If one accepts the argument made in the most recent entry in this blog, an immigration policy that fulfills the needs of society should reflect real conditions. Unfortunately, a series of misrepresentations and false assumptions drive much of today’s discussion about immigration. The list of these inaccuracies includes, but is not limited to the following:

• Out-of-control immigration, especially the influx of undocumented immigrants, amounts to an invasion. In fact, a recent study by the Pew Research Center in November 2018 indicates that the population of undocumented immigrants in the United States has diminished significantly in recent years, dropping from a peak of 12.2 million in 2007 to only 10.7 million in 2016 (nytimes.com/2018/11/27/us/illegal-immigrants-population-study.html). Ironically, since President Trump’s administration imposed several draconian measures intended to stop undocumented entries into the United States, the figures for the southern border have taken an equally draconian turn upward.  According to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, it detained 109,144 migrants at the Mexican border in April 2019, the most since 2007. They estimate that illegal border crossings more than doubled since May 2018 (www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/from-the-border-more-frustrating-immigration-numbers-for-president-trump/2019/05/08/ad6ac140-71a7-11e9-9eb4-0828f5389013_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3f0e8c3f975a).

• The problem primarily involves Hispanics crossing the US border with Mexico. Contrary to the impression given by coverage on network news, the top country of origin for new immigrants coming into the U.S. in 2017 was India (126,000), followed by Mexico (124,000), China (121,000) and Cuba (41,000). In other words, the percentages of immigrants from the top four countries of origin amount to roughly 60% Asian (pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/03/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/).

• The chief problems that immigrants pose are economic. First, it is often simply assumed that they take jobs away from American citizens.  According to a 2016 Pew report reflecting 2014 data (pewhispanic.org/2016/11/03/occupations-of-unauthorized-immigrant-workers/), unauthorized immigrants constituted 5% civilian workforce. Not surprisingly, they appear in concentration in certain labor-intensive, low-pay, and seasonal industries. They represent 26% of farm-workers, 15% of construction workers (especially drywall installers and roofers), 9% of production workers (manufacturing, food processing, textiles), 9% service employee, and only 2% all other fields combined. Presumably, and based on anecdotal evidence contained in employer reports, very few American citizens compete for temporary employment harvesting fruits and vegetables or for roofing homes in conditions exposed to the hot summer sun and cold winter winds, for example.
• Second, immigration hardliners object to allowing undocumented immigrants access to governmental services on the assumption that these immigrants are “freeloading,” i.e. utilizing services at the expense of taxpaying citizens. Arguably, this assumption stands at a greater distance from reality than any other held by hardliners.  On the federal level (www.cnn.com/2019/04/15/us/taxes-undocumented-immigrants/index.html), the IRS estimates that undocumented workers paid $13.6 in federal taxes in 2015. Similarly, the Social Security Administration estimates that they contributed $12 in payroll taxes in 2010, effectively underwriting the Social Security program with no hope for recouping their investment in the retirement program available only to citizens.  On the state and local level, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that unauthorized workers pay $11.7 billion in state and local taxes annually (www.vox.com/2019/3/1/18241692/undocumented-immigrants-pay-state-local-taxes), again essentially funding programs from which, in many cases, they cannot benefit.

• As popularized recently by Presidential claims, hardliners assume that unauthorized immigrants commit crimes, especially violent and drug-related crimes, at a higher rate than the statistical average of the overall population. This claim is more difficult to adjudicate since, surprisingly, the federal government does not maintain pertinent statistics and Texas is the only state that does so.  Nonetheless, the Texas data suggest that the assumption that unauthorized immigrants commit crime at a higher rate cannot be sustained.  According to recent Texas statistics, undocumented immigrants, who represent 6% of the overall population, committed 5.9% of all homicides – a homicide rate almost perfectly proportional to representation in the population.  Documented immigrants constituting 10% of the overall population, on the other hand, committed only 3.8% of all homicides – one-third of the rate predicted by their representation in the population.  In stark contrast, native-born citizens, at 80% of the overall population, committed 90% of all homicides, constituting a rate appreciably greater than a proportionate average. (See go.com/Politics/fact-check-trumps-claims-illegal-immigrant-crime-rates/story?id=60311860.)

• As calls for “English Only” or for establishing English as the official language of the country or of specific states in the Union suggest, many immigration hardliners harbor suspicions that immigrants, especially Spanish-speaking populations, pose a threat to cultural continuity. A failure to learn English quickly, in this view, demonstrates an unwillingness to assimilate to the dominant culture and very nearly signifies an animus against that culture. As reported in the Washington Post (2018), however,

Assimilation among today’s mostly Latin American and Asian immigrant groups looks a lot like it did generations ago, when most immigrants came from Europe. That’s the conclusion reached in 2015 by a panel of experts assembled by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine after an exhaustive review of the research. The panel noted that across the generations, today’s immigrant groups are catching up to and even exceeding the general U.S. population in a host of important social and economic indicators. They’re speaking English, too, with virtually all children of immigrants fluent by adulthood. (www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-myth-of-non-assimilation/2018/06/27/9234f144-7652-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ae1d6b754303)

Curiously, apprehensions concerning the danger that immigrant populations pose to dominant culture have a long history in the US. Writing in 1751 (Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind), Benjamin Franklin, one of the most revered and beloved of the Founders, asked “Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us, instead of our Anglifying them.” Similarly, the largest mass lynching in US history occurred in New Orleans in 1891 when nine Italian immigrants were hung after having been found “not guilty” of murdering the police chief. Mass arrests of Italians in New Orleans followed, as did a nation-wide outbreak of violence against Italians. Teddy Roosevelt, later to become President of the US, commented publicly that the lynchings were “rather a good thing.” Ironically, Donald Trump has just appointed Ken Cucinelli, who advocates the end of automatically bestowing citizenship on children born in the country of alien parents, as the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

To be continued