The Immigration Equation €“ response

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Please write one separate response to each of the 2 posts below. The 2 posts below were answering questions based on the filed attached (The Immigration Equation).

Post #1 (Rachel Rebel):
Question 1: Discuss the demographics of immigration. What types of jobs are immigrants most likely to hold? What industries? Consider differences between skilled vs. unskilled immigrants.

The Immigration Equation focuses mostly on the recent immigration of Mexicans into the United States, but it also states that approximately fifteen percent of the labor force, or 21 million immigrants, are employed in the U.S. Approximately twelve percent of the population today is foreign-born compared to the high of fifteen percent in 1890.
The main difference with immigrants today is that the difference between skilled and unskilled is very great. While the same proportion of immigrants as natives have college degrees, more immigrants have post-graduate degrees. The big difference is on the other end of the education scale. Less than ten percent of U.S. natives are high school dropouts while over sixty percent of Mexican immigrants are. Mexican immigrants, due to their low education level, are supplying the work force for jobs that U.S. natives are too educated for. The types of jobs that they are working in are: gardeners, hotel chambermaids, farm laborers, construction workers, household jobs, apparel manufacturing, unskilled manufacturing, etc. In cities where the unskilled workforce is higher some businesses will spend more on immigrant labor and less on machines.
Skilled immigrants are present in many fields. There are doctors, lawyers, economist, and writers to name just a few professions. College degrees doors no matter what country you are from.

Post #2 (Taylor Radford):
Question 1: Discuss the education level of immigrants. Are there differences between legal and illegal immigrants? Have these patterns changed over time?

The education of immigrants depends on where the person is from. Roger Lowenstein did a good job of showing that immigrants from Mexican are more likely to be high school dropouts. In fact, Lowenstein states that more than 60% of Mexican immigrants are dropouts. This is compared to US workers where less than 10% of workers are dropouts. With educational background being weaker among Mexican immigrants, this helps explain the wage gap. Mexican immigrant workers make almost $15,000 less than other immigrant workers and just over $23,000 less than an American worker.
One theory is that the poorly educated immigrant workers are hurting those more poor Americans, especially African Americans. When competing for a job, you interview and compete against other of your same skill set and abilities. Therefore those with a college degree or specialized skill will not be in the same labor market as the highly educated and specialized. If immigrant workers were coming over in a specific field, like journalism as Borjas explained, the labor market would change with a surplus of labor. However, we see that there is still a demand for unskilled labor, and it has been increasing. Card states that in 1980, 24% of the work force in metro areas were dropouts; compare that to 2000 where only 18% of the work force were dropouts. Uneducated immigrant workers are filling in positions that are complimentary to skilled positions and complimentary to the economy. Immigrants will do jobs and services that may otherwise not be available or too expensive.
Lowenstein exerts that any economist would prefer to have an educated worker over an uneducated worker. An education brings in a better standard and quality of living. With an education also comes less crime.