It's the same tired and debunked arguments over and over again from the open border cheerleaders. Legacy media dinosaurs, still clinging to the last vestiges of their once vast prehistoric kingdom, have consistently defended mass immigration and common sense border security.
They claim that America (and the west in general) cannot survive economically without illegal immigrants and a steady flow of non-citizens from the third world. Without them, "who will mow Republican yards and clean Republican toilets", leftists often argue. But is this true? Or, do illegal immigrants actually take far more than they contribute when it comes to the economy?
Donald Trump's proposal of mass deportation of illegal migrants should he become president has the establishment media up in arms, desperately trying to frighten their readers into believing the policy will lead to the ultimate destruction of the US.
"US consumers are accustomed to cheap goods and services, and the economic rationale for large-scale immigration has been largely avoided. In a country that relies on a mobile, low-cost workforce, the loss of migrant workers would trigger productivity losses and a new round of inflationary pricing pressure..."
Except, Americans aren't accustomed to cheap goods and services anymore, nor are they accustomed to affordable housing. We already have crushing inflation. The inflation argument is bizarre for a number of reason; the presence of tens-of-millions of illegal immigrants in the US creates a demand explosion in every sector of the economy, which means far higher prices, especially in the home rental market.
With government subsidies being provided to so many foreigners there is also the issue of increased national spending. Around 60% of illegal immigrants access welfare programs and subsidies upon their arrival in the US. That money has to come from somewhere and it's not just tax dollars. The US has to continually print new money to feed the rising debt. Hence, more inflation.
The idea that illegal immigrants are eating up excess inflation is baseless. The only reasonable factor that supports this claim is the reality that many migrants wire their under-the-table wages out of the US to their families. But the dollars migrants remove from the system do not make up for the dollars that need to be created from thin air to support them.
If more migrants meant less inflation then the US would not be suffering from the stagflationary crisis it's facing today. The Guardian continues:
"Of the undocumented migrants, between 8 and 9 million are in the workforce doing essential jobs that Americans disproportionately don’t want to do or work in sectors where there aren’t enough workers.
Typically, that’s farm work (one third of the labor force), construction work (about one quarter) and about half of the labor force in skilled work like drywalling, plumbing and insulation..."
“Undocumented immigrants make up a huge proportion of household services, manufacturing work, kitchen staff in restaurants. Americans simply do not do those jobs, or there are not enough to go around. But if you lose those key ‘bottleneck’ workers, the native workforce also can’t do their jobs..."
Anyone can do those jobs. Low-skill labor is called low-skill for a reason; any worker can be replaced easily with minimal cost and training involved. As for farming and construction work, Americans already do those jobs in great numbers, and there are plenty of real citizens that would do those jobs for fair pay. The issue is that some industries have been able to avoid paying normal wages for workers because of the open border and cheap labor from abroad.
It's not that Americans don't want those jobs, they just don't want third world wages for those jobs. There is also a large percentage of the public that would be willing to pay slightly higher prices for better quality work, better products and better standards.
In terms of construction, there won't be as much need for new housing if illegals are booted out of the country, opening up millions of homes for rent or purchase and driving costs down. The productivity and inflation arguments are disingenuous because they don't take into account how much resources illegals actually leech from the system. If there was real demand for skilled workers outside of the US, then work visas can be offered for limited periods of time. America doesn't need to depend on an open border to secure a labor pool.
Financial outlet Bloomberg attempts to use historic arguments to support illegal immigration. They assert:
"In a working paper published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a group of academics analyzed the economic fallout from a US law enacted in 1882 to expel what had been a critical workforce for Western states:
Chinese laborers, many of whom toiled to build the transcontinental railroad. The authors found the Chinese Exclusion Act wiped out more than half of manufacturing establishments in the region, doing away with scores of jobs and reducing the number of White Americans coming West in search of work by 28%. A measure of lifetime income for White workers fell as a result..."
In other words, Bloomberg is advocating for the value of near-slave labor in the past to defend near-slave labor today. Labor shortages in the late 1800's were largely due to the Civil War and the deaths of over 620,000 working age men. We don't have that problem in the US today (at least not yet). Bloomberg is also conveniently forgetting about the economic boom of 1879 to 1900 called "The Gilded Age" in which the nation's industrial might skyrocketed.
So, getting rid of illegals means lower prices, less competition for housing, less government debt and more jobs while forcing certain industries to pay fair wages for laborers. Not to mention, less crime by default. The downsides to mass deportation are limited compared to the benefits. So why does the media so vehemently defend open borders? Because open borders allow expedient social engineering by people who desire political dominance.
If you can't force a native population to accept your world view, then why not simply replace them with people who will? As King Edward The Longshanks notes with dark relish in the movie Braveheart when devising the enslavement of Scotland: "The trouble with Scotland...is that it's full of Scots! ...If we can't get them out, we'll breed them out..."
The fastest way to eliminate political opposition from a population is to overwhelm them with foreigners with incompatible ideals and principles. Open border arguments can be distilled down to a single fallacy: "Give up your national sovereignty and identity and we'll make sure your economy doesn't collapse."
The economy is already going down; it's time to stop repeating the same mistakes that led to the decline.