Let's Talk About Immigration
Posted: Wed May 05, 2021 2:10 pm
[Cross posted from my Facebook page, but I'll get better conversation here]
In my opinion, there's a lot of good reasons to encourage immigrants to come to the US-- moral reasons (providing protection to the persecuted, or refuge to those suffering from war or natural disaster) or diversity (our culture benefits from a wealth of influences- not homogenized group-think). But another reason is just the necessity of immigration for a strong economy. I was listening to a newscast this morning which reported that the birthrate in the US is only 1.7 children per woman. I found this number interesting for a number of reasons (some of which I'll discuss in a different post), but one of the reasons the newscast brought it up was to talk about how, without immigration, our population would actually start shrinking instead of growing.
Now I know the number is not as simple as "1.7" and that there are a lot of factors that go into population change and growth. But the indicators all point to a trend that could lead the US to start losing population like some other countries have. And without getting into all the details, modern societies and economies start having big problems when their populations start "graying" and they start having more older population (which typically need more societal services and assistance-- think Medicare and Social Security) than they do a younger population.
One of the curbs our society has against the deflation of the population is immigration- and it's pretty important, right? Without it, our population demographics will almost certainly turn upside down and create all sorts of labor and resource shortages. So even if you want to just look at it from a cold-hearted economic viewpoint- immigration is a key factor to maintaining our economy.
I don't understand what the argument is (in a non-Covid world) to reduce or eliminate legal immigration to our country. The research seems pretty clear that immigrants have a lower criminal incarceration rate than native-born Americans and there are lower crime rates in the neighborhoods where immigrants live.
With respect to undocumented immigrants, I haven't found any credible evidence that they commit crimes at much higher rates than native-born or legal immigrants. (I'm discounting the argument that "They're here illegally so 100% undocumented people are criminals.") I've also heard people argue that undocumented immigrants are a drain on our social services, but I'm not sure that's true either. The congressional budget office concluded that the opposite was true: "over the past two decades, most efforts to estimate the fiscal impact of immigration in the United States have concluded that, in aggregate and over the long term, tax revenues of all types generated by immigrants—both legal and unauthorized—exceed the cost of the services they use." And the argument that undocumented immigrants don't pay taxes simply isn't true- especially in a state like Texas (where there is an 8.5% sales tax) when you consider that almost 100% of wages earned by undocumented immigrants are spent immediately and almost all of it locally.
I think that for politicians it is easy to have a "them" to blame when you don't want to do the hard work of legislating real solutions to economic or societal problems. I think it's a lot easier for a government to villainize and dehumanize a group of people to distract from its policy failures and mistakes. But I also don't think such cheap political theater holds up under scrutiny.
And most importantly, I think when we give into feelings of tribalism and these baser instincts, we're forgetting that we should be treating all humans-- no matter where they come from-- with respect and decency. We need to stop forgetting our compassion for other people and start remembering that we all have an obligation to help each other out.
In my opinion, there's a lot of good reasons to encourage immigrants to come to the US-- moral reasons (providing protection to the persecuted, or refuge to those suffering from war or natural disaster) or diversity (our culture benefits from a wealth of influences- not homogenized group-think). But another reason is just the necessity of immigration for a strong economy. I was listening to a newscast this morning which reported that the birthrate in the US is only 1.7 children per woman. I found this number interesting for a number of reasons (some of which I'll discuss in a different post), but one of the reasons the newscast brought it up was to talk about how, without immigration, our population would actually start shrinking instead of growing.
Now I know the number is not as simple as "1.7" and that there are a lot of factors that go into population change and growth. But the indicators all point to a trend that could lead the US to start losing population like some other countries have. And without getting into all the details, modern societies and economies start having big problems when their populations start "graying" and they start having more older population (which typically need more societal services and assistance-- think Medicare and Social Security) than they do a younger population.
One of the curbs our society has against the deflation of the population is immigration- and it's pretty important, right? Without it, our population demographics will almost certainly turn upside down and create all sorts of labor and resource shortages. So even if you want to just look at it from a cold-hearted economic viewpoint- immigration is a key factor to maintaining our economy.
I don't understand what the argument is (in a non-Covid world) to reduce or eliminate legal immigration to our country. The research seems pretty clear that immigrants have a lower criminal incarceration rate than native-born Americans and there are lower crime rates in the neighborhoods where immigrants live.
With respect to undocumented immigrants, I haven't found any credible evidence that they commit crimes at much higher rates than native-born or legal immigrants. (I'm discounting the argument that "They're here illegally so 100% undocumented people are criminals.") I've also heard people argue that undocumented immigrants are a drain on our social services, but I'm not sure that's true either. The congressional budget office concluded that the opposite was true: "over the past two decades, most efforts to estimate the fiscal impact of immigration in the United States have concluded that, in aggregate and over the long term, tax revenues of all types generated by immigrants—both legal and unauthorized—exceed the cost of the services they use." And the argument that undocumented immigrants don't pay taxes simply isn't true- especially in a state like Texas (where there is an 8.5% sales tax) when you consider that almost 100% of wages earned by undocumented immigrants are spent immediately and almost all of it locally.
I think that for politicians it is easy to have a "them" to blame when you don't want to do the hard work of legislating real solutions to economic or societal problems. I think it's a lot easier for a government to villainize and dehumanize a group of people to distract from its policy failures and mistakes. But I also don't think such cheap political theater holds up under scrutiny.
And most importantly, I think when we give into feelings of tribalism and these baser instincts, we're forgetting that we should be treating all humans-- no matter where they come from-- with respect and decency. We need to stop forgetting our compassion for other people and start remembering that we all have an obligation to help each other out.