Immigration dispute is an emotional one: 9 facts you should know

Wall or no wall, Republican or Democrat, the topic of immigration has always been an emotional one.  Emotions so charged that facts are often ignored and disputed.  In a country shaped and formed by immigrants, this notion of this-is-my-land and immigrants threaten our security and culture, has played a significant role in political campaigns that have little to do with facts and assessment of evidence.

Immigration impacts demographics, population growth in consumers and work force, demand and supply in the economy….all in a positive direction.  I’ve often wondered why economic impact of immigration is never discussed in political campaigns or rebuttals.  Regardless of your partisan viewpoint, it’s good to fact check yourself and your beliefs.  Brookings updated their document on facts about immigration and some of the findings may surprise you.  Contrary to the common theme in political campaigns that immigrants take jobs away from American natives, lowering wages and making it hard for them to compete, evidence shows that immigrants have a tiny impact on the wages and they tend to work in different jobs not pursued by natives.  Meanwhile, they have positive impact on the economy,  If it weren’t for immigrants and multicultural population growth, US will be facing the same demographic challenge with aging and declining population.  This is driven by lower fertility rate for native-born Americans and higher fertility rate for immigrants and multicultural population.  (I’ve written extensively about this, click here to read one of my articles on this topic).  Population growth is essential for fiscal and economic stability. Just think how difficult it will become for Social Security and Medicare to fund as the working-age population declines relative to the elderly population.

Here’s my summary of 9 facts about immigration you should know.  I’ll start with economic impact.  (click here to read the entire Brookings report and their sources, and here for Pew Research reporting similar findings.)

Fact 1: Output in the economy is higher and grows faster with more immigrants, they contribute positively to government finances, businesses & GDP.

By increasing the number of workers in the labor force, immigrants enhance the productive capacity of the U.S. economy.  In turn, that increases consumptions which help US businesses.  They increase government finances because they pay taxes.  And in case you’re wondering, per capita expenditure on cash welfare, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security are all lower for immigrants than for native-born Americans.

One estimate suggests that the total annual contribution of foreign-born workers is roughly $2 trillion, or about 10% of annual GDP.  The contribution of unauthorized immigrants is estimated to be about 2.6% of GDP.  Adding to this, providing documented status to unauthorized immigrants, allowing better job matching, would increase GDP by an additional 0.33%.  In contrast, deporting all unauthorized immigrants would lower annual GDP by 0.27%.

Fact 2: Most estimates show a small impact of immigration on low-skilled native-born wages.

Most estimates in Brookings report show an impact on low-skilled native-born wages of 0-1%. Another one of their recent estimate showed a slightly positive impact on wages (0.6-1.7%).  Interestingly, the impact on wages of native workers with more education are generally estimated to be positive, which makes the overall impact positive.

Fact 3: High-skilled immigration increases innovation.

Immigrants are more likely to attain college and advanced degrees, and more likely to work in STEM fields. This leads to disproportionate immigrant contributions to innovation.  Although immigrants constitute only 18% of 25-or-older workforce, they obtain 28% of high-quality patents.  And more likely to become Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine.  Click here to read an interesting article debunking myths that high skilled immigrants steal American jobs.

Fact 4: Immigration in the United States does not increase crime rates.

In 2010, I wrote a blog “More immigrants = less crime” and over 8 years later, this report continues to validate this.  Studies show that immigrants are considerably less likely than natives to commit crimes or to be incarcerated. Reasons vary by immigrants being subjected to various kinds of formal and informal screening to education and income (more on this below).  Evidence suggests that legalizing the status of unauthorized immigrants causes a reduction in crime by improving employment opportunities. Conversely, restricting access to legal employment for unauthorized immigrants leads to an increased crime rate for offenses that help to generate income . Overall, this reports shows unauthorized immigration to have no effect on rates of violent crime.

Now, some general facts….

Fact 5: The foreign-born share of the U.S. population has returned to its late-19th-century level, rise driven by both immigration and low fertility rates of native-born Americans.

Foreign-born share of population in the US rose to 14% during second half of the 19th century.  However, this share reached a historic low of 4.7% in 1970 due to policy changes such as national origin quotas as well as Great Depression and two world wars.  In the second half of the 20th century, a series of immigration reforms repealed national origin quotas and in 1986 amnesty was provided to undocumented immigrants, rising the share to 13.7% from 1970 to 2017.

While foreign-born share of population increased, the “net” immigration rate declined by half.  However, it is due to the increase in the number of prime-age children of immigrants that the US has been supported with more than 3% population growth.  By contrast, population growth for native born children has fallen from 0.2% in 1995-2005 to a negative (0.5%) during 2006-17–caused by fertility rate dropping from 3.65 to 1.80.  And we need a fertility rate of 2.1 to sustain population.  Aging population in developed countries has been a big demographic challenge and crisis that I’ve written about many times.  This directly impacts the immigration policies globally, regardless of the political rhetoric.

Fact 6: About three-quarters of the foreign-born population are naturalized citizens or authorized residents.

The remaining 25% is down from 28% in 2009.  And did you know 75% of all unauthorized immigrants have lived in the US for more than 10 years–a sharp increase from 45% in 2007? This puts a different spin in what you’re hearing in the news and political campaigns.  A major factor contributing to the unauthorized number is a rising share of immigrants, who arrived legally, overstaying their visas. (Pew reports the same numbers as Brookings.)

Fact 7:  in 2016, unauthorized immigrant total dipped to lowest level in a decade.

According to recent Pew research, there were 10.7 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2016, down from a peak of 12.2 million in 2007.  That’s a 12% decline, the lowest since 2004–and pre-Trump presidency–driven by a decline of 1.5 million unauthorized Mexican immigrants.  Deportation rose during both Bush and Obama administrations and peaked to a record 433,000 in 2013. Mexicans still account for roughly half of this total, but noteworthy, the number of unauthorized immigrants from Central America, mainly El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, increased by 375,000 over the same period to 1.85 million.  Overall, the unauthorized immigrant population shrank by 13% by 2016.

Fact 8: 80% of immigrants today come from Asia or Latin America, while in 1910 more than 80% of immigrants came from Europe.

To put it bluntly, this is why the hot topic of immigration is emotional.  Majority of immigrants are not white, and they’re changing the demographics and culture.  As marriage of European immigrants led to today’s white population in the US, it would seem natural to project similar boom of multiracial and multicultural population.  This is why majority of White Americans with lower education support Trump, his wall, and immigration policies.  It is an emotional reaction to the changing demographics in the US, regardless of the upside economically.

Fun fact from my previous blog: Although Asians represent only 6% of population today, they are now on target to surpass Hispanics as the largest foreign-born group in American by 2055.

Fact 9: Immigrants are 4 times more likely than native-borns to have less than a high school degree, but twice as likely to have a masters or doctorate.  Regardless, their children attain similar education and occupations.

This reflects the diversity of background with immigrants. To put this in context, 58% of people with postsecondary degree are Asians, and 51% of of people with a high school degree or less are from Mexico.  Contrary to common stereotype, immigrants are more positively selected based on education and prospects for labor market success.  Some fun facts here:  from 1980-2010, immigrant workers accounted for 39% increase in overall science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) employment, rising to 29% of STEM workers in 2010. By contrast, high-skilled native-born workers opted for occupations that require more communications and interpersonal skills. Clearly, degree of English proficiency drives occupational choices.

And regardless of their parents, children of immigrants tend to attain educational and occupational outcomes similar to natives, but with higher rates of college and postgraduate attainment.

Immigration is a hot topic that has led to the longest government shut down in history.  Isn’t it time to get our facts straight?