Illegal Immigration and Its Effects on the Hospitality and Food Industry

Immigration to the United States, Illegal immigration, Immigration, Illegal immigration to the United States, United States, Human migration, Alien, Immigration law

Illegal Immigration and its effects on the Hospitality and Food industry * The fields I will be writing for are Human Resource Management in the Hospitality Industry, Hotel and Restaurant Management, and Culinary Arts. I choose this topic because it is the number one problem the industry is facing currently. I have spent my entire career in the Restaurant industry working with foreign workers and have strong feelings about this topic.

After moving to Colorado and leaving the Military I began working for one of the world’s most successful Restaurant companies, Outback Steakhouse. I spent 10 years with O. S. I. , a majority of this time was in a management roll, and this is when most of my professional development occurred. After leaving OSI I took Manager and General Manager Positions with several companies always improving systems, lowing costs and increasing sales. I also have sat on the board of the Pikes Peak Chapter of the Colorado Rest. Association.

One of our priorities was building a favorable political environment; one way we did this was we raised money to support policy makers that favored the interests of the restaurant industry. The most rewarding part of any roll I held in the restaurant was the time I spent building relationships with and training employees. A majority of my team was made up of illegal immigrants, and proper training often took allot of time and patience due to the language barrier. I really enjoyed this time much more than I did working with American employees.

We taught one another our language, culture, and I observed something very rare, their amazing work ethic and sense of responsibility. I was the first Outback manager in Colorado to develop and promote a Spanish speaking, Illegal Immigrant, to a management position. * Thesis Statement: Immigrants are hard working, passionate, courageous people who are doing whatever it takes to make it in the world and provide for their families.

This can only benefit our economy and evolving culture and should be embraced. Some research I have found Pat O’Brien, an economist at the American Farm Bureau, said that if immigration reform severely restricts the labor pool, wages for farm workers – and costs for farmers – could rise sharply for everything from wheat, corn and soybeans to dairy products, red meat and poultry. * Professor of Law Francine Lipman [33] writes that the belief that illegal migrants are exploiting the US economy and that they cost more in services than they contribute to the economy is “undeniably false”.

“Undocumented immigrants actually contribute more to public coffers in taxes than they cost in social services” and “contribute to the U.S. economy through their investments and consumption of goods and services; filling of millions of essential worker positions resulting in subsidiary job creation, increased productivity and lower costs of goods and services; and unrequited contributions to Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance programs. Illegal immigrants are estimated to pay in about $7 billion per year into Social Security So basically, through consumption they are creating jobs, their willingness to work here helps lower prices and they are paying into the system but not using these services. Immigrant worker population in entry-level positions at US hotels and restaurants is 80 percent.

The Hospitality Industry is facing a serious labor shortage, and it is being felt in every major city across the Unites States. These positions cannot be automated or outsourced. One issue the industry is dealing with is the E-verify system. The E-Verify system ,the federal government’s online system employers must use under the new law to check the legal status of employees. This is the best way to regulate the employment of illegal’s. But!!! The E-Verify system can’t be used for prescreening employees.

Business owners have to hire the employee first before they can put his or her name into E-Verify. If E-Verify finds ‘no match’ to the name, it can take a few weeks to sort out what the legal status of the employee is, and during that time, the employer must keep the person employed. ” “E-Verify has been shown to have millions of errors which disproportionately flag foreign-born U. S. citizens. Due to database errors, legal foreign-born workers (including those who have become U. S. citizens) are 20 times more likely than native-born U. S. citizens to be incorrectly identified as not authorized for employment.

I have used this system and actually have had no flagged employees. And I’m pretty sure that some of them have been here illegally. This is just an example of this confusing mess we are dealing with. One argument is that immigrants bring down the average pay rate of Americans because they are willing to work for so much less. National Public Radio (NPR) reported in March 2006 that: “… overall, illegal immigrants don’t have a big impact on U. S. wage rates. The most respected recent studies show that most Americans would notice little difference in their paychecks if illegal immigrants suddenly disappeared from the United States.

That’s because most Americans don’t directly compete with illegal immigrants for jobs. There is one group of Americans that would benefit from a dramatic cut in illegal immigration: high-school dropouts * The personal aspect I discussed earlier is what I am adding to this argument. All of the research I am finding is economically based. I too will be examining the numbers and hope to come up with some concrete answers. The more research I do, I have found myself agreeing with the opposing side of the argument more.

I have always appreciated the economical benefit to the restaurant industry of hiring foreign workers and have thoroughly enjoyed working side by side with them. Now I am learning both sides of the argument and find myself moving closer to the middle. Through my research I hope to answer the following questions: Are unauthorized immigrants important to the U. S. economy and especially the food service industry? Would reducing low-skilled immigration be beneficial for the Industry? Should policy makers take into account the attributes of these people and embrace them as part of “our” culture as well as the financial pros and cons?