Judis on Ending Illegal Immigration

I’ve cited Ruy Teixeira pretty frequently here but his co-author John Judis less. In a recent post Mr. Judis proposes a strategy for ending or greatly reducing illegal immigration, expressing skepticism that an effective plan will ever be adopted. There are several aspects of his post that are worthy of attention.

He opens with an explanation of why we should end or reduce illegal immigration:

Over the past decades, undocumented immigrants, largely concentrated among the unskilled and those without higher education, have exerted downward pressure on wages in agriculture, construction, food preparation and meatpacking, building maintenance, retail sales, and the hospitality industry. First generation legal immigrants and black Americans without a higher education have been particularly hurt. Even now, when unemployment remains low, the damage to these workers can be seen in the decline of the labor participation rate among working-age men without a college education.

Let’s phrase it a different way. Accepting or even lauding unlimited illegal immigration without an effective strategy for mitigating the harm they do prior cohorts of immigrants and poor black Americans is an objective statement of indifference to that harm. Training and education are not an effective mitigation strategy. For reasons I’ll explain later curbing illegal immigration is the only effective mitigation.

He continues by explaining the legislation presently being discussed and why the apparent Democratic strategy of goading the Republicans to oppose any legislation and blaming the chaos at our southern border on them is unlikely to be effective:

But it may too late for Biden and the Democrats to claim the issue. If you look for a Democratic proposal that counters H.R.2 or that of the Senate Republicans, you won’t find it. Search on the internet for “Democratic immigration plan” and you’ll be directed to the Democrats’ 2020 platform that called for a dramatic expansion of the asylum system and path to citizenship for undocumented migrants. These proposals, voiced by Biden during his first year, inspired the huge wave of illegal immigration that began in 2021 and that many Democrats now recognize as a genuine problem. And look more closely at the Republicans’ H.R. 2, and you’ll discover that some of its provisions are not unreasonable, and one of them should be part of an effective plan to curb illegal immigration.

He also explains what I’ve been complaining about in the Biden Administration’s approach to asylum:

According to the Refugee Act of 1980, migrants could apply for asylum based on “a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” But Biden widened these criteria. Under Biden, applicants could seek asylum if they were threatened by gang or domestic violence. One applicant applied and was judged credible on the ground that he was a victim of extortion by criminals. Another got through because a policeman had knocked out his tooth.

The administration also relaxed the standards for application from “well-founded fear” to credible fear including generalized fear. Not to put to fine a point on it but practically anyone outside of Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States could qualify for asylum under the present far too low and relaxed standards. Poverty or fear of generalized crime or violence should not be causes for asylum. We need to return to the standards of 1980 if not more stringent ones.

He continues by reviewing the history and effectiveness of E-verify. He cites the studies of E-verify that have found it effective:

They found that the programs “appear to lead to better labor market outcomes among workers likely to compete with unauthorized immigrants. Employment rises among male Mexican immigrants who are naturalized citizens in states that adopt E-Verify mandates, and earnings rise among U.S.-born Hispanic men.”

The very reason that E-verify especially when effective is opposed by both Republicans and Democrats is that it is effective. Business interests want to continue to push wages down; activist groups want to continue to attract large numbers of migrants.

There are several issues that Mr. Judis does not address in his piece and I’ll remedy that here. In addition to the adverse effects on the wages of prior cohorts of immigrants and poor black Americans, an effectively unlimited supply of new low-skill workers distorts the U. S. economy. We have too many jobs paying at or below minimum wage and too much investment in sectors that produce such jobs, crowding out investment in sectors that produce better jobs that pay more. That also has the effect of aggravating the bifurcation of society into a small groupof “the rich” and a very large group of “the poor”. My definition of “the rich” is anyone who earns more than one standard deviation higher than the median is rich.

There is another reason we should be curbing immigration. Plainly speaking, we can’t afford it. A family of four in Chicago requires roughly $50,000 in taxes regardless of the family’s income. There is no realistic prospect for a migrant family to produce $50,000 in state and local taxes. Somebody has to pay it. More low-wage immigrants will merely make matters worse.

There are basically four possible solutions to the problem of affordability:

• Limit the number of low wage immigrants coming into the country using a combination of controls at the border and strictly enforced E-verify with sizeable penalties for violations (the $5,000 fine proposed is a pittance).
• Impose a head tax on employers for each employee. Small businesses must be included and the head tax would need to be sufficient to pay for the shortfall due to low-wage workers. Think in terms of five figures, indexed.
• City workers, police officers, firefighters, teachers, healthcare workers, etc. could take a pay cut.
• “The rich” could be willing to pay taxes at the level necessary to pay for the migrants.

Of those I find the first by far the most effective and humane strategy that is possible including both physical and political possibility.