Reform Is Needed Not Wild Stories
Did you know that illegal aliens from Zibuto brought the dreaded Assasi virus to Kirsten, Wyoming? A man born in the nation of San Sebastion murdered all seven members of the Smith family in Cutter, West Virginia? I heard that a Buddhist sect from Bali Hai were sacrificing left-handed blue-eyed babies in their secret rituals.
Of course, none of the above is true, but neither is the stuff spewing from the mouths of Trump and his minions about immigrants whether they have legal status or not. Ridiculous accusations are all that the Republican nominee uses in his quest to frighten people into voting for his peculiar and particular brand of xenophobia. My question is why do so many Americans fall for it?
I could write a book about all the utter nonsense he spews. I am sure at some point that book will be written by someone. The damage being done to our country by these unfounded accusations is immeasurable.
There is no doubt about it that we need to fix our immigration laws and system. But it doesn’t get done by the former president’s method of spewing thousands of lies. The United States and the rest of the industrial world including China is not producing enough children to maintain its current population. That can have dire consequences for our future here and abroad.
Immigration for America has always been the difference between economic stagnation and prosperity. It is nothing new that we go through bouts of xenophobia when the percentage of immigrants is high as compared to native-born residents. Most of the current apprehension is due to the pressure on our border from migrants trying to enter the country as asylum seekers or without permission.
This type of hysteria is not only in the U.S. Recently in Britan, more than a week of race riots occurred when three girls were stabbed and killed. A rumor circulated that the murderer was a Muslim asylum seeker who had recently landed in England by boat. It was later revealed that the attacker was a 17-year-old Christian born in Cardiff whose family was originally from Africa. Instead of calming the situation, the far-right instigators began attacking minorities and people of color and continued their assault on Muslims.
One of Trump’s tropes is that undocumented immigrants are using resources that are paid for by Americans’ taxes that were intended to be used for disasters. That has been disproven many times. Yet Trump continues to spew those lies to his cult members.
Most recently, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released a study in August stating that undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. The authors also wrote that if authorization to work was available for all waiting for immigration adjudication, another $40.2 billion would be collected.
If anything, undocumented immigrants are a boom to the economy. In July, the Congressional Budget Office issued a report that estimates federal revenue will increase by $1.2 trillion between 2024 and 2034 because of the added productivity. Currently there are 8.1 million job openings and 6.8 million unemployed workers. If mass deportations begin, our economy will collapse since there are not enough native-born residents to begin filling those positions at any amount of pay.
Immediately, many industries such as construction and agriculture will significantly contract. How many Americans are willing to work to harvest tomatoes at even $20 an hour? Within a year of the Trump administration carrying out mass deportations, we will be in another great recession.
Congress needs to pass a border security bill that effectively seals the border. Then our immigration laws need to change regarding asylum and how many immigrants are allowed each year. No one who wants to come here should wait for years because of quotas and bureaucratic vetting.
Last year, 3.6 million Americans were born. However, the fertility rate of women has declined almost every year for the past 30 years. There are not enough Americans being born to continue to grow our economy. We need immigrants.
The question is whether we going to succumb to wild stories about hard working future Americans or welcome them with open arms. It is up to the next president and Congress to give us the reforms we deserve and not the rhetoric of distrust and hate.
