Donald Trump told his deputies on March 6 to reveal government data about immigration which was largely hidden by former President Barack Obama.
Trump’s first quarterly report has now been posted by the Department of Homeland Security, and it contains a flood of jargon-tangled data.
But we’ll show you the six most important facts.
One-in-Four: Almost 600,000 legal immigrants got green cards in the six months from October 1 to the end of March. The precise number was 560,150, but that’s basically 1.1 million a year or almost 100,000 every month. That huge inflow means the nation is getting roughly one new green-card foreigner for every four American babies born during the same six-month period, or one immigrant for every four Americans who turned 18 during those six months. So the important number is one-in-four because the nation gets one new immigrant for every four Americans who turn 18.
One-in-five: Up to 214,000 temporary foreign workers arrived in the first quarter of Fiscal 2017, starting in October 2016, ending on Dec. 31. That’s basically 70,000 temporary workers per month, or 800,000 per year if the first-quarter numbers remain stable. For various reasons, the numbers are shaky, and we’ll have a better handle a year from today. But the important fact is that the quarterly inflow of roughly 200,000 temporary foreign workers adds up to one new temporary worker for every five young Americans who turn 18 during the same period. So, the important statistic here is one temporary foreign worker for every five new American workers.
Two-for-Four: Add the one-in-four inflow of legal immigrants (100,000 per month) and to the one-in-five inflow of temporary workers (70,000 per month), and you recognize that Americans are getting roughly 170,000 new foreign workers per month. Just to be cautious, let’s drop it the combined number down to 150,000 a month because not all immigrants work. But that lower number still means that 150,000 new workers are imported each month to compete for jobs against the roughly 333,000 Americans who enter the workforce each month. So, that’s roughly two new foreign workers for every four Americans who enter the workforce. That’s the most important statistic in the report.
5o Percent: Half of the arriving temporary workers are white-collar workers, not farm hands or blue-collar workers. Each month, the temporary worker inflows include 35,000 white-collar workers, 6,707 agricultural workers and roughly 25,000 blue-collar and mid-skill workers. That high proportion of white-collar professionals makes sense because businesses save more money by importing low-wage, high-skill engineers, nurses, doctors, professors, accountants, and designers to take the place of many expensive American graduates and skilled technicians who are trying to pay off college debts, to buy houses, get married and raise families. So, 50 percent of foreign temporary workers are white-collar professionals.
One-in-eight: Only 75,000 of the 560,000 new green card legal immigrants in the first six months of the year were invited to the United States because of their work or skills. The unskilled legal immigrants included 375,000 sisters and brothers, or sons, daughters or parents of recent immigrants who got their green cards via so-called “chain immigration,” not via their skills or accomplishments. The remaining 90,000 arrivals consisted of refugees, asylum-seekers, miscellaneous and “diversity” people who were selected because they have no connection to the United States. Despite their lack of skills, business is fine with this huge inflow of unskilled people. The inflow pressures blue-collar wages, and it also grows the consumer economy because poor people have to eat, drive, and find shelter just like everyone else. Moreover, federal, state and local government financial support for these imported consumers also converts middle-class taxes into an economic stimulus for retailers worth at least $56 billlion per year. So the important statistic here is that only one-in-eight legal immigrants have worked their way into the country — the rest were pulled in by relatives, regardless of education or health or age or productivity or ability to integrate into American society.
Three times 2016: Trump’s data shows that 264,553 legal immigrants got citizenship during the six months in the first report, at a rate of roughly 45,000 a month. These new citizens come from 164 countries, speak more than 164 languages, and few have the skills to pay more in taxes than they receive in welfare or aid, and most vote Democratic. Yes, they do add a huge amount of diversity to the United States — but diversity is a synonym for civic conflict, and is a form of “divide and rule” politics by the elite. The 264,000 new citizens shown in the report is only half the year’s intake, so Americans will have gained roughly 500,000 new foreign voters after one year of Trump’s data. In November, Trump won the 2016 election because he got 80,000 more voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that did Hillary Clinton. So the 264,533 new voters in the first six months is basically three times the number of 2016 voters who gave Trump his victory.
Trump’s DHS report only shows the numbers for legal immigration and for contract workers. It does not include the inflow of illegal immigrants, which was about 500,000 in 2016. That is roughly 40,000 per month, or one illegal for every eight Americans who do enter the workforce each year.
Overall, the American population is 313 million, plus roughly 11 million illegals. The U.S. workforce is roughly 152 million, plus roughly 8 million working illegal immigrants, but not counting several million “prime-age” American men and women who have dropped out of the workforce into poverty.
Many polls show that Americans are very generous, they do welcome individual immigrants, and they do want to like the idea of immigration. But the same polls also show that most Americans are increasingly worried that large-scale immigration will change their country and disadvantage themselves and their children.
This flood of foreign labor spikes profits and stock values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, and sidelines marginalized Americans and their families.