Immigration Myths

Did you know that immigrants are twice as likely to be entrepreneurs? And that most undocumented immigrants voluntarily return to their own country? If you get your information from right wing news media and politicians in the U.S. or Europe you almost certainly believe the opposite to be true.

I've touched on this topic many times now, but it needs repeating: since neither the left or the right are capable of delivering on policies that offer real material and economical results for their working class citizens, they're both reduced to quibbling about identity politics. Yes, I said "both." But, like with everything else, there's the danger of drawing false equivalencies, so it also bears repeating that the identity politics of the political right are far more dangerous. At least the identity politics from the left are aimed at uplifting marginalized groups, where the right will kick down on them every chance they get in order to protect their precious "natural" hierarchies with white men at the top.

Anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-feminist, anti-immigrant and even anti-women policies are the exclusive domain of (far) right wing politics and politicians, and they'll fight even harder in times when these marginalized groups gain even moderate success. Their anti-gay, anti-abortion and anti-marriage equality proposals and laws are clear evidence of this. They'll set in motion their propaganda machines to instill in the minds of their support-base ideas that are completely opposite empirical reality; gays and trans people are now "child groomers," and using preferred pronouns is now "dictatorial." Really, they are themselves the snowflakes they claim their ideological opponents to be. And this is a key feature of fascism: they need adversaries who are weak, but at the same time pose an existential threat to them.

So, what do they believe about immigration and immigrants? Indeed you know the answer: it's the same story. Immigrants are an existential threat, even if they are socially, economically and politically among the weakest members of society. Immigrants suppress wages, they create unemployment, especially among low wage uneducated native workers, they are a threat to the welfare state as they extract more than they put in, and so on. Right wing policies, and unfortunately increasingly so called left wing policies as well, benefit the establishment, the rich and large businesses, leaving behind the working class that makes up the far majority of the population. And when those very policies create discontent among the population, the scapegoating begins; it's the gays and trans people who come after your children, and it's the immigrants who come after your wages and jobs.

It's an old strategy and unfortunately it's lost none of its effectiveness; just look at the electoral success of Trump, Johnson, Le Pen, Farage, Wilders, to name but a few of the right wing populists who've managed to gain massive support in their respective countries. It's not the politicians you've voted into power of course; that would be pointing a blaming finger at yourself. And it's not the employers who these politicians serve, and who pay your lower wages and hire the cheaper immigrants. No, it's none of them: it's those filthy foreigners. And they're all criminals to boot. That's the message coming from these right wing populist demagogues, and they've created the circumstances in which this message lands over the past half century.

None of it is true though. Immigration has a net-positive effect on a nation's economy. Immigrants who are offered a path to citizenship are more successful than natives in many ways, not the least of which is the entrepreneurial success mentioned in the introduction. I mean, is it so hard to understand? It's quite the undertaking to pack your stuff and leave your country, to learn a new language, to adjust to a foreign culture; if you're not the adventurous and entrepreneurial type to begin with, you probably won't even begin to consider that option. The fact that it takes twice the effort to reach the same level of socioeconomic success means that immigrants necessarily convert their disadvantage into a head-start.

Here's one of the biggest and most persistent myths about immigrants in America: "providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants would hurt American workers." And here's the actual fact:

Providing a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. would increase their wages and spending power and, over 10 years, boost U.S. GDP by $1.2 trillion. If the U.S. provided a pathway to permanent residency and citizenship, it would increase Americans’ income by $791 billion and generate $184 billion in additional state and local and federal tax revenue from currently undocumented immigrants, and add more than 200,000 jobs to the U.S. economy per year. Millions of undocumented immigrants are serving in essential frontline roles right now, including the estimated 48% of agricultural workers who are immigrants, and who are keeping the food supply chain safe and keeping food on tables across America.
_{source: Immigration Facts: The Positive Economic Impact Of Immigration, fwd.us}

Now this is just one study among many done in many countries, and of course the total picture of immigration is more nuanced and complex; that's why I invite you all to watch the below linked video, which discusses the findings of more than 100 studies on the subject.

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