We were told by the Biden-Harris administration and their media allies that reducing undocumented immigration would require PhDs in Migration Science, $118 billion in new laws and funding from Congress, and decades of hard work by properly credentialed people. We also needed a pathway to citizenship for the tens of millions of migrants already here (about 22 million in pre-Biden times). My 2019 idea, Why aren’t we paying the Mexicans to patrol our border?, was plainly unworkable. Yesterday, a little more than a month after the start of the second Trump dictatorship, the New York Times:
On the eve of President Trump’s deadline to impose tariffs on Mexico, one thing is hard to miss on the Mexican side of the border: The migrants are gone. … “All that is over,” said the Rev. William Morton, a missionary at a Ciudad Juárez cathedral that serves migrants free meals. “Nobody can cross.” … “We are going to wait to see if God touches Mr. Trump’s heart,” said a 26-year-old woman from Venezuela, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Maria Elena, as she sat eating with her 7-year-old son at the cathedral in Ciudad Juárez. … In response to Mr. Trump’s demands last month, Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, dispatched 10,000 national guardsmen to the border
(I would love to see a heart-touching meeting between God and Trump! Maybe God would be angrier than Zelenskyy?)
The threat of tariffs rather than my proposed cash payments is a twist from what I proposed and, I think, unfair our Mexican brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters (they’re not the ones who created the world’s second largest welfare state, as a percentage of GDP (maybe we’re #1 now, since the French have run out of money due to their own passion for hosting economy-boosting migrants)). But it seems to be working better than anything that the U.S. has done internally over the past 100 years.
Even if Trump has been successful in eliminating undocumented immigration, we are still on track to receive at least 10 million legal immigrants, many of them low-skill, over the next decade. Let’s step back from today’s news and look at the assumptions behind our policy.
Americans who advocate for and oppose open borders and low-skill immigration both agree on two things:
- without immigration, demographics will make it difficult to keep our Ponzi schemes, such as Medicare and Social Security, going as the ration of taxpaying workers to beneficiaries shrinks (due to population aging)
- with immigration, the Ponzi schemes can be continued for many additional decades, if not forever
Nobody seems to question the two points above. The righteous point out that immigrants make us safer because they don’t commit crimes (see 2024 state-sponsored NPR story below) and they will boost the economy because they’re smarter and more energetic than native-born Americans (see Albert Einstein as a typical example of someone who walks across the southern border). Haters, as seen in Fox News, say that they don’t want to live with people from all of the world’s most violent, dysfunctional, and impoverished societies. But even Fox News doesn’t question the Sacred Two elements of dogma above.
What if both the righteous and the haters are working from incorrect assumptions? That’s the question asked and answered in “Immigration does not solve population decline” (Aporia):
most of the problems of population decline, like pensions bankrupting the state or less innovation and entrepreneurship, are actually problems of population aging. … immigrants age too. This means that while immigration can definitely reverse population decline, it can’t do much for population aging. Assuming immigrant age-structure and fertility remain constant, the difference in the working-age share of the population in 2060 between zero net migration and 2019 levels of migration in the United States is… 2% (57% vs 59%).
The picture for the European Union is similar. The difference in the old-age dependency ratio in 2016 between zero non-EU migration and the existing levels is tiny: 118:100 vs 114:100. By comparison, the 2015 level is 76:100. The total effect of all non-EU immigration on aging means that instead of this ratio increasing by 55% over 45 years, it will increase by “only” 50%.
In other words, if we accepted the full slate of New York Times assumptions about migrants, a best-case scenario, and we maintained the open borders of the Biden-Harris administration, we still would be on track to spend ourselves into either insolvency or hyperinflation. What are the assumptions of the Righteous?
- migrants, despite not being able to speak English or having education beyond 7th grade, will earn about the same as native-born Americans
- migrants never commit crime
- migrants don’t reduce our quality of life by bringing an alien culture, e.g., one where female circumcision and honor killing are accepted and one where females running around with hair or bare skin showing is unacceptable
- population growth via immigration does not reduce our quality of life by burdening infrastructure and creating congestion, e.g., massive traffic jams in every city other than Detroit, Baltimore, Buffalo, and the other write-off cities
- immigrants and children of immigrants won’t clog up public housing and exacerbate homelessness (remember that public housing is a human right and also that a person might get put on a 10-year waiting list in order to receive this right; it’s the inequality factory for people who say that they hate inequality)
How did we get to a place where half of the country felt that it was time to open the borders?
Democracies naturally tend towards vote-buying, and paying off current voters with the earnings of future generations who cannot vote is a winning strategy. This creates a Ponzi scheme in which huge fractions of state budgets are redistributed from current workers to retirees in ways that require an ever-growing number of workers to be sustainable. Productivity gains don’t usually help, because the expected living standards of retirees, often enforced by law, rise with productivity.
What does this look like from the perspective of a peasant with a job? The author gives us a figure captioned “Change in real purchasing power by age group in Spain since 2008. Every group under 65 has gotten poorer; only pensioners’ living standards are improving”:
One blind spot in the article: no discussion of natural resources and the fact that a larger population means dividing the value of those resources by a larger number and, therefore, each individual has less natural resource wealth.
Bigger blind spot in the editing: much of the content in the article isn’t related to the central point of dependency ratio and, instead, talks about negative non-demographic effects of low-skill immigration (i.e., effects that immigration advocates deny). I think it would be more interesting and persuasive to have an article solely focused on the dependency ratio and demographics issues while accepting the assumptions of those who advocate for open borders. People who are pro-immigration will never be persuaded by facts and figures about how much low-skill migrants cost in welfare benefits. People who are anti-immigration don’t need these facts and figures because they never expected a Tren de Aragua member to pay a lot in federal personal income tax.
More: Read “Immigration does not solve population decline”.
Related:
- “Immigration and the Aging Society” (CIS, 2021), which seems to be the author’s principal source for the interaction between immigration and population age structure: “In 2000, the average age of all immigrants — not just new arrivals — was 39.2 years. By 2019, it was 46 — a seven-year increase. Over the same period, the average age of native-born Americans increased only slightly, from 35.4 years to 38 years. … the relatively high and increasing average age of all immigrants is a good reminder that they grow old like everyone else, even if they do arrive when relatively young. … nder the Census Bureau’s current projections, there will be 2.5 working-age people per retiree in 2060. If the projected immigration rate were cut in half, there would be 2.3 workers per retiree. … to roughly maintain the working-age share of the population, immigration rates would have to increase five-fold over what the bureau currently foresees. This would create a total population of 706 million in 2060 … the average age of new immigrants, including illegal immigrants, is still much higher than it was in the past — increasing from 26 in 2000 to 31 in 2019. Perhaps even more surprising, the share of newly arrived immigrants who are 55 and older more than doubled, from 5 percent in 2000 to 11 percent in 2019. This means that one in nine new immigrants is arriving old enough to move directly into a retirement community. … U.S. citizens can sponsor their parents for permanent residence without numerical limits. Parents typically immigrate to the United States after age 50, meaning they tend to be at or near retirement age as soon as they arrive. … Immigrants are human beings, not just the idealized workers or child-bearers that some commentators imagine.”
Problem: the ponzi scheme will fail if immigrants will earn less than native-born Americans
Solution: import EVEN MORE immigrants to make up the short fall of their lower productivity!
Problem: immigrants clog up public housing and exacerbate homelessness
Solution: import EVEN MORE immigrants to build more housing!
Problem: migrants bring an alien culture.
Solution: import EVEN MORE immigrants so their culture becomes predominant, and Western culture is alien.
So you see, Phil, the solution to all immigration challenges is always: EVEN MORE immigration.
In many, not all cases, lower productivity and decreased innovation of older adults is a self-fullfilled profecy.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTT2fNyKgUE?si=SYp6HaZ-Z4T3o4ok&w=560&h=315%5D
We need to extend the 15.3% FICA tax to Optimus robots.
What is the substitute for salary?
Depreciation? Electricity usage?
If a Ponzi scheme can be run forever, is it still a Ponzi scheme? if it can be run forever it seems a sweet deal to me, because eventually the sun expands to a red giant, physically incinerating the Earth, and nobody is left to hold the can.
Federico: We were informed that the Ponzi schemes of both the European and the US welfare states could be run forever, but only if the populations are expanded via low-skill immigration to 2X, then 3X, and eventually 4X the current population size. However, we’re now also being informed that some of the countries that were most enriched via immigration have a shrinking GDP, which would seem to be an obstacle to expanding welfare state payments.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/15/economy/german-economy-shrinks-second-straight-year-intl/index.html
@philg the govt of Canadastan has been a zealous believer in infinite exponential growth, fueled by infinite immigration. But now they are finding “productivity” is less in these newcomers:
> Since Canada’s productivity has stalled, the economy has had to rely largely on importing new workers to sustain output. But these new workers, while critical to keeping the Canadian economy’s head above recession waters, often find themselves in less productive industries like retail or food and accommodation … food delivery, or ridesharing
https://globalnews.ca/news/10206774/wages-productivity-canada-economy/
Anon: I think the Islamic Republic of Canada is a near-best-case scenario, isn’t it? I thought Canada sought out migrants with both work and language (French or English) skills. Admittedly they then dilute this with “family unification” immigration.
Philg
“I think the Islamic Republic of Canada is a near-best-case scenario, isn’t it? I thought Canada sought out migrants with both work and language (French or English) skills. Admittedly they then dilute this with “family unification” immigration.”
That might have been true 10+ years ago, but for the last decade our immigration policy has been much much stupider. We’ve basically allowed any international student who lands a job afterward a permanent residency card and a pathway to citizenship. This doesn’t sound so terrible until you realize how badly diploma mills have been effectively selling citizenship for profit (no-show colleges that pass anyone who pays the fees). It’s not necessary to get a job in the field you studied, so most of our international student community college graduates end up as Uber drivers/dishwashers/Baristas.
By the way, our future republic is much more likely to become Hindu than Islamic.
@JoeCanuck, why would anyone who can afford to pay for college move to Canada, incur the high costs of education, only to become a Canadian citizen and rely on an Uber income? Unless I’m missing something, this just doesn’t add up.
@GeorgeA
“why would anyone who can afford to pay for college move to Canada, incur the high costs of education , only to become a Canadian citizen and rely on an Uber income?”
1) This describes people from the third world who’s parents mortgaged their property. The motivation is that once their kid gets a PR in Canada, they can sponsor the rest of their family.
2) 10 years ago Canada was a decent place to survive on a low-wage job. This is no longer true, but international students are unaware of how much worse things have gotten.
3) economic mobility used to be a lot better. when our oil sector was booming people were being hired at good salaries to become roughnecks on oil rigs straight out of prison. When our manufacturing sector was healthier unskilled blue collar work was viable, and it wasn’t difficult to get credentialed into better paying blue collar work.
Canada sucks now, but people have trouble believing how recently that wasn’t true.
@ George A.
They come because IT ALLOWS THEM TO ESCAPE THE HELLHOLE OF INDIA, THE WORST COUNTRY ON EARTH, and possibly the worst country in history! They are “willing” to work, not just for ~lower~ wages than Canadians (which is bad enough from the perspective of a young Canadian who wanted to live the lifestyle that was typical of his childhood), but for essentially *NO* wages!
Several aspects of Indian culture facilitate behaviors which would be considered economically non-viable in other cultures, especially when multiple aspects work together:
1) An Indian male who establishes a beachhead in a non-shithole country becomes substantially more valuable within the Indian arranged-marriage economy, which means that he will potentially receive a much larger dowry.
2) Indian families often will pool resources in order to support a family member’s migration (and often the purchase of a business, e.g., “he arrived in $CIVILIZED_COUNTRY with only $10 in his pocket, and a $100k loan which he used to buy a gas station, then he replaced the existing workers with relatives who were paid under the table.”)
3) Indian “students” are notorious for shamelessly raiding food banks and other community institutions.
4) Although I may be mixing the US and Canadian systems, many times the migrant is quickly eligible for benefits and then sponsors numerous relatives for chain migration, who themselves receive benefits.
It’s very difficult for most non-Indians to understand just how bad India truly is, and how intensely motivated Indians are to escape it.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/12/08/even-by-the-standards-of-poor-countries-india-is-alarmingly-filthy
Given that the population of India is approximately double the combined population of the G7, any country that wishes to survive must take drastic and forceful measures to stop the POPULATION BOMBING / colonization process.
I can’t speak much about Indian migrants in the U.S. since I don’t have much interaction with them, but I can share my direct experience about immigration in the U.S.
Back in the 1980s, immigrating to the U.S. required extensive background checks and medical exams — all of it done in your home country before obtaining a visa. Additionally, you needed a sponsor in the U.S. who would support you if you couldn’t sustain yourself. After about a year or two, you’d receive a temporary Green Card, and after five years, you could apply for citizenship. To become a citizen, you had to maintain a clean record, pass a test covering U.S. history and government, and demonstrate enough English proficiency to survive on your own.
My family immigrated to the U.S. in 1981. My brother and I had basic English skills, but our parents only knew the alphabet. We both passed the citizenship test on our first attempt, but it took my father four attempts and my mother three. Each failed attempt meant waiting another three to six months before retaking the test.
Why do I bring this up? Because today, you can become a U.S. citizen without speaking English at all. I have direct and personnel knowledge of this from multiple folks.
The bottom line is this: If immigrants — legal or illegal — don’t make an effort to integrate into the country they move to, yet still receive full benefits and consume resources, they become a burden on society and weaken communities.
The argument often made about low-skill immigrants — whether legal or illegal — is that they (a) boost a country’s economy and (b) help replace an aging population. Fair enough.
Japan, has had a flat economy since 1990’s and the most aging population in the world. So why isn’t Japan opening its borders to more immigrants? An even better question: why aren’t immigrants flocking to Japan in droves? Right — Japan doesn’t offer free welfare programs to non-citizens.
Phil, immigration is causing traffic jams(and other problems) in my write-off city(Buffalo) too.
I just learned of this today [1]:
“The City of New York spent $1.47 billion for asylum seeker shelter and services in FY 2023, with $438 million covered by the State. The City spent $3.75 billion in FY 2024, with $1.31 billion covered by the State. Through December 31, 2024, the City committed $2.48 billion in FY 2025, with $1.37 billion in planned reimbursements from the State.”
This is money in BILLIONs.
[1] https://comptroller.nyc.gov/services/for-the-public/accounting-for-asylum-seeker-services/fiscal-impacts/
You might be aware of a book, called ‘Open borders’ by Bryan Caplan. Care to review it? be forewarned I disagree with many ideas thereby, of not most, but I do not have an award winning blog, so nobody would care about my opinions.
Thanks. Based on the cover and the 50-page sample (see https://amzn.to/4hjN0jf ), the book is about a fantasy world in which nobody is either sick or old. Nobody in Prof. Caplan’s fantasy world is in a wheelchair or breathing from an oxygen tank. Nobody is bedridden.
Suppose that we did have truly open borders, as Prof. Caplan suggests. Any country that has dug itself into a fiscal hole due to pension and health care commitments could load 1000 of its oldest and sickest citizens into an Airbus A380 every two hours and drop them off at JFK, LAX, ORD, DFW, etc. Because housing, food, and health care are entitlements in the U.S. welfare state, all of these New Americans (TM) will have to be moved from the airports to hospitals and nursing homes at U.S. taxpayer expense.
Based on the illustrations, for Prof. Caplan, immigrants are like Optimus robots made out of flesh. They show up to work and never get sick or old. Certainly they don’t come out of the robot factory already sick and/or old.
The Biden-Harris system of open borders did have one practical restriction: the migrant needed to be sufficiently young and healthy to walk at least part of the way from Mexico into the U.S. A noble enriching esteemed migrant couldn’t be wheeled across the border in a hospital bed with oxygen tank and IV drip. Prof. Caplan’s main innovation over Biden-Harris is to remove this restriction.
This blind spot seems to be a universal one for immigration advocates and critics. I searched for “elderly” and “disabled” in the 784 Amazon reviews, some of which were negative, and there were 0 results. Everyone seems to agree that an immigrant is automatically under age 40 and ready to work productively.
Federico: Prof. Caplan’s idea also means that the U.S. wouldn’t be able to win any wars (not that we’ve won any lately unless we count giving the Muslims in Kosovo their own country (which, according to a Naval War College prof. whose lecture I listened to, is what motivated Vladimir Putin to try to redraw some other European borders (we legitimized the idea)). Suppose that we’re having a conflict with Country X. That country could have 200 million adults, either from its own population or allies, move to the U.S. and vote in a slate of politicians who would defund the U.S. military and sign up for whatever Country X wanted to do. (If the borders are truly open there is no reason not to let every newly arrived person vote immediately.)
What is the thesis of this article?
You seem to communicate two distinct points, namely 1) mass immigration ultimately lowers America’s standard of living and represents a significant expense, and 2) that immigrants are responsible for America’s national debt. The first is correct and the second is not – a motte-and-bailey fallacy in other words. Mass immigration reduces social cohesion and drives down wages. On the other hand, America’s debt is a consequence of the federal reserve act. The government delegates currency issuance to the federal reserve (which is not actually part of the federal government), who lend money out rather than actually issue it. Commercial banks do the same and because reserve rates are so low, they can lend out virtually any amount of money, all at interest. That is why the nation is in debt. The government spends a substantial amount of welfare money on immigrants each year, but interest payments on the national debt is an order of magnitude higher.