Immigrants power the economy

Simple question: Are you happy that inflation has stabilized? The economic indicators don’t and can’t capture everyone’s circumstances, but real wages have gone up and costs have held steady. We’re certainly much better situated than the recession that many economists had predicted would be engulfing the nation by now. The soft landing that had seemed like a significant reach has come to pass without even a blip of economic strife.

To some extent, we can thank the Federal Reserve’s needle-threading on rate hikes and the pro-labor and pro-industrial policy stances of the Biden administration. But what really stuck the landing is what’s been the United States’ economic secret sauce for two centuries: immigration.

Recent economic analyses by the Economic Policy Institute, the Congressional Research Service and others shows that the labor force has grown enormously in large part on the back of rebounding immigration, which had fallen during the pandemic. This helped plug labor force problems that were in large part leading to inflation, as well as kept consumer demand high and money flowing around the economy.

Here we can hear critics jumping in to roll out the persistent myth that these foreign-born workers are “taking” jobs from the native born; that would pack some more punch if unemployment weren’t at historic lows across the board, or wages rising especially for lower-income populations, immigrant and native born alike.

To the extent that there are negative economic circumstances, such as rising child poverty rates following the expiration of pandemic-era child care and other assistance programs, these are areas where immigration can be a significant boon.

Birthrates have dropped below replacement levels in the United States, and a big chunk of the child care, nursing and general health care workforce now is drawing from immigrants, who will ensure against the demographic crash.

Unfortunately, you won’t hear much about this from political leaders, from Joe Biden to Donald Trump, who are competing for who can appear tougher on immigrants rather than touting the substantial benefits of continuing to be a global destination for talent and culture.

Mayor Adams last week upped the ante on his public frustrations with immigrants, suggesting that New York should essentially reverse its sanctuary policies and begin cooperating with ICE just when an immigrant is suspected of a crime, not convicted, suggesting that they “should be held accountable.”

The mayor apparently forgot that the criminal justice system that he was a part of for decades as a police officer is already the entity responsible for holding accountable people suspected of crimes. There are specific and in fact constitutional reasons why people who are suspected of criminal activity — regardless of what activity that is — are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and not sentenced until that guilt is legally established.

Deportation is a very harsh fate, yet the mayor is suggesting we effectively presume guilt for immigrants arrested for crimes and send them packing.

It’s not right and it’s not in keeping with New York values. Rather than threatening heavy-handed enforcement, Adams should focus on cutting down on the massive waste happening in migrant services contracts and continuing to push the Biden administration to assist arriving migrants itself instead of foisting it all on municipalities and states.