More Misinformation from the Media:
The New American Economy, a coalition of political and business leaders from across the U.S., supports secure borders and a reduction in illegal immigration. . . . It also supports creating a path for undocumented [i.e. illegal], pay taxes, and learn English to achieve legal status. . . . The anti-immigration camp argues that the country has gone through immigration “on” periods followed by long immigration “off” periods, and that the time has come to “turn off” immigration. But what would an immigration off period mean for faster economic growth. . . . Without immigration, the country moves down the path of demographic stagnation that has plagued Japan’s economy. . . .” – How Immigrants Are Vital to the Colorado and U.S. Economy, The Denver Post, Aldo Svaldi, 3/17/17 [Link]
Fact Check: The Partnership for a New American Economy (PNAE), to which this article evidently refers, is a propaganda arm for business interests seeking cheap labor. [Links here and here] One of its co-chairmen is Robert Iger CEO of Disney, a company that has become notorious for firing its American workers and replacing them with cheaper foreigners—all the while claiming that we have a shortage of U.S. workers. PNAE was one of the leading proponents of the unsuccessful “gang of eight” immigration legislation of 2013, which would have granted amnesty to most illegal aliens and substantially increased legal immigration.
Svaldi claims that PNAE wants to reduce illegal immigration, yet supports a proposal to reward illegal aliens with legal status and eventual American citizenship. Rewarding a behavior is a strange way of trying to discourage it.
The author further maintains that we should never hit the immigration “off” button, as we have done in the past, and allow mass immigration—now at the highest sustained level in our history—to go on and on, presumably forever. The alternative, he says, is becoming like Japan.
Admittedly Japan has some problems, but it is hardly an economic basket case. By most reckonings it has one of the leading economies in the world—which is a great accomplishment for a relatively small country with few natural resources. Japan is meeting the challenges of a low birth rate with an ongoing effort to employ computers, machines, and robots to perform essential jobs and help sustain the economy.
Living in a very crowded land, the Japanese decided that they wanted a means to maintain prosperity without endless population growth. They also observed the dubious benefits of the diversity that immigration has brought to Europe and the United States and wisely decided that wanted no part of it.
Automation is also coming to America, and in a very big way in the near future. A study at Oxford University published in 2013 concluded that almost half of the jobs now done by humans in the U.S. will be automated within twenty years. With this prospect so near at hand, it is patently absurd to claim that non-stop massive immigration is necessary to provide us needed workers.