could an immigration reform help the housing market ?

[Tony]

just wondering allot of immigrants come to the us and work and they send all of that money back to the countries they originally came from money that has added up over time if they are honest hard working people and they got a chance to make the us their permanent home wouldn't they be willing to sell their properties and put that money back in to the us economy and the housing market ?

and please keep your personal comments to your self i want neutral people who will talk about the real life effects and if it would benefit our country or not thank you
for my understanding of the us laws im not a lawyer immigrant's cant collect welfare much less buy a house the reasons i state this is because ive researched why did the housing market and everything points at the banking system who got trapped in a circle that they could not escape because of its own greed ... you need a social security card to collect welfare and to buy a house and if they steal someones identity well that would just be stupid ????

and nick i agree with some of your points but you also have to remember that we have to find a reasonable solution being the greatest nation in the world we have the ability to help others .. ive worked construction with immigrants to and not all of them are ignorant but yes some cant read or wright and that's one thing that does bother me..

[bigvossman]

Yes. I would also pretty much solve, or at least help, the Social Security/Medicare deficit. It also increases the work force, which would decrease wages and keep prices lower. Only drawback is it make jobs more difficult to find, for those currently unemployed

[Nick Delba]

I'm an unemployed Construction worker who worked 11 years.
What has been going on is disgraceful.
For example, my company Sub-Contracts illegal alien workers from outside the Home Depot. They can't read or write, much less speak English. They go by what they see us do. They can't read directions on how to operate equipment safely. So if someone gets hurt, they are replaced with another illegal. They don't have to pay workman's comp. They also don't get quality work done. These illegals don't care what they do today because tomorrow they might not be at this job site anyways.

Construction companies cut costs that way. They hire cheap labor as Sub-Contractors and it is completely L-E-G-A-L in the US to pay these guys cash by the day.

So they circumvent paperwork. The illegals work for $8-10 an hr while we work for $15 and up. Naturally they hire illegals. Naturally guys like me are out of a job.

As long as it's legal to hire Sub-Contractors, the housing market will be lousy workmanship,

Figure that as long as illegals are working in the US, they will be sending US Dollars back to their homeland families even if they got amnesty. The dollar flow out is considerable and will only stop when the illegals are no longer allowed to work in the US.

[ibu guru]

Wrong on all counts. The US economy has not been growing fast enough to add enough net new jobs to accommodate only US-born entrants to the workforce for over a decade now. Any population growth rate of 0.5% or greater is impoverishing. US has the highest birthrate of any developed country. Even with ZERO immigration, ZERO foreign workers, the US would be in trouble due to high birthrate, & bad budgeting with excessive spending. Real (inflation-adjusted) wages are back down to 1967-68 levels, and it is SOLELY due to excessive population growth, high birthrate plus horribly high rates of immigration.

Did you know that a huge proportion of the housing meltdown was caused by legal immigrants & illegal aliens? A very large proportion of people who bought homes they could not afford (well over 25% of them!) were in fact not US-born, but were recent immigrants/illegal aliens. This was a major factor in the meltdown! With declining wages - which will take an additional massive hit if immigration is increased further or if immigration-law violators remain - fewer and fewer people will be able to afford homes as population growth pushes demand & PRICES higher! It's a disaster in the making.

Worse, economists estimate that with more than half of illegal aliens already collecting welfare, etc, legalizing illegal aliens will triple demands for their social services (welfare, etc) spending. Most of these people are poorly educated and have limited job skills. They are absolutely a drain on the US economy, so why would you want to triple costs while slashing wages further?

What you propose is economic collapse! Things are disastrous already with over 31 million Americans currently looking for work. How bad do you want to make things? There are NO benefits to citizens or legal immigrants by any measure which allows any immigration-law violator to remain in the US, only major, disastrous, negative economic consequences. In fact, so much damage has already been done, immigration should be immediately curtailed (better, total moratorium on immigration) until US birthrate declines @70%. Any population growth rate of 0.5% or more is impoverishing, and US is about 1.3% just on births, if there were zero immigration.

[Foofa]

Where I live most illegal migrants with the means and desire to buy a house have already done so. Immigration status has never been a bar to getting a mortgage, B of A actively markets to the undocumented. So while there might be a few people whose sole reason for not buying real estate was a fear of deportation I don't think their numbers are great enough to make much of a difference in the sluggish housing market.