Moving up one notch in my big 2020 pick is Senator and Presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand, who recognizes that immigration can save Social Security and other public institutions from collapsing under our grey tsunami:
Gillibrand said there should be a pathway to citizenship for people already working in the country.
“We need a pathway for millions of people here working in our communities, part of our lives, part of our families, and allow them to pay their Social Security, pay their taxes, help pay for local public schools,” Gillibrand said. “When you are buying into your community, you are paying your fair share” [Zachary Oren Smith, “Gillibrand Talks Clean Air and Immigration in Muscatine,” Iowa City Press-Citizen, 2019.03.21].
The Social Security Administration’s own projections support Gillibrand’s pro-immigration position, as should your desire for a reliable check from Uncle Sam when you are old and gray:
We can see the effect in the annual fiscal estimates of the Social Security trustees. The trustees typically issue three 75-year projections — a best-case, worst-case and middle-of-the-road scenario. The third one is the projection that generally gets headlines each spring when the trustees report is issued.
One of the major factors distinguishing these projections from one another is their estimate of immigration; the more, the better.
In the 2018 report, for instance, the trustees based their middle estimate on net immigration averaging about 1.3 million people per year through 2095, including about 484,000 unauthorized immigrants. That’s not far from the average in recent years, according to Social Security’s estimates. This yields the familiar prediction that the program’s trust fund, or reserve, will run out in 2034, at which point benefits may have to be cut by about one-fourth.
In the worst-case scenario, labeled “high-cost” in the trustees’ report, net immigration averages only 950,000 per year, including about 356,000 net unauthorized immigrants. That results in the trust fund running out sooner, in 2030.
But in the best-case (“low-cost”) scenario, net immigration averages 1.6 million per year, including 607,000 unauthorized immigrants. That puts the trust fund solidly in the black, without changes in taxes or benefits, for at least the next 75 years.
In summary, then, for an aging country such as the United States, immigration is an economic necessity. Kirsten Gillibrand was speaking up not only for a humane and fair immigration policy, but an economically sustainable policy [Michael Hiltzik, “Fox News Freaks Out over Kirsten Gillibrand’s Comments on Immigrants and Social Security—But She’s Right,” Los Angeles Times, 2019.03.22].
Gillibrand’s clear-eyed view of the long-term fiscal benefit of immigration makes her a superior choice to the current occupant of the White House, who would immediately crash the economy with his rabid impulse to close the border with our third-biggest trading partner:
Frustrated by an influx of migrant families arriving from Central America, Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric on sealing the border, threatening that his administration could close ports as early as this week if Mexico doesn’t do more to stem the flow of arrivals.
…”The president made that statement out of frustration. I don’t think he’s going to actually shut off the border,” Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told a forum in Washington on Monday.
“It would have a significant impact on our economy,” he added.
“I understand the president’s frustration, but the unintended consequences of that, I think, would be bad for everybody,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
…”Even threatening to close the border to legitimate commerce and travel creates a degree of economic uncertainty that risks compromising the very gains in growth and productivity that policies of the Trump administration have helped achieve,” said Neil Bradley, [U.S. Chamber of Commerce] executive vice president and chief policy officer.
The Commerce Department estimates $502 billion in goods crossed the border in trucks and trains last year, roughly $1.4 billion a day. That doesn’t include products shipped by air and sea [John Fritze and Eliza Collins, “Trump Border Closing? Republicans, Chamber of Commerce Question President’s Latest Threat,” USA Today, 2019.04.01].
Even Senator John Thune has to admit that the current Administration is going the wrong way on immigration:
“It’s part of the way he negotiates, but I’m not sure that’s a particularly good idea and I’m not sure it gets the desired result,” said Senate Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota of the potential closed border. “Tactically it doesn’t get a result and probably has a lot of unintended consequences … there’s a lot of bilateral trade at the border” [Anita Kumar, Ted Hesson, and Burgess Everett, “Trump Bewilders GOP Allies on Immigration Ahead of Border Visit,” Politico, 2019.04.01].
Kirsten Gillibrand, like our own Kooper Caraway, knows immigration is good for America. Without immigration, there’d be no America. The replacement of our current reckless White House with a practical policymaker can’t come soon enough.
There should be a path to citizenship. Even that conservative icon Ronnie RayGun granted amnesty. We should periodically allow amnesty for those who have shown they can live productively alongside of Americans despite having illegally crossed the border. We should also work on comprehensive immigration reform to bring in the workers we realistically need to do the jobs Americans don’t want to do – the ones that the undocumented are doing already. But … we should couple more generous immigration limits with a higher minimum wage that must be paid to immigrants so that they don’t drive down wages for existing American workers. And like it or not, we also need to vigorously enforce our immigration laws which may require, among other things, barriers at strategic locations along the border.
As to Kirsten Gillibrand, I stand with Al Franken.
I am still trying to figure out any downside of assisting people who seek to become citizens achieve that goal. How could another person’s status as a citizen possibly harm anyone who is already a citizen?
What benefits do we “citizens” have that those opposing the path to citizenship believe ought to be denied to someone who wants to become a citizen?
Here is a list of ten “benefits” of citizenship one advocacy website describes to encourage people to become American citizens.
https://www.legallanguage.com/legal-articles/becoming-a-us-citizen/
Which, if any, of these “benefits” do existing citizens believe ought to be denied to those seeking citizenship and, more importantly, why? What am I missing?
It almost seems that the reason to oppose someone’s desire to become a citizen could be premised on some sort of racism or other irrational prejudice.
bearcreekbat, don’t discount these immigrants’ darker shade of skin as a reason so many are against legal immigration pathways.
Along those cynical lines, I also think the US has employers who enjoy the economic benefit of having a pool of workers without legal status to exploit. Farm workers, nannies, constructions workers: all seem to be jobs that go to undocumented workers at lower than acceptable wages to protect the bottom line of the employers. It is the same exploitation that sends factories south to exploit that workforce, but for the jobs that cannot be exported, illegal immigration is the way to bring the exploitable workers to us.
o, I hate to believe fear of darker skinned people would motivate opposition to citzenship for immigrants, but that does seem to resonate as an entirely irrational basis for such views.
Indeed, anyone who fears or hates darker skinned people can do so whether these people are citizens or not. And if they wish to act on that hatred by commiting crimes against darker skinned people, the victim’s status as a non-citizen doesn’t mitigate punishment for the crime (it might even aggravate punishment under some hate crime laws). Thus, it would seem a complete waste of energy to oppose citizenship based upon racist ideals or goals, since a person’s race and citizenship status seem entirely unrelated.
Perhaps the theory that “employers want to exploit workers for cheap labor costs” could make a bit more sense, yet I have to speculate that the vast majority of people who oppose a path to citizenship are not employers. And for those that are, I again speculate that only a small minority of all employers depend on exploiting non-citizenship status to increase profits. If I am right on these points, then the “employer/cheap labor” rationale doesn’t really answer my inquiry.
It is whitey’s fear of becoming the minority in America that is allowing pols to get away with villifying POC and angering their mindless base to want to do violence. Drumpf is a master at rousing the rabble and then lying his ass off about it.
Pure political self interest is what prevents a path to citizenship. The GOP party has become ruthless in doing everything and anything to win. Purge of voter rolls. Voter ID. Gerrymandering. GOP party politicians don’t support allowing the undocumented (even dreamers who were brought here as children) a path to citizenship because they would vote overwhelmingly for Democrats if they became citizens. It’s the same reason that GOP party politicians won’t make Puerto Rico or Washington DC a state. It’s the same reason that GOP party politicians won’t do away with the electoral college or support non-partisan redistricting. The only way the GOP party can continue to win despite its unpopular positions is to stack the deck in its favor. It uses every trick in the book including racism and demagoguery.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/north-carolina-gop-chairman-others-indicted-on-federal-bribery-and-wire-fraud-charges
They do whatever they can get away with, for sure, Ror.
Rorschach, I would include making money “voice” and unregulated as another anti-democratic move to help suppress the majority.
Rorshach, that also seemed a plausable explanation, but then it seems unclear how or why republicans would predict new immigrant citizens might vote democratic, a political group believed to be pro-choice and relatively secular.
For example, research indicates that hispanics as a group, especially foreign born hispanics, are much more pro-Christian and anti-choice than other groups. This seems to suggest most hispanics, if made citizens and allowed to vote, would be natural supporters of the current republican religious and anti-choice candidates rather than godless pro-choice democrats.
Research has shown that:
https://www.pewhispanic.org/2014/10/16/chapter-2-latinos-views-on-selected-2014-ballot-measure-issues/
and that,
https://www.pewhispanic.org/2007/04/25/iii-religious-practices-and-beliefs/
bearcreekkebat, If I may jump in, I believe one thing may be that although religious and pro-life, immigrants, are not blindly single-issue voters. Michale Eric Dyson was on a news show not too long ago and he made a similar observation about how the GOP SHOULD be the party of the southern African American because of the similarity of conservative stances on social issue; however the African American voter spurns the GOP because of the GOP’s racism. The GOP casts away their idealogical brothers and sisters because of how it treats people of color.
o, I am focusing on whether there is a rational reason to oppose immigrant citizenship.
While I am sure you are correct that hispanics cannot fairly be characterized as one-issues voters, the statistical evidence showing strong religious and anti-choice beliefs among a significant majority of hispanics seems to undermine the narative that the majority of new immigrant citizens would be democratic rather than republican voters.
Hence, fear that immigrants will vote democrat seems an unsupported and irrational foundation for excluding them from citizenship.
My understanding based on reading a variety of sources agrees with what O said.
Immigrants from Central and South America and from Africa have more in common with the GOP on social issues. However, it is exactly the GOP’s racism that drives them away. In addition, the Democratic Party vigorously embraces religious freedom, another failure of the GOP, so nonChristian immigrants reject the GOP.
Lastly, the 2nd generation of an immigrant family, the one born in the USA, is nearly always significantly more liberal than the 1st generation.