480.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA
58 

ing in representing your position? I mean, what do we do with the 

individuals that are here? 

I think Mayor Bloomberg keeps coming back to that and saying 

look, the issue here is what are we going to do with the folks that 

we have got here. We have got to take care of that. We have got 

to work on the others. 

Now, my Republican colleagues believe that we won’t do anything. We will pass the law and we will do what we did in 1986 

simply by not enforcing the employer sanctions part of it. I don’t 

believe that. 

But is that what you are proposing, we need to do something 

about the 12 million that are here, and what do we do? I guess that 

is my question. What are you proposing we do? 

Mr. CAMAROTA. If you are asking an economic question—— 

Mr. GONZALEZ. No, no. 

Mr. CAMAROTA. Or a policy question—— 

Mr. GONZALEZ. It all translates to money one way or another at 

the end of the day. 

So let’s just hear what do you do with the people that are here 

in the United States today that don’t enjoy legal status? 

Mr. CAMAROTA. I think the first thing you are going to have to 

do is take the several years and put in place an enforcement regime that isn’t just about the border, right? You are going to have 

to go after the employers who hired them. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I know that. I already know that. Let’s go and 

raid the workplace, let’s go and put the employer in jail along with 

the worker. We can do all that. Is that what you are proposing? 

Are you proposing to do something about this workforce that you 

say has such a detrimental effect on the economy of the United 

States of America? I am asking you what is your solution? 

I will tell you what our solution is. Congressman Gutierrez was 

here a minute ago. It is an earned pathway to legalization. You 

don’t get in front of the line. You are here. I understand what my 

colleague Mr. Lungren is getting at. 

But there is a huge political equation, which if I still have 30 seconds at the end of my 5 minutes, I will tell you where all of this 

is going. It is all about where you are politically and what you fear 

what the future might hold for your party. That is what this is all 

about. 

But Let’s talk about the best interest of the American people. 

What do you want to do with the 12 million undocumented residents and their families? 

Mr. CAMAROTA. Let me be clear. If your concern is taxpayers and 

if your concern is people at the bottom end, encouraging as many 

of those illegal aliens to go home—If your concern is about the 

illegals, letting them stay is the best. That is the choice you have 

to make. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. So you say that this is going to be one of those 

self-selection things where people will one day just say, well, I have 

been here 12 years, I have children here that are citizens. I have 

a job and such because obviously I have been able to be kept employed by someone, a willing and able American citizen that violates the law every day. You are saying that the answer is just for 

59 

these 12 million folks to voluntarily go back to wherever they came 

from. Are you really suggesting that? 

Mr. CAMAROTA. I am suggesting we enforce the law. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Doctor Camarota, if it is not voluntary, and I will 

tell you right now, it is not going to be voluntary. 

Mr. CAMAROTA. It fell by a million—— 

Mr. GONZALEZ. We have all been on Earth longer than 12 years 

and we know that it is not going to be a voluntary situation. 

So what you are saying is deportation is the only other thing? 

Mr. CAMAROTA. No. I am not saying deportation. If you can’t take 

a job, you can’t access public benefits, if you get the cooperation of 

local law enforcement, if you penalize people for overstaying visas 

and all these other things, you can increase them going home. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. If there is another way of maybe incorporating 

and assimilating this huge population which would be good for all 

Americans, why not grant them some sort of legal status that allows them to have legal rights, then maybe they won’t depress the 

wages, because they do have legal remedies. They can’t be exploited. 

And if you believe the whole answer is about a verification system, you have got to come to Texas. And some of my fellow Texans, 

including the Ranking Member, we come from the same city. Now 

when we have our positions and we express them you wouldn’t believe we are from the same city. That is what party affiliation will 

do to you in America today. 

But the truth is what you are proposing is unrealistic. It is not 

workable. Yet what we are proposing actually will address some of 

your very serious concerns about depressed wages. It addresses the 

concerns of a needed labor force. 

Mr. CAMAROTA. That is what you are missing. The basic economics. If you add workers to the bottom end of the U.S. labor market, 

regardless of legality, you push down wages. That can be very bad 

for business. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I think you might have a heck of a good argument. But you still have people that are in this country today that 

are not going to voluntarily absent themselves because you have 

got Americans giving them the jobs. We need to do something 

about those individuals. And I understand where you are coming 

from, but it is not reality based. 

Ms. LOFGREN. The gentleman’s time has expired, and we turn 

now to the gentlelady from California, Ms. Chu. 

Ms. CHU. Mr. Murdoch, you have been such an outspoken advocate for fair and sensible immigration reform policies, policies that 

would certainly take care of the challenges that we face today and 

ensure that we face tomorrow challenges. I have before me a Wall 

Street Journal op-ed that you authored in that so eloquently described the contributions that immigrants and children of immigrants make to our society every day, and I would like to enter 

that into the record for today’s hearing. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Without objection, it will be entered into the 

record. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

60 


A-1.eps
61 


A-2.eps
62 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. 

With so much on your plate why have you chosen to direct so 

much energy to this issue? 

Mr. MURDOCH. I am just a concerned citizen. I devote a lot of energy to a number of public issues and this is one of them. 

Ms. CHU. In your written testimony you state that it is nonsense 

to talk of expelling 12 million people and citing a study by the Center for American Progress. You note that it would cost $285 billion 

over 5 years to forcibly remove our entire undocumented population 

and continue our border and interior enforcement efforts. 


A-3.eps
63 

But is it really the extent of the cost to our society? I mean, 

speaking as a businessman, what would it mean to our country’s 

economy if 12 million employers and employees, all of whom are 

consumers who generate spending on goods and services and housing, disappear from our society over the next 5 years. 

Mr. MURDOCH. What would happen if? 

Ms. CHU. If these 12 million employers and employees disappeared from our society over the next 5 years. 

Mr. MURDOCH. I think it would be a disaster. I am not for that. 

I don’t know what article you put in there, but I would just like 

to say it was at least 3 years before I had anything to do with the 

Wall Street Journal. 

Ms. CHU. Okay. 

Mr. MURDOCH. I am not responsible. I haven’t seen it. I may 

agree or I may not. I don’t know what it says. 

Ms. CHU. Well, actually let me take this wonderful op-ed that 

you did for the Wall Street Journal before you owned it and say 

that it talks about your—how you were an immigrant and how the 

Murdochs were immigrants. 

Mr. MURDOCH. Yeah, sure. 

Ms. CHU. And how the Murdochs were immigrants. And it talks 

about the less tangible ways in which the immigrants benefit our 

society. 

You talk about Eddie Chen, an ethnic Chinese Marine who was 

born a week after his family fled Burma and that when Baghdad 

fell he was the Marine that we all watched shimmy up the statue 

of Saddam Hussein to pull it down. 

And you talk about Lance Corporal Ahman Abraham and how he 

wanted to put his Arabic language skills in the services of our 

country and how he came from Syria and hoped to be deployed to 

Iraq. 

And you talked about Corporal Jose Gutierrez, who was raised 

in Guatemala and came to America as a boy illegally. Corporal 

Gutierrez was one of the first Marines killed in action in Iraq. And 

as his family told reporters, he enlisted with the Marine Corps because he wanted to give back to America, and yet he was one of 

the first Marines that was killed in action in Iraq. 

And so you describe the entrepreneurial spirit and the ingenuity 

of many of the immigrants who want to give not only to the economy but also in other ways to America. 

And so in what ways did immigrants like Corporal Gutierrez 

benefit our country. 

Mr. MURDOCH. I think people come here of course basically 

maybe for economic reasons but for a lot more. I think that they 

believe in the freedom they are going to have here, they believe in 

the American dream, they believe that their children are going to 

have an opportunity to do a lot better than they have done. And 

I don’t think there is any question about the motivation. 

The only thing I would add is that what Congressman Weiner 

said earlier, that there has been so many demagoguery about this 

there is really danger outside the world that people don’t believe 

the American dream is still here waiting for them. I don’t know 

that that has gone as far as he says yet, but there is a real danger 

of it. 

64 

Ms. CHU. In fact with all the impassioned discussion about this 

issue, how do we have a level-headed discussion about immigration? 

Mr. MURDOCH. Well, I think we have had a reasonably levelheaded discussion this morning. We have had different points of 

view. Clearly we have got to get together. Someone has got to start 

it. We are trying to start something, but in the end it is going to 

have to come from the White House trying to draw the parties together and find some good compromise system which we can all get 

behind. 

I mean, this is a matter of major national policy, and it cannot 

be done without the President being involved and the Senate and 

the Congress and business leaders, union leaders, everybody. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. 

Ms. LOFGREN. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

I would like to just ask a couple of closing questions. 

I certainly want to give credit to our colleague, Mr. Lungren, for 

the work he put in in 1986 on the last bill. I wasn’t in the Congress 

at that time. There has been criticism of what happened since 

then. Oftentimes the criticism is focused on the enforcement effort, 

but I have always thought that one of the issues really is that 

there was no provision to meet the economic needs of the United 

States in the bill. 

And Mr. Moseley, in your testimony, your written testimony, you 

point out that there is just 5,000 permanent resident visas a year 

for skilled individuals who lack a college degree. Now, we have a 

population in the United States of 310 million people and there are 

5,000 skilled visas a year for everything. I mean ag, everything. 

How realistic is that figure, that 5,000 figure a year, to meet the 

economic needs of the United States for skilled immigrants? Would 

that even meet Houston’s needs? 

Mr. MOSELEY. Madam Chair, it really is not realistic, and quite 

frankly, it may not have been realistic when it was adopted back 

in the day. 

There are even 140,000 unskilled workers that are allowed, but 

they are allowed to bring in spouses and children so you can do the 

calculus on that nationwide. The law just is not reflective of the 

need for a workforce to take care of the economy of the United 

States. 

We have actually hired Dr. Ray Perryman, and he went to the 

question that has been asked across different venues today, and 

the question is what would happen if 12 million workers were not 

a part of the American workforce? And Dr. Perryman concludes 

that you would see an immediate loss of some 8.1 million jobs. So 

the 12 million are producing about 8.1 million jobs. And of the 8.1 

million, eventually those could be absorbed, as my colleague here 

would talk about, and you would still have 2.1 million jobs lost. 

And the impact to our economy would be $1.76 trillion. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I thank you for that testimony. 

Mayor Bloomberg, we do appreciate, we know how difficult it is. 

Many of us served in local government and being mayor of a big 

city is a hard job, so we appreciate that you took your time this 

morning to be here with us and also the time that you are spending with this partnership to advance this issue. 

65 

You know, some people suggest that because the economy is terrible now—and it is, we are fighting to improve this economy—that 

it is the wrong time to discuss immigration. But your testimony 

was that immigration actually saved New York with stimulation of 

the economy. 

Can you just briefly describe how that worked? 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. Madam Chairman, I can’t speak with authority 

on anyplace outside of five boroughs of New York City, but I can 

tell you that we think we have roughly 500,000 undocumented. 

They have a very low crime rate because they don’t want to go near 

the INS. They pay taxes, 75 percent of them pay taxes. There is 

withholding and there is no place to send the refunds. The Social 

Security Administration’s chief actuary actually estimated that Social Security will go bankrupt 6 years earlier if you didn’t have the 

undocumented in this country. But the undocumented, because 

they pay Social Security but they don’t get any benefits. 

In New York City, the undocumented typically are young people 

who come here to work. They don’t bring their children, so they 

don’t use the public schools. There are some exemptions, but generally that is true. They are young people who work. 

People that work aren’t using the hospitals. Most of us use most 

of our medical care in the last few years of our life, and these are 

people who are of working age that come here. 

And lastly, every study we have ever done says they take jobs 

that nobody else will take. Not totally. I am sure you can find some 

exceptions. But generally speaking, the undocumented are critical 

to our economy, and the fact that New York City’s economy is 

doing better than the rest of the country, our unemployment rate 

is now lower than the country’s as a whole, life expectancy is now 

higher in New York City is now higher than the country as a 

whole, we created 10 percent of all of the private sector jobs in this 

country in the last 10 months, says we are doing something right. 

And what is right is we have attracted not just from overseas but 

from the rest of the country immigrants who want the chance to 

participate in the great American dream. That is the great strength 

of New York City. And I, for the life of me, don’t understand why 

other people don’t look at it and say maybe they should try it. It 

might not be right for the rest of the country. I am not here to 

preach for them. I am telling you our experience in New York City. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I appreciate that very much. 

As Mr. Weiner mentioned earlier, I often think of some of the 

traits of Americans that we value the very most—optimism, risk 

taking, entrepreneurship, commitment to family—those are really 

the traits of immigrants that really define our country. And to turn 

our back on our rich immigrant tradition is just deadly for the future of our country. And to be afraid of that is really to lack faith 

in the strength of our country. 

Mr. BLOOMBERG. It is national suicide. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I agree. I come from Silicon Valley, and we have, 

as I say, half the businesses in the Valley were started with an 

American born someplace else, and I agree that we need those people creating jobs to lead us out of this bad economy. 

I am hopeful that you have seen today that there is not unanimity on this Committee and certainly in the Congress and really 

66 

even in the country on this subject. But I do believe that your presence here and that of others who have been here—we had growers 

and union last week; we had faith-based individuals. We can pull 

together with the help of all of you, and create a reform that will 

serve this country, which is what we have all pledged to do when 

we become Members of Congress. 

So I would like to note also for the record, and we thank—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Chair, can I have a personal privilege 

for 30 seconds. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the chairwoman very much. We have 

had these hearings, Madam Chairwoman, and I just want to make 

this point to the four witnesses and particularly to Mr. Moseley because if we were having viewers look at this hearing, some would 

have consternation by saying all they are talking about is immigrants and I need a job. 

I think the point I was trying to make, Mr. Moseley, is when we 

have investments such as an EB-5, Mr. Murdoch, to the Mayor, 

and I hope Mr. Camarota will look at his numbers, we create 

American jobs and as well Americans fair well. 

Can I get a quick answer Mr. Moseley, do Americans fair well 

and jobs are created when we have a reasoned immigration system 

that is contrary to the Arizona law that scares people and sends 

tourism away? 

Mr. MOSELEY. Yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. 

Ms. LOFGREN. The gentlelady yields back. 

I would just like to close by noting that we have had a number 

of hearings, and although we appreciate Dr. Camarota’s testimony 

today, I would also like to draw the attention of the public to the 

other testimony we have received that is really quite contrary to 

his testimony, specifically in May of 2007, where a number of 

economists reached very different conclusions than he has. All of 

the testimony we have ever received is on our Web site, and I 

would invite Members to look at it. 

I would again like to thank every member of the witness panel 

today. Many people do not realize that the witnesses who come before the Congress are volunteers. They are volunteers to inform us 

and to help us do a better job for our country. I am hopeful that 

in the coming months we will have an opportunity to come together 

to have a comprehensive immigration plan that solves the problems 

that have been outlined, that is good for America, that creates a 

better economy and lots of jobs. 

So thank you very much. The record will be open for 5 days. If 

additional questions are posed, we would ask that you answer 

them, and we thank you once again. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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