OPINION:
Ever since the U.S. economy has embarked on a post-COVID-19 recovery, Americans have been told by lobbyists for various mass-immigration vested interests that increasing immigration is the solution for growing inflation and difficulties that employers may be experiencing in finding workers. In a recent study, the Federation for American Immigration Reform challenges the lobby’s misleading, self-serving narrative, demonstrating that cheap-foreign-labor policies that put American workers last are not the answer.
The open-borders coalition, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, continues to suggest that the American economy is plagued by a critical worker shortage. This basic assumption is fundamentally flawed, however.
As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, Americans previously afraid to return to work due to the virus, along with those who preferred to take advantage of various enhanced benefits that continue to expire, are returning to the job market in growing numbers. The labor force participation rate has been moving upward since taking a heavy blow in the spring of 2020. However, it remains lower than it was before the pandemic struck, and significantly lower than it would be today had pre-pandemic trends continued.
As the FAIR clearly analysis shows, there are around 14 million available American workers to fill some 11 million job vacancies. In other words, there remains a large reservoir of potential American labor available to tap. There is no need to subject these Americans to increased, wage-stagnating competition from newcomers.
Another claim the mass-immigration lobby uses to buttress its claims is that the supposed labor shortages in the economy are partly the result of decreased immigration during recent years. In reality, the foreign-born population did shrink by approximately 600,000 people between March and September of 2020 due mainly to the pandemic. But between September 2020 and March 2022, FAIR estimates that the total immigrant population in the United States has grown by more than 2.5 million individuals, totaling approximately 49 million. Our foreign-born population has already reached historically high levels and will likely grow even faster during the rest of the Biden presidency.
Some mass-immigration advocates have also attempted to capitalize on the rightful concerns that most Americans have regarding the rising cost of goods and services by arguing that increasing immigration or granting mass amnesty would lower inflation.
However, analysis by FAIR and other research organizations has shown that, because immigrants — both legal and illegal — often work lower-paying jobs, the anti-inflationary impact of depressing wages by flooding the labor market with cheaper foreign workers would be extremely small and certainly not worth a much larger blow to the earnings of the most financially vulnerable Americans. FAIR also tested the historical relationship between immigration and inflation rates from 2000 to 2020 and found no direct correlation between higher immigration and reduced inflation.
Rather than throwing open the gate for unlimited immigration as a panacea to fix the labor market and economy, we ought to pursue policies based on a healthy sense of economic patriotism that prioritizes American workers. Thus, calls by pro-mass-immigration advocates to depress American wages — particularly when inflation is at a 40-year-high — by importing more foreign workers should be seen for what it is: a cynical, selfish ploy by crony capitalists to get even richer while everyone else gets poorer.
• Pawel Styrna is a senior researcher at the Federation for American Immigration Reform and a legal immigrant.
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