Debunking Myths

A 2017 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found immigration “has an overall positive impact on the long-run economic growth in the U.S.”

How that breaks down is important. Second generation immigrants are “among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S.,” the report found. They contribute about $1,700 per person per year. All other native-born Americans, including third generation immigrants, contribute $1,300 per year on average.

Immigrants make up 17 percent of the U.S. labor force, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, but few experts believe they’re taking jobs from Americans, as Trump claims.  “Most economists agree that in spite of being a very big part of the labor force, immigrants have not come at the cost either of American jobs, nor of American wages,” Peri, the UC Davis professor, said.  The reason is that immigrants often have jobs that Americans tend not to take. So instead of competing with Americans’ for work, immigrants tend to complement American workers.  A study from the bipartisan research organization New American Economy found immigrants were 15 percent more likely to work unusual hours than similar U.S.-born workers. They are also more likely to be employed in dangerous jobs, according to data from the American Community Survey and Bureau of Statistics. In addition, the latest jobs report shows the U.S. economy performing strongly enough that it can absorb large numbers of workers, including immigrants.

The U.S. birth rate is 1.8 births per woman, down from 3.65 in 1960, according to the World Bank. Demographers consider 2.1 births per woman as the rate needed to replace the existing population.

According to the Pew Research Center, if not for immigrants, the U.S. workforce would be shrinking. That is certainly the case in Maine.

Research shows that repealing birthright citizenship could have significant negative consequences for the U.S. economy because children who are citizens have more economic opportunity and rely less on government assistance.  A Migration Policy Institute analysis estimates the number of unauthorized immigrants would increase from 11 million to 16 million by 2050 if birthright citizenship were repealed.

“Over the course of decades, you’d end up with a growing population that is cut off from the rest of society because they live in fear of deportation and they can’t get jobs,” said Randy Capps, the director of research for U.S. programs at the Migration Policy Institute.

Immigrants to the United States are considerably less likely than natives to commit crimes or to be incarcerated. Recent immigrants are much less likely to be institutionalized (a proxy for incarceration that also includes those in health-care institutions like mental institutions, hospitals, and drug treatment centers) at every age.

Why do immigrants have fewer interactions with the criminal justice system? Immigrants are subject to various kinds of formal and informal screening. In other words, institutions and incentives often cause the United States to receive migrants who are advantaged relative to their origin-country counterparts (Abramitzky and Boustan 2017) and less disposed to commit crimes. At the time of Butcher and Piehl’s analysis, deportation was not a major factor; rather, self-selection of low-crime-propensity immigrants into the United States appears to have been the driver (Butcher and Piehl 2007).

Crime and immigration data researchers looked at 25 years in a recent study published in the journal Criminology. “Increases in the undocumented immigrant population within states are associated with significant decreases in the prevalence of violence,” authors Michael Light and Ty Miller wrote. An analysis of data from 1990-2014, they said, suggests “undocumented immigration over this period is generally associated with decreasing violent crime.”