Immigration

Immigration has a mostly favorable impact on the US. Quoting an article from TheBalance.com, “Immigrants have driven two-thirds of U.S. economic growth since 2011. They founded 30 percent U.S. firms, including 50 percent of startups valued at over $1 billion.” The ‘immigrant’ moniker here encompasses both legal and illegal immigrants, but we can probably guess that the founder of the $1 billion startup is mostly likely here legally (wink). Against the back drop of an accelerating deficit, thanks to the so-called fiscal conservatives on the right, immigration should actually be embraced by most Americans, because it injects more young people into the economy, thereby widening the base that supports Social Security and Medicare. In fact, nearly half of the of the 8 million illegal immigrants that are in the workforce pay Social Security payroll taxes, even though they are not eligible for Social Security benefits. This may or may not be a convincing argument, partly because statistics can be interpreted in many different ways, and even if the interpretation is correct, someone born and bred in the U.S. who is struggling to get by would find the notion of allowing immigrations to flow into the country and complete for jobs disconcerting. We have an immigration policy, so the fact that 1000s of migrants head to the U.S. border, in caravans or not, is not necessarily a bad thing, but the tone def and prototypical liberal argument that ignores the difference between bona fide asylum seekers and economic migrants helps me to better understand why Trump enjoys so much support, especially on the immigrant front, despite some of his controversial policy decisions. The optics of Mexico allowing 4,000 migrants to pass through to the US border are pretty bad, even if the real implications are not, given the estimated 400,000 to 800,000 illegal entries a year. Therefore, to me, the optics of Trump’s [over]reaction are pretty good. In my opinion, if the home countries and Mexico are going to facilitate this level of mass migration, thereby overrunning our borders and driving up the related administrative costs of processing immigrants, then we should cut aid to these countries and recoup those costs. One could argue that the second order effect of cutting aid and otherwise disengaging from Central and South America will only exacerbate the situation and accelerate migration to the U.S., but I, for one, would rather not be held hostage to that notion. I would rather we take control of our border, even if it means deploying our military, and then figure out how to deal with the situation more holistically later.

REF https://www.thebalance.com/how-immigration-impacts-the-economy-4125413