Immigration, the American Way

As the U.S. southern border begins to function once again, it’s time to consider what kind of immigration policy we should adopt. President Trump’s move to deport huge populations, upwards of 10 million just since 2021, could prove to be among the most decisive actions a president has taken in decades.

The Biden Administration’s oddly permissive policies ironically have stiffened Americans’ opposition to immigration across the board. According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans who wish to reduce all immigration has soared from 41% just two years ago to over 55% in 2024, although many still embrace legal migration.

Even among Latinos, Pew notes, half of those polled associate the current wave with increased crime in their communities, including the growth of Venezuelan gangs and the takeover of large blocks of housing in some urban areas. Today a majority of Latinos support mass deportations, as do most Americans.

The Coming Conflict

Given the national mood, some conservatives—and roughly half of all Republicans—might like to end all or most immigration, but this could prove damaging to the national interest. Progressives are not making this argument, however. Instead, they are indulging in their usual racial rhetoric, even openly supporting criminal migrants and talking of resisting “mass expulsions,” with some suggesting that migrants will be victims of government “atrocities.”

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has already advanced plans to block federal agents with a “Tiananmen Square” style occupation, something that could land him in jail. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Tim Walz suggested that if Trump built a wall, he would build “a ladder” so migrants could go over it. Some progressives even seek to grant the undocumented free college, education, and access to driver’s licenses.

Automatic defenses for all undocumented immigrants are commonplace in Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles, the latter of which has nearly a million undocumented immigrants alone. California is even allegedly threatening to take pensions from—and even imprison—police who help federal agents. However, it does not seem like such things as blocking freeways, which a mob waving Mexican flags did recently in Los Angeles, is the best advertising for leniency. But these actions may be paired back soon, as the system of federal transfers California and big American cities use to pay for migrant housing and other needs has fallen into jeopardy under Trump.

Other Democrats may welcome Trump’s expulsions. New York Mayor Eric Adams last year suggested that mass migration could “destroy” the city, and has even spoken in favor of having NYPD officers help immigration officials arrest undocumented felons. Many in African American and Latino communities, including Denver, New York, and Chicago, largely blame undocumented border crossers for higher housing costs and reduced levels of social services and hospital care.

America’s Demographic Bind

Our need for immigrants and their labor should be the guiding principle for a reformed immigration system. Unlike the late 19th and early 20th centuries, however, America does not need an unlimited supply of workers. Yet there remains a need for new workers in a world where demographic decline is clearly shaping economic reality.

John Maynard Keynes warned that “chaining up of the one devil (of overpopulation) may, if we are careless, only serve to lose another still fiercer and more intractable.” Historically, rising populations drove growth. Young workforces are critical to innovation, as was clearly the case during Europe’s early modern heyday, as well as in the U.S.’s great economic expansion. Similarly, East Asia in the first decades of this century benefited from an enormous “youth bulge” at a time when overall fertility rates had begun to decline.

Globally, total population growth in 2021 was the smallest in a half century. Some 61 countries are expected to see population declines by 2050, with the world’s population due to peak later this century. This is occurring even in developing countries such as Iran and throughout much of South America. Populations are expected to halve by 2100 in more than 20 countries, including Spain, Portugal, and Japan.

These trends will put enormous strain on pensions, Social Security, and medical care for aging populations. Across the over 100 countries that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) works with, the dependence ratio of older people (that is, the proportion of those aged 65 compared to those aged 20-64) will rise from the current figure of 22% to 46% by 2050.

In the U.S., workforce growth already has slowed to about one-third the level it was in 1970, and seems destined to drop even further. Under current law, U.S. Social Security funds will be depleted by 2035. The Social Security system was designed under the assumption that the number of younger workers would continue to increase as a proportion of the population, thereby providing sufficient taxes to sustain the system.

Yet even with this demographic challenge, the key issue is less the number of immigrants than their skills and motivations. Businesses may embrace the current massive and unvetted wave of immigration—much of it illegal—but in much of the world, notably Canada, Europe, and the U.K., a big surge in immigration has not provided the expected stimulus. Most immigrant workers, for example, often lack sufficient skills or cannot penetrate the continent’s difficult regulatory environment.

Worse yet, many migrants have become a huge social liability. In France, newcomers and their offspring have created a permanent underclass that embraces lawless nihilism, compounded by Islamist ideology. The war in Gaza has become, notes Dominic Green, “a domestic crisis for Europe.” Even Sweden, long the Valhalla of progressive fantasies, has been forced to call out the army to tamp down gang and Islamist violence in immigrant-dominated areas.

The migration crisis has energized right-wing political parties across Europe, even in historically open societies like the Netherlands and France, which have a long history of successful immigration. Departing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and his likely Christian Democrat successor, are even embracing the idea of expelling some migrants who had been welcomed into the country.

Perhaps the saddest case can be found in Canada, which in recent years shifted from emphasizing skills to an essentially open admission policy. Some saw massive immigration—in 2023 the country received a million immigrants, accounting for 97.7% of Canada’s population growth—as a way to spur the economy, but this is increasingly specious. Despite the new supply of immigrants, the country has suffered among the slowest economic growth rates among advanced countries over the past decade.

Rather than supercharging the economy, Canada’s standard of living continues to fall while the country continues to decline. This includes many migrants from narco-states in Asia and South America with high rates of violent crime; some are forming criminal gangs. Indeed, according to StatsCan, the violent crime rate is up 40% since 2014, while international gangs have turned Canada into a haven for car theft, shipping both cars and parts to developing countries. It is not surprising that nearly two-thirds of Canadians lack confidence in the screening process, while only 6% approve.

Building an American Alternative

Given these economic, political, and social realities, the U.S. needs to shift its immigration policies from a globalist sense of obligation to a focus on the country’s best interests. Immigration still matters, and is responsible for most U.S. population growth. It is a key reason why the country has a younger population and is growing faster than its main rivals.

But as seen in both Europe and Canada, the nature of immigrants matters more than mere numbers. The massive wave of undocumented immigrants crossing the southern border is no true stimulus. The Congressional Budget Office warns that the recent “massive surge in immigration” could impact the salaries of low-income U.S. workers, who also have to compete with them for living space, jobs, and social services.

But there will be some niches where immigrants still may prove critical. Legal immigrants, for example, could be an important asset in President Trump’s drive to reindustrialize the country. As many as 600,000 new manufacturing jobs are expected to be generated this decade that cannot currently be filled. Latinos already constitute over a fifth of all factory workers, a quarter of people engaged in agriculture, and a fifth of all truck drivers. These are workers and industries that increasingly embrace the GOP.

The medical field is another area that needs a steady stream of immigrants. By 2030, there’s a projected shortfall of 40,000 doctors nationwide. Already, immigrant healthcare workers represent 17% of the overall U.S. civilian workforce, including 28% of physicians, 24% of dentists, and 38% of home health aides.

Yet our future policy also needs to weigh the impact of robotics and artificial intelligence. Within months of AI’s emergence, freelance work in software declined markedly, and major tech firms started cutting back on their white-collar workforce. At the low end, demand could drop as companies embrace robotic nannies and others that can clean bathrooms and make hotel beds, while new efficiencies could also reduce the demand for professionals.

For some jobs that still lack workers, it may make sense to be more generous with work permits for short-term employment in fields like agriculture and hospitality. In some East Asian countries like Japan, China, and Korea, though mass immigration is widely seen as incompatible with the national culture, foreign workers are nevertheless recruited to fill specific jobs in areas with deep shortages.

Trump’s newly acquired allies in the tech economy will resist radical changes in immigration policy. In Silicon Valley, nearly three quarters of the tech workforce is foreign, and many hold H-1B visas. Although this program has been abused by employers, sometimes at the expense of American workers, it would be very difficult—and politically damaging—for Trump to shut it down entirely without providing a means for talented immigrants to be put on the road to citizenship.

Immigrants Committed to America

Rather than asking how we can provide benefits to newcomers and bend to their national cultures, we need immigrants who want to become Americans. Fortunately, most immigrants, particularly those here legally, are aware of the many advantages of American society and seem anxious to integrate into its basic norms.

Latinos, for example, represent roughly half of all immigrants, and are unlikely to be Islamists or hostile to Western culture. By 2030, they will account for 78% of new U.S. workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Latino wealth also has grown roughly twice as fast as the general population in the past decade, while over the past 20 years Latinos nationwide have experienced the largest reduction in poverty.

More important still are attitudes. At a time of deep-seated pessimism across the country, Latinos are generally more optimistic than non-Latino whites. Latinos also boast some of the highest rates of voluntary enlistment and military service. They represent the fastest-growing population in the military, making up about 16% of all active-duty military. The number of police who are Latino increased 82% from 1997 to 2020.

Asians, the second largest group, also have made enormous inroads. The Asian share of all U.S. business has more than doubled since 2000; by one count, Asians make up a third of the leading tech CEOs. The number of Chinese immigrants in America has doubled since 2000, while the Middle Kingdom struggles with a diminishing workforce. America’s gain, Trump can tell Xi Jinping, is China’s loss.

Fortunately, Trump and the GOP are now beginning to see immigrants and their offspring as a political opportunity, given their gains in the 2024 elections among Latino, Asian, and Middle Eastern voters. And it’s not just economics. According to one recent survey, immigrants are twice as conservative in their social views as the general public, and they tend to reject the identity politics so central to current Democratic ideology. New immigrants and minorities also tend to be more religious than whites.

What may prove crucial is how the Trump Administration’s new immigration policies are enforced. Trump’s operatives need to proceed cautiously, and with a sense of humanity. A good first step, besides building Trump’s cherished wall, is the plans being put in place to expel migrants with criminal records. This will likely have strong support everywhere but the far-left, ethnic nationalists, progressive judges, and the fever shops of the universities.

Trump has also expressed interest in legalizing “the dreamers,” children who came illegally to the country and have grown up here. He may also legalize, at least on a short-term basis, workers in the service sector and agriculture—which depend on undocumented workers. One possible solution would be to establish a modern version of the Bracero program, which allows workers—not their families—to stay in the country. This would greatly benefit industries like construction, trucking, agriculture, retail, and manufacturing, where immigrants make up 20% or more of the total workforce.

A Post-Racial Future in Sight

America has three choices. The first is to accept no or little immigration and try to exist as a low-growth, stagnant society. The model here is Japan, but America lacks the unique social homogeneity, as well as the massive savings, that could keep that aging, slow-growth society going for at least the next decade or two.

Next is to follow Europe’s lead, allowing all comers no matter what they might offer the country. This is basically what Biden and the advocates of the “sanctuary cities” have put in place since 2021. The results, in terms of crime and social dislocation, are painfully obvious.

The third option reflects the values of American society, and its embrace of forging a common identity among many diverse groups. This has been the key to our past success and could be the driver of future growth, and not only in the economy and tech. Newcomers have always been what has made our country so unique, and could make it even more dynamic in its third century.

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