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The United States has welcomed more than 85 million legal immigrants to the United States since its founding. But at no time since it has maintained records has the country witnessed as fast adecline in legal immigration as it has seen in the second half of fiscal year 2020 (which finished September 30). Overall, the second half of FY 2020 saw 92 percent fewer immigrants from abroad than the first half, which was larger than any annual decline in the history of the United States.

Figure 1shows the monthly immigrant visa issuances under the Trump administration since March 2017. As it shows, legal immigration almost wholly stopped in April and May 2020after the State Department closed its consulates and President Trump issued aproclamation suspending new visa issuances to most immigrant categories. It has recovered slightly since then, but it remains 84 percent below last year (which was also adown year).

Figure 2shows the number of new arrivals of legal permanent residents or immigrant visas approved by year from 1820 to 2020, with the third and fourth quarter of FY 2020 added. The United States witnessed amore than 90 percent falloff in new immigration from abroad during the second half of FY 2020. This brings the annualized legal immigration rate from abroad to 0.03 percent of the U.S. population. This is the lowest rate of immigration except for three years during World War II and one year during the Great Depression.

The 92 percent drop in the second half of FY 2020 is larger than the drop during any single year in American historylarger than the 73 percent decline in 1915 coinciding with the start of World War I, larger than the 70 percent decline in 1925 coinciding with Congress closing legal immigration from Europe, larger than the 63 percent declines in 1931, 1942, and 1918 following the onset of the Great Depression and U.S. entries into each world war. Table 1shows the data for all available years and the change for the second half of 2020 from the first half. While its only half ayear, Figure 1indicates how slow the immigration recovery has been. It is unlikely that the 2021 will be much different if President Trump is reelected.

Before 1924, immigrants were never required to receive immigrant visas abroad to enter and become legal permanent residents, and from 1924 to 1952, nearly all immigrants had to receive immigrant visas abroad to become legal permanent residents. In recent years, about half of all new legal permanent residents have adjusted their status to permanent residence from temporary statuses, such the H-1B visa, refugee status, or illegal status. Generally, the number of new immigrants include both the number of new arrivals from abroad and those adjusting in the United States, but its also important to see who is entering from abroad because that reflects real changes in the U.S. population. The number of work visas, of course, have also declined just as dramatically.

This historic slowdown is important for both the shortterm and longterm economic growth of the United States. Fewer workers mean that jobs will take longer to fill and slow the economic recovery, and in coming years, fewer workers will support more retirees. If the United States remains closed long enough, it could push worldwide patterns of immigration away toward other countries with more welcoming policies.

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No Year Has Seen Legal Immigration Cut Like the 2nd Half of FY 2020 - Cato Institute

How do you solve a problem thats 340 million pages thick?

Stephen Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, is currently trying to figure that out. Over the past few years, the Social Security Administration has accumulated an astronomical number of unclaimed tax forms, sent by Americans who pay their Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax under Social Security numbers that dont exist. Even in the wake of the governments extensive efforts to track down the missing taxpayers 171 million tax forms have already been matched to their rightful owners there are still more than enough unclaimed filings for every one of the approximately 140 million tax-paying United States citizen to have filled out their paperwork twice.

This remaining sea of homeless papers, located in what is known as the Earnings Suspense File, is anything but idle. Most of that money has made its way to Social Security trust funds, the sources of the payments that older Americans receive every month. Indeed, for an administration staring down severe sustainability challenges as Americas population ages, these mystery tax payments have kept over a decade of budgets out of the red. Without the extra revenue, Social Security would have been unable to cover payouts starting in 2009.

Who are these mystery donors, responsible for a whopping 10 percent of Social Security funds, but unable to receive a cent in benefits?

Theyre undocumented immigrants.

While many undocumented workers are paid under the table, and consequently do not pay income tax, many others use illegitimate Social Security numbers instead. An estimated 1.8 million undocumented workers did this in 2010. Employers generally dont pay much notice, so phantom forms, and the payments that accompany them, end up with the Social Security Administration.

This reality flies in the face of the anti-immigrant rhetoric that Donald Trump rode to the White House in 2016 and is counting on this November. His claims that undocumented immigrants are a drain on society, that they are stealing American jobs in a zero-sum game for economic viability, simply dont hold up against the facts.

Undocumented immigrants are a net positive for the U.S. economy. They arent just helping Americans to retire comfortably; theyre also making it easier for millions of citizens to meet their basic needs affordably. And even the claim that undocumented immigrants are stealing low-skilled jobs en masse from American workers is muddled at best.

As of 2017, one in 22 American workers was undocumented nationally. This figure, however, belies the true gravity of this demographic; undocumented workers are even more concentrated in economically important states such as California and Texas, where they constituted around 9 percent and 8 percent of the statewide labor forces, respectively, in 2016. In these states and others, they tend to take up generally unpleasant work: farming, construction, cleaning. Services that Americans depend on and take for granted are delivered seamlessly by undocumented immigrants for cheap.

Because undocumented immigrants dont have access to the social, economic and cultural institutions that citizens depend on, they generally lack the bargaining power to demand above average wages. This has produced a situation where entire industries rely on the cheap work that the undocumented provide. The impacts of this awkward symbiosis are particularly pronounced in agriculture. The National Milk Producers Federation, for instance, claimed in 2009 that the price of their namesake good would increase by 61 percent if they could no longer employ immigrant workers, a large proportion of whom are undocumented. In a country where nearly 80 percent of workers live paycheck to paycheck, undocumented immigrants arent just doing our dirty work; they are, quite literally, putting food in our mouths.

The irony is painfully obvious. In Texas, a red state, undocumented immigrants were estimated to have created almost $145 billion of gross product in 2015. In Nebraska, another red state, where an estimated three-fourths of rural residents want tighter borders to prevent illegal immigration, people drink milk, cut apples and peel bananas made affordable by illegal immigrants all while railing against the supposed displacement of American workers.

Incidentally, does that last worry hold up against the data? The answer certainly isnt black and white. Many studies have concluded that illegal immigrants reduced the wages of native workers. However, because illegal immigrants allow employers to reduce costs, economists Andri Chassamboulli and Giovanni Peri have argued that job creation gets a boost, increasing native workers employment opportunities. At the very least, illegal immigrants arent putting American workers on the streets, as President Trump might claim.

To view illegal immigration solely as an assault on American sovereignty is to neglect its real impact. Americans need to put data before pride and consider how their own economic reality changes when illegal immigrants make the extremely difficult decision to come to the United States.

The Social Security Administration isnt going to be able to give many of their nameless tax filings homes anytime soon. But as they continue to pile up, so do the benefits that undocumented immigrants afford our nations economy.

Arjun Shanmugam 23 can be reached at arjun_shanmugam@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

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Shanmugam '23: Why illegal immigration is good for America - The Brown Daily Herald

Despite Mr. Trumps promises to protect Americans from killer immigrants, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now more than twice as likely to pick up immigrants with no criminal record beyond immigration violations, compared with the number before he took office. After being labeled the deporter in chief, Mr. Obama ordered ICE to concentrate enforcement on unauthorized immigrants who had committed crimes. Within weeks of his own inauguration, Mr. Trump eliminated any deportation priorities and made all undocumented immigrants fair game for ICE. With many cities resisting ICEs more stringent demands for cooperation, the agency has also found it easier to just pick up anyone with an existing deportation warrant.

I understand when youre a criminal and you do bad things, you shouldnt be in the country, Helen Beristain, who voted for Mr. Trump, said when her husband, Roberto, owner of a restaurant in Granger, Ind., was ordered to be deported to Mexico in March 2017 after 20 years in the United States. But, she said, when you support and you help and you pay taxes and you give jobs to people, you should be able to stay.

Not anymore.

While Mr. Trump promised a crackdown on illegal immigration during his presidency, he has also eagerly pursued reductions in authorized immigration.

The administration had threatened to furlough 70 percent of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees, blaming the pandemic, but some of those employees said the real problem was restrictive policies and delays in visa applications that have sharply reduced revenue from the processing fees that fund the agency. At the same time, applications for permanent residency have declined since the administration announced it would adopt a rule that would prevent those considered likely to receive public benefits from becoming permanent residents. Among recent green-card recipients, 69 percent had at least one of the characteristics that would be weighed, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy secretary of homeland security, recently announced that the number of H-1B visas for skilled workers would be cut by one-third because of tighter criteria for who can get them. Critics said this would make American companies shift more work abroad.

Mr. Trump also has ended temporary protected status for 400,000 people from El Salvador, Haiti, Sudan and elsewhere who have legally lived and worked in the United States for decades after being provided a haven from war or natural disaster.

If Democrats were to take control of Congress and the White House next year, it would be fairly simple to undo some of the damage Mr. Trump has done to the nations immigration system. The protections that Mr. Trump overturned for the Dreamers the thousands of people who were brought to the United States without authorization when they were young could be written into law, with public support. The travel ban could be overturned, and more refugees could be admitted. ICE could be directed to once again concentrate on deporting criminals. Resources could be shifted to smarter border security measures that dont rely on a physical wall.

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Trumps Overhaul of Immigration Is Worse Than You Think - The New York Times

Some 70 former elected officials, policymakers and diplomats last week released a letter endorsing President Donald Trump for re-election.

None of them received more attention than Pete Wilson, former California governor, U.S. senator and mayor of San Diego.

The letter focused on foreign affairs, saying the president has brought a badly needed realism to American national security policy.

To absolutely no surprise, Wilsons endorsement rekindled interest in his past actions, and current views, on combating illegal immigration.

After all, more than one political analyst in recent years has written, in essence, that when it comes to that issue, Wilson was Trump before Trump.

In a wide-ranging interview this week, Wilson praised the presidents actions in a number of areas foreign policy, the economy, coronavirus pandemic and illegal immigration. Theres plenty of disagreement over Trumps acumen in all of them.

Wilson suggested Trump would get greater credit for his accomplishments if the presidents personality didnt sometimes get in the way.

His opposition, I think, is basically based on style, said Wilson, adding, Id have to say there are some legitimate points there.

Wilson said he supports the presidents approach on immigration, which has been one of Trumps most disputed policies. As he has for more than two decades, Wilson also said his own positions have been distorted by opponents and that his reputation has been smeared.

Fairly or not, the former Republican governors history will forever be highlighted by his support for Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot measure that sought to limit illegal immigration by cutting off state services, including health care and public education, to undocumented immigrants in California.

Wilson won re-election that year and the ballot measure passed, but a federal district court judge ruled Proposition 187 unconstitutional. Wilson appealed the ruling but newly-elected Democratic Gov. Gray Davis dropped the appeal in 1999, effectively killing the law.

though the proposition later was largely struck down by the courts.

I think theyve been doing the right thing, he said of the Trump administrations immigration policies.

He singled out construction of the extended wall along the border with Mexico and the push to shift legal immigration to a merit-based system rather than one that focuses on family unification.

Trump has come to the same conclusions I did and (that) I foresaw with 187, Wilson said.

Headlines reflected this notion five years ago when Trump centered his campaign on immigration: On immigration, Trump takes a page from Pete Wilsons 1994 playbook, How Donald Trump is the GOPs new Pete Wilson, On immigration, Trump evokes Wilson era.

Wilson, who was not the author of Proposition 187, has said if he had it to do over again, he would still support the measure. He described the initiative as an extension of his lawsuits as governor seeking to get the federal government to pay California for the financial impacts of illegal immigration, given that controlling immigration is a federal responsibility.

He said Democratic governors in other states did the same thing.

It was to get Washington to quit sticking state taxpayers for federal mandates, he said.

But the campaigns for his re-election and Proposition 187 put illegal immigration in a much more volatile political context.

His campaign featured a now-infamous television ad that used a grainy, black-and-white video of people dashing across a border port of entry through traffic, with an ominous voice saying They keep coming.

Wilson was criticized for the campaigns tone as well as the content.

I take real exception to that, he said, issuing a challenge to find one word that wasnt true.

As for the quality of the video, which came from a federal immigration agency, he attributed that to the camera technology used at the time.

He noted the campaign ran another ad, largely forgotten today, that featured a naturalization ceremony at the Cabrillo National Monument lighthouse.

I said years ago we are a nation of legal immigrants, he said, adding that theres a right way and a wrong way to come to America.

He resents how he has been portrayed by some critics.

There are few nastier smears than the charge of racism, he said.

The letter of endorsement, first reported by Politico, comes in the wake of a letter signed by a bipartisan group of nearly 500 former national security officials and military leaders endorsing Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee.

On foreign policy, Wilson said Trump has stood up to adversaries, citing a willingness to take a tougher approach to China on trade and Iran on nuclear development than his predecessors. Theres disagreement over whether those policies have been successful, however.

He disputes critics claim that U.S. global leadership has diminished under Trump.

A lot of people have not been happy with him because hes been forthright and strong, said Wilson.

He said the news media has downplayed or ignored Trumps success in the Middle East, which includes helping broker the recognition of Israel by Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

On the domestic front, Wilson said the strength of the U.S. economy under Trump before the coronavirus pandemic stunned even his supporters.

Wilson sides with Trump in believing that states should open up their economies and allow people who are healthy to function, while enacting policies that protect the most vulnerable to COVID-19. He cited the Great Barrington Declaration, a document signed by 6,000 experts worldwide criticizing lockdown policies.

Wilson said his support has not wavered for the president since Trump announced he tested positive for COVID-19 last week.

He also defended the presidents response to the outbreak.

I think he deserves high praise for going forward early by forbidding flights from China and later Europe, said Wilson, adding those moves were successful in containing it to a very considerable extent.

More than 212,000 Americans have died from the virus, but Wilson said the situation would be worse were it not for Trumps early action.

Given his alignment with Trump, its easy to forget that during most of his political career Wilson was largely viewed as a moderate who supports abortion rights and backs tax increases to thwart fiscal peril. As a two-term governor, he navigated California through a tremendous budget deficit, fires, floods and earthquakes. By many accounts, he left the state better off than when he was elected in 1990.

But as time moved on, Wilson, now 87, became known more for his stance on illegal immigration and Proposition 187 than anything else especially since the political ascendancy of Trump, who remains very unpopular with voters in the state Wilson once governed.

In recent years, Wilson has sought to move beyond his controversial legacy on illegal immigration. His endorsement of Trump will make that harder to do.

Continued here:
Column: Pete Wilson discusses endorsing Trump and his own views on illegal immigration - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Edgar Palacios has a clear message for politicians: If you want to reach young Latino voters in the 2020 election, you need to know they dont just care about immigration. They want to hear what youll do about climate change, about college debt, about the job market. Theyre not all Democrats, either.

We come from 31, 32 different countries, we are both liberal and conservative, both religious and areligious, said Palacios, a 34-year-old who lives in Kansas City, Missouri, so one message is not going to prevail through the majority of our community.

He should know. He works with a lot of young people through his nonprofit, the Latinx Education Collaborative, which is dedicated to placing Latinx educators in K-12 schools. And hes excited to see the passion in the areas first-time Latino voters, who are joining advocacy groups, disseminating bilingual information on the voting process and helping out with voter registration drives at libraries and city halls.

A lot of what Im hearing from younger folks is that its a very critical election, one that will have generational consequences so I see a lot of activity, a lot of energy around this vote, he said. I suspect well have a higher turnout than expected from our community.

Latinos are projected to be the biggest non-white voter group in the Nov. 3 election, making up a record 32 million people. Within that group, young voters have the most potential power; every 30 seconds, a Latino or Latina will turn 18, according to an analysis of Census data by PRIs The World.

Only about 11% of eligible voters in the congressional districts in the Kansas City metro identify as Latino a minute number when compared to hubs in Texas, Florida and California. Candidates and campaigns show up where they get the most bang for their buck, and thats not in the predictably red states like Kansas and Missouri.

Newer, less likely or infrequent voters are not talked to as much, said Jared Nordlund, who is a field director for UnidosUS, the national non partisan advocacy group for the Latino/Lataina population. A campaign of any size has a finite budget and theyre going to spend their money on the voter they are most likely to persuade.

But the under 40 demographic here is undeterred, seeing their communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic and the presidential and congressional candidates proposing very different approaches to the economy and immigration. Theyre looking to get out the vote with Instagram stories, Twitter threads and TikTok.

Wendy Aguayo, 22, came to the United States from Mexico with her parents when she was eight. They had work visas, but they stayed illegally when those expired.

Aguayo was granted DACA status (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), and finished high school and went to college in Omaha, where she studied special education. She has a work permit now and a job at the Guadalupe Centers in Kansas City, Missouri, as a paraprofessional and translator.

But she and her family wont go back to Mexico. Under current law, they may not be allowed to re-enter the United States. And while current DACA recipients are able to renew their status, a move that came after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked President Donald Trumps effort to end the DACA program this summer, no new DACA applications are being accepted.

Aguayo, petite and soft-spoken, said most of her friends are still DACA recipients. They cant vote. But they are hyper-determined to encourage others to do so.

Being a DACA recipient, it makes them feel a little less, like they have less of a voice, she said. But I feel like they are using a lot more voice than the people who are citizens.

But theres a problem: Aguayo said organizers need to reach out to young voters where they are on social media. Her peers dont consume traditional news sources anymore; its old news. They seek out political information and share content from Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. Even Facebook, she says, is for older people.

So if youre using the same platform, and looking at someone who is sharing information and theyre just like you, youre more willing to reshare that and follow their path, she said.

Aguayos outreach efforts are working: Her boyfriend is now registered to vote, and shes encouraging all of her friends who are citizens to do the same.

Its important, she said. If they can do it, you should. If I could do it, I would.

Palacios, who was born in Miami to Nicaraguan immigrants, came to Kansas City in 2004. His nonprofit is focused on making sure Latino students see teachers who look more like them in their classrooms. It helps combat misconceptions about the community that lead to stereotypes, even when it comes to politics.

Palacio said theres hope in high turnout among young Latino voters this year, but barriers remain.

One is the invisibility factor. Registering to vote, acquiring mail-in or absentee ballots or even simply asking questions can put parents, aunts and uncles at risk. In the last few election cycles, news outlets have linked low Latino turnout to a variety of voter suppression tactics, like rigid voter-ID requirements and limiting the number of polling places.

After 2018, election watchers forecasted another record turnout in 2020 from the Latinx communities. But the vast majority of those prospective voters live in a handful of battleground states.

Alexandra Johnson, the president of the Missouri Hispanic Bar, said theres a lot of confusion among Latino voters about the voting process, which she believes is by design, again to suppress the vote.

My goal is for the Hispanic community to flex its muscle. We have enormous power, Johnson said. There may be some regions that dont have many Latinx voters, but most have enough Latinx population that we could make a significant difference.

Palacio knows there are fears that make participation feel not worth it. Thats why he sees it as his responsibility to remind first time voters how important their voices are.

I remember being 18 and going to my first election in 2004 and not understanding the consequences of my vote, he said. And so I think its important for this generation, particularly for first time voters and young voters to understand that their voting will have lifelong consequences. Period.

Not everyone in the metro areas Latino community is eager to talk about how theyll participate in this year's election for a different reason.

It is difficult to get local data on the party breakdown here, but nationwide, polling shows about one-third of Latino voters are Republican. Thirty percent say they approve of Trumps performance and 23% say they approve strongly.

Rene Martinez, 36, said Trump comes closest to his libertarian views: limited government, states rights and religious freedom.

Martinez, who is a manager at a facilities operations company in the Kansas City metro and hosts a wrestling podcast, acknowledges he has issues with Trumps inelegant social media and speaking style.

But Martinez has a radically different attitude than most of his community when it comes to immigration policies.

Even though my parents immigrated here illegally, and Ive heard people say (Im) speaking from both sides of the argument. Well, yeah, because Ive been on both sides of the argument! Martinez said. But I genuinely believe the administrations issues arent with legal immigrants. I think they have been, and rightfully so, very, very tough on illegal immigration.

Martinez knows hes in the minority in the Latino community. But he also knows hes not alone.

When I go to the bakery, people know that Im bilingual and will engage in conversation with me. Theyll give me the old wink, and kind of do that thing, he said, slyly smiling while waving his finger back and forth as if to say you and I get it.

At 6-foot-1 and almost 300 pounds, Martinez said he doesnt worry about violent pushback from anyone, but is concerned about his kids being bullied. His son came home one day, and told him he overheard classmates whispering that their dad supports Trump.

Were classified in many cases like a bootlicker or sellout, right, and thats tough, Martinez said. When the president talks about the silent majority, I think its people just like me, who dont want to be ostracized by their community. We tend to stay quiet. We dont want to be cancelled.

I ask him how many others in the Kansas City Latino community share his views. Many, many, many, many, many, he said.

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To Reach Young Latino Voters In Kansas City, Politicians Need To Talk About More Than Just Immigrati - KBIA