Economists generally agree that economies expand when the consumer base grows. If populations stagnate or decrease, so goes growth in GDP. You might see rises in stock market prices, but like in 1929, if there is no consumer action behind it, that bubble will burst with disastrous results. It doesn’t matter if you claim to at least allow in “high-skill” immigrants, because they are brought in at lower wage scales and there is a ceiling for how many can actually find jobs in their fields before they start either cutting into the “native” high-skill labor pool, or end-up eating into the lower-skill wage pool. The reality is that there is a cap of 85,000 H-1B visa per year, and it constituted only 8 percent of immigrants who entered the country legally in 2016. That is due to change dramatically in fiscal year 2021, with legal immigration is to be halved. Despite the fact that most job growth in this country is not “high skill,” and even those that are described as “tech” or “IT” jobs are nothing more than glorified phone operators, the fallacy of “merit-based” immigration continues to be the basis of race-based immigration policy that that has no relation to the “merit” of any particular occupation, let alone how those jobs effect long-term economic growth.
According to a statistical graph in Forbes, immigration will see the following reductions, thanks largely to the efforts of nativist white nationalist Stephen Miller: immediate family members will be cut by 53 percent, family-sponsored preferences by 92 percent, refugees cut by 71 percent, asylum seekers by 67 percent (they are all from “shithole” countries), and the diversity lottery has already been cut out entirely. The attack against the diversity lottery is a particular instance of the insanity of Trump and his familiars; the “lottery” is meant to “expedite” immigration from countries that have relatively low immigration to the U.S., and is administered by U.S. officials who supposedly cherry-pick the best candidates. What is ironic about the Trump administration’s actions is that more than 50 percent of the diversity lottery’s recipients are from Europe and Asia—and it was intended specifically to induce more immigration from “non-shithole” places like Europe. On the other hand, employment-based preferences (such as H-1B and temporary seasonal labor) will comprise a dramatically higher percent of authorize entry, to about 35 percent of the total. According to Forbes
Economists Pia Orrenius and Chloe Smith of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that without immigration, the U.S. economy would struggle to grow.” Trump, in fact, undermines his boasts about economic growth on “his” watch by his anti-immigrant policies. “Slowing labor force growth is the product of a number of factors – the aging of the U.S. population, retiring baby boomers and declining birth rates. But another element is immigration. Immigrants and their children contributed more than one-half of workforce growth in the past two decades. The economy expands with growth in the labor force and its productivity. Due to the retirement of baby boomers and population aging in general, immigration will play an even larger role in workforce growth going forward than it has in the past. Absent offsetting increases in productivity growth, less immigration will, therefore, translate directly into slower gross domestic product growth.
Again, the majority of job growth will not be so-called “high-skill,” unless it is the intent of immigration nativists to have only “merit-based” immigration that will relegate U.S. citizens to the lower rungs of the economic ladder. It is interesting to note that both far-right nativists and “progressive” populists occasionally have interests that intersect, and immigration is one of them, although they arrive at that point from different perspectives. Nativists from the far-right, like Miller, are motivated by personal racial animus—meaning they just don’t like the way (Hispanics) look—while “progressive” populists claim that (Hispanic) immigrants “steal” jobs and drive down wages, which is simply not true, since there are plenty of warehouse and production jobs that won’t even hire Hispanics (because they are not “real” Americans) that still pay rock-bottom wages in order to produce cheap enough product to compete with foreign imports from Asia.
It is also interesting to note that you can say all the nasty things you want about Hispanic immigrants (most of them—as opposed to the “some” who are “good people”—are, according to Trump and Miller, “rapists” and violent criminals and drug dealers) and they’ll “like” being turned into a caricature of human life. But if you dare say anything “positive” about them, people are “offended.” If you say Hispanic immigrants will do “dirty” jobs that other people won’t do like seasonal farm labor or work in the unhealthy environs of meat processing plants, you are accused of being “racist” against non-Hispanics, especially black people. Yesterday I wrote about what Cliven Bundy said about blacks; he also attacked for saying this about Hispanics:
They come over here against our Constitution and cross our borders, but they're here, and they're people ... Don't tell me they don't work, and don't tell me they don't pay taxes. And don't tell me they don't have better family structures than most of us white people.
While I don’t necessarily agree
with the last part—Asians actually have a much higher percent—90—of children
living in two-parent households than any other demographic, it is interesting
to note that the media reaction (especially from black commentators) suggests
that the negativity that surrounds Hispanics in this country suggests a bigotry
against that is ingrained in the culture. Maybe this explains why 75 percent of the detainees at the ICE facility in Farmville, VA have tested positive for the COVID-19, and over 3,000 in other ICE facilities.
Meanwhile, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson falsely accused The New York Times and two Maine reporters of “endangering” his family. But Carlson has been endangering millions of people on his show, calling them “dirty” and an “infestation” and leaving them open to hostility, paranoia, discrimination, threats and even deny them the ability to live normal lives without fear from those entities that he encourages—like, say, Trump, Miller, Chad Wolf and their Stormtroopers carrying out their will. And in so doing so, they will hurt this country in ways they are clearly too reckless in their racist zeal to realize.
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