Biden's Immigration Leniency May Help the U.S. Maintain Its Global Economic Status

• Author: Monica Jackson
• Posted: 2024-07-26

As the Biden administration struggles to find a long-term solution to the U.S.-Mexico border crisis, it seems that the President's clemency may actually be a good thing.
A study that was released on Wednesday suggests that admitting more immigrant workers may prevent the U.S. from losing its prestigious status as the biggest economy in the world in less than a decade. The study suggests that the lawmakers should stop looking at the border situation as a crisis, and instead see it as an opportunity for the U.S. to boost its economy and maintain its global supremacy.

The Ongoing Crisis

Since February this year, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has seen a 71% increase in the number of people trying to get into the country. The Biden administration officials found that the numbers had increased from 100,441 to 172,000 in just a month. The number of unaccompanied children from Central America also doubled within this period, further strengthening the critics' sentiments that the President is failing to manage the crisis.

To make matters worse, Roberta S. Jacobson, the top White House official tasked with addressing the migrant crisis at the border is set to step down at the end of this month. Jacobson has been coordinating the government's efforts to handle the migrant surge at the border. Although she said that she was only required to stay for 100 days, her departure has caught many by surprise - considering that President Biden is still in the middle of heavy criticism and his administration is yet to come up with a clear way forward.

A Rejected Approach

It's no secret that the Democrats have been urging the President to make sure the undocumented children are treated humanely. Together with many immigrant rights advocates, they've been appearing more willing to give him some time to implement his own policies, saying that his approach is different from the former president's, which intentionally wanted to subject the migrants to hell, as Julian Castro, former San Antonio Mayor, put it in a telephone interview last month.

As it seems, this approach has not been applauded by everyone.
President Biden's Republican critics still maintain that he is losing his grip on the situation, and that his policies and rhetoric are only working to encourage foreigners to enter the country. A good number of GOP House members have been saying that the President has been slow in responding to a humanitarian crisis.

A Divergent Report

An immigration advocacy group known as FWD.us in partnership with George Mason University came up with a report that asserts that if the current U.S. immigration levels and population trends remain constant, the U.S. economy will be roughly three-quarters the size of China's economy by 2050. Since he came into power, President Joe Biden has been pushing to make the country's immigration laws more lenient and humane. He sent a proposal to Congress which, according to another study conducted by Boundless Immigration Inc., would increase the number of people being allowed to enter the U.S. and become permanent residents by nearly 350,000 each year.

Immigrants May Be Good for the Country After All

According to Just Gest, an associate professor at George Mason University and the study's co-author, welcoming the newcomers is good for the country considering the numbers. The report projects that the U.S. population will become older in the years to come, as the number of older people is rising at a faster rate compared to the working age citizens. The expense of Medicare, Social Security and other entitlements for those older citizens may outpace the taxes the younger workers pay, the report claims.

The report also notes that although more immigrants alone may not be enough to guarantee the Social Security trust fund's solvency, higher immigration levels are a great way to delay its exhaustion, expected to be in 2034, by one more year depending on the number of extra visas issued each year.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, immigrants actually contribute positively to the U.S. economy a lot. Besides making up more than a third of the employees in some industries, they work at a very high rate. The local economies enjoy their geographic mobility, as it helps them respond quicker and effectively to worker shortages, eliminating hiccups that could otherwise shake the economy.

If the immigration levels doubled, in 2050, about 31 senior citizens would live for every 100 people in the workforce, according to the aforementioned joint study. When that happens, the U.S. gross domestic product would reach $46.8 trillion compared to China's $49.9 trillion in 2050. This means that the U.S. economy would still be dominant until we approach 2035.