Immigration Debate Roiled as Deportation Goal Collides With Demographic Reality

Two dissimilar government agencies have inadvertently combined to clarify the immigration debate. Stomach-turning excesses by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have turned many Americans’ abstract political preference into something uncomfortably concrete. And the Census Bureau has demonstrated that the nation needs immigrants as much as they need the blessings of American liberty.Given a clear binary choice — for or against deporting immigrants who are here illegally — most Americans favor deportation. However:One Sunday, a moderately pro-deportation American goes, as usual, for brunch at the neighborhood diner. Jose, who has put waffles in front of this American for 20 years, and who regularly exchanges pleasantries with him about their families, is gone. He has been deported for America’s improvement. Suddenly, the immigration issue has a face, and complexity.President Biden’s choice not to enforce immigration laws poisoned the immigration debate, and led to government behavior today that is deepening distrust of government. The influx during Mr. Biden’s four years (8.3 million, more than in the preceding 12 years), torrential and dispersed, has clouded the picture. This, however, seems true:The foreign-born portion of the American population (15.8 percent) is higher than at any time since at least 1850. Yet as of 2023, only 27 percent were not authorized to be here. More than half of all immigrants (52 percent) have become American citizens. Prior to the Biden inundation, most undocumented immigrants had arrived before 2010, 43 percent as of 2020 had been here at least 20 years, about one-third were homeowners, and their 5 million children born here were citizens. Talk of sending them “home” is nonsensical.They are home. For which, give thanks:The Census Bureau reports that between July 2024 and July 2025, the American population grew by just 0.5 percent, 1.4 million less than in the previous 12 months, primarily because of less immigration. According to the Pew Research Center, during the first six months of this administration, the foreign-born population shrank by more than a million, the first decline since the 1960s. According to the Migration Policy Institute, between 2022 and 2023, for the first time since relevant census data began being collected in 1850, immigration accounted for America’s entire population growth.As the American population ages, those leaving the workforce enter Social Security and Medicare. The nation’s birth rate is below the replacement rate, so immigration must replenish the workforce whose tax contributions fund the entitlements.Immigrants are 23.6 percent of those working in science, technology, engineering, and math. Nurses, of whom 15.9 percent are foreign born, and health aides, 28.4 percent of whom are foreign born, are crucial to an aging America.A recent Cato Institute report (“Immigrants’ Recent Effects on Government Budgets: 1994-2023”) says: Immigrants “generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government.” They “created a cumulative fiscal surplus of $14.5 trillion in real 2024 US dollars,” including $3.9 trillion in savings on interest that did not need to be paid on debt that was not added.Immigrants were, on average, more than 12 percent more likely to be employed than the U.S.-born population. Cato: “In 1994, the immigrant share of government expenditures was 18 percent below their share of the population; in 2023, it was 25 percent below.”In 2023, immigrants constituted almost 18 percent of the civilian labor force, and more than a third of them were in management, professional and related occupations, almost double the 21 percent in service occupations (e.g., hospitality). In 2023, immigrant median household income ($78,700) was slightly above that of American-born households ($77,600).The Cato data comes from static, not dynamic, accounting: It does not, for example, gauge immigration’s dynamism injection: Immigration — risk-taking for improved opportunity — is an entrepreneurial act. Unsurprisingly, immigrants’ workforce participation rate (66.5 percent) is higher than that of the American-born population (61.7 percent), and immigrants’ portions of American patents and start-ups exceeds immigrants’ portion of the population.As Cato notes, many illegal immigrants who are employed under borrowed or stolen identities have taxes withheld by employers but are ineligible for many government benefits. And they are less likely than others to file returns in order to claim refunds. This is another reason why Cato says:“Immigrants have created an enormous fiscal surplus for the US government … The $14.5 trillion in savings from immigrants is the equivalent of 33 percent of the total inflation-adjusted combined deficits from 1994 to 2023 without immigrants.”That fellow having brunch at the diner will still get his waffles. Yet he will miss Jose, and millions like him, in more ways that he can easily imagine.The Washington Post

Immigration Debate Roiled as Deportation Goal Collides With Demographic Reality

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