Immigration has been on my mind a lot lately for a lot of reasons. There was the Trump-killed immigration reform bill, the ongoing humanitarian and security crisis at the southern border, and the tragic murder of Laken Riley to name a few, but immigration policy is one of those issues where it seems like both sides often talk past each other and may not even be speaking the same language. It’s always good to understand the underlying facts about an issue, so with that in mind, let’s delve into the statistics behind our current immigration situation.
On immigration as with many other issues, I’m reminded of Ronald Reagan’s observation, “The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” These days Reagan’s quip applies to both parties and I’m not even going to begin to assess which side knows more that isn’t so. Both cling to conventional wisdom that is often wrong and immigration is often a good case in point.
For example, not long ago I wrote about how the evidence shows that immigrants – legal or otherwise – are less likely to be involved in violent crime than native-born Americans. Despite occasional high-profile crimes such as the murder of Laken Riley, violent attacks by immigrants are relatively few and far between. That isn’t just me saying that, there are a number of studies that debunk the notion of a violent crime wave perpetrated by immigrants.
A Princeton study from 2020 found that “Relative to undocumented immigrants, US-born citizens are over two times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over four times more likely to be arrested for property crimes.”
Alex Rowestah described a paper that he coauthored for the Cato Institute in 2020, noting that, “The illegal immigrant criminal conviction rate was 45 percent below that of native-born Americans in Texas.” Keep in mind that Texas is a border state with a large population of illegals.
An even more recent example is a 2023 National Bureau of Economic Research study led by Stanford University economist Ran Abramitzky. This study examined data going back to 1870 and found “As a group, immigrants have had lower incarceration rates than the US-born for 150 years. Moreover, relative to the US-born, immigrants’ incarceration rates have declined since 1960: immigrants today are 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated (30 percent relative to US-born whites).”
Further, there is a big concern about the possibility of terrorists or insurgents crossing the border to carry out attacks on the US. I used to worry about this, but we are now more than two decades past September 11 and I’m not aware of a single terrorist attack that has been connected to an illegal border crosser.
There are periodic reports of people on the terrorist watch list being captured at the border, but CBS News gives some context to these reports. First, these cases are few in number, only 227 on the Mexican border in 2023, and the suspects weren’t necessarily let into the country. Further, there is no data on what prompted the person’s placement on the list, but it could be actions or associations of a family member or friend rather than the immigrant himself. There is no data on where or what group these people are associated with, but last year a human smuggler with ties to ISIS was arrested in connection with illegal immigration into the US. Despite his terrorist connections, there was no evidence of any terror plot. Finally, there are more terror suspects identified crossing from Canada than from Mexico. In 2023, there were 432 suspects flagged on the northern border, almost twice as many as on the southern border.
It seems likely that if this strategy was one that terrorist groups considered viable, they would have tried it over the past 20 years. But there are easier ways to insert terrorists into the US than having them walk through a heavily patrolled desert. These other options include coming into the country legally and radicalizing native-born Americans.
So the evidence does not support the claim that immigration is dangerous by its very nature, but what about the economic impact? If you want to get an accurate picture of immigration, I can recommend a recent series of podcasts by Freakonomics. The three-part series (plus some additional bonus episodes) starts at episode 580. I’ve been a fan of Freakonomics for a long time for its objective look at a variety of issues, but partisans won’t appreciate the show because it gives an objective look at a variety of issues instead of being an echo chamber that reinforces what they think they know.
In one of the immigration episodes, the Freakonomics crew talks to Zeke Hernandez, a business professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and the author of the upcoming book, “The Truth About Immigration.” Hernandez, himself an immigrant, lays out a plethora of surprising facts about immigration. Here are a few:
- Globally, about 3.6 percent of people live in countries they were not born in
- In the US, 14 percent of the population is foreign-born
- The average illegal immigrant in the US has been living here for 10-14 years
- 21 percent of children born to native-born Americans become high-wage earners
- 35 percent of children born to immigrants in the US become high-wage earners
- 8 percent of Americans live in poverty
- 13 of immigrants in the US live in poverty
- Immigrants are responsible for 40 percent of US patents (23 percent as inventor of record and 13 percent in other roles)
- 66 percent of green cards go to family-based applicants
- 18 percent of the US workforce is composed of immigrants
- The average American receives $8,000 in welfare benefits while the average immigrant receives $6,000 (less for illegal immigrants)
That’s a lot to digest, but there’s more. In an earlier episode in the series, Leah Busan, an economics professor at Princeton pointed out that current immigrants typically have the same rates of success as previous waves of immigration. They typically report higher rates of church attendance than native-born Americans and often have a strong sense of family and community. Even more surprising, Busan revealed that current immigrants have relatively high levels of education and wealth compared to their countrymen who stayed home.
As Busan put it, “It’s quite interesting because in the modern period, immigrants from almost every country in the world to the US are more educated and come from wealthier backgrounds than the typical person in their home country. So in that sense, economists call those immigrants positively selected. Historically, that’s actually not true. Historically, the Statue of Liberty actually got it right that immigrants from Europe were the tired, poor huddled masses. They tended to either be from the low end of the socioeconomic spectrum or just average for their home country. So when we see children of immigrants getting ahead a hundred years ago, it’s probably not because of positive selection, but for today that certainly could be the case.”
When Donald Trump said that other countries were not sending us their best, he was wrong. The immigrants coming to America are often from the upper levels of the population in their old country.
The image of immigrants being the dregs of society or, dare I say it, “poison” is off the mark. These days the stereotype of a doctor in the old country coming to the US to work as a janitor or lawn care worker may be closer to the truth. Or the innovators who come from India, Pakistan, or South Africa like Elon Musk and start businesses that turn into major corporations.
Today’s immigrants often punch above their weight economically. They are often educated people who fill much-needed roles in high-tech companies or become entrepreneurs that help to grow the economy. They have a slightly higher poverty rate than native-born Americans shortly after arrival, but that trend reverses quickly. In fact, I have to wonder if some of the resentment against immigrants may not be because Americans see the new arrivals surpassing them financially within a few short years.
One of the big problems with our current immigration system is that we turn many of these science and technology workers away and force them to settle in competing countries. Canada is actively recruiting tech-savvy immigrants, many of whom were rejected for immigration to the US. Others might end up in more adversarial countries like China and Russia.
At the same time, fewer American students are seeking degrees in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. The problem starts in the lower grades and continues through college. It will be difficult for the US to maintain its technological advantage in the future without a well-educated workforce. We make the problem worse by refusing to accept qualified and highly-educated immigrants.
There is research that backs up the notion that immigrants are a net positive. Forbes detailed several such studies from sources such as the Congressional Budget Office and the Wharton School of Business. The gist is that more workers means more productivity and a larger GDP. That’s especially true of skilled workers, but an immigrant with a high school degree represents an average lifetime net positive effect of $128,000.
But there are also costs associated with immigration. The irony is that the costs are not shared equally. States and districts where immigrants first arrive incur the higher costs in helping immigrants to assimilate. These include items like bilingual schooling and English courses for adults. Legal immigrants such as green card holders also qualify for federal benefits. Those extra costs diminish as immigrants assimilate so areas in the interior where immigrants migrate after acclimating to the new country see higher benefits and lower costs from immigration.
Particularly in the entry areas, there can also be economic impacts on commodities like housing and wages. Higher demand for housing can drive up prices while too many workers in the labor pool can drive down wages. To put it another way, immigration pays off in the end, but there are front-loaded costs that are real and significant.
The flip side of the labor question is that some industries have a difficult time finding American workers at any price. When the Trump Administration reduced the number of H2-B temporary work visas, Maryland’s crab industry faced a crisis as it lost half its workforce. Crops have been left in the fields to rot from California to Georgia when migrant workers have been unavailable to pick them. Many American industries depend on immigrant labor.
When it comes to assimilating those migrants, it is often stated that current immigrants maintain their national identity and don’t assimilate like immigrants of previous generations. Research shows that this is not true. Numerous studies have found that modern immigrants assimilate at similar rates as those in the past. The exact time to assimilate depends on what metrics are being used but many immigrants are considered fully assimilated within about 10 years to two generations.
I have seen this personally. When we lived in Texas, we lived next to a family of first-generation Mexican immigrants. The father barely spoke English and the mother spoke passable English, but the children were fluent. Their son was a high school football player who later joined the Marines. The American dream is real.
One factor that probably helps with the process of assimilation is that the US does something well, albeit perhaps unintentionally. By putting many immigrants into the workforce immediately, immigrants assimilate faster than if they are forced to wait until they speak the language and meet a larger number of bureaucratic hurdles. But it’s also true that modern immigrants have a higher rate of English proficiency than immigrants of the past.
Finally, there is the question of the US birthrate, which has been falling and is far below replacement level yet the US population is still rising. It is because of immigration that we don’t face the problem of a declining population that many countries such as Russia and Japan face. Immigration has helped America maintain its strong economy and dominant place in the world.
None of this means that I am for open borders or don’t feel the need for border security, however. I’m pro-immigration, but I’m also pro-border security. I’m among those who say that we need security (not necessarily a border wall) with a “big beautiful door.” I remain convinced that a great many Americans want to bar the door to prospective Americans.
I’m reminded of something that I read a long time ago about the “American gene.” Americans are largely a self-selected group. We are comprised of people whose ancestors had the gumption to leave their home countries and cross the ocean, often never to see their homes and families again. (I’m not going to say ancestors of slaves lack that gumption either. There are a great many success stories of former slaves and their descendants.) It takes a special kind of person to step out into the unknown like that, but modern immigrants also have that special something, that drive to succeed and better one’s position in life.
That is what makes America exceptional.
I think the best solution for I immigration is to vastly expand legal immigration to make illegal crossing less attractive, but we don’t seem to have the political will for it.
But imagine if instead of getting the money to pay coyotes, people that wanted to come here could focus on learning English or whatever as the best way to get here.Report
While we’re wishing for ponies, the single best solution for abortion is to make birth control available to anyone who wants it free of charge.
But in both cases, the people who screech about it the loudest hate the solution as much as the problem.Report
This would be the logical solution but it isn’t the political popular one. The politically popular opinion is that countries get to control their borders and who is in and who is outside the citizenship club as these are traditional powers vested in polities.Report
One thing that I don’t like about these statistics is the whole “hide the ball” kinda thing going on how we are talking about undocumented visitors in one second and then talking about H1B Visa holders the next and just saying “immigrants” both times.
Immigrants sneak here over the border and work at Google!
Besides, if you eat dino nuggies, your lifestyle depends on undocumented visitors making less than minimum wage. H1B holders have better degrees than the average Native-Born American as well. The median American doesn’t have a college degree at all and most H1B holders do!
While technically true… it feels like a lot of using the same word to obfuscate rather than to illuminate.Report
That is indeed a problem. Propose a solution.Report
Can I make distinctions between “undocumented visitors” and “legal immigrants” or is that too arbitrary?Report
I make that distinction regularly. I’m not sure why that’s your hang up here.Report
Do you remember saying “That is indeed a problem. Propose a solution.”?
I ask because your comment here seems to have forgotten the “That is indeed a problem.” part of what you said mere minutes ago.Report
That aside, what is your solution?Report
The solution is for the people who are doing it to…not do it?Report
As long as American employers make it attractive for them to come that ain’t gonna happen.Report
What does “the whole “hide the ball” kinda thing going on how we are talking about undocumented visitors in one second and then talking about H1B Visa holders the next and just saying “immigrants” both times” have to do with employers?Report
Well, I’d like to hammer out that we’re talking about the same thing, first.
If I have complaints about illegal immigration, er, “undocumented visiting”, I’d like to not have to acknowledge how many college degrees that H1B visa holders have compared to people in the projects and how much less likely they are to commit crime than those people as well.
Even if the statistics demonstrate that both things are true.Report
It’s all just obfuscation for what is really a motte and bailey. The motte is that our legal immigration system is a total mess, that our status as a highly desirable destination for immigrants (especially the skilled) is a huge national advantage that we’re failing to fully exploit, and that unhinged xenophobia poses a risk of screwing it all up. The bailey is that those, frankly only tangentially connected things, require us to tolerate a situation where anyone with the wherewithal can walk in at any time and be paroled indefinitely into the country and/or become the unwitting hostages of big business in their ongoing efforts to skirt the law.Report
Yeah, that’s exactly the game being played.Report
Again, the mess could be solved by massively increasing the allowed immigration.
But I guarantee you that the people screaming about illegal immigration will oppose that with equal ferocity.Report
There are so many devils in those details I am not sure it qualifies as a solution. However I can agree with you that those that scream loudest are also the ones who have continuously refused to take yes for an answer whenever it has been offered.Report
Lets hear about some of those “devils”.Report
I’m totally cool with a massive expansion of legal immigration, specifically in the skill/job areas that we most need to fill. But somehow I think that change would come first and the second, promising to tighten the border to reduce illegal immigration, will never come about.Report
What if they were one and the same?
That legalizing the natural flow of laborers into the county reduces the flow of illegal laborers?Report
Eh, the benefits of *UNDOCUMENTED* laborers include the ability of employers to engage in wage theft and pass the savings on to you.
For example: Your dino nuggies.
Documenting these laborers takes that particular benefit away.Report
Then its a deal;
We massively increase the number of work visas, while enacting draconian measures on employers who hire undocumented workers.Report
Eh, I dunno. My lifestyle kinda depends on the current system.Report
Which is why the issue is a perpetually f’d up as it is. You aren’t really willing to demand changes to the system because they might change your lifestyle. Neither are millions of others. Which means the undocumented remain, performing critical economic functions, becoming more American by the day, but hiding and fearful nonetheless because they are a “perfect” target for demagogues.Report
Why do you care? Do you not like spicy food? H1B holders have degrees that are in demand and the median American barely has a high school diploma. The mean one commits more crime, too.Report
I care because my faith calls me to care. I care because I have relatives in historically oppressed communities in the US. I care because the undocumented are humans and deserving of better. I care because the current system is being exploited by politicians and oligarchs in the US to further erode my liberties.
Why don’t you care?
That aside – the H1B holders are a fraction of the immigrant community in the US. Take them all away – the H1Bs – and you still need immigrants to build your houses and roads, process your poultry, clean your business, mow your lawn and care for your children. This ludicrious notion that expanding the H1B program will solve undocumented migrant issues ignores the vast numbers involved here and the economic sectors impacted.Report
You can’t legislate morality, pal.
Why don’t you care?
Because I still need immigrants to build my houses and roads, process my poultry, clean my business, mow my lawn and care for my children and it’d cost too much to have this done for the wages that Americans would work for under the conditions that Americans would demand.
We’ve been over this a hundred times.
Should I do a better job of pretending to care and deflect by blaming Republicans for just not demanding e-verify and permitting more H1B visas?Report
You do know you’d still likely get immigrants to do that work for similar ages by creating a system to allow them in legally, right?Report
“You do know you’d still likely get immigrants to do that work for similar ages by creating a system to allow them in legally, right?”
You’re aware that it’s illegal to pay someone that little, right?Report
Even if immigrants got paid just the federal minimum, they would out-compete native born Americans for a lot of categories of work.Report
so we should perpetuate a system that forces them to come here illegally so we don’t have to enforce minimum wage laws?
Fascinating.Report
We’ve been in agreement about this since the days of Cesar Chavez.
He lost. I’m sorry that this is news to you.Report
Conservatives: “WE MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT IMMIGRATION!!11!
Also conservatives: “WE CANNOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IMMIGRATION!!1!Report
Half of all illegal immigrants never use the boarder at all. They come here legally and overstay their visa.Report
And yet its border security that’s the thing getting screamed about . . . .Report
That’s a subcategory of “illegal immigration”. I’m cool with closing that loophole. Look, we got a lot of federal employees who don’t do much productive work (based upon the one I worked with in prior jobs). Repurpose those jobs.Report
Yea the fact that visa overstays dwarf the numbers at the border isn’t particularly important. We’re still talking about enormous numbers of people in both categories.Report
There too we have statistics. What do they tell you?Report
What a weird article and a weird way to frame it. You come in here quoting Reagan and saying “both sides are talking past each other” but then essentially lay out the platform a lot of Democrats actually advocate for. Only one “side” is fucking up the immigration thing and making it a combative thing, pushing the overton window further and further to the right. Only one “side” embraces a person who says Mexicans are rapists and murderers and thinks we’re being “overrun by immigrants”. Only one “side” is consistently tying things like foreign and domestic policy to border legislation.
Its the republicans.
Coming in here and saying both “sides” are “talking past each other” is a dishonest and duplicitous way to frame a very serious issue which is at the very core of the problems we have with immigration policy. The sides aren’t talking past each other, people like you are framing this to make the anti immigration arguments seem reasonable to the uninformed by equivocating on what each “side” wants. If you are pro immigration and immigration reform stop calling yourself a conservative, and if you’re going to say you’re a conservative and care about those policies, then stop pretending you’re pro immigration.
Even by the very articles and data you cite, you can’t be correct and be a conservative on this issue.
I also cringe when you say a 1st generation Mexican immigrant is “living the Americna dream” by signing up to join the military that has historically been used to hurt his ancestors, but you’re also a guy who cited Reagan so my expectations shouldn’t be TOO high there.Report
“I also cringe when you say a 1st generation Mexican immigrant is “living the Americna dream” by signing up to join the military that has historically been used to hurt his ancestors”
it’s been a minute since the Rough Riders were around, broReport
Using this article (https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/27/border-wall-texas-cost-rising-trump/) for costs, I came up with a figure of a little over $22 million/mile. Multiply that by about 22,000 miles and you have a wall that costs over $40 billion.
Short of completely militarizing a border with a country we are at peace with I don’t see how just throwing up a fence works.Report
And even then, as Dark points out, half of the undocumented just fly legally over the wall.Report
A modest proposal to move the border south… not all the way to Mexico City (yet)… Monterey to Mazatlan and, well, Baja. Significantly spur investment in Greater America… new citizens… new political dynamics… new resources! Protect our new citizens with US labor and economic Laws! Growth without the deadloss of inefficient Mexican Government(s). Wins for everyone!Report
My dad throws that exact idea out there periodically. I’ve always assumed it was just to upset people but it sounds a little less nuts every day.Report
Colonialism with a DEI heart.Report
A large part of the illegal immigration problem would go away if, as Bush Ii proposed, the USA would allow again large numbers of visas for seasonal or temporary migrants.
The reality is that many illegal immigrants would rather come to the USA for six or nine months a year, work, save money, and go back home, where their hard earned dollars would purchase a better quality of life for them. After enough years doing it, they would have enough money to have a house andset up a business in their hometown, and retire and grow old there. Their families will also stay home, reducing the need for schools, medical services, etc.
In the 50s, 60s, and 70s that used to be the pattern, but when crossing the border became difficult and dangerous, men could no longer cross for seasonal work. Once inside the USA , it was too dangerous and difficult and expensive to go back home. So instead, they brought their families and those that used to be temporary became permanent migrants.
Seasonal work visas would be the preferred solution of most illegal migrants as well as most low wage jobs US employers. But solving problems not in the interest of many politicians, so they make sure problems don’t get solved.Report
Yep. I heard a story on NPR a couple of years ago that a farmer in the US who wants to legally “import” seasonal workers has to submit each worker by name and credentials to ICE/CBP 18-24 months before said farmer needs them. And at the time there were visas to cover maybe a quarter of migrant workers already in the field. These things are fixable.Report
When I worked at the restaurant, we had a bunch of guys who lived 8 to a 2-bedroom apartment. They worked hard for six months then went home for six months. Remittances, man.Report
Colorado Gov. Polis recently signed a state law that overrides local ordinances about limits on non-family sharing living quarters. The city of Fort Collins is really pissed off about it. Eight students in two-bedroom places generate a disproportionately high number of police calls.Report
These guys probably could have gotten busted for weed, but they didn’t need a whole lot of entertainment otherwise.
They worked their butts off, watched a hand-me-down television, smoked, and then went home. It was always sad to see them go and great to have them come back.
The only natives we could get to work for those wages were alcoholics.Report
And yet you want to preserve that system that almost certainly forced those men to cross both ways undocumented, adding risk to an already risky journey.
Fascinating.Report
No, they were perfectly documented in the 90’s. Still less hassle for my bosses than dealing with Americans at the same wage.Report