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Default Legal Immigration Increased (YES—INCREASED!) During The Recession

Legal Immigration Increased (YES—INCREASED!) During The Recession

By Washington Watcher

"At VDARE.com, we’ve been virtually alone in pointing out that U.S. policy on legal immigration has remained unchanged despite the recession i.e. where’s the moratorium?


Now the release of the Department of Homeland Security’s Yearbook of
Immigration Statistics of Legal Permanent Residents for Fiscal Year
2009 [PDF] last week shows that we were wrong.

Legal immigration to the U.S. has actually increased.

Fiscal Year 2009 began on October 1, 2008 and ended on September 30,
2009. Economists and politicians may bicker about when the economic
downturn technically began, but the magnitude of it certainly became
clear in September and October of 2008. So these statistics represent
the Obama/Bush immigration policy from the start of the economic
crisis. During this time period nearly 6 million Americans lost their
jobs.

DHS has not yet released its figures for temporary workers or illegal
aliens. The few Democrats and left wing groups who make any opposition
to immigration usually focus their attention to temporary workers,
while conservatives limit their opposition to illegal immigration. But
the fact is that legal permanent immigration is by far the most
important category of immigration to reduce. While illegal aliens can
get amnesty, and "temporary" workers often end up staying here
permanently—with anchor babies exacerbating both problems—both groups
in theory will eventually be out of the country. Legal Permanent
Residents, in contrast, are here, displacing American workers and
using taxpayer-funded services, for good.

Many Americans, and certainly our elites, seem to think that
immigration simply is a natural economic process that will fluctuate
with supply and demand. The truth, however, is that as long as America
has a higher standard of living than the rest of the world, there will
be an unlimited supply of people willing to come here. And the number
of immigrants coming here is determined solely by government policy.

Any sane policy would reduce immigration as American unemployment
rises. But Washington is not doing it. In the post-Crash year of 2009,
the U.S. issued 1,130,818 green cards—an increase, from 1,107,126 in
2008 and 1,052,415 in 2007. In contrast, during the Great Depression
from 1930-1939, we issued only 699,375 during the entire decade.

The 2009 total is the fourth highest number of green cards issued
since 1914—behind 1990, 1991, and 2006. (And it is worth noting the
bulk of the green cards issued in 1990 and 1991 were not given to new
legal immigrants but to illegal aliens granted amnesty in 1986—so in
terms of new arrivals, 2009 was actually higher.)

In the first decade of this millennium, the U.S. issued a total of
10,299,430 green cards—the highest number of any decade in American
history. This is over 3 million more green cards issued over the
entire forty year period of 1930-1969.

You can be sure that the Open Borders lobby will crow about how we
only issued 144,034 employer-based green cards in 2009—a decrease from
2008. But of that 1,130,818 green cards, 808,478 were given to working
age immigrants 20-64. All immigrants who get green cards are eligible
for work. So most of the 664,444 immigrants of working age will be
competing against Americans for work.

(And I’m being cautious—I’m not counting the 94,801 15-19 year old
immigrants, many of whom will be competing against American workers
too.)

Immigration enthusiasts will protest that employment is not a zero sum
game—that these immigrants will grow the economy. When a billionaire
comes into America and opens up a factory, he creates jobs. Generally,
while skilled immigrants create their own set of problems, depending
on their circumstances they can create some economic growth.

But most immigrant workers only create economic growth in so far as
they lower labor costs for employers, possibly causing them to further
invest. This effect is always much smaller than the jobs and wages
immigrants take from Americans, to say nothing of the government
services spent on them. However, with our record unemployment, even
these marginal economic benefits disappear.

And in 2009, as always, most of the legal immigrants are low-skilled.
Immigrants of exceptional ability, with advanced degrees, or investors
make up a measly 8% of all immigrants combined. No doubt this has much
to do with the system’s ongoing bias toward Third World immigrants
through its “family reunification” mechanism. Only 9.3% of all new
green cards went to Europeans. In contrast, 14.6% went to Mexicans
alone.

The obvious solution: a moratorium on immigration. And. insofar as we
have immigration, make it a bit more, well, diverse, by stopping
Mexico and the Third World from hogging the inflow.

But instead of doing this, the two major pieces of immigration
legislation currently proposed will increase legal immigration.

The Gutierrez-Ortiz Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's
Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 ("CIR ASAP"), with nearly 100
Democratic co-sponsors in the House, will create at least 550,000 new
work visas in guise of "recapturing" imaginary unused visas from the
last 20 years. It will also create a new category to "prevent
unauthorized migration." This will create 100,000 additional visas
each year to the countries where the most illegal aliens come from—
namely Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

In the Senate, Chuck Schumer and Lindsay Graham are expected to
introduce their own "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" any day. When
the text comes out, you can be sure that there will many increases in
permanent legal immigration. But all we’ve seen up to now is their
Washington Post Op Ed describing their principles. They proposed a
"rational system for admitting lower-skilled workers." However, these
"temporary" workers "who have succeeded in the workplace, and
contributed to their communities over many years, the chance to earn a
green card" a.k.a. amnesty. [ The Right Way to Mend Immigration, Chuck
Schumer and Lindsay Graham, Washington Post, March 19, 2010]

Government policy got us into our economic disaster. A new government
policy of reduced immigration is the only way to get us out.

Sadly, not one politician had called for a moratorium.

Hopefully these new 2009 figures will wake Americans up to the
enormity of our immigration disaster—and force the Washington
Establishment to take notice."

"Washington Watcher" [email him] is an anonymous source Inside The
Beltway.

If you want to email or print out, format by clicking on this
permanent URL:
http://www.vdare.com/washington_watcher/100420_legal_immigration.htm
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