From executive orders to building walls, immigration is on America’s mind. Trump ran on tough immigration policies in 2016, and he won the election. We cannot ignore the fact that this president was elected to fix immigration and put Americans first. While most millennials that didn’t support Trump’s immigration policy, after looking at the effects on their lives, they may want to rethink their position.
While many of these millennials are out demanding a raise in minimum wage, they advocate for open borders. An economic analysis shows that the influx of illegal immigrants from 1990-to-2010 negatively affected American worker’s annual wages, dropping them by about $1,396.
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Libertarians and liberals both hope to open the borders. The CATO Institute’s Alex Nowrathsteh recently talked to Tucker Carlson concerning immigration, but his open border arguments are tantamount to propaganda. Both libertarians and liberals back up their claims using a study done by the National Academy of the Sciences. The study says that there are positive net effects of immigration on the economy.
I know, sounds great, right? Wrong. This study uses highly skilled immigrants from Germany, the UK, and Japan to bring up the lower skilled groups that cross the southern border illegally.
The problems don’t end there. The study also only recognizes the economic effect of benefits of registered welfare programs. It doesn’t consider the very real cost of medical expenses of emergency room visits (roughly $4.3 billion), and it doesn’t consider the cost of school the roughly 1 million illegal immigrants under the age of 18. According the census bureau, it cost $10,625 on average per student/per year. This is a $10.6 billion cost of education that is overlooked. In just considering these two facets, the study overlooks $14.9 billion of costs on Americans.
So, who pays these bills, businesses? No. Low-skilled American disproportionately eat the costs of illegal immigration. According the work the George J. Borjas, professor of economics and social policy at Harvard, immigration shifts roughly $110 billion from low skill American workers to immigrants and businesses. This marked shift allows for companies employing illegal immigrants to profit at the expense of low skill American workers.
Millennials are a growing part of the economy, making up 34 percent of the economy. Of the 34 percent, most work in low-skilled jobs. This $110 billion shift disproportionately affects the income of millennials.
Millennials need to evaluate the effects of immigration on their lives. The people who benefit from illegal immigration are not American workers but immigrants and businesses. These two groups are making out well with an extra $107-to-128 billion each year.
People pushing this propaganda about the benefits of illegal immigration are doing a disservice to hard-working Americans. After Trump was elected there was plenty of outrage about his ‘uneducated voters’. Maybe they haven’t been formally educated, but their paycheck taught them a lesson all the same.
Illegal immigration is good for the elite, not for millennials.
