Fusion
By Tim Rogers
August 11, 2015
Donald
Trump wants voters to remember that he’s not just a misogynistic
celebrity blowhard in an empty suit. He’s also a businessman with
businessman ideas about how to
run the country.
But
when it comes to the issue of immigration, Trump is proving he’s not
only a blathering xenophobe with unsophisticated policy proposals, he’s
also a lousy businessman.
Though
Trump’s immigration plan isn’t expected to be released in any detail
until later this week, he’s already made clear that it’s built on a
foundation of ideas that
makes for bad policy and careless economics. In fact, the pillars of
the pre-candidate’s proposal — mass deportation of 11.3 million
undocumented immigrants (rough estimate, but as good as any) and
construction of a border wall that can be seen from the moon
— would cause such a suck on the economy that the effects would still
be felt for years after Trump’s inevitable one-term presidency ended.
The
basic immigration plan peddled by Trump and the other wall-minded
Republicans — Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal— would strangle
revenue flows, stunt economic
growth, spike salaries in the hospitality and construction sectors, and
create massive expenses for U.S. taxpayers in the form of costly
deportations and a pointless border wall that would never be too high to
tunnel under.
So,
the next time someone starts jabbering from the spleen about the
ruinous influence of undocumented immigrants, here are five
counterpoints to yell back at them in
an equally crazy tone:
1. Immigrants are mostly workers, not criminals.
The
argument that undocumented immigrants are “criminals” and/or “rapists”
is so preposterous and unsubstantiated that it doesn’t merit a serious
response from any sane-minded
person. But election season is crazy season, so let’s do this. The
truth is that most Latin American immigrants are — by necessity and
definition— hardworking self-starters who are seeking some semblance of
gainful employment to support themselves and families
back home.
The
proof is in the numbers. Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean
last year reached an an estimated $63 billion, with most of the money
going to support families
in Mexico and Central America, and most of it coming from the U.S.,
according to Inter-American Dialogue. Remittances grew faster than the
U.S. economy as a whole, with Mexicans alone accounting for some $23.6
billion in money sent back to family last year.
To
send that much money home on what — in many cases — is a minimum wage,
suggests that most migrants are working such long, hard hours that they
probably don’t have enough
free time to commit the types of heinous crimes that Trump frets about
on the hustings.
That’s
not to say every immigrant is a good person, which is as silly as
calling everyone a rapist. There’s clearly a criminal element in any
sizable population. But the
point is, they’re a statistical minority; only 20 percent of
undocumented migrants deported during Obama’s tenure were previously
convicted of a serious crime, according to a New York Times analysis of
government data.
2. Immigrants Pay Taxes.
The
11 million-plus undocumented immigrants living in the United States
contribute an estimated $11.84 billion in state and local taxes each
year, according to a study
by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. That’s a conservative
estimate based on 2012 numbers. It’s now thought to be closer to $12.6
billion. The study, based on data from 50 states, calculates that
comprehensive immigration reform would boost the
U.S.’ annual revenue flow by an additional $2.2 billion.
3. The Cost of Deportation is Stupidly High.
Deporting
people isn’t cheap in a country that endeavors to respect due process.
The average estimated cost of deporting a single undocumented immigrant
ranges wildly
from $8,318 to $23,000, depending on who’s doing the estimating. So
that times 11.3 million people is… well, an almost unimaginably large
price tag to fund the removal of every undocumented migrant.
Also,
it’s a fool’s errand. The logistics of organizing a nationwide roundup
of 11 million people — not to mention the lawsuits that would result
from such an effort—
are too insane to even contemplate. The Center For American Progress
once estimated that the five-year cost of enforcing a mass deportation
strategy in the U.S. would be $285 billion. A total cleansing of all
undocumented immigrants would take approximately
20 years and cost U.S. taxpayers between $400 billion and $600 billion,
according to a more recent study by the American Action Forum. We’d
probably have to melt down the Statue of Liberty just to pay for it all,
which is fine because we wouldn’t need her
services anymore.
4. The Future Cost of Deportation is Too High Also.
The
other cost of mass deportation is the loss of future GDP growth and the
unintended economic consequences of creating sudden wage hikes by
chasing more than 5 percent
— 10 percent in some states— of the low-cost workforce out of the
country. Mass deportation would drain the U.S. economy of some $2.5
trillion over 10 years, according to the 2010 study by the Center for
American Progress. In contrast, promoting a path to
legalization and other immigration reforms would boost the U.S.’
economy by $1.5 trillion over that same period, according to the same
study’s estimates.
Pushing
undocumented workers out the door would also have a dramatic effect on
current wages. “Even if we could afford to spend the money to get rid of
people, the immediate
impact would be an increase in wages; suddenly [some employers] would
have to go from paying workers $15/hour to $25/hour. And we’re talking
about 10 million people who work predominantly in the hospitality
industry and construction industry,” says Manuel
Orozco, the Inter-American Dialogue’s program director for Migration
and Remittances. “It just doesn’t add up.”
5. Border Wall Math Makes No Sense.
With
an estimated cost of $4 million per mile, building an additional 700
miles of a border wall along the U.S.-Mexican border would cost ….um,
hold on one sec, carry
the one, add three more zeros…about $2.8 billion. Also, immigrant labor
— which currently represents some 20 percent of the construction labor
force — won’t be building that wall on the cheap, so you better plan to
budget some extra coin to afford unionized
U.S. bricklayers at $22/hour. In short, the per-mile cost of building
the wall will be much more expensive than the per-mile cost of building a
tunnel underneath it. El Chapo can recommend some guys who can do that
job quickly and effectively.
In
short, the type of ethnic cleansing that Trump proposes to “Make
America Great Again” and return the country to that fabled, halcyon time
in our country’s past that
exists only in the rants of slightly demented old white men, makes for
screwy politics and boondoggle economics. But it’s also helpful for
voters because it offers, in one tidy argument, compelling proof to
confirm our suspicions about Trump’s competencies
as a politician and businessman.
At
the end of the day, despite Trump’s best efforts to fix the country in
his own image, America is made great by immigrants — and that includes
the 11.3 million people
who haven’t been able to put their paperwork in order. That’s what
makes America America.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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