The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
“Border Patrol agents are stopping unauthorized migrants coming from Mexico at record levels. Little wonder more than half of Americans now say an ‘invasion’ is underway at the southern border, according to a recent NPR Ipsos poll.
“At the same time, net immigration in the United States — the number of all foreign arrivals, including illegal ones, minus the number of departures — has been on a downward slope for five years, partly but not only because of the pandemic. As the Economist noted recently, migrants added just 247,000 people to the U.S. population in the year that ended in July 2021, the smallest increase in three decades and an amount equal to less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the country’s population. The Trump administration, having launched an assault on legal as well as illegal immigration, drove down the number of entries through red tape even before covid-19’s arrival.
“Two things are simultaneously true. First, the Biden administration has mishandled immigration messaging by telling migrants not to come even as it pressed for more humane — meaning relaxed — border policies. Second, without a more forward-looking immigration policy, one more closely aligned with labor-force demands in an economy starved for workers, the nation’s long-term economic growth prospects will be stunted.
“For now, the former has fouled the prospects for the latter. Despite the fact that most apprehended migrants are sent back to Mexico under a public health edict. the Trump administration imposed, Republicans predictably weaponize the surge of migrants at the border, using it to scare Americans and score political points. The fact that net immigration is tumbling and contributing to labor shortages — and thereby also to inflation, by helping to drive up wages — is lost in the tsunami of political rhetoric about an ‘invasion.’, , ,.
“The bad news is that those numbers are too modest and will not offset projected stagnation in the U.S.-born labor force over the coming two decades. The nation’s anemic birthrate, which has declined in every year but one since 2014, will sap economic vitality in the absence of a robust flow of immigrant workers.” – The U.S. Needs Immigration, Not Overheated Rhetoric on Migrants, The Washington Post, Editorial Board, 9/6/22 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: This editorial suggests that we’re facing a terrible lack of immigration, when in fact we’ve only seen a small and temporary decline in recent years. That must be seen in the overall context of a massive and unprecedented surge of immigration that’s been going on for close to sixty years. As a consequence of this surge, we now have a foreign-born population of 47 million. This means that one of every seven people living in the U.S. is from abroad. By any measure, we’re hardly starving for immigrants.
The editorial cites the claim that in the year preceding July 2021, immigration added “just” 247,000 to the U.S. population. This statistic diverts attention from the spike of illegal immigration that began—and continues–under the Biden Administration? Since Joe Biden became president, his Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released 1.35 million border crossers from custody. Most are deportable, but it appears now that few will ever leave. Joining them are nearly 900,000 others who evaded apprehension. They too are settling in. Biden once told migrants not to come, but actions count far more than cheap deceptive words. Contrary to what this article claims, there is nothing humane about Biden’s “relaxed” border. Relaxed is a deceptive word to hide the reality of anarchy.
The Post’s editorialists repeat the tired falsehood that we must have endless mass immigration to prosper, allegedly because we have a “labor shortage.” Actually, such a shortage is not all bad because it forces companies to pay their workers higher wages. We have many people who have dropped out of the workforce. Higher wages would help draw them back in. Unfortunately, many businesses want to boost their profits by keeping wages low. They seek to do that by promoting mass immigration. The editorialists also ignore the great potential of automation to perform necessary labor. According to a number of projections, machines within the next decade or so will perform many of the tasks now performed by human workers.
One reason for our low birth rate cited by the editorialists is that native-born workers can’t earn enough to support families. Another reason is that growing diversity demoralizes many Americans and makes them wonder if they want to raise children in an America that is ceasing to be American. Such concerns never seem to trouble the pundits at the Post and most of the rest of the “mainstream” media.