The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
“Modern nations can’t — practically or politically — have open borders, which allow anyone who chooses to immigrate.
“The good news is that America doesn’t have open borders, and there is no significant faction in our politics saying we should. In fact, immigrating to the United States legally is fairly difficult.
“The bad news is that we’re having a hard time enforcing the rules on immigration, mainly because the relevant government agencies don’t have sufficient resources. And right now, the reason they don’t have those resources is that many Republicans in Congress, while fulminating about a border crisis appear determined to deny the needed funding. Their position is rooted in extraordinary political cynicism, and they aren’t even trying to hide it: Donald Trump has intervened with Republicans to block any immigration deal because he believes that chaos at the border will help his election prospects.
“While blatant sabotage explains the current immigration impasse, however, there’s something else lurking behind it: Trump and those around him are profoundly hostile to immigration in general.
Partly this is xenophobia, if not outright racism. If you repeatedly declare, as Trump has, that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” you don’t really care if they came here legally, you’re all but saying that what matters is whether they’re white.
“But it’s not just that. People close to Trump have a zero-sum view of the economy, in which every job taken by someone born outside the United States is a job taken away from someone born here.
“Back in 2020, Stephen Miller, one of the architects of Trump’s immigration policies, told Trump supporters that one of the goals was to ‘turn off the faucet of new immigrant labor.’ Remarkably, Trump issued an executive order meant to deny visas to highly-skilled foreigners, many working in the tech sector. Miller and his boss apparently believed that this would mean more plum jobs for Americans, when what it would actually do was undermine American competitiveness in advanced technology. . . .
“Foreign-born workers are crucial to America’s fiscal future. . . .” — Immigrants Make America Stronger and Richer, Paul Krugman, The New York Times, 2/5/24 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: Paul Krugman has a low regard for truth. In this article he repeats the fraudulent talking points that the corporate media are trying foist on an unsuspecting American public. One is the claim that we don’t really have an open border because some immigration law enforcement still goes on, and some illegal aliens are still being deported. Nevertheless, the border has been open enough during the past few years to admit record numbers of illegal aliens. If it’s that open, then it’s open for all practical purposes.
The next media falsehood Krugman peddles is claiming that the Biden Administration lacks the resources to control the border, and that Republicans are to blame because they recently voted against a so-called reform bill. The truth is that the administration has all the means it needs to stop the migrant surge at the border.
All it has to do is restore the effective policies of the Trump administration that Joe Biden systematically eliminated. The “reform” legislation was a fraud. It offered a few items to enhance border security, but its main thrust was keeping Biden’s open border policies in place.
Next, Krugman plays the tiresome race card, and its attendant charge that white “racism” is the main motive for immigration restriction. As proof of Donald Trump’s racism, Krugman says he linked “immigrants” to blood poisoning. Actually, Trump made that admittedly overwrought statement about illegal aliens, not legal immigrants, He was criticizing their lawless character, not their color.
Interestingly, President Biden supports “unrelenting immigration” as a mean to reduce America’s white population to an “absolute minority.” That, says the president, is “not a bad thing,” and it will be a “source of our strength.” Why aren’t Krugman and other pundits calling out this kind of racial animus?
Krugman says we need “highly-skilled” foreign workers on temporary visas. The fact is that we have Americans who can do the jobs they fill, but many of our companies prefer not to hire them because they can pay the foreigners less and control them more.
He then goes on to claim that immigrants in general are necessary for our “fiscal future.” There’s an economist who disagreed with this view. In an article published in the Times in 2006, he stated that immigration harms low-income American workers by driving down wages. He further noted that “low-skill immigrants don’t pay enough taxes to cover the cost of benefits they receive.” The name of that economist was Paul Krugman. Once he was more honest than he is now.