President Joe Biden’s recent immigration policies signal a desire to stop illegal immigration, but his economic policies rely on it to hide the true health of the economy, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
President Biden signed an executive order on Tuesday to suspend new asylum applications at the southern border if the weekly average exceeds 2,500, a stark departure from the relaxed stance the president has taken on border security amid a massive influx of migrants. Experts who spoke to DCNF said foreign-born workers have inflated headline economic and job market growth figures during his presidency, obscuring the economic reality for native-born Americans and creating a disconnect between Americans’ sense of the economy and what the data shows. (Related: Smoke and mirrors: New York City’s “jobs boom” was actually just taxpayer-funded extravagance)
“I don’t know if Biden’s actions will lead to increased border enforcement. Instead, this may be an attempt to make the border open permanent,” EJ Antoni, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Herman Federal Budget Center, told DCNF. “That said, while a reduction in illegal immigration would have a significant impact on economic indicators, that’s not the same as saying that average Americans would be harmed.”
Number of Americans Employed As of April, the number of infected people exceeded 161 million, surpassing the pre-COVID-19 peak of about 159 million in February 2020. Despite the increase in the total number, number Between February 2020 and April 2024, the number of U.S.-born workers increased by just 788,000. employment Over the same period, foreign-born worker levels increased by 2.7 million.
“Today, I am announcing measures to ensure that migrants who cross our southern border illegally are not granted asylum,” Biden said. Said Announcing the executive order on Tuesday, he said: “This measure will help strengthen border controls and restore procedural order. This ban will remain in place until the number of people attempting to enter the country illegally decreases to a level that our system can effectively manage.”
Since Biden took office, the U.S. foreign-born population has increased by 6.6 million, an estimated 58% of which is due to illegal immigration. according to The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which collects most of the government’s employment data, doesn’t distinguish between whether workers are in the country legally and whether they are not, according to a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) study. Expressly He said illegal immigrants were also counted.
“The presence of illegal immigrants absolutely adds to overall GDP,” Steven Camarota, research director at CIS, told DCNF. “You have a growing population, hundreds of millions of people. They’re relatively poor, but they still add to the economy. So if GDP growth is the headline number, the presence of illegal immigrants adds at least $300 billion to the economy, based on their labor income.”
The economy has defied recession predictions last year, recording gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 4.9% and 3.4% in the third and fourth quarters of 2023, respectively. Added The monthly number up until April last year was 242,000.
“Unfortunately, the BLS completely avoids the topic of workers’ legal status in both its household and business surveys,” Antoni told DCNF, “which means that the category of foreign-born workers includes countless illegal immigrants. Limiting the flow of illegal immigrants would stop the bloodshed, but the damage has already been done. Deportations will be necessary to reverse the negative effects of having millions of illegal immigrants in the country.”
Camarota believes that foreign-born workers are receiving the majority of the jobs and other economic benefits under Biden’s administration is part of the reason why voters are not satisfied with the economy right now, despite the Biden administration and Republican support. Enterprise The media is highlighting the positive results: A May poll found that 49% of voters believe Biden’s policies have had a negative impact on the economy, and 71% believe the current economic situation in the United States is bad.
President Biden believes we must secure our border in accordance with our nation’s laws and values.
He has announced new executive actions that would bar migrants who cross the southern border illegally from being granted asylum.
and, president They continue to call on Congress to act on border security. pic.twitter.com/1YZD1CR8Yc
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 4, 2024
“Immigration masks the situation to some extent to make labor force participation rates look better, but the real problem is the headline unemployment numbers,” Camarota told DCNF. “The headline number of people working doesn’t include all the working-age people who are not working.”
Labor force participation rate of all workers total The foreign-born enrollment rate will be 62.7% in April 2024, still below pre-COVID-19 levels. total The answer is 66%.
“I think this adds to public dissatisfaction with the economy because it’s like when a poll asks, ‘Is unemployment high?’ It’s not high. It’s very low, but people are saying it’s high,” Camarota told DCNF. “And I think the public thinks that everyone they see is bored.”
In a May poll, about 49% of people surveyed thought the unemployment rate was at a 50-year high, even though the official rate was below 4%. Fifty-six% of those surveyed thought the U.S. economy was in a recession.
Antoni also pointed to other factors fueling Americans’ dissatisfaction with the economy, including the fact that most jobs created under Biden are part-time, meaning many Americans work multiple jobs. The rapid rise in the immigrant population is exacerbating an already existing housing shortage of millions of homes in the U.S., driving up housing costs and rents across the country.
“From an economic perspective, legal immigration is a great asset to America,” Antoni told DCNF. “Historically, it has attracted the best, brightest, and hardest working people from around the world. This has led to increased productivity, wages, wealth, income, and even life expectancy in America, while decreasing crime. Conversely, mass illegal immigration under the Biden administration has produced the exact opposite effect.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
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