Immigration “Restrictionists” Hitting Their Stride Under Trump, But We Can Stop Them

By Wendy Feliz www.immigrationimpact.com 

Short-term thinking is inferior to long-term thinking, some argue, because it does a disservice to the future and those who will live it. Two long-term thinkers who have profoundly impacted U.S. immigration policy were recently in the headlines: John Tanton and Cordelia Scaife May.

Both helped give rise to the current immigration “restrictionist” movement in America through four decades of building and funding a network to advance their cause. 

Tanton was a Michigan-based ophthalmologist who recently died at the age of 86. He was also the architect of the modern-day “restrictionist” movement. He founded groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) , Center for Immigration Studies, and the Immigration Reform Law Institute. Each group seeks to severely limit immigrants, and non-immigrants, from entering the United States. 

May died in 2005. However, the New York Times recently unpacked her legacy in print and on its podcast, The Daily. May was a key partner to Tanton, providing the funding to prop up the research and advocacy activities of his restrictionist groups. They left behind a well-financed network.

Since FAIR’s founding in 1979, the network has argued that America needed to “restrict” who came into the United States in order to control population growth and other environmental concerns. However, while the network claims their policies are not animated by racial animus, Tanton’s writings, revealed late in his life, tell a different story. 

In 1993, he famously wrote, “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.” He also shared dire warnings of a “Latin” onslaught that needed to be stopped. 

More dangerous than policymaking alone, the network has worked to persuade the public and advance a narrative that the nation is under threat from newcomers through their work in the media and public square. They have played on the public’s biases and fears for decades and encouraged Americans to turn their backs on newcomers and to fear diversity. 

Today, the leaders groomed by this network sit in key offices within immigration agencies and even in the White House. Their long-standing plans for severe restrictions on who can enter the country are beginning to take hold. 

In just the last few years, their acolytes have placed unnecessary and burdensome hurdles in front of newcomers. One of the most recent is the Trump administration’s new public charge rule, which makes it far easier for the government to deny entry to someone based on their perceived economic status. This now means only privileged individuals have a shot at the American dream. 

They have also increased scrutiny and denial of visas and closed many immigration field offices worldwide, making it even harder for an individual to apply for and obtain a visa. They are even discouraging international students from attending U.S. universities by making visas far more difficult to obtain. This is in addition to making it increasingly difficult for asylum seekers and refugees to seek safety in the United States. They are now forcing asylum seekers to wait in dangerous countries for long periods before they are considered for safe passage. 

They have also unveiled strategies to purge immigrants who are already living in the United States—some for decades—through policies that end Temporary Protected Status for thousands, expand detention, and fast-track deportations by removing court hearings from the process, a program known as expedited removal. 

By mainstreaming their restrictionist views, they have even primed some of the public to accept and even support these restrictive, cruel, and un-American policies. Increasingly Americans see immigration as a problem and not an opportunity. 

What we now see play out every day on immigration policy is no accident. It’s the result of a long-term vision of a nation that strictly limits who may enter. 

All Americans who are concerned with America’s legacy and future must take a step back and assess how we have been countering the restrictionist movement and what new strategies we need to roll back their impact and advance the vision of the America we want to live in. We must act quickly before the United States abandons this legacy and becomes a fundamentally unwelcoming nation. 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4420-Immigration-Restrictionists-Hitting-Their-Stride-Under-Trump.html

It’s Not up for Debate: Immigrants Invigorate the Economy

Written by Walter Ewing MARCH 30, 2017 in Immigration 

As any reputable economist will tell you, immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy in many ways. Yet the often subtle complexities of immigration economics are largely absent from a March 24 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal authored by Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies. 

To begin with, immigrants are responsible for most labor force growth in this country now that the Baby Boom generation is aging into retirement. And immigrants add value to the economy through the goods and services which they produce through their labor. Immigrants (and their families) also spend money in U.S. businesses, which creates jobs for the people who work in those businesses. In addition, they also pay taxes to federal, state, and local governments, funding essential services and sustaining the salaries of government employees. Moreover, the businesses that immigrants so often create sustain the jobs of even more workers. 

However, Krikorian negates the economic contributions of less-skilled, lower-paid immigrant workers. Specifically, he states that the notion of immigrants “doing jobs Americans won’t do” is false because, even in less-skilled occupations, at least half of all workers are native-born. 

He fails to address the economic value of immigrant workers in those occupations. It would be more accurate to say that immigrants do jobs for which too few native-born workers are available. In other words, immigrant workers supplement the native-born workforce, expanding the labor force in certain occupations to a level it would otherwise be unable to attain. 

Consider healthcare. Demand for workers is strong at both the high-skilled and less-skilled ends of the occupational spectrum. Immigrants comprise 25 percent of all medical doctors and 20 percent of home health aides in the United States. These shares are even higher in some rural parts of the country where native-born healthcare workers are particularly scarce. And demand is set to grow even higher as the native-born population ages and needs more and more medical care. Immigrants will inevitably play even more important roles in all sorts of healthcare occupations in the coming years. 

More than just supplementing the native-born workforce, immigrants also “complement” native-born workers. For one thing, they bring their own special skill sets derived from work they did in their home countries—skill sets which don’t simply duplicate the skills of natives, but add something new. In addition, new immigrants are likely to fill different kinds of jobs than natives because they are not yet proficient in English. This, in turn, leaves natives to fill those jobs that do require mastery of English. The point is, immigrants and natives don’t simply substitute for one another. But you wouldn’t know this from reading Krikorian’s analysis, since he often conflates the two. 

Krikorian also mischaracterizes the forces that drive migration. His analysis suggests that half the world is poised to migrate to the United States and would do so if U.S. immigration limits were lifted, flooding the country with mostly less-skilled immigrants who would steal American jobs, drive down wages, and bankrupt the welfare state. What this demographic doomsday scenario overlooks is the crucial role played by labor demand in drawing immigrants to the United States. When the economy is booming, more immigrants come. When the economy slips into recession, fewer come. People tend not to migrate solely because they are dissatisfied with their home countries, but because the economic prospects of another are reasonably good. 

Perhaps Krikorian’s selective economics is a product of the ideological lens through which he views immigrants. Krikorian ultimately veers into xenophobic terrain when he states that we need more stringent limits on immigration to slow the growth of groups that do not sufficiently “assimilate” into American society —like those immigrants and children of immigrants who identify with “pan-racial” terms such as “Hispanic” or “Asian.” But who gets to define what it means to be “American”? Krikorian does not address that thorny issue. 

At the end of his piece, Krikorian reveals what is perhaps his biggest fear when it comes to immigration: a fear of “ethnic diversity” that might “overload” U.S. society. However, the United States has survived for centuries with very high levels of diversity. It has also survived periodic revivals of nativism in which some native-born Americans reject anyone who looks or sounds different than they do. 

Source: http://immigrationimpact.com 
http://inmigracionyvisas.com/a3578-Immigrants-reinvigorate-economy.html