Telling the Truth About Immigration — Because Trump Won’t

Telling the Truth About Immigration — Because Trump Won’t

Kamala Harris has surged in popularity, gone on a brilliant offensive against Trump, and re-energized the country, but polls show voters still put more trust in the disgraced former president when it comes to one key issue: immigration and the southern border.

And why shouldn’t they? Trump has spent most of his political career demonizing and dehumanizing immigrants, particularly those who are undocumented, in order to give his supporters someone to hate. He repeats the same lies over and over, pausing only to make them more outrageous: Countries south of the border are emptying out their prisons and insane asylums and sending the inmates to our southern border, where they not only carry fentanyl into the United States, but murder and rape, stopping only to take jobs away from U.S.-born citizens. They don’t pay taxes, and they are “poisoning” the blood of our country.

Some of Trump’s accusations amount to racism. The oft-repeated line about poisoning the blood comes right out of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” The rest are falsehoods that fly in the face of available data.

To keep these lies from doing more damage, it’s essential that we Democrats set the record straight whenever we get the opportunity. Here’s what you need to know when you’re talking to friends and family who have been swayed by Trump’s lies:

·       Immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, have lower crime rates than those who were born in the U.S.

·       Most fentanyl is carried into the country at legal crossings by U.S. citizens or individuals with a legal right to enter the country.

·       Immigrants are not taking jobs away from American-born citizens.

·       Immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, pay taxes even if they don’t receive government benefits.

·       Without continued immigration, our population will shrink and age, hampering economic growth and increasing the share of retirees as a percentage of the population.

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Crime. Yes, some immigrants commit crimes, but so do many more U.S.-born citizens. The murder of Laken Riley by an undocumented migrant was a tragedy, but it doesn’t characterize the immigrant population as a whole, despite what Trump would have us believe. The largest share of murders are committed by U.S.-born citizens. And there is considerable evidence that immigrants, including undocumented migrants, are less likely to commit crimes than those of us born here.

A study by a team of Northwestern University economists, for example, used incarceration rates as a proxy for crime and found that immigrants are 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born Americans. A Stanford University study found that immigrants, as a group, have had lower incarceration rates than the U.S.-born for the past 150 years. Moreover, relative to the U.S.-born, immigrants’ incarceration rates have declined since 1960, the Stanford group found.

Fentanyl. There is broad agreement that most of it is smuggled in by U.S. citizens or individuals legally authorized to cross the border through legal entry points. NPR, for example, reported last year that “virtually none” of the fentanyl seized at the border was being carried by migrants seeking asylum.

Jobs. The notion that immigrants are taking jobs from U.S. citizens is another red herring. With unemployment as low as it is, immigrants are taking jobs that would otherwise go unfilled. And a Brookings Institution report noted that they sign on for the tough work in farming and other sectors — “the unpleasant, back-breaking jobs that native-born workers are not willing to do.”

Taxes. Yes, immigrants pay taxes. The American Immigration Council, in a report shared on the Virginia government’s Open Data Portal, analyzed 2021 data and concluded that immigrants in Virginia paid $11 billion in federal taxes, $5 billion in state taxes, and contributed $5.7 billion to Social Security and $1.5 billion to Medicare.

Even undocumented immigrants — the “illegals” that Trump rails about — contributed to the U.S. tax base. A new study from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that undocumented immigrants paid nearly $100 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2022, including $690 million to Virginia.

Moreover, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the recent surge in immigration, both legal and illegal, will lower the federal deficit by $900 billion over the next ten years.

Economy. Immigrants play an essential role in both Virginia’s economy and the U.S. economy. The report from the American Immigration Council described the Commonwealth’s immigrant community as “very large and productive.”

“About 12.3 percent of the state’s residents are foreign-born,” the report noted. “Immigrants make up 15.6 percent of Virginia's labor force and support the local economy in many ways. They account for 20.7 percent of entrepreneurs, 21.8 percent of STEM workers, and 12.7 percent of nurses in the state. As neighbors, business owners, taxpayers, and workers, immigrants are an integral part of Virginia’s diverse and thriving communities and make extensive contributions that benefit all.”

Population. It’s no exaggeration to say that this is a country founded by immigrants and made stronger generation after generation by new waves of people from foreign lands. Today, because of declining birthrates, the U.S. population would actually decline dramatically for the rest of the century without continued immigration. That has serious implications. The White House Council of Economic Advisors noted in a recent report that low fertility — and the aging population that results — threatens economic growth and the fiscal sustainability of public benefit programs.

None of this means that the situation at the southern border is acceptable. It’s not. And that’s why, this spring, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators negotiated what was widely viewed as the toughest border security bill in decades. It appeared to have broad support until Trump told Republicans not to fix the border problem because it would hurt him and help Democrats in the election. It’s just more proof that he doesn’t really care about the border. What he does care about is distorting and sensationalizing the issue, grabbing headlines, and scoring points with his supporters. All of us deserve better.