CNN published a piece that illustrates the absurdity of the immigration debate in this country. It espouses a common theme where expanding immigration into the United States is a cure-all solution to whatever may be ailing the country at that particular moment. According to CNN, mass immigration can solve the supposed labor shortage along with combating inflation. Additionally, somehow expanding legal immigration will also alleviate the border catastrophe currently overwhelming communities and public resources. That is some heavy lifting for one policy. But that isn’t all the experts and our business community have claimed about the miracle of mass migration!
While today, with inflation raging, the mass migration crowd is crowing about how increasing immigration will lower prices (by deflating labor costs), they have also said raising immigration numbers would boost wages. How can one policy both boost wages and lower the labor costs to combat inflation? Don’t ask those questions! What is really important is that you buy this used car right now!
Immigration also (supposedly) has boosted the housing market in the United States. Immigration did this without harming affordability because, according to New American Economy, “immigrants themselves tend not to settle in the most expensive places.” Pay no mind to the homelessness and problems in the housing market. Immigration has helped! Just imagine how much more it could help.
And that’s not all, dear readers. If you act NOW to import tens of millions of more migrants to the United States you can save your retirement. Sounds too good to be true? It is. Importing low-wage workers who will take more our of Social Security than they paid in will definitely not save the Social Security system.
Also, you need to realize that increasing immigration creates jobs. According to KelloggInsight, “We know already that immigrants tend to be entrepreneurial.” Way to paint a vaguely broad brush over millions of people. Are you wondering how migrants can both do all the jobs Americans won’t do and create more jobs Americans won’t do at the same time? That is just the magical wonder that is mass migration.
These assorted sales pitches, and that is all they are, become embarrassing when viewed together. Immigration both alleviates labor shortages and creates more jobs than they occupy according to the experts. Immigration combats inflation by lowering labor costs while boosting wages and thereby labor costs. Immigration increases the labor supply, but does not affect native competitiveness in the job market. Immigration increases demand for a limited supply of housing without also increasing housing costs. Immigration will save Social Security by exponentially increasing the number of beneficiaries. This is what our “experts” are claiming, anyway.
One way to explain this sales pitch is the insidious idea that immigrants will serve to boost the American economy without benefiting from it themselves. Basically, they can be exploited for our gain. Saying that immigrants are doing the jobs we won’t do for low wages is suggesting they can become a permanent lower class to pick our fruit and clean our floors. With Social Security, the only way they could save it would be if the immigrants paid Social Security taxes without deriving any benefit themselves. In housing, if migrants settle in low income areas and fix them up, then that will boost the home values for those in nicer areas. Just read some of the links I’ve provided in this blog–they actually say this nonsense.
Everyone who has had to purchase a car knows that when something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Immigration is not some magical policy elixir. You cannot pour millions of people into a country and fix all of your problems. This is equivalent to having children in order to save a marriage. Immigrants are human beings with their own hopes and dreams. They are not pawns we can move into jobs to keep the price of fruit low.
The author of the CNN article, of course, has the problem of talking about labor shortages that do not exist. His evidence of a labor shortage is, “businesses across the nation are complaining about their inability to find enough workers.” Well, okay. The same businesses hiring child labor by the thousands? The same businesses conspiring for 20 years to suppress wages in their industry? The same businesses laying off thousands of Americans and discriminating against them in their hiring process? The same businesses busted for wage theft and forced labor? Have they tried not exploiting anyone desperate enough to work for them? Have they tried raising wages and creating safe work environments? Call me when they do, but until then, we should not be taking the business community’s word for it.
The truth is that this is the state of the immigration debate in this country, which is completely disconnected from reality. Instead of attempting to debate policy openly, it is simply the business community desperately pitching their demand for cheap labor in any and every way possible. As a part of this effort, the Federal Government has refused to secure the border unless and until the American people acquiesce to massive expansion of immigration. It is difficult to make someone understand something when their salary depends on not understanding it. In this case, the business community is where politicians go for contributions and the media for advertising revenue (if they are not owned outright). As such, we get an endless stream of sales pitches to get us in that 1987 Subaru. Our project is to try to shake them from their magical thinking. Immigration has costs and benefits. The profit margin of corporations and GDP are not the only measures of a policy’s value. If that is not understood, make sure you don’t drive their immigration policy off the lot.
JARED CULVER is a Legal Analyst for NumbersUSA
