David Stockman's Contra Corner
December 6, 2025
The Trumpian attack on immigrants is about as anti-supply side, pro-statist and inimical to free market prosperity as it gets. As we have seen in Parts 1 & 2, immigrant labor accounted for 42% of the thundering 3.62% annual real GDP growth during the golden age of American industrial expansion between 1870 and 1920, but that wasn't the end of the story.
During the most recent 50-year interval between 1970 and 2020, fully 35% of the far more tepid real GDP growth rate of 2.52% per annum was due to the increase in immigrant labor. Stated differently, without the added work force derived from the 83 million gain in new immigrant arrivals and their off-spring during 1970 to 2020 (middle column, line d of the table below), real GDP growth would have slowed even further to just 1.94% per annum (see below).
Needless to say, the downward arcing march of demographic history shows no sign of reversing when we look at current fertility rates of the native-born population. In the third column of the table below, therefore, we display the standard Census Bureau/CBO baseline case for the 50-year interval from 2025 to 2075. It shows that the current 350 million US population is expected to grow by only 55 million during the next half-century, resulting in a continued sharp trend-line decline in the overall population growth rate.
Per Annum Population Growth Rate:
- 1870-1920 actual: 2.04%.
- 1970-2020 actual: 0.99%.
- 2025-2075 CBO projected: 0.29%.
Alas, the above isn't the half of it. As it turns out, the current US population as of 2025 will actually shrink by about 15 million during the next 50 years because the sub-replacement fertility rate of just 1.61 (and still falling) will mean that by the mid-2030s deaths among the current population will exceed births. Accordingly, the entire 55 million population gain projected in the CBO base case for 2025 to 2075 is entirely due to immigration and then some.
That's right. Embedded in the mainstream Census Bureau population projections and CBO's longer term economic outlook is an assumption that immigration will add an average of 1.4 million persons per year to population growth. In whole numbers that would amount to the following over the next 50 years:
- 45 million new immigrant arrivals or 900,000 per year.
- 25 million children of these new immigrant arrivals or 500,000 per year.
Of course, these figures are not remotely consistent with the Stephen Miller/Trump/MAGA anti-immigrant howling that continuously emanates from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Their policies include deporting millions of illegals that are already here; sharply curtailing the H1-B program for tech workers and PhDs; eliminating the 50,000 per year Diversity Visa program; cutting refugee admission from 125,000 per year to 7,500; and shutting-off virtually all of the unskilled labor that enters through the backdoor of asylum-seeking at the southern border.
In short, the Trumpified GOP's policy amounts to a zero net immigration strategy for the long haul. To place the potential long-term impact of this radical departure from past policy in historical perspective, we have summed in line (d) of the table below the figures for new arrivals plus their offspring during each of these half-century periods, as follows:
Total New Immigrants Arrivals and Their Offspring-History and Base Case
- 1870-1920 actual: 35.3 million.
- 1970-2020 actual: 83.1 million.
- 2025-2075 base case: 70.0 million.
Based on these immigration totals, a counterfactual is shown in the Memo line, which represents the end year population excluding the line(d) new immigrant population for each of the 50-year intervals. The effect is to isolate the underlying growth rate of the starting year population. Needless to say, the US population, absent new immigration has been and will continue to be on a slippery slope toward contraction.
Counterfactual: Per Annum Population Growth Rate Absent New Immigration
- 1870-1920: +1.22%.
- 1970-2020: +0.40%.
- 2025-2075: -0.09%
The three figures above are dispositive. They show that America's robust population growth over the last 150 years has been heavily dependent upon new waves of immigrants decade after decade. The graph below shows that this heavy immigrant inflow-driven by the magnet of economic opportunity-has been continuous, and broke below the zero line only during the economic collapse of the Great Depression.
Going forward, however, organic population change and its impact on economic growth will be negative as far as the eye can see for the first time in American history. That's because the 2.1 fertility barrier was broken to the downside decades ago, meaning that the only possible source of stabilization for the future US population-to say nothing of a return to robust historic growth-is a continuation of large-scale immigration.
Needless to say, negative total US population growth under the Trumpian ZIPG (Zero Immigrant Population Growth) has dramatic implications for both overall economic growth and most especially for the fiscal burden of America's unfunded social insurance and retirement programs. We address the economic growth barriers in the section below, but here is it worth looking at the last five lines of the table which show the working age population with and without new immigration during the period, the projected retirement population at the end of each period and the ratio of working age population to the retired population in 1920, 2020 and 2075.
These figures reduce to a nightmare in a single ratio. To wit, as of 1920 (before Social Security was enacted) the actual ratio of working age population to the retired population was 13.3:1 and even without new immigration during the previous 50 years the ratio would have been a robust10.6:1.
In other words, even prior to the modern liberal invention of social insurance there were more than enough workers to help support the old folks, albeit under the historic norms of extended family obligation.
Of course, in 1920 there were only 4.9 million persons 65 and older in America--so the burden of support was moderate. Fast forward a century to 2020, however, and the retired population had soared to52.5 million, bringing the worker/retiree ratio down dramatically just as Social Security reached full swing.
Still, immigration during the 1970-2020 period made a considerable difference. The working age population of 207.3 million was +29.3 million higher due to immigration during the prior 50 years than it would have been based on growth of the 1970 population alone. Accordingly, the working age-to-retirement population ratio in 2020 was down sharply, but still computed to 4.0:1, and was also well above the 3.4:1 ratio that would have prevailed based on the 1970 population growth alone.
Alas, the slide towards virtually impossible retirement support burdens will continue unabated during the next 50 years. The retired population will double again to 120 million by 2075, while the working age population under Trumpian ZIPG will total only 182 million or 48 million less than would be the case with status quo policy, which results in baseline immigrant growth of the aforementioned 1.4 million per year.
Either way, the burden of 120 million retirement age persons will be excruciating. The ratio would be 1.9:1 under baseline (i.e. status quo policy) immigration levels, but barely 1.5:1 under Trumpian ZIPG.
Needless to say, the latter is not merely a scary sounding number. The projected average wage replacement rate under current benefit law is 41% by 2075. Accordingly, under Trumpian ZIPG one way or another 27% of every worker's paycheck would need to be taxed just to pay OASI benefits!
Back in the day during the late 1970s when Jimmy Carter was attempting to raise the payroll tax to keep Social Security solvent for the long haul, we used to joke that annexing Mexico, with an average population age of just 32 years, would be an easier alternative. But the figures below suggest that this was not actually a joke at all.
Decomposition of U.S. Population Change: 1870→1920 vs. 1970→2020 vs. 2025→2075 (50-year periods in millions)
Back in the day, the supply-side model was all about optimizing policy in order to foster higher economic growth. The irony, of course, was that the most potent tool available to actually move the needle big time was the enhancement of labor force growth via immigrant workers. Yet now the once and former supply-side GOP has abandoned this growth tool entirely.
Thus, in the heyday of America's industrial expansion during 1870 to 1920, the robust average real GDP growth of 3.62% per annum reflected a 28% gain over the2.83% annual growth that was attributable to the labor force increase from the 1870 population and its offspring alone. That is, the actual contribution to real GDP growth from labor hour increases of 2.01% per annum would have been only 1.22% per year without the immigrant arrivals and their off-spring during the 50 years after 1870.
Likewise, during the most recent 50-year period, the more modest 2.52% per annum growth during 1970 to 2020 was fully 30% higher than would have been the case without new immigrant workers. In that case, the already weakened labor force growth of0.98% per annum would have been reduced by more than half to just 0.40% per year without new immigration.
And that gets us to the folly of Trumpian ZIPG. As it is, the CBO base case over the next 50 years is already punk with real GDP growth of just 1.62% per annum. But of the 90 basis points reduction in the growth rate of the CBO baseline relative to the 1970-2020 CAGR, nearlytwo-thirds of the drop is due to sharply reduced labor force growth of just 0.40% per year. Yet even that is due to the aforementioned 1.4 million per year growth of the immigrant population per the CBO base case.
In fact, however, if you overlay Trumpian ZIPG on the CBO baseline, the labor force growth rate drops to -0.09% per year, as previously explained. This means that even with CBO's assumption of 1.22% per annum productivity growth, real GDP would rise by only 1.13% per year.
In other words, the real GDP growth rates during the much maligned "open borders" period of 1870 to 1920 (3.62%) would stand at 3.2X the 1.13% per annum rate we have projected under the closed borders of ZIPG. And there is no mistaking that conclusion because a shrinking homegrown labor force is already baked into the cake by the crash of fertility rates.
Of course, the GOP politicians noisily repeat the Laffer Chorus--namely, cut taxes, close your eyes and wait for 4% growth to shrink the nation's massive deficits and soaring public debt. But the cold truth is that with a closed border and radically capped labor supply the only way you could get 4.0% real GDP growth is with 4% per annum productivity growth.
And that's barking madness. During the next decades rising real interest rates from the crowding out effect of soaring Treasury borrowing and the diversion of available capital into speculation-fueled malinvestment in bubble-ridden sectors like AI will make even the 1.22% per annum productivity growth assumption in the CBO baseline case exceedingly difficult to reach.
At the end of the day, that's the real downside of ZIPG. A disastrous baseline fiscal outlook that is already taking the public debt to $185 trillion and 168% of GDP by mid-century under the current CBO baseline could be turned into a veritable financial nightmare.
That is to say, ZIPG is likely to foster a scenario where real economic growth easily drops below 1% per annum under the weight of debt, soaring interest rates, chronic labor shortages, stubbornly high inflation, rising payroll taxes (to fund Social Security after trust fund insolvency in the early 2030s) and rampant Wall Street speculation owing to easy money.
U.S. Real Economic Growth And Its Components By 50-Year Intervals (trillion $)
Part 4
Needless to say, all of the above is likely to come as a shock to MAGA Hat followers who have been fed the false line that immigration amounts to an "invasion" and that its all just plain bad. Undoubtedly, the crime horror story anecdotes that are attached to this canard makes tribal politics and the Trumpian weaponization of the immigration control machinery of the state seem plausible.
In fact, the GOP's wholehearted embrace of Trumpian immigrant bashing is not surprising. In recent decades while foraging for defining issues to mobilize the electorate, Washington Republicans have pretty much given up on the GOP's true calling in American governance, which is to be the Opposition Party in the contest for power with the Government Party controlled by the Dems.
In turn, that boils down to functioning as the Watch Dog of the Treasury in the unending battle against spending, borrowing, money printing and socialist redistribution of societal resources and wealth, whether through fiscal, regulatory or tax policy channels. This is logically the GOP's job because America surely doesn't need another pro-state Big Government party to compete with the endless follies of the Dems.
Yet for whatever reason, the careerists who manage the Washington GOP's campaign and fund-raising machinery concluded long ago that the old time Republican fiscal religion symbolized by balanced budgets had become passe at best and an outright electoral looser, at worst.
So for decades they have been persistently hunting for non-fiscal issues capable of materially moving the electoral needle. And frequently they have found such opportunities in the "culture wars" arena. They learned, for instance, that the "right to life" cause-which should not be a Federal government matter at all- was far more potent with some segments of the electorate than, say, the traditional GOP causes of welfare reform or stanching the growth of the public debt.
To be sure, there are some culture wars issues that involve the machinery of the state encroaching upon economic freedoms and personal liberties that very much needed to be resisted. The battle against state-enforced and encouraged DEI was self-evidently one of these, as was resisting the secular religion of Climate Change and its lethal threat to free market prosperity anchored in the efficiency and superiority of fossil fuels.
But mainly, separation of Culture & State is simply a modern day extension of the Founders' insistence on the separation of Church & State: Religion and culture alike are not the appropriate business of government. Full stop.
Yet violation of that axiom is essentially the entrepot by which the GOP stumbled into its destructive embrace of the anti-immigration cause. That is to say, a polity predicated upon maximum personal liberty, free markets, constitutionally-shackled government and autonomous social life unencumbered by the state can't be in the business of regulating the ethnic, racial and cultural composition of civil society-to say nothing of actively promoting or legislating bigotry.
This is especially the case because America is, was and likely always should be a Melting Pot of the world's pre-existing nationalities, races, ethnicities and cultural heritages. And, as we have seen in the economic brilliance of the 1870-1920 growth explosion, it is that Melting Pot and the associated "open borders" that fostered that great outpouring of capitalist prosperity, a resilient civil order and constitutional liberty that eventually spread across the North American continent from sea-to-shining sea.
The historical evolution of the American Melting Pot, of course, had its episodic spasms of nativist reaction, frequently originating within the second to most recent wave of immigrants. Thus, the English settlers resisted the Irish, even as the latter assumed less than a welcoming posture toward the newer arrivals from Italy-who, in due course, afforded the Poles the same courtesy.
In the process, there was more than a little racial and religious bigotry that welled up as the 19th century immigration waves flowed into the 20th century peak before WWI. Thereafter, of course, the open gates for free immigration were officially closed in 1924 and replaced by astate-regulated immigration management enterprise via the national quota-based act of 1924. Trumpian ZIPG is only its extreme logical extension.
Needless to say, this new regulatory enterprise was grounded in a kind of rolling nativist bigotry that had emerged during the prior century or so. The tip off is that the quotas in the 1924 Act were set at 2% of the foreign-born population of each nationality living in the U.S. based on the 1890 Census. In effect, the older arrivals used the border control powers of the state to restrict the newer arrivals from Southern and Eastern European (e.g., Italians, Poles, Jews), which were seen as less desirable by nativists compared to Northern and Western Europeans.
By the next big Immigration reform act of 1965, however, the country-based quota system had become at once too rigid, but also too permissive by the lights of some nativists--since the 1920s legislation had generally not restricted Western Hemisphere based immigrants at all. So the new post-1965 quota system covered the entire world including the brownish peoples of Latin America, Africa and Asia. This bias, in turn, was compounded by the heavy role for family reunification in the 1965 act's quotas-which favored immigrant groups already here, as well as a cold war era focus on slots for scientists and highly educated workers.
The 1965 act was allegedly "progressive" because it didn't arbitrarily favor German or Irish green card applicants, but it inadvertently suffered a worse disability. Namely, it put an aggregate cap on total immigration at at time when the US birth rate was plummeting, meaning that growth of the native born labor force 20-40 years hence would follow the same plunging curve downward.
So while on the surface the 1965 act stabilized the immigration rate in the 2-4 per 1,000 population range, this was far below the 5-10 immigrants per 1,000 annual rate which had prevailed during the open borders era prior to the 1920s; and, more importantly, it was also far below what would be needed to even stabilize the growth rate of the US labor force, given the collapse of native born births after the Baby Boom ended in 1962.
As is evident in the chart below, during the post-war Baby Boom, the fertility rate-as measured by births per 1,000 women-soared from the depressed levels of the Great Depression years back toward its historic peak of 120 per 1,000 in the late 1950s.
But then it plunged during the 1960s and never looked back. Today's rate of just 54.5 per 1,000 is literally in the sub-basement of history, as shown in the graph below.
What this means, of course, is that the US labor force tracks the pink line in the chart with a lag of 20 to 40 years. As we have seen, therefore, by mid-century the native born work force will be shrinking and will continue to do so as far as the eye can see, meaning that the nation's capacity for historical levels of economic growth will be deeply impaired without large scale immigration, as we have also seen.
Consequently, this baked-into-the cake shriveling of the homegrown labor force has already unleashed forces that powerfully debunk the "immigrant invasion" story peddled by the Trumpified GOP.
To wit, the baby crash and the subsequently unfolding collapse of native-born labor force growth is actually what has brought tens of millions of immigrants to the US borders in recent decades. They were mainly economic migrants, sucked into the US economy by a labor market that is literally parched for supply. That is, they weren't invaders and raiders sent by enemies abroad; they were job-seekers lured across the southern borders by what amounted to a giant and continuous Help Wanted Ad wafting up from the US labor market.
So for crying out loud. The 28 million "encounters" at the US border over the last decade as ballyhooed by the Trumpites did not constitute a foreign-sourced "invasion". Foreign governments in this hemisphere or elsewhere were not plotting to empty their jails, mental institutions or military battalions of undesirables intent upon harming American citizens and undermining American society.
To the contrary, the border has been flooded by work-seeking immigrants earnestly searching for a better life for themselves and their families-just as has been the case with wave after wave of immigrants to the US since the very beginning of the Republic. And the current intensity of these immigrant flows is driven by plain old market economics: that is, a severe shortage of entry level labor owing to native babies that have never been born-plus a mushrooming Welfare State that has removed potential native born labor hours from active commerce by the tens of billions each year.
The latter includes the removal of billions of potential labor hours from the US economy via early retirements, ballooning disability rolls, an ever expanding potpourri of food, housing, medical and cash welfare programs and the giant scam of student loans and grants that removes millions of potential workers from the labor force on an extended basis.
At the same time, anecdotes about horrific crimes which happen to have been committed by immigrants is not the same thing as factual analysis. Thus, among the illegal alien population of 20 million, as recently claimed by Homeland Secy Noem, dangerous criminals account for less than0.3% of the total, and most of those are already incarcerated in state and Federal prisons.
That's right. Contrary to ICE Barbie's exaggerated statistic there are by all reliable estimates currently between 12 million and 16 million undocumented aliens in the US. And the overwhelming share of these immigrants came here looking for jobs in the guise of seeking "asylum" from alleged political and criminal threats in their home countries. So call the number of illegals around15 million at the outside.
But according to the widely cited letter from ICE to Congressman Gonzales in mid-2024, there are about 425,000 names of undocumented immigrants with criminal convictions on ICE's so-called "non-detained docket". That is, persons not currently under ICE detention.
While this is just 2.8% of the 15 million illegal aliens and in itself debunks the Trumpian refrain about the borders being overrun by criminals released from Latin American jails, that's not even the half of it. Actually, the list sent to Rep. Gonzales spans 40 years and also includes upwards of 300,000 persons mostly convicted of traffic violations, drug possession, minor misdemeanors and also breaking immigration laws, which they have to do in order to apply for asylum-thereby making for a catch 22 of no mean aspect.
So what might be called actual "dangerous" criminals on the ICE list amount to 130,000 or about 0.9% of the undocumented population. However, even on this list the total of convicted violent criminals is small indeed.
According to ICE, 13,099 of these persons have been convicted of homicide or just0.1% of the undocumented population. But, alas, virtually all of these individuals are already in Federal, state or local prisons. The don't have to be deported to protect the safety of the American public because they have already been apprehended, convicted and incarcerated!
Likewise, there are another 15,800 on the list who have been convicted of sexual assault. Again, however, according to GROK 4 upwards of half of these are also serving their justly deserved time behind bars.
In short, the streets of America are not crawling with illegal aliens who are convicted violent criminals. There have obviously been some horrific murders by illegal aliens, just as there unfortunately are year-in-and-year- out by native-born criminals, too. But when it comes to eliminating the undesirable elements of the immigrant population, deporting a few thousands real criminals is all that's actually required.
So we return to the real dynamic at work-the giant magnet for economic migrants formed by America's still growing labor-short economy. For want of doubt as to the latter truth, here is the change in employment as between native-born (red line) and foreign-born (blue line) workers since early 2020.
The former is up by a mere2% while foreign-born employment has risen by 14%. Needless to say, the current sweeping Trumpian deportation campaign will actually cause millions of "no shows" in the blue line segment of the labor market owing to midnight ICE raids or fear-driven self-deportations. Either way, the downward pressure on the blue line and the resulting labor market turmoil and disruption is sure to become a supply-side barrier to US economic growth.
Foreign-Born Versus Native-Born Employment Since January 2020
Indeed, when looked at on a longer term basis, the foreign-born source of America's current labor force growth is even more dramatic. Since the pre-crisis peak in Q4 2007 the number of foreign-born workers (blue line) employed in the US has increased by 7.6 million thru September 2025, while the far larger population of native born workers has grown by only 9.2 million (red line).
In relative terms, however, the data leave nothing to the imagination. Foreign-born employment is up by +33% since Q4 2007, while native-born job holders have grown by only+10%. And due to demographics that are already baked into the cake, the red line will be falling for the next several decades or, actually, for as far as the eye can see.
Index of Change In Foreign Born Versus Native Born Workers Since Q4 2007
Needless to say, these facts as to scant few criminals among the undocumented population and vast labor market shortages in the US economy point to a modern-day supply-side solution. That is, a constructive policy remedy that goes in the very opposite direction of the restrictive Trumpian anti-immigrant and deportation campaign.
We are speaking, of course, of the need for a large expansion of the current tiny 10,000 per year EB-3 quota for entry level workers. Uncapping that quota entirely for fully-vetted low skill workers would essentially eliminate the so-called flood at the border, and do so without adding a single Border Patrol or ICE agent, and likely enabling an actual shrinkage of Washington's costly border regulation operations.
This virtual clearance of the so-called "invasion" would happen because with no quota on new immigrant worker visas, willing, law-abiding job-seekers would go to the US embassies and consulates in their home countries to fill out their visa applications and be vetted by State Department professionals. There would simply be no need to cross the US border seeking "asylum", and to then be arrested, herded and man-handled by the Border Patrol and eventually wait-listed for years in the hideous immigration court system while out on "parole"- free to wonder around in the wild anywhere in the US.
The proof for this proposition is in the pudding. Again, here are GROK 4's best estimates of the number of undocumented workers employed in the US by industry. Essentially, 8.85 million of the 15 million illegal alien population is employed in basic US industries, and the rest are mostly their kids and stay-at-home spouses. In the case of the first three low-skill BLS categories listed in the table below, undocumented workers account for a double-digit share of the employed workforce.
That is to say, they got here not thru the current tiny 10,000 per year EB-3 pinhole for unskilled visas, but through the rough and tumble, unvetted expedient of backdoor entry as asylees and refugees.
So here's the thing. There are probably 10,000 or fewer violent undocumented criminals actually at large in the US versus a proven 9 million undocumented law-abiding, tax-paying, family-supporting workers accounting for 5% of the entire US labor force. That's a 900:1 ratio of people we need versus those we don't.
Yet the supply shock from the disappearance of millions of workers that the Trump Administration is deporting each and every day and the millions more who are likely self-deporting for fear of being sent to the Donald's Gulag in El Salvador is going to rip through the labor market like the proverbial neutron bomb. Businesses will be left standing, but they will be stripped clean of the workers they need to function, to say nothing of thrive and march toward the Donald's ballyhooed Golden Age.
So Trump-O-Nomics has the policy framework upside down. The only thing that is needed is to excise a few pages of statute and regulations and thereby uncap the low skill quota for vetted migrant workers.
That is to say, a pro-supply side, anti-statist initiative to relieve the regulatory straight jacket foisted upon the US economy by an idiotic immigration quota system that rooted in the bigotry of the 1920s and the progressive delusions of the 1960s would solve the border problem and boost the American economy and tax base in one fell swoop.
Estimated Undocumented Workers in U.S. Industries (2025)
Ordered by Highest to Lowest % Undocumented
Accordingly, almost anyone abroad who has a legitimate reason to come to the US under a supply-side immigration policy would not need to wade through the Rio Grande or cross the Arizona deserts in the dead of night. Instead, they would go-possibly in suit and tie-to one of the 38 embassies and consulates that the US operates in Mexico and Latin America and hundreds more elsewhere around the world.
As it happens, the infrastructure is already there to handle a resumed inflow of work-seeking migrants. Currently, the State Department processes and effectively vets about 11 million visas per year at its worldwide diplomatic outposts depicted below. The overwhelming share or 10.5 millionof these are nonimmigrant visas for tourists/business (7.8 million), temporary work (900,000), students/exchange (800,000) and others (300,000).
Moreover, in the immigrant visa category of 550,000 per year, the overwhelming share of visas issued is according to the updated provisions of the 1965 act. That is, for immediate family and relatives reunification (340,000), skilled and technical employees (120,000), the diversity lottery by country (55,000) and last and, unfortunately, least is a mere 10,000 for entry level and unskilled workers.
Our point here is two-fold. First, all of these applications are processed through an orderly, computerized and professionally conducted process at hundreds of State Department locations-backed-up by Washington based infrastructure and systems. That is to say, the well-oiled machinery to re-channel and decentralize what had been the massive flow of migrants to the Mexican/US border is already in place, and would need only modest incremental personnel and budget resources.
Map of US Embassies and Consulates Around the World
But secondly, and crucially, this logical solution doesn't happen now because the overwhelming share of the 28 million border-crashers were young workers and their families who entered the US illegally in order to get arrested and thereby placed in the queue for asylum. They didn't go to the embassies and consulates like the 11 million other worldwide visa seekers because in their case it would have been futile: Again, there is only 10,000 slots in the quota system per year for unskilled workers who can do a job with less than two-years of training.
In short, the US immigration quota structure is consciously and stupidly designed to force these tens of millions of entry level job-seekers, which the US economy desperately needs, through a tiny pin-hole of 10,000 slots per year under the Employment-Based Third Preference (EB-3) "Other Workers"category.
To be sure, there are currently about 140,000 employment-based immigrant visas allocated yearly, but politically powerful lobbies for Silicon Valley and and the Fortune 500 typically scarf up 130,000 of these, including-
- 40,000 for EB-1 professors, researchers, multinational executives and STEM workers.
- 40,000 for EB-2 advanced degree holders with exceptional abilities in science and tech.
- 30,000 for EB-3 skilled workers requiring more than 2 years of training.
- 9,900 for EB-5 immigrant investors.
- Subtotal, high skill employment based visas:130,000
Needless to say, Goggle doesn't send its EB-1 recruits from Taiwan to wade across the Rio Grande in order to enter the USA. Some smart immigration lawyer in Taipei handles all the paperwork and arranges the office based interviews at the US consulate.
No muss, no fuss. NO INVASION.
To the contrary, the whole "invasion" is owing to the fact that unions and Silicon Valley lobbies make sure that the hideously tiny 10,000 cap for entry level workers stays in place, and that therefore there is no other route for unskilled workers to get a permanent visa except to invade the border, break the law and get in the queue for asylum.
Once this fundamental dynamic is understood, then it is evident that the Donald's whole INVASION motif is upside down. The hordes at the border were not due to foreign evil doers and criminal cartels sending them north, but were owing to the economic magnet effect of today's native-born baby dearth.
At the end of the day, the ZIPG essence of Trump-O-Nomics surely has Ronald Reagan rolling in his grave. He properly championed the notion that economic growth and rising prosperity are everywhere and always a function of supply-side energy and enterprise. So the Donald's anti-supply side immigrant bashing is truly a recipe for economic disaster, not a Golden Era of Prosperity.
Reprinted with permission from David Stockman's Contra Corner.