We couldn't go much higher than this.
"I'm working on a story about illegal immigration and its impact on jobs for American workers.”
That was me, reaching out to Governor John Kasich.
"To see what's going on in our state," I said to his staff.
He wasn't available to talk, but workers have quite a lot to say on the topic
“We do not need them taking our money, services and our children's time,” said one protestor.
But are they really taking our money? Well, after a lot of research, we found the majority of illegal immigrants are hired for jobs that require: very little English, where they need limited tech or supervisory skills and where they have little interaction with the public.
And that will affect some of our lowest skilled workers, not only with competition for jobs... but with wages. Because the more workers that are available, the less employees have to pay them.
But they are often jobs Americans don't want according to Dr. Jooyoun Park, who specializes in International Trade at Kent State University
"They are usually small farming, food processing like slaughterhouses, chicken, all those packaging
Usually jobs employers have a hard time finding workers for,” she says.
According to the think tank the Urban Institute, census data confirms most illegal immigrants and Americans, aren't competing for the same jobs.
It shows that the top 3 occupations for immigrants, without a high school education, are
maids or housekeepers, cooks, and agricultural workers.
For Americans without a diploma, the top jobs are cashiers, sales workers and truck drivers. Plus, janitors or building cleaners.
But even if you don't believe that data, there is no denying this: A big part of this problem comes from all the employers who hire illegals...because they're cheap labor.
Only 22 states in the country have laws requiring employers to use the Government’s E-Verify system, which uses Social Security data to check whether someone is a citizen. Ohio is not one of them.
Which means... until American companies put the interests of our workers ahead of their profits, there’s plenty of blame to go around.
So we'll say this is Verified.