Can you imagine your policies being so bad that a bishop had to use the name of God to have mercy on scared people? By people “who are scared,” bishop Rev Mariann Budde was talking about immigrants and LGBTQ people. And it was during Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony.
President Trump had signed more than 10 executive orders that overhaul American migration policy. Like declaring a national emergency on the US-Mexican border and deploying the military for better security. He is building his “big and beautiful” wall again and reinstating the “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Trump and the GOP have used the fear of immigration to motivate voters to vote Republican for quite some time now. The Marshal Project points out that Trump made more than 350,000 statements about immigration that are either false or outright misleading.
It is clear that President Donald Trump is trying to hide something and mislead the public on Immigration. Here are the three facts that Trump doesn’t want you to know about immigration.
Immigrants Are a Boom to the US Economy
During his first presidential run, Donald Trump proudly claimed “They’re taking our jobs.” By “they”, Trump means immigrants from Mexico. He repeated this claim again in this presidential campaign, that “they” are now after “Black Jobs” and “Union Jobs.”
Studies by institutes like Urban Institutes have made it clear that immigrants have been taking up low-skilled and low-wage jobs that native-born Americans don’t want to do, like maids, house cleaners, and farm labor. In fact, 80% of all farm workers in the USA are immigrants, and half of them are undocumented. The USA has been facing a farm labor shortage since 1990, and this gap was filled by illegal migrants. According to some estimates, Trump’s immigration policy can result in billions of dollars in losses for agriculture and food processing industries.
Other studies show that immigrants actually result in job creation and wage growth. In the last decade, immigration has led to 45% growth in job creation and 5% growth in wages.
Immigrants Don’t Equate to Criminals
During his 2015 campaign, Trump had a few choice words for Mexican unauthorized immigrants – criminals, rapists, and people who are bringing drugs into the country.
Again, there are no facts to back up these claims. An analysis of the past 150 years of the US Census revealed that immigrants are 60% less likely to end up in prison. The numbers are similar for undocumented migrants as they commit significantly fewer violent crimes and property crimes than US-born citizens.
If we look at the border picture, we can see the rising rates of immigration while a decline in crime rate. In the last 40 years, the immigrant population has more than doubled while crime rates have dropped by more than 60%.
Migrants Don’t Hurt Social Security
Trump claimed on his Truth Social platform that Democrats are killing social security by allowing immigration. This is a reiteration of his 2018 tweet, where he claimed that undocumented immigrants cost Social Security more than $200 Billion every year.
This is ironic as undocumented migrants need documents to receive social security benefits. Undocumented migrants poured almost $26 Billion into Social Security as taxes in 2022 without receiving any benefits. Basically, they are subsidizing social security for many citizens.
Some experts believe that we need more immigration to keep Social Security and Medicare afloat. For example, a 35% increase in immigration can reduce the 75-year actuarial deficit from 3.6% to 3.2%.
One thing to note here, it’s not undocumented migrants but actually Donald Trump’s policy that is burdening your social security. His own tax plans are pushing Social Security and Medicare toward early insolvency. Trump’s plans have pushed the insolvency date of Social Security from 2035 to 2033 and Medicare from 2036 to 2030.
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