Data shows migrants aren't taking jobs from Black or Hispanic people, despite what Trump says
By: Fatima Hussein (Associated Press via YahooFinance)
The centerpiece of this article lambasting Trump is that menial work is for illegal immigrants. Real Americans don't do menial work. But we need illegal immigrants to grow our economy. So, the single most important requirement for economic growth is menial work that Real Americans won't do.
Democrats are rediscovering Antebellum Southern politics. The Democratic Party was founded on the principle that importing workers to do menial work was necessary to achieve prosperity and to progress toward a modern civilized society. And those who are charged with doing the menial work should be grateful for the opportunity to associate with those of more refined social status. Democrats even institutionalized their social and economic imperative to become an insurmountable barrier that divided the country for over 150 years.
If illegal immigrants are not taking jobs from Black or Hispanic people then they must be taking jobs from white people. Of course, that is a deplorable conclusion. What's really happening is that Democrats are shifting away from dividing the country using racial identity. The new, improved Democrat divides the country using class identity.
You know, if illegal immigration was really the powerhouse driving economic growth, then why doesn't Mexico latch onto these migrants to grow its own economy? The population of Mexico is a little over a third of the size of the US population. At least 15 million migrants have illegally entered Mexico to get to the southern border of the United States. So, those illegal immigrants should have provided three times the economic benefit for Mexico than for the United States. For Mexico, the smaller country, the benefit of illegal immigration would have a larger impact. But Democrats certainly don't want to talk about exploiting Mexico for their own political, social, and economic benefit.
So, Democrats are not only falling back on the politics of slavery (dressed in whiteface). Democrats are also calling Mexico stupid, lazy, and economically unsophisticated. And Democrats are relying on the stupidity of Real Americans to buy their same old, tired politics of division.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump promises the biggest deportation event the U.S. has ever seen if he is elected — a promise he has predicated, in part, on the notion that immigrants in the U.S. legally and illegally are stealing what he calls "Black jobs" and "Hispanic jobs."
But government data show immigrant labor contributes to economic growth and provides promotional opportunities for native-born workers. And a mass deportation event would cost U.S. taxpayers up to a trillion dollars and could cause the cost of living, including food and housing, to skyrocket, economists say.
Here's a look at immigration and the U.S. labor market, and what Trump's plan would mean for the U.S. economy.
What has Trump said?
Trump, who often uses anti-immigrant rhetoric, has referred during his campaign to immigrants he says are taking "Black jobs" and "Hispanic jobs."
At a recent rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, Trump said, "You have an invasion of people into our country."
"They're going to be attacking — and they already are — Black population jobs, the Hispanic population jobs, and they're attacking union jobs too," Trump said. "So when you see the border, it's not just the crime. Your jobs are being taken away too."
Trump's rhetoric about jobs has been widely condemned by Democrats and Black leaders who have called it a racist and insulting way of implying that Black and Hispanic Americans take menial jobs.
Janiyah Thomas, the director of Team Trump Black Media, told The Associated Press that Democrats "continue to prioritize the interests of illegal immigrants over our own Black Americans who were born in this country" and that Biden-era job gains in the labor market were primarily due to illegal immigration.
The latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey data shows that as of 2023, native-born Black workers are most predominantly employed in management and financial operations, sales and office support roles, while native-born Latino workers are most often employed in management, office support, sales and service occupations.
Foreign-born, noncitizen Black workers are most often represented in transportation and health care support roles, and foreign-born, noncitizen Hispanic workers are most often represented in construction, building and grounds cleaning.
How has immigration contributed to U.S. growth?
In 2023, international migrants — primarily from Latin America — accounted for more than two-thirds of the population growth in the United States, and so far this decade they have made up almost three-quarters of U.S. growth.
After hitting a record high in December 2023, the number of migrants crossing the border has plummeted.
The claim that immigrants are taking employment opportunities from native-born Americans is repeated by Trump's advisers. They often cite a report produced by Steven Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a right-leaning think tank that seeks a reduced immigration flow into the U.S. The report combines job numbers for immigrants in the U.S. legally and illegally to reinforce the claim that foreigners are disproportionately driving U.S. labor growth and reaping most of the benefits.
Camarota's report states that 971,000 more U.S.-born Americans were employed in May 2024 compared to May 2019, prior to the pandemic, while the number of employed immigrants has increased by 3.2 million.
It is true that international migrants have become a primary driver of population growth this decade, increasing their share of the overall population as fewer children are being born in the U.S. compared with years past. That's according to the U.S. Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey.
Are immigrants taking native-born workers' jobs?
Economists who study immigrant labor's impact on the economy say that people who are in the U.S. illegally are not taking native citizens' jobs, because the roles that these immigrant workers take on are most often positions that native workers are unwilling to fill, such as agriculture and food processing jobs.
Giovanni Peri, a labor economist at the University of California, Davis, conducted research that explores the impact of the 1980 influx of Cuban immigrants in Miami (the so-called Mariel Boatlift) on Black workers' employment. The study determined that the wages of Miami's Black and Hispanic workers moved above those in other cities that did not have a surge of immigrant workers.
Peri told the AP that the presence of new immigrant labor often improves employment outcomes for native-born workers, who often have different language and skill sets compared to new immigrants.
In addition, there are not a fixed number of jobs in the U.S., immigrants tend to contribute to the survival of existing firms (opening up new opportunities for native workers) and there are currently more jobs available than there are workers available to take them. U.S. natives have low interest in working in labor-intensive agriculture and food production roles.
"We have many more vacancies than workers in this type of manual labor, in fact we need many more of them to fill these roles," Peri said.
Stan Marek, who employs roughly 1,000 workers at his Houston construction firm, Marek Brothers Holdings LLC, said he has seen this firsthand.
Asked if immigrants in the U.S. illegally are taking jobs from native-born workers, he said, "Absolutely not, unequivocally."
"Many of my workers are retiring, and their kids are not going to come into construction and the trades," Marek said. He added that the U.S. needs an identification system that addresses national security concerns so those who are in the country illegally can work.
"There's not enough blue-collar labor here," he said.
Data also shows when there are not enough workers to fill these roles, firms will automate their jobs with machines and technology investments, rather than turn to native workers.
Dartmouth University economist Ethan Lewis said, "There is a vast amount of research on the labor market impact of immigration in the U.S., most of which concludes the impact on less-skilled workers is fairly small and, if anything, jobs for U.S.-born workers might by created rather than 'taken' by immigrants."
How would mass deportations affect the economy?
Trump has said he would focus on rounding up migrants by deploying the National Guard, whose troops can be activated on orders of a governor.
Peri says a deportation program would cost the U.S. up to a trillion dollars and would result in massive losses to the U.S. economy. The cost of food and other basic items would soar.
"They are massive contributors to our economy and we wouldn't have fruits and vegetables, we wouldn't have our gardens," he said, if the deportation effort comes to fruition.
Since the labor force made up of people in the U.S. illegally makes up roughly 4% of U.S. GDP annually, he estimates that mass deportation would result in a roughly $1 trillion loss.
"It's a cost that is mind-boggling in terms of income loss, production loss and there will be a logistical cost to organize this," he said.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said this month in a podcast interview with David Axelrod that immigrant labor "is an important source of labor force growth."
"On balance, it helps the economy grow without actually depriving other people of jobs," she said. "It's not in any way a zero-sum game."
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Orange Man Bad. Now where's that damned menial worker to bring us our Juleps?
Democrats are afraid that shutting down illegal immigration would require them to get their hands dirty.
Where he/she belongs, waiting tables and cleaning toilets at Mar-a-lago. Look at that, we can both pen something snooty 'n snotty.
Donald Trump did not write the seeded article. In fact, the seeded article is lambasting Trump.
An anti-Trump author is heaping praise upon immigrants for supplying menial labor that grows the economy. So, the hooty, snooty outrage directed towards Trump is nothing more than blatant misdirection.
It is rather amazing that so many Democrats are totally clueless about what they actually advocate, support, and stand for. According to the seed author, Democrats want illegal immigrants to do the work Democrats refuse to do.
The democrat nominee grew up in a middle class neighborhood where they were proud of their lawns, we all know who Kamala thinks took care of those lawns.
Big whoop. The author of the seed is expressing concern that Trump plans to deport all illegal aliens. And the author lists justifications for those concerns.
Did Kamala Harris take jobs away from illegal immigrants? Or weren't there enough illegal immigrants when Kamala Harris was developing menial skills?