Does former President Donald Trump ever go to Queens, the land of his youth? If he did, he would presumably be horrified. In keeping with the census, Queens is essentially the most racially and ethnically various county within the continental United States; it’s exhausting to think about a nationality or tradition that isn’t represented there. Immigrants are nearly half the borough’s inhabitants and greater than half its workforce.
And I believe that’s nice. Once I, say, take a stroll round Jackson Heights I see the essence of America because it was speculated to be, a magnet for individuals around the globe looking for freedom and alternative — individuals like my very own grandparents.
And no, Queens isn’t an city hellscape. It will not be leafy and inexperienced, but it surely has much less critical crime per capita than the remainder of New York Metropolis, and New York, though no person will imagine it, is without doubt one of the most secure locations in America. It’s additionally comparatively wholesome, with life expectancy round three years increased than that of the US as a complete.
However Trump has declared that migrants are “poisoning the blood of our nation” — a phrase that, to steal from the late, nice Molly Ivins, would possibly sound higher within the unique German. Look, I do know there’s a debate over whether or not the MAGA motion totally meets the traditional standards for fascism, however can we not less than agree that its language is more and more fascist-adjacent?
And so are its insurance policies.
On Saturday The New York Instances reported that Trump, if returned to workplace, intends to pursue drastic anti-immigration insurance policies — scouring the nation for immigrants dwelling within the nation illegally and constructing big camps to, um, focus them earlier than deporting them by the hundreds of thousands. Suspected members of drug cartels and gangs could be expelled with out due course of. Suspected by whom, on what grounds? Good query.
When you imagine that none of this could concern you, since you’re a U.S. citizen, you need to know that on Veterans Day, Trump gave a speech promising to “root out” the “radical-left thugs” that, he says — echoing the likes of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini — infest America “like vermin.” Who counts as “radical left”? Properly, right this moment’s Republicans — not simply Trump — have a really expansive definition. In spite of everything, they routinely accuse President Joe Biden of being a Marxist.
Given all this anti-democratic rhetoric, it appears nearly crass to level out {that a} Trumpian battle on immigrants would even be an financial catastrophe. However it could.
That’s apparently not what the Trumpists imagine. That Instances article quotes Stephen Miller, who headed anti-immigrant operations when Trump was within the White Home, as claiming that mass deportations might be “celebrated by American employees, who will now be supplied increased wages with higher advantages to fill these jobs.”
Only a few economists would agree.
To the extent that there’s something past uncooked xenophobia behind Trumpist hostility to overseas employees, it appears to be the view that America has a restricted variety of jobs to supply and that immigrants take these jobs away from the native-born. In actuality, nonetheless, besides throughout recessions, the variety of jobs, and therefore the financial system’s progress, is proscribed by the obtainable workforce relatively than the opposite means round.
And the contribution of immigrants to America’s long-term progress is startlingly giant. Since 2007, in response to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. labor pressure has elevated by 14.6 million. Of those further employees, 7.8 million — greater than half — had been overseas born.
Oh, and if these immigrants are taking away American jobs, how can the unemployment price be close to a 50-year low? In actual fact, we desperately want these employees, amongst different issues as a result of they’ll assist us address the wants of an getting old inhabitants.
Now, you would possibly fear that less-educated immigrants will push down wages on the backside, growing revenue inequality. However the backside line from a long time of analysis on this matter is that this doesn’t appear to occur. Even less-educated immigrants convey totally different expertise and make totally different job decisions from their native-born counterparts, in order that they find yourself being enhances to, not substitutes for, native employees.
And let’s not overlook that Trump officers tried to choke off the availability of expert overseas employees to the U.S. expertise sector, apparently believing that this is able to reserve good jobs for People — when in actuality it could merely undermine our technological edge.
None of that is to disclaim that sudden surges of migrants can place a burden on native communities and that we want insurance policies to mitigate these impacts. However that’s very totally different from a sweeping rejection of immigration, which is as American as apple pie, to not point out pizza and bagels — meals introduced by earlier immigrants who had been, of their day, the targets of simply as a lot prejudice and hatred because the immigrants of right this moment.
America doesn’t should be made nice once more, as a result of it’s already nice. However in the event you needed to destroy that greatness, the 2 most vital stuff you would do could be to reject its dedication to freedom and shut its doorways to individuals looking for a greater life. Sadly, if Trump returns to workplace, he appears decided to do each of these items.
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