AMERICA’S FOUNDERS SPOKE OUT STRONGLY ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF IMMIGRATION TO AMERICAN PROSPERITY
On July 4, 1776, in the Declaration of Independence, our Founders complained about specific policies imposed on them by the unitary executive, the English King, declaring:
Among those 27 specific grievances was their 7th grievance - against the King’s anti-immigrant policies, which hamstrung economic prosperity in the American Colonies:
"He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands."
The Founders were practical people who understood that their own economic prosperity depended upon immigration to increase the availability of other tradespeople, merchants, laborers, farmers, wagon drivers, dock workers, bankers, and other workers who could power economic growth. Filling a job in the 1790s created 2 to 7 more jobs, as it still does, since 70% of our American economy is based on people consuming products and services – the food, fuel, travel, services, and other things people eat, use, and do every day. Without healthy consumers – workers in other types of trades and jobs who could afford to consume the things they produced – none of these Founders would prosper and their neighbors wouldn’t either.
Immigration is the tool the Founders used to fill their worker shortage and create more of the economic growth they wanted for their own prosperity. The unitary executive’s (the English King) anti-immigrant policies were holding the American Colonies back economically.
Economic Realities Have Changed AND Have Remained The Same
That same situation is true today. We have a relatively low national birth rate with 1.1 births compared to the 2.1 per woman birth rate needed for replacement. As a result of that low birth rate and ever more restrictive immigration policies, there are only about 0.95 people available for every one of the 7.2 million jobs openings available (down from 8 million one year ago, search BLS.gov JOLTS to see this straightforward set of facts). Since pay rates, location, and skills also matter to find the right fit of worker to job, we are already short of workers with the necessary skills in our private sector economy, so it is growing significantly more slowly than it could. This slower private sector economic growth put pressure on personal income growth and, together with increased costs to consumers from tariffs which reduces total demand in our 70% consumer economy, slows long-term growth and prosperity for all of us.
A recent example of how this works – the unemployment rate went up by 0.3% in August 2024 - because more people entered the job market. The press reported this as an indication of a “softening” of the job market – a sign of decline. But what actually happened here? The number of jobs filled went up by over 112,000 in September (254,000) compared to August (142,000) – because the number of people with the right skills in the right places had increased in August, creating the matches needed to fill some of the 8 million jobs still available in September. Cause and effect – more economic growth is created by more available workers in the right places with the right skills who are willing to accept the pay rates being offered.
Immigration, and the flexibility and mobility of immigrants, have filled this economic gap throughout 404 years of American economic history – since the Mayflower with its 102 Pilgrims arrived in America on November 21, 1620, and with the modest existing Native American population, used immigration to grow America to 337 million people today.
Modern Immigration Issues Are Not Resolved By Current Policies Nor By Repression
But what about border security? The 9/11 hijackers entered America legally on student visas, cleared through the normal State Department consular process as no records indicated they were security risks. Around fifteen people previously convicted of homicide or manslaughter in other countries were arrested at the southern border in 2023. The overall immigrant crime rate is the same or slightly lower than native-born Americans. America hosts between 140 and 190 million visitors who enter on tourist, student, and other visas from other nations every year. Around two-thirds of visa overstays are among people who mostly arrive at airports like JFK, O’Hare, Los Angeles, and Dallas, not at our southern border. And the overall visa overstay rate over 20 years is about two per thousand arrivals, around 0.002%.
What about these undocumented immigrants? They should not be here illegally. That much is true. Rounding up 12 million people would reduce the available workforce by around 7 to 8 million people, mostly in lower paid jobs most Americans don’t really want in agriculture, slaughter plants, hotels as room attendants, midnight custodial and maintenance services, as gig delivery workers, and in other lesser paid jobs. And bust up American families, as many have children born in the US - who are absolutely entitled to the same 14th Amendment protections, adopted by two-thirds of House and Senate members and three-quarters of State Legislatures in 1868, as every other American: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.”
Practical Answers Move The US Forward
The Founders were practical farmers, traders, and merchants who clearly understood the contribution of immigration to growth and shared prosperity. The Civil War era’s 14th Amendment reaffirmed America’s commitment to providing the benefits of citizenship to all in our country. As a purely practical economic matter, depriving our US economy of 7 to 8 million undocumented workers now, when we have less than one unemployed individual per available job, will dramatically slow desperately much needed private sector economic growth, driving annual federal deficits and our accumulated trillions of national debt still higher.
The destructive impact of large workforce reductions on other jobs in our economy is described at https://www.epi.org/publication/updated-employment-multipliers-for-the-u-s-economy/
Even with illegal immigrants employed in the US, we currently have only 0.96 unemployed workers per available job, presuming they were properly skilled, could find affordable housing, and were willing to accept the pay being offered. As the roundup continues and consumer purchasing power erodes, the employment market will deteriorate, resulting in job losses to Americans, and workers will be forced to trade down to find jobs, effectively replacing those newly vacated lower paying, physically challenging jobs mostly held now by immigrants lacking legal status.
Farms, slaughter plants, construction companies, retailers, hotels, restaurants, and many other businesses which employ entry and mid-skill personnel are already stressed and being forced to postpone work and projects due to worker shortages across industries. Main Street small business failures and bankruptcies will result from labor shortages, and from the inflationary price increases of tariffs which reduce consumer purchasing power. Consumers will see food prices and other prices increase due to shortages, exacerbated by the impacts of tariffs which also raise prices on everyday goods.
The net result is a loss of prosperity for all, exactly what the Founders protested. This works much like the effects of the Covid pandemic, and other prior economic recessions, which have stressed and destroyed millions of small businesses, the places where most Americans work, concentrating economic power in the hands of the fewer large enterprises which can weather these economic storms. There is an alternative which America has embraced before.
Rather than an immigration roundup, President Ronald Reagan worked with Congress in 1986 (Simpson-Mazzoli Act) to give 3 million existing employees without legal status the right to remain in America and seek permanent legal status. Some stayed, others went home when their home country economies improved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control_Act_of_1986
Our Founders knew what they were doing for the American economy by being willing to sacrifice and even die for their staunchly pro-immigration policies - number 7 on their list of 27 specific reasons to go to war with the authoritarian unitary executive, English King George III:
“He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.”