The Limits of Rhetoric
Noble-sounding words won’t improve failing cities, especially for minority residents.November 2, 2020AMERICA
IN MELTDOWN - STAGGERING INEQUALITY AS BIDEN PUSHES FOR
MASSIVE AMNESTY TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED
Deep-blue cities and
states are eager to declare their social-justice credentials. New York mayor Bill de Blasio has set up a commission designed to
uproot the city’s “institutional” racism, while California governor Gavin Newsom brags that his state is “the envy of
the world” and will not abandon its poor (BLOG EDITOR: MORE THAN 40% OF CA LIVES
BELOW THE POVERTY LINE. MORE THAN 40% OF THE STATE’S POPULATION ARE ILLEGALS). “Unlike the Washington
plutocracy,” he proclaims, “California isn’t satisfied serving a powerful few
on one side of the velvet rope. The California Dream is for all.”
Yet California, though
well known for its wealth, also has the nation’s highest poverty rate, adjusted for housing cost. If rhetoric were magic,
metropolitan areas like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago would
be ideal places for aspirational minority residents. But according to
statistics compiled by demographer Wendell Cox in a newly released report, these cities are far worse
for nonwhites in terms of income, housing affordability, and education. New
York and California also exhibit some of the highest levels of inequality in the United
States, with poor outcomes for blacks and Hispanics, who, population-growth
patterns suggest, are increasingly moving away from deep-blue metros to less
stridently progressive ones.
The current focus on
“systemic racism”—often devolving into symbolic actions like mandatory minority
representation on corporate boards, hiring quotas, and an educational focus on racial redress and resentment—is not likely to
improve conditions for most minorities. “If a man doesn’t have a job or an
income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of
happiness,” Martin Luther King said. “He merely exists.” That remains true. Our
lodestar should be upward mobility: improving how well people live, across the
board. When it comes to that criterion, blue states and cities are falling
short.
The Covid-19 pandemic has inflicted
disproportionate harm to the health of Latinos and African-Americans, who,
according to the CDC, have suffered rates of infections and deaths
higher than the overall population, which makes a focus on upward mobility even
more important. To measure progress, we have developed an Upward Mobility
Index, with “opportunity ratings” for the nation’s 107 largest metropolitan
areas—those with populations of 500,000 or more in 2018—by race and ethnicity.
We examined the factors that underpin upward mobility and entry into the middle
class. Then, we created a ranking by metro that combined these factors for the
three largest ethnic and racial minorities: African-Americans, Latinos, and
Asians.
The results confound
assertions that nominally progressive policies—affirmative action, programs for
racial redress, strict labor and environmental laws—help nonwhites. It turns
out that places with low housing costs, friendly business conditions, and
reasonable tax rates do much better than cities proclaiming their woke
credentials.
African-Americans do best
by these measurements in southern metros such as Atlanta, the traditional
capital of black America; McAllen, El Paso, and Austin, Texas; and Raleigh,
Virginia Beach/ Norfolk, and Richmond, Virginia. The Washington, D.C. metro
area, well known for its large, middle-class African-American suburbs, also
compares well. Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and (perhaps
surprisingly) Provo, Utah rank high for black success.
At the bottom of the
list, California dominates, with four of the worst ten locations, including Los
Angeles, which a half-century ago was widely seen as a mecca of sorts for blacks. Two of the state’s
most prominent political leaders of the late twentieth century—¬four-term Los
Angeles mayor Tom Bradley and long-time assembly speaker and San Francisco
mayor Willie Brown—came from poor Texas families, not Golden State metros.¬
Other cities traditionally attractive to African-Americans no longer serve as
leading places for black ambition, including Miami and New York.
Similar, though somewhat
varied, results can be seen for Latinos, now the nation’s largest minority, and
Asians, the fastest-growing. Latinos seem to be doing best outside the
Northeast Corridor and the West. Fayetteville (Arkansas/Missouri), for example,
ranks number 7; it’s an evolving economic hub paced by Walmart, JB Hunt, and
Tyson Foods. Latinos have found opportunities in metros tied to basic goods as
well as technological production (St. Louis); logistics and agribusiness
(Kansas City, Des Moines, and Omaha); energy (Pittsburgh and Oklahoma City);
and manufacturing (Grand Rapids and Akron).
In contrast,
California, with the nation’s largest Hispanic population, now includes eight
of the bottom 15 metros on the Hispanic Upward Mobility Index. The nation’s
largest Hispanic conurbation, Los Angeles, ranked 105th out of the 107 largest
U.S. metros. The remaining six worst performers, apart from Honolulu, are on
the much-deindustrialized east coast, including New York, Bridgeport-Stamford,
and Worcester.
Overall, Asians enjoy
incomes 43 percent higher than the U.S. average, and 29 percent higher than
white non-Hispanics, according to newly released American Community Survey 2019
data. But they, too, are finding better opportunities, in terms of housing and
income, in places previously not associated with earlier waves of Asian
immigrants, such as Atlanta, St. Louis, Kansas City, Fayetteville, and
Cincinnati. At the bottom of the
Asian Upward Mobility Index ratings, six are in California, home of the
nation’s largest Asian population, paced by Los Angeles at number 105. Honolulu, the nation’s
most Asian metro, does even worse, at 107.
Perhaps no issue influences upward mobility more
than housing prices. Since World War II, homeownership has defined middle- and
working-class aspirations. High home prices tend to keep minorities,
particularly blacks and Latinos, from achieving this critical component of the
middle-class dream. Without homes of their own, disadvantaged minorities will
face formidable challenges to boosting their wealth. Property remains key to
financial security: homes today account for roughly
two-thirds of the wealth of middle-income Americans.
Homeowners’ median net worth is more than 40 times that of renters, according
to the Census Bureau. At the same time, high rents make any
economic progress difficult for those with lower-wage jobs.
The impact of blue state
policies on housing costs is particularly harmful. The three least
affordable U.S. metros for blacks are San Jose, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Honolulu is fourth; others include San Diego, Denver, Seattle, and Portland. In
contrast, the South and Midwest are best for housing affordability. The
inability of African-Americans to buy homes in key markets puts them at a disadvantage
in accumulating wealth. Black families’ median household net wealth has
declined to just one-tenth that of white families, the widest disparity in at
least 40 years. The regulatory environment that contributes to this inequality
is rarely cited by those decrying systemic racism.
The differences between
regions are enormous. Black homeownership in larger metropolitan areas exceeds
50 percent in Birmingham and in the Washington, D.C. area. The top 12 metros
with black homeownership exceeding 50 percent are all in the South. In
contrast, only about one-third of African-Americans own homes in Los Angeles,
Boston, or New York. Among large metros, Atlanta and Oklahoma City rank highest
in housing affordability for blacks; for Hispanics, the leaders are Youngstown,
McAllen, Pittsburgh, and Toledo, where house prices are exceptionally low.
Pittsburgh, Akron, and St. Louis also rank well. The least affordable housing
markets for Hispanics, like those for blacks, include the four large California
metros, Honolulu, and Boston. Asians also follow this pattern, finding better
affordability in the South and Midwest, while homeownership is much lower in
traditional Asian hubs such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and
Honolulu.
What stands in the way of
black or Latino aspirations is not race discrimination but, in part, policies
that drive up housing costs, which account for 88 percent of the variation in
cost of living between areas. The median house price in San Jose has risen to
nearly 400 percent above the national average, according to the National
Association of Realtors. It is hard to imagine public policies more
disadvantageous to aspirational Americans of any ethnic or racial group.
African-Americans and Latinos have not shared much
in the renaissance of urban areas, often built around tech and finance but not
as promising in creating middle-skilled upwardly mobile jobs in other sectors.
“Real” median incomes (that is, adjusted for cost of living) for
African-Americans are highest in McAllen, El Paso, and Modesto. The lowest
African-American incomes are in Youngstown, Milwaukee, Spokane, Providence, and
Hartford. Among the larger metropolitan areas, such as Washington and Atlanta,
cost-adjusted black median incomes are more than $60,000, compared with just
$36,000 in San Francisco and $37,000 in Los Angeles.
Among Latinos, the
highest cost-adjusted incomes are in Virginia Beach, Baltimore, and Columbus.
The traditional melting pots, Los Angeles and New York, rank near the bottom 20
in Latino household income per capita. The median income for Latinos in
Virginia Beach-Norfolk is $69,000—compared with $43,000 in Los Angeles, $47,000
in San Francisco and $40,000 in New York. Asians enjoy the highest incomes, in
Raleigh, Jackson, and Fayetteville, at $115,000 or more. Los Angeles, with the
nation’s largest Asian population, ranks in the bottom ten, with a
cost-adjusted income of $60,000.
Politicians often claim
to speak for minorities, but people reveal what they want by “voting with their
feet.” Over the past two decades, the black household population has declined
in San Francisco, Oxnard, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. Growth has been modest
in Chicago, New York, San Jose, and Buffalo. In San Francisco proper (not its
metro area), the African-American population share has declined
from one in seven in 1970 to barely one in 20 today. Blacks are now so marginal
that one filmmaker even made a movie called The
Last Black Man In San Francisco.
African-American
populations are growing, though, in metros like Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Las
Vegas, and Minneapolis-St. Paul, which have seen an increase in black
households of 100 percent or more since 2000. In trends that began even before
Covid, small metros have added black households at high rates. For example, the
black population in both Boise and Fayetteville increased more than 200
percent, while in Provo, Portland (Maine), and Scranton, it grew by at least
150 percent.
Latinos, approximately
two-thirds of whom are foreign-born, and Asians, nearly 60 percent
foreign-born, are now settling in regions that were, until recently, immigrant
backwaters. Among Latinos, Scranton, near the fringe of the New York metro
area, leads by a huge margin; its Latino population was negligible in 2000.
Otherwise, the top metros for Latino growth are clustered overwhelmingly in the
South: Knoxville, Charleston, Fayetteville, and Cape Coral. Bigger metros with
large gains include Louisville, Charlotte, and Nashville.
In contrast, the lowest
Latino growth is taking place mostly in coastal metropolitan areas: Los
Angeles, San Jose, San Francisco, New York, Oxnard, and Miami. Chicago and
Detroit also rank in the bottom ten. Asians, the fastest-growing minority, have
expanded into such unlikely places as Cape Coral (Florida), Madison,
Fayetteville, Scranton, Greensboro, and Indianapolis. In contrast, growth has
been muted in such traditional centers as Honolulu (which ranked last), Los
Angeles, San Francisco, and New York.
“One of the great
mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than
their results,” economist Milton Friedman said. Whatever their professed concerns for low-income
and ethnic minorities, progressive cities and their mayors fail to deliver
palpable progress. Initiatives like defunding the police, affirmative action,
and implementing guaranteed basic income have largely failed and in some cases
have made things worse.
In contrast, more
conservative areas have produced more opportunity and general well-being for
the minority population. Those who govern places like New York, Los Angeles,
and Chicago need to learn that solutions to America’s ethnic and racial
disparities will not be found in intensified resentment, civil unrest, or
further regulation that constrains the economy. Instead, broad-based economic
growth appears to be the prerequisite to greater opportunity. Places with the best tax climates and the best overall business climates fare best.
The pandemic, which has
seen many metros in the Heartland, the South, and
Intermountain West recover more quickly than those in locked-down New York, Los
Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago, could either accelerate these trends or
provide a wake-up call. These blue cities must liberalize their land-use
regulations to reduce rents and make house prices affordable to average-income
families. And these cities certainly need a renewed focus on crime and
disorder, which threaten to drive a growing exodus.
Instead of addressing
“systemic racism,” these cities should instead embrace the Gospel admonition:
“Physician, heal thyself.” It starts by focusing not on rhetoric but on what
works—job creation, broad-based business growth, increased housing
affordability, and improving dysfunctional education systems.
For now, Americans are
finding their own solutions—often by moving away from locales that have stopped
addressing these issues. Our commitment should be to spread more advantageous
conditions to all metropolitan areas, not only to Boise and Nashville but also
to New York and Los Angeles, improving quality of life for working- and
middle-class Americans wherever they live.
The Implications of Joe Biden's Amnesties
Millions — if not tens of millions — of new immigrants
By Andrew R. Arthur on November 2, 2020
Editor's
note: Read more on Trump vs. Biden: Amnesty
On October
22, I wrote a post comparing and
contrasting the positions of Donald Trump and Joe Biden on amnesty. That post
only detailed the proposals of each — it did not actually
discuss the implications of their respective plans. While Biden vows a
legislative amnesty for over 11 million aliens, in reality, the number of
foreign nationals who would enter and gain status — legal or otherwise — is
actually much, much larger if his plans come to fruition.
During the
October 22 presidential debate,
Biden stated that within his first 100 days, he would "send to the United
States Congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented
people." That promise came late in the debate, and casual observers may
have missed it.
As I noted in
my post, that promise is open-ended, because it is dependent on the
illegal-alien population in the United States at a given time. But what given
time?
Notably, the
former vice-president has not set a cut-off date by which those aliens would
have had to have been present in the United States to qualify (an element of
most amnesties). This is an extremely important component of the ultimate size
of the proposed amnesty.
Will the
cut-off date be the date that this legislation is sent to Capitol Hill? The
date that the bill is actually signed into law? Or will it be a date chosen
that is earlier or later than either of those two dates?
Biden
referenced DACA in the course of that statement, continuing: "And all
those so called Dreamers, those DACA kids, they're going to be legally
certified again, to be able to stay in this country, and put on a path to
citizenship." DACA resulted from a memorandum that was
issued by then-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano on June 15, 2012, and applied
only to aliens who had been present for five years as of that date (an example
of an amnesty cut-off).
So, will June
15, 2007, be the date? Doubtful, because in the latest version of
"Dreamer" legislation — the "American Dream and Promise
Act of 2019" (which passed the House and has not been
acted on in the Senate) — has a cut-off date that is four years prior to the
date of passage. In fact, there will be tremendous impetus to legalize (in
"one last amnesty", the sponsors will solemnly promise) all
aliens illegally present in the United States on the date of passage.
Why? Because
Biden's own campaign website rails
against the current president's interior enforcement efforts: "Targeting
people who have never been convicted of a serious criminal offense and who have
lived, worked, and contributed to our economy and our communities for decades
is the definition of counterproductive." In other words, Biden thinks that
Trump has deported too many people.
As I
explained in an October 12 post, that is a canard,
because interior enforcement under Trump has not been significantly different
(and in part is significantly less vigorous) than it was under
the Obama-Biden administration. But given the fact that the Biden campaign's
focus has not been on a lack of enforcement under the Trump administration,
there will be strong impetus to legalize all aliens (illegal entrants and non-immigrant
overstays) in the United States, regardless of how long they have been here.
Where,
exactly, that cut-off (if any) is set will depend on whether the Republicans
continue to control the Senate in the 117th Congress. Assuming Democratic
control of the Upper Chamber, that date would likely be as of date of
enactment, so long as there is not a huge surge of migrants entering illegally
in the interim (which could cool their ardor for a later date).
Of course, as
my colleague Todd Bensman has
reported, DHS's most recent Homeland Threat Assessment predicts
a massive wave of illegal migration in 2021. Whether that occurs (and whether
the media reports on the effects of such a crisis) would likely determine
whether the Biden administration attempts to turn down the magnet that a
massive amnesty would create.
Even
assuming, however, that there is a cut-off date, amnesties have
always created an incentive for more migrants to enter the United States
illegally, as new migrants enter illegally hoping that they will be able to
take advantage of the next amnesty. Want proof? My former
colleague Jim Edwards years ago explained, "the illegal population had
replenished itself in less than a decade" after the 1986 amnesty. They
came for a reason.
Of course,
any amnesty that is not accompanied by a reform of the legal immigration system
will have a "multiplier" effect on the number of foreign nationals
who ultimately remain in and enter the United States legally.
The way that
the current immigration laws are
structured, immigrants are able to petition for their spouses and children to
enter the United States, and once they become citizens,
those erstwhile immigrants are able to petition for their parents and siblings,
as well. My colleague Jessica Vaughan noted in a September 2017 Backgrounder that 61 percent of the
33 million immigrants admitted to the United States between 1981 and 2016 (20
million in total) were such "chain migration immigrants".
Nothing that
the former vice president has said or issued on the campaign trail suggests
that he has any intention of reforming that system (he actually says the
opposite), however, and in fact, there is no reason to believe that he would
not make immediate relatives abroad of an alien issued amnesty eligible for
entry, too.
In fact, his
campaign website states: "Each day, in every state in the country, millions
of immigrants granted a visa based on family ties make valuable contributions
to our country and economy." If he believes that was true in the past, why
wouldn't it be true in the future as well?
Of course,
that is just the de jure legislative amnesty that the former
vice president proposes. He has actually promoted a significant de
facto amnesty for foreign nationals currently abroad and almost all
aliens in the United States.
With respect
to foreign nationals, Biden has vowed to eliminate executive actions taken by
the current administration to limit the number of aliens who enter illegally
and claim credible fear (as 105,439 migrants did in FY 2019). This, coupled
with his promise to relax
the current standards for asylum, will provide stronger incentives for foreign
nationals to enter the United States in the future (and provide yet another
selling point for their prospective smugglers).
There is no
reason to believe that Biden will expand the detention of those migrants (his
campaign and supporters, in fact, want to decrease detention), and therefore an
untold number of foreign nationals would almost definitely enter the United
States illegally and be released into this country under a Biden
administration.
Once
released, there is no reason to believe that they will ever leave. Why do I say
that? Because, as I have noted, the former vice
president has stated that he will only remove aliens who have committed
felonies in the United States (not including DUI), and will fire any ICE
officer who transgresses this mandate.
Unless Biden
gives way on either the legislative amnesty, the de facto one,
or both, that will mean that millions — if not tens of millions — of aliens
will remain in and/or enter the United States illegally and stay forever.
That wave of
new aliens will fall hardest on the most underprivileged American workers
(citizens, nationals, and legal immigrants already here). Those amnestied
immigrants will largely have modest levels of education (as my colleague Steven Camarota has
explained is true of the current undocumented population), and will probably
not have the skills to find high-paying jobs in the 21st century American
economy (if they did, they would likely not enter illegally to begin with).
As I
have noted previously,
the George W. Bush Center (which
promotes immigration and contends that it is a "net plus"), admits:
Immigration changes factor prices — it lowers the wages of
competing workers, while raising the return to capital and the wages of
complementary workers.
...
Research suggests that previous immigrants suffer more of the
adverse wage effects than do natives. Prior immigrants are more like current
immigrants.
Research also suggests any negative
wage effects are concentrated among low-skilled and not high-skilled workers.
Perhaps that is because high-skilled U.S.-born workers are complementary to
immigrants to a greater extent than native low-skilled workers, who hold jobs
that require less education and fewer language skills.
With respect
to those wage effects, the former vice president has
stated that he is concerned about such disadvantaged American workers, and
therefore supports a $15 minimum wage. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) in July 2019 found,
however, that a proposal to do just that by 2025 would reduce up to 3.7 million
workers over that period, and reduce real family income by $9 billion — changes
that "would mainly affect low-income families."
Again, the
vast majority of aliens who would benefit from Biden's amnesty proposals would
be such low-income families. This is certainly true in the short-term, but
likely would be true in the longer term as well, as potential workers would
never gain the skills that they need to advance.
It is beyond
cavil that politicians make promises on the campaign trail that they end up
paring back or fail to keep entirely (Mexico has not paid
for the barriers along the Southwest border, as then-candidate Trump vowed, for
example). There is likely to be a backlash against many of Biden's amnesty
proposals, which have gained little attention during his campaign. I would
question whether many Americans are actually in favor of having more criminals
in their communities, for example.
But there are
certainly political advantages to him and his party from his proposals, as
those newly legalized immigrants become citizens and likely to support the
party that made their status possible.
I leave it to
my more statistically apt colleagues to estimate the effects that these
amnesties will have on public benefits and municipal services. But, at least in
the short-term, there are likely to be adverse effects, as hospitals have to
expand their resources to care for a burgeoning population, and localities have
to increase their police, fire, garbage, and social services capacities.
And, inasmuch
as the former vice president vows to undo the
Trump administration "public charge rule",
the effect on public benefits (particularly SNAP, most forms
of Medicaid, and Section 8 housing assistance)
are likely to be significant, and long- (or at least longer-) lasting.
All of this is dependent on Biden's election, and the make-up
of the 117th Congress. As polls suggest that
Democrats are likely to sweep to victory in at least the White House and House
of Representatives (and quite possibly the Senate, as well), however, the table
is all but set for those amnesties to begin.
The Implications of Joe Biden's Amnesties
Millions — if not tens of millions — of new immigrants
By Andrew R. Arthur on November 2, 2020
Editor's
note: Read more on Trump vs. Biden: Amnesty
On October
22, I wrote a post comparing and
contrasting the positions of Donald Trump and Joe Biden on amnesty. That post
only detailed the proposals of each — it did not actually
discuss the implications of their respective plans. While Biden vows a
legislative amnesty for over 11 million aliens, in reality, the number of
foreign nationals who would enter and gain status — legal or otherwise — is
actually much, much larger if his plans come to fruition.
During the
October 22 presidential debate,
Biden stated that within his first 100 days, he would "send to the United
States Congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented
people." That promise came late in the debate, and casual observers may
have missed it.
As I noted in
my post, that promise is open-ended, because it is dependent on the
illegal-alien population in the United States at a given time. But what given
time?
Notably, the
former vice-president has not set a cut-off date by which those aliens would
have had to have been present in the United States to qualify (an element of
most amnesties). This is an extremely important component of the ultimate size
of the proposed amnesty.
Will the
cut-off date be the date that this legislation is sent to Capitol Hill? The
date that the bill is actually signed into law? Or will it be a date chosen
that is earlier or later than either of those two dates?
Biden
referenced DACA in the course of that statement, continuing: "And all
those so called Dreamers, those DACA kids, they're going to be legally
certified again, to be able to stay in this country, and put on a path to
citizenship." DACA resulted from a memorandum that was
issued by then-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano on June 15, 2012, and applied
only to aliens who had been present for five years as of that date (an example
of an amnesty cut-off).
So, will June
15, 2007, be the date? Doubtful, because in the latest version of
"Dreamer" legislation — the "American Dream and Promise
Act of 2019" (which passed the House and has not been
acted on in the Senate) — has a cut-off date that is four years prior to the
date of passage. In fact, there will be tremendous impetus to legalize (in
"one last amnesty", the sponsors will solemnly promise) all
aliens illegally present in the United States on the date of passage.
Why? Because
Biden's own campaign website rails
against the current president's interior enforcement efforts: "Targeting
people who have never been convicted of a serious criminal offense and who have
lived, worked, and contributed to our economy and our communities for decades
is the definition of counterproductive." In other words, Biden thinks that
Trump has deported too many people.
As I
explained in an October 12 post, that is a canard,
because interior enforcement under Trump has not been significantly different
(and in part is significantly less vigorous) than it was under
the Obama-Biden administration. But given the fact that the Biden campaign's
focus has not been on a lack of enforcement under the Trump administration,
there will be strong impetus to legalize all aliens (illegal entrants and non-immigrant
overstays) in the United States, regardless of how long they have been here.
Where,
exactly, that cut-off (if any) is set will depend on whether the Republicans
continue to control the Senate in the 117th Congress. Assuming Democratic
control of the Upper Chamber, that date would likely be as of date of
enactment, so long as there is not a huge surge of migrants entering illegally
in the interim (which could cool their ardor for a later date).
Of course, as
my colleague Todd Bensman has
reported, DHS's most recent Homeland Threat Assessment predicts
a massive wave of illegal migration in 2021. Whether that occurs (and whether
the media reports on the effects of such a crisis) would likely determine
whether the Biden administration attempts to turn down the magnet that a
massive amnesty would create.
Even
assuming, however, that there is a cut-off date, amnesties have
always created an incentive for more migrants to enter the United States
illegally, as new migrants enter illegally hoping that they will be able to
take advantage of the next amnesty. Want proof? My former
colleague Jim Edwards years ago explained, "the illegal population had
replenished itself in less than a decade" after the 1986 amnesty. They
came for a reason.
Of course,
any amnesty that is not accompanied by a reform of the legal immigration system
will have a "multiplier" effect on the number of foreign nationals
who ultimately remain in and enter the United States legally.
The way that
the current immigration laws are
structured, immigrants are able to petition for their spouses and children to
enter the United States, and once they become citizens,
those erstwhile immigrants are able to petition for their parents and siblings,
as well. My colleague Jessica Vaughan noted in a September 2017 Backgrounder that 61 percent of the
33 million immigrants admitted to the United States between 1981 and 2016 (20
million in total) were such "chain migration immigrants".
Nothing that
the former vice president has said or issued on the campaign trail suggests
that he has any intention of reforming that system (he actually says the
opposite), however, and in fact, there is no reason to believe that he would
not make immediate relatives abroad of an alien issued amnesty eligible for
entry, too.
In fact, his
campaign website states: "Each day, in every state in the country, millions
of immigrants granted a visa based on family ties make valuable contributions
to our country and economy." If he believes that was true in the past, why
wouldn't it be true in the future as well?
Of course,
that is just the de jure legislative amnesty that the former
vice president proposes. He has actually promoted a significant de
facto amnesty for foreign nationals currently abroad and almost all
aliens in the United States.
With respect
to foreign nationals, Biden has vowed to eliminate executive actions taken by
the current administration to limit the number of aliens who enter illegally
and claim credible fear (as 105,439 migrants did in FY 2019). This, coupled
with his promise to relax
the current standards for asylum, will provide stronger incentives for foreign
nationals to enter the United States in the future (and provide yet another
selling point for their prospective smugglers).
There is no
reason to believe that Biden will expand the detention of those migrants (his
campaign and supporters, in fact, want to decrease detention), and therefore an
untold number of foreign nationals would almost definitely enter the United
States illegally and be released into this country under a Biden
administration.
Once
released, there is no reason to believe that they will ever leave. Why do I say
that? Because, as I have noted, the former vice
president has stated that he will only remove aliens who have committed
felonies in the United States (not including DUI), and will fire any ICE
officer who transgresses this mandate.
Unless Biden
gives way on either the legislative amnesty, the de facto one,
or both, that will mean that millions — if not tens of millions — of aliens
will remain in and/or enter the United States illegally and stay forever.
That wave of
new aliens will fall hardest on the most underprivileged American workers
(citizens, nationals, and legal immigrants already here). Those amnestied
immigrants will largely have modest levels of education (as my colleague Steven Camarota has
explained is true of the current undocumented population), and will probably
not have the skills to find high-paying jobs in the 21st century American
economy (if they did, they would likely not enter illegally to begin with).
As I
have noted previously,
the George W. Bush Center (which
promotes immigration and contends that it is a "net plus"), admits:
Immigration changes factor prices — it lowers the wages of
competing workers, while raising the return to capital and the wages of
complementary workers.
...
Research suggests that previous immigrants suffer more of the
adverse wage effects than do natives. Prior immigrants are more like current
immigrants.
Research also suggests any negative
wage effects are concentrated among low-skilled and not high-skilled workers.
Perhaps that is because high-skilled U.S.-born workers are complementary to
immigrants to a greater extent than native low-skilled workers, who hold jobs
that require less education and fewer language skills.
With respect
to those wage effects, the former vice president has
stated that he is concerned about such disadvantaged American workers, and
therefore supports a $15 minimum wage. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) in July 2019 found,
however, that a proposal to do just that by 2025 would reduce up to 3.7 million
workers over that period, and reduce real family income by $9 billion — changes
that "would mainly affect low-income families."
Again, the
vast majority of aliens who would benefit from Biden's amnesty proposals would
be such low-income families. This is certainly true in the short-term, but
likely would be true in the longer term as well, as potential workers would
never gain the skills that they need to advance.
It is beyond
cavil that politicians make promises on the campaign trail that they end up
paring back or fail to keep entirely (Mexico has not paid
for the barriers along the Southwest border, as then-candidate Trump vowed, for
example). There is likely to be a backlash against many of Biden's amnesty
proposals, which have gained little attention during his campaign. I would
question whether many Americans are actually in favor of having more criminals
in their communities, for example.
But there are
certainly political advantages to him and his party from his proposals, as
those newly legalized immigrants become citizens and likely to support the
party that made their status possible.
I leave it to
my more statistically apt colleagues to estimate the effects that these
amnesties will have on public benefits and municipal services. But, at least in
the short-term, there are likely to be adverse effects, as hospitals have to
expand their resources to care for a burgeoning population, and localities have
to increase their police, fire, garbage, and social services capacities.
And, inasmuch
as the former vice president vows to undo the
Trump administration "public charge rule",
the effect on public benefits (particularly SNAP, most forms
of Medicaid, and Section 8 housing assistance)
are likely to be significant, and long- (or at least longer-) lasting.
All of this is dependent on Biden's election, and the make-up
of the 117th Congress. As polls suggest that
Democrats are likely to sweep to victory in at least the White House and House
of Representatives (and quite possibly the Senate, as well), however, the table
is all but set for those amnesties to begin.
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