Project 2025: Immigration

In an earlier essay, I described the immigration policies that Project 2025 recommended as: “Keep them out or throw them out.” That’s pretty accurate, but without the context of immigration in 2024, it is not possible to understand exactly how short-sighted and stupid the approach really is.

The first fact that they miss is that people around the world are now more displaced than at any time since World War II.

The first fact that they miss is that people around the world are now more displaced than at any time since World War II. According to the UN, war, civil unrest, natural disasters, and climate change forced more than 100 million from their homes. To verify this estimate, you need only to scan the news to see what’s happening in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, parts of Central and South American, the Caribbean, or several places in Asia. This number will almost certainly grow over the next decade. The world seems to have an incredible appetite for conflict and climate change will play a larger role in making some places uninhabitable.

Many are attracted to the US by the American dream, freedom, prosperity, and/or a better life. We can try to keep them out, but we will fail. And we should fail for economic, legal, and moral reasons.

ECONOMICS

A study done by the US Department of Labor during the Bush administration concluded that the perception that immigrants take native jobs is “the most persistent fallacy about immigration in popular thought.”

A second missed, and misrepresented, set of facts deals with economics. The usual trop, used to scare people, holds that immigrants take our jobs and drive down wages.  This can be debunked in two ways. The first is simple common sense. When is the last time you heard someone say: I had a really good job picking fruit until those immigrants came and took it from me? Or you can think about the strained logic of on one hand immigrants are taking our jobs, but on the other they’re a burden on the treasury. The second approach is to look at some key numbers. Unemployment among US-born workers is 3.6%, the lowest rate ever.  Workforce participation rates for US-born workers is at the highest rate since 2001. A study done by the US Department of Labor during the Bush administration concluded that the perception that immigrants take native jobs is “the most persistent fallacy about immigration in popular thought.” The economic impacts of immigration go well beyond taking or not taking jobs.

A DRAIN ON THE TREASURY

Another study estimated that cuts to legal immigration could shrink growth by 12% and cost 4.5 million jobs over 20 years.

Another trop is that immigrants are a drain on the treasury. One study in 2016 estimated that immigrants contributed $2 trillion to the US GDP. They also added $450 million to federal, state, and local tax collections. Their spending power, which was plowed back into the economy for groceries, clothes, transportation, etc., totaled $1.2 trillion. Another study estimated that cuts to legal immigration could shrink growth by 12% and cost 4.5 million jobs over 20 years.

CRIME AND TERRORISM

 Another widely held fact that isn’t: immigrants cause crime. A study of native-born people and undocumented immigrants in Texas found that native-born people were twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes as undocumented immigrants, drug crimes at 2.5 times the rate and property crimes at 4 times the rate. Other national studies have come to roughly the same conclusions.

Another fallacy related to crime is terrorism. According to the Nation Magazine, since 9/11, 180 people have been arrested for planning terrorist plots in the US. Only four crossed our borders illegally. Three of the four crossed as young children. One study estimated that the odds of an American being killed by a refugee in a terrorist attack were in the range of 1 in 3.86 billon.

VOTING

One study of Texas and California, two states with large immigrant populations, found a possible 30 cases of non-citizens voting out of 23.5 million votes cast.

A final meritless claim is that non-citizen immigrants are voting. This is often tagged to an assertion that Democrats are using non-citizen voters to steal elections. This issue has been studied repeatedly. The conclusions have been the same: very few non-citizens even attempt to vote. Never has the number been sufficient to swing any election. One study of Texas and California, two states with large immigrant populations, found a possible 30 cases of non-citizens voting out of 23.5 million votes cast.

FINALLY

The real question that we face, if we allow some facts to influence our decisions, is: Do we want to do serious harm to the economy and deny people who are in desperate circumstances any hope by embracing these tools to reduce the number of immigrants:

• Create additional physical and electronic border walls.

• Create additional detention facilities.

• Require additional use of the military to enforce immigration laws.

• Expedite removal.

• Create higher standards for asylum seekers.

• Make them wait in Mexico in some very unsafe cities for asylum hearings.

• Authorize state and local police enforcement of immigration laws.

• Require cooperation by local officials and agencies in enforcement. 

I hope that our collective answer to this question will be no.