Boo!  the immigration spectre coming out of my TV

The onslaught of political ads lately are big on the bugaboo of open borders and illegal immigration, which may be seasonally appropriate in the weeks leading up to Halloween, but they are still puzzling. Only in the sense that if you say something often enough, people will believe it (as the bugaboo’s lead proponent has said), like conjuring a genie out of a bottle, is this bugaboo a real monster.

There have been way more border “interceptions and expulsions” under the Biden administration than under the Trump administration, and not just a little bit more: 2 to 3 to 4 times more, according to the Customs and Border Patrol Enforcement Statistics through the end of last month. Even if you argue that the increase is due to more people trying to get through, it’s still hardly what you can call an “open border” with rapists and murderers pouring over it.

Numerous studies show that immigrants commit fewer crimes on average than American citizens. In any group of millions, it’s possible to come up with examples of seriously bad behavior, but overall statistical evidence should be what drives public policy, not clickbait anecdotes.

Whatever you think about current immigration policy, though, studies have shown that immigration is actually good for the workforce, contributing to strong economic growth, and projected to increase GDP by 2% over the next ten years with concomitant increase in government tax revenue. And it doesn’t make much sense to say that immigrants are taking jobs from Americans, because the unemployment rate for 2023 overall was down to 3.6%. It was briefly that low in 2019, but prior to that, not since 1968-69. If illegal immigration is hurting American workers, it’s in the way it is exploited by employers who use work visa status to pit workers against each other and discourage them from exercising their rights. The way to deal with that is to enact and enforce better labor standards and collective bargaining rights, not to house innocent children in cages and try to scare people with racist stereotypes.

As for the racism aspect: have you ever been to a work party or conference where everybody is being entertained by the guy with the Australian accent? I have. It’s a thing. He’s so much fun – nobody is asking about his green card. And yet it’s a whole lot easier to be in this country illegally by overstaying a tourist visa than by hiking across Panama and the Sonoran desert. So the next time you see one of those white people trying to scare you about immigrants in a political ad, imagine them holding out a bag for some candy, because a treat for a trick is what they’re getting if you vote for them.