(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Everything You Wanted to Know About Immigration & the Economy — & Less

Tags

economics, immigrants, Immigration, innovation, labor shortages, Open Borders, productivity, The Washington Post, wages, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Leave it to the zealously pro-Open Borders Washington Post. It chose as the reviewer of a book by two economic historians apparently unaware of the relationship in U.S. history between immigration levels and productivity improvement a business professor seemingly just slightly less clueless about this crucial link either historically and going forward.

Doubt that? Then take a look at this morning’s rave by Harvard business professor Michael Luca about a new study by Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan of Stanford and Princeton Universities, respectively, titled Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success.

According to Luca, Streets of Gold “reflects an ongoing renaissance in the field of economic history fueled by technological advances — an increase in digitized records, new techniques to analyze them and the launch of platforms such as Ancestry — that are breathing new life into a range of long-standing questions about immigration. Abramitzky and Boustan are masters of this craft, and they creatively leverage the evolving data landscape to deepen our understanding of the past and present.”

And their overall conclusion (which rightly takes into account the non-economic contributions of immigrants to American life) is that (in Abamitzky’s and Boustan’s words): “Immigration contributes to a flourishing American society” – especially if you take “the long view.”

But there’s no indication in Luca’s review that the authors weigh in on a key (especially in the long view) impact of immigration on the U.S. economy – how it’s affected the progress made by the nation in boosting productivity: its best guarantee for raising living standards on a sustainable basis.

As I’ve written repeatedly, mainstream economic theory holds that one major spur to satisfactory productivity growth is the natural tendency of businesses to replace workers with various types of machinery and new technologies when those workers become too expensive. Most economists would add that although jobs may be lost on net in the short-term, they increase further down the road once these productivity advances create new companies, entire industries, and therefore employment opportunities.

By contrast, when businesses know that wages will stay low – for example, because large immigration inflows will keep pumping up the national labor supply much faster than the demand for workers rises – these companies will feel little need to buy new machinery or otherwise incorporate new technologies simply because they won’t have to.

And more important than what the theory says, abundant evidence indicates that businesses have behaved precisely this way in the past (when scarce and thus increasingly expensive labor prompted acquisitions of labor-saving devices that helped turn the United States into an economic and technology powerhouse), into the present (as industries heavily dependent on penny-wage and often illegal immigrant labor have tended to be major productivity laggards).  

Reviewer Luca demonstrates some awareness that this issue matters in the here and now and going forward, writing that “Compared with the rest of the country, businesses in high-immigration areas have access to more workers and hence less incentive to invest in further automation.”

He also points out that “This has implications for today’s immigration debates.”

But his treatment of the current situation is confused at best and perverse at worst (at least if you buy the economic conventional wisdom and evidence concerning the productivity-immigration relationship).

Principally, he claims that “the United States is expected to face a dramatic labor market shortage as baby boomers retire and lower birthrates over time result in fewer young people to replace them.” Let’s assume that’s true – despite all the evidence that more and more employers are filling all the job openings they’ve been claiming by automating. (See, e.g., here, here, and here.)

Why, though , does Luca simply conclude that “Increased immigration is one approach to avoiding the crunch. Notably, the other way to avert this crisis is through further automation, enabled by rapid advances in artificial intelligence. Immigration policy will help shape the extent to which the economy relies on people vs. machines in the decades to come.”

Is he really implying that a low-productivity — and therefore low-innovation — future would be a perfectly fine one for immigration (and other) policymakers to be seeking?

Just as important, although Luca clearly recognizes that these questions have at least some importance nowadays, he provides no indication of where the book’s authors stand.

So let the reader beware. Luca clearly believes, as Post headline writers claim, that Streets of Gold makes clear “What the research really says about American immigration.”  What his review makes clear is that this claim isn’t even close.

   

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Those Stubborn Facts: Yes, Biden Really Has Opened the Border

Tags

Biden administration, Biden border crisis, border security, illegal immigration, immigrants, Immigration, migrants, Open Borders, Those Stubborn Facts

“We preliminarily estimate that illegal immigrants accounted for two-thirds of the growth in the foreign-born population since January 2021 — 1.35 million.”

– Center for Immigration Studies, June 1, 2022

 

Average monthly growth in U.S. foreign-born population during first Obama administration term: 59,000

Average monthly growth in U.S. foreign-born population during second Obama administration term: 76,000

Average monthly growth in U.S. foreign-born population during Trump pre-CCP Virus years: 42,000

Average monthly growth in U.S. foreign-born population sofar during Biden administration: 132,000

 

(“Foreign-Born Population Hit Record 47 Million in April 2022,” by Steven A. Camarota and Karen Ziegler, Center for Immigration Studies, June 1, 2022, https://cis.org/Report/ForeignBorn-Population-Hit-Record-47-Million-April-2022%29)

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why Biden’s Somalia Decision Looks Literally Insane

Tags

Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Al-Shabab, Biden administration, Biden border crisis, border security, Donald Trump, globalism, Immigration, jihadists, migrants, Open Borders, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, September 11, Somalia, terrorism, terrorists

With all the headline news about major crises ranging from the Ukraine War to inflation to the infant formula shortage to the likelihood that abortion rights will be rescinded, RealityChek readers and others can be forgiven for overlooking the Biden administration’s recent decision to send a small contingent of U.S. forces back to Somalia. In fact, everyone can be forgiven if you can’t find Somalia on a map.

But the redeployent is eminently worth discussing because it’s the latest example of how foreign policy globalists (like President Biden) have their priorities completely ass-backward when it comes to dealing with global terrorism.

These units are back in this failed state on the Horn of Africa – after being withdrawn by former President Donald Trump in late 2020 – not because Somalia is located strategically or boasts any resources or export markets that matter to the U.S. economy. They’re back because the country has long been a headquarters for the jihadist group and major Al Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabab, and this organization “has increased in strength and poses a heightened threat” recently, according to the White House. Additionally, as observed by new Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Somalia’s dismal excuse for a government is failing to prevent Al-Shabab from gaining the ability to launch terrorist attacks on the United States.

No one can dispute the need to protect the American homeland from foreign terrorist threats. But what’s so perverse about this Biden administration move is that it’s taking place after the President has taken numerous steps since his January, 2020 inauguration – many very early in this term – to weaken the security of America’s own border and thereby faciliate the entry of those terrorists.

Even worse, this Open Borders-friendly position has coincided with (a) growing numbers of apprehensions at U.S. borders of migrants from Turkey and other non-Western Hemisphere countries (including in Africa) and (b) growing numbers of such apprehensions of individuals on the federal government’s terrorist watch list. (See the official U.S. interactive feature here and the equally official dropdown menus here, respectively.)  The absolute numbers of the latter are small, but how many jihadists did it take to knock down the Twin Towers?

And speaking of Afghanistan, Biden’s sensible but operationally botched withdrawal was never accompanied by stronger border security measures, either.  Quite the opposite.  

In other words, unlike the Trump administration, the Biden administration is refusing to focus its anti-terrorism strategy on what the U.S. government can reasonably hope to control (securing its own borders). Instead, in the case of Somalia, it’s not only returning to, but doubling down on, an approach I’ve criticized before that focuses on what Washington can’t possibly hope to control – using the U.S. military to keep chasing down jihadists in failed regions like the Middle East and countries like Somalia, whose deep-seated dysfunction is bound to keep generating them. Is the President seriously expecting different results from doing this same thing over and over again? That’s of course a definition of something no one should want any U.S. leader to display.

Following Up: The Latest on the Virus and the Border

Tags

Biden border crisis, Border Crisis, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Following Up, hospitalizations, Immigration, migrants, mortality, Open Borders, public health, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wuhan virus

This past Saturday, I upbraided New York Times editorial writers for claiming that the CCP Virus pandemic had eased enough to justify admitting into the country more illegal aliens who may be carriers and therefore spreaders of the disease. The basis for my criticism was data from the Times itself indicating that the pandemic wasn’t easing any more – and strongly suggesting that the paper’s Open Borders-like immigration policy stances had become extreme enough to rationalize worsening already serious dangers to public health.

Five days later, it’s clear that, although the paper still has a lot to answer for publishing this piece (like its insistence that there was never a compelling public health rationale for putting such virus-related immigration restrictions into effect), my use of the word “indicating” to describe the virus’ status was well chosen. For the latest figures paint an oddly contadictory picture of the pandemic threat.

When I wrote the November 13 post, nearly a week’s worth of statistics on virus deaths showed them on the upswing again after the seven-day averages (7DA) had been falling – often by double-digits percent per day – since late-September. But on November 9, they began rising again, and two days later the figure was again approaching double digits: 9.72 percent. By Friday, the 12^th, however, they’d started retreating again, and yesterday were down an encouraging 12.74 percent. So by that metric (which isn’t perfect), the situation is looking reasonably good. (My source, as usual, is The Washington Post‘s very user-friendly virus tracking feature.)

The same, however, can’t be said for virus-related hospitalization rates. These numbers aren’t pefect, either (see here for a good explanation why), but they’re probably the best available for gauging progress against the virus. Moreover, they tend to prefigure death rates (because hospitalized patients don’t die right away). But although they started trending down according to the 7DA numbers starting on September 6, that decline began slowing in late October, and the 7DA for daily new hospitalizations went back into growth territory last Friday. By this metric, therefore, a return of tough virus times may lie ahead. So does the return of winter.

This impressive case for pessimism doesn’t mean that I’ve changed my opposition to indiscriminate anti-CCP Virus policies like current mask and vaccine mandates, let alone sweeping shutdowns and lockdowns. But it also reenforces the case for preventing the situation facing Americans from becoming worse still – including by protecting the country from illegal migrants whose health status will always be at best uncertain (because of weak public health and record-keeping systems in most sending countries). That is, unless, like The New York Times, you think American and their health should come last when making immigration policy.

Following Up: The Cheap Labor Lobby Looks Ever Shadier

Tags

Aman Kapoor, Biden administration, Cato Institute, Cecelia Rouse, Chronicles, conflict of interest, David Bier, economics, economists, Following Up, FWD.us, George J. Borjas, idea laundering, Immigration, Immigration Voice, Jeremy Beck, Koch Brothers, NumbersUSA, Open Borders, Pedro Gonzalez, think tanks, wages

In late September, I posted on evidence that one of the supposedly most authoritative studies on the effects of large-scale immigration on the wages of the existing U.S. workforce came up with an answer (in a phrase, “no big deal”) based on no hard evidence whatever.

Since then, I’ve come across material indicating that the intellectual fraud committed by the Biden administration economists and National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) “experts” team involve was much worse – along with documentation apparently showing that a leading U.S. private sector think tank whose research has armed much of the corporate Cheap Labor Lobby agitation for Open Borders-like policies is literally shilling for that powerful interest group.

As I wrote in that previous post, a mid-September blog item lead-authored by President Biden’s chief White House economic adviser Cecelia Rouse attempted to calm fears that the kinds of juiced up immigration inflows sought by the administration wouldn’t significantly harm already hard-pressed low-income and low-skill U.S. workers. But its case boiled down to nothing more than the kind of appeal to authority that typically seeks to cover up for a paucity of facts and figures – and indeed, an appeal to (NAS) authorities who the White House blog admitted themselves can’t cite much concrete evidence for their conclusions themselves.

But a month later, a post by Jeremy Beck of the immigration realist organization NumbersUSA spotlighted a much more serious problem with the NAS’ immigration analysis. It relied on mathematical models that didn’t actually find or conclude that Americans today holding or seeking poorly paying jobs have nothing important to worry about from big immigrant inflows. Instead, these models proceeded from this assumption.

Beck’s post was based on a conference presentation made by Harvard University labor economist George J. Borjas, who’s not only one of the world’s top specialists on immigration economics, but one of the very few noted economists critical of any aspect of what might be called pre-Trump U.S. immigration policies. So maybe his word shouldn’t be taken as gospel? Maybe not, but it’s noteworthy that the conference panelist he was paired with (another prominent labor and immigration economist) uttered not a word of objection. Nor did the moderator of the session, a Cato Institute analyst who could not be more enthusiastic about mass immigration. (Beck conveniently supplies the full video of the event.)

And speaking of the Cato Institute, that’s the think tank accused of hiring itself out to U.S. corporate interests anxious to pump up the supply of workers available them, and therefore drive down the wages they can command.

The charges appear on the website of the journal Chronicles. The publication and its contributors, like NumbersUSA, are definitely on the restrictionist side of the immigration policy debate. But the post, by Chronicles Associate Editor Pedro Gonzalez presents what it purports to be emails from an organization called Immigration Voice complaining that Cato immigration analyst David Bier has been writing less on the issues it paid him to focus on (boosting the numbers of foreign tech workers that can be employed by firms in the United States) and more on subjects of concern to another group seeking to increase immigration inflows that began paying him more.

According to a bitter message allegedly sent by Immigration Voice president Aman Kapoor, “this guy is like mercenaries, working to push the agenda of the highest bidder. We have [sic] him money when no one knew him and he was fresh out of Congress as a staffer, and no one was willing to support him. Now he has become an influencer because of the papers we suggested him to write any [sic] gave him money to do that….” And because the other Cheap Labor Lobby group, FWD.us, “is giving them money,” Bier is “only pushing” its favored topics.

In other words, there’s no honor among hired gun employers.

It’s not as if the Cato Institute wouldn’t be supporting Open Borders-like policies without Cheap Labor Lobby funding. It’s a libertarian outfit, and its platform strongly opposes pretty much any government interference in any aspect of the economy. But as Gonzalez observes (making points that, as I’ve written, apply to pretty much all of America’s major think tanks to varying extents), “Cato presents itself as providing independent policy research. Kapoor’s allegations raise concerns about the integrity, independence, and transparency of this research, which can have an outsized influence on policy debates.”

In other words, these financial ties create exactly the kind of appearance of conflict of interest that every organization with any integrity seeks either to avoid or to deal with by making crystal clear which of its products are literally made-to-order – and need above all to please the client rather than seek the truth.

And the two main reasons that think tanks like Cato that engage in these practices are so influential directly distort and therefore corrupt national policy debates and the decisions they produce. First, the big bucks provided by donors like Immigration Voice and FWD.us give it the wherewithal to spread the word about its work with some of the best public relations that money can buy. Second, the lack of donor transparency enables the funders to take advantage of what I’ve called idea-laundering: using think tanks to issue materials that push their particular agendas while garbing them in quasi-academic raiment to create the impressions of objectivity and intellectual respectability.

At this point I need to acknowledge that I myself have spoken at Cato conferences and written chapters for Cato books. They’ve concerned foreign policy, a field in which the Institute’s non-interventionist positions would be difficult to match with any corporate or other selfish private ends. In fact, I’ve heard that in at least one instance, Cato’s opposition to the first Persian Gulf War, they’ve cost the organization contributions. And in 2012, the Institute resisted for a time what some staff and board members viewed as an attempt by billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and the late David Koch to politicize the organization excessively.

I’ll also give Cato credit for hosting the aforementioned Borjas presentation. But Cato’s immigration work in general now looks a good deal less than principled – and about as reliable as that of the academic specialists who seem determined to deal with some of the biggest problems caused by supercharging immigration inflows by simply defining them out of existence.

P.S. Thanks to U.S. Tech Workers, an organization pressing to reform U.S. immigration laws to promote the hiring of Americans in specialty positions, for alerting me to the Chronicles post. 

Glad I Didn’t Say That! The Washington Post’s Open Borders Deniers

Tags

Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden administration, Border Patrol, border security, Department of Homeland Security, FoxNews.com, Glad I Didn't Say That!, Haitians, illegal aliens, Immigration, migrants, Open Borders, Republicans, The Washington Post, United Press International

“The numbers belie the Republican claim that Haitians have been

admitted into the country wholesale.”

– The Washington Post, October 13, 2021

“Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday

that as many as 12,000 Haitian migrants who made their way to the

U.S.-Mexico border have been released into the United States.”

– United Press International, September 26, 2021

Number of migrants overall released into the United States since

August 6, according to leaked Border Patrol documents:  c. 72,000

– FoxNews.com, October 13, 2021

 

(Sources: “How the Biden administration can help Haitian migrants without sending the wrong message,” The Washington Post, October 13, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/13/how-biden-administration-can-help-haitian-migrants-without-sending-wrong-message/; “DHS secretary: Up to 12,000 Haitian migrants released into U.S.,” by Daniel Uria, United Press International, September 26, 2021, DHS Secretary Mayorkas: As many as 12,000 Haitian migrants released into United States – UPI.com; and “Leaked Border Patrol docs show mass release of illegal immigrants into US by Biden administration,” by Bill Melugin and Adam Shaw, FoxNews.com, October 13, 2021, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/leaked-border-patrol-docs-release-immigrants-us-biden-administration)

Im-Politic: A Labor Shortage Story Short on the Facts

Tags

Bloomberg.com, Boris Johnson, Brexit, editing, European Union, globalism, Im-Politic, Immigration, Joe Mayes, journalism, labor shortages, media bias, Open Borders, truck drivers, truckers, trucking, United Kingdom

Is Bloomberg.com trying to make yours truly look good? It certainly seems that way. Exactly two days after I wrote that American journalism has long been suffering from an editing crisis (and subjecting readers and viewers to a flood of ineptly reported and reasoned articles, posts, and broadcast segments), this news site ran a piece illustrating perfectly two of this so-called profession’s biggest (and intimately related) flaws: pushing narratives largely by ignoring information that provides crucial context.

The lead paragraph tells you all you need to know where Joe Mayes’ September 22 story was going (and where he and his editors believed it should go): “The red lines of Boris Johnson’s Brexit project are starting to crack as voters face growing shortages of food and fuel, as well as a marked rise in living costs.”

As the second paragraph elaborated, “Despite riding to power on a Brexit campaign that pledged to cut immigration from the European Union, the prime minister [Johnson] and his cabinet are now preparing for what would be a significant and politically damaging U-turn: Tapping those same EU workers to plug the labor shortages crippling parts of the U.K. supply chain.” And “the most immediate and pressing concern”? “A major shortage of truck drivers.”

What could be more revealing – and embarrassing for supporters of the United Kingdom’s 2016 decision to leave the European Union (in large part to gain more national control over immigration inflows)? Immigrants from the same EU are now being recognized even by the Leaver-in-Chief as that country’s last hope for staving off starvation, freezing to death this winter, and raging inflation.

No question Brexit was a landmark decision, and no doubt there were plenty of valid reasons to be skeptical (as the close 2016 referendum results indicate). But this Bloomberg piece plainly suggests that the countries that have decided to remain in the EU literally have truckers to spare the British.

Which insinuates that the Brexiteers deserve to have insult added to injury. Except this story line is a crock. As an internet search that took me mere minutes revealed, there’s lots of info out there making clear that truck driver shortages are a global problem – that is, they’re not limited to countries that left the EU. Indeed, this industry website reports that trucking companies in Europe are expecting a 17 percent driver shortfall this year.

Further, the survey it’s based on found that any number of steps could be taken by trucking companies and governments in shortage-afflicted countries to increase driver supply without importing foreigners. Like raising pay. Like lowering the training age to encourage more young people to replace retiring truckers (a big problem in a sector with an aging workforce). Like creating safer parking areas, which would be especially helpful in attacting more women into the business. (They currently make up only two percent of drivers globally, according to the survey.)

In fact, finding such ;material is so easy that it raises the question of whether the main problem (and all the others I’ve spotlighted on RealityChek – e.g., here) doesn’t reflect simply a competence crisis. It also reflects a bias crisis, with the target being any measures or information that clash with longstanding globalist orthodoxies – in this case, Open Borders- friendly policies on the immigration and labor shortage fronts.

Those Stubborn Facts: Haitian Migrants Not Present or Accounted For

Tags

Biden adminisration, Biden border crisis, border security, catch and release, Del Rio, Haiti, Haitians, Immigration, migrants, Open Borders, Texas, Those Stubborn Facts

Biden administration count of number of Haitian migrants living

under Del Rio, Texas bridge at peak: 14,000

Biden administration count of Haitian migrants at Del Rio as of

yesterday: 4,000

Biden administration count of Haitian migrants from Del Rio

returned to Haiti as of yesterday: 1,400

Number of Haitian migrants from Del Rio released into the United

States despite Biden administration claim that “our borders are not

open”: 8,600?

 

(Sources: “Biden administration defends handling of Haitians amid uproar,” by Morgan Chalfant and Rebecca Beitsch, The Hill, September, 23, 2021, Biden administration defends handling of Haitians amid uproar | TheHill and “Secretary Mayorkas Delivers Remarks in Del Rio, TX,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security, September 20, 2021, Secretary Mayorkas Delivers Remarks in Del Rio, TX | Homeland Security (dhs.gov) )

Im-Politic: Has Biden Bet Right Politically on Afghanistan?

Tags

Afghanistan, Biden, border security, Charles Lane, crime, Donald Trump, election 2022, election 2024, Europe, hostages, Im-Politic, Immigration, Jimmy Carter, Lloyd J. Austin III, Open Borders, politics, refugees, Taliban, terrorism, Washington Post

Even if he didn’t peevishly block me on Twitter, I’d consider Washington Post columnist Charles Lane’s Tuesday piece on – how President Biden can “contain” Afghanistan-related damage to his presidency and historical legacy – pretty silly. For it completely ignores some screamingly obvious ways that this debacle can greatly worsen and keep degrading his image far into the future – and of course through the midterm 2022 elections and the 2024 presidential campaign.

Not that it’s out of the question that the domestic political calculation on which Mr. Biden is widely reported to have based his Afghan withdrawal will prove correct. The American public’s attention span can be pretty short and, as the President has rightly noted, who controls that remote “country” has no bearing on U.S. national security. (I use quotes because American policy has been led astray largely because there’s so little evidence that Afghanistan is a country in any meaningful sense of the word.)

Moreover, in case you haven’t noticed, the national news cycle has sped up considerably in recent years. Therefore, any public anger over the withdrawal botch could quickly evaporate once the next crisis or Biden failure, or Biden triumph that comes barreling down the pike. And the twenty-plus year Forever War remains unpopular. (See, e.g., here and here.  For an interesting exception, see here.) As a result, Afghanistan could indeed become yesterday’s meat loaf as far as U.S. voters are concerned, and even surprisingly quickly. 

Even so, it’s easy to imagine how fallout from the withdrawal could pose genuine threats to America and keep Mr. Biden “in the woods” politically.

For example, the odds seem good that the Biden administration will not be able to pull all American citizens out of Afghanistan during the partially open window the Taliban victors seem willing to provide – for now. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has already admitted that the U.S. military can’t guarantee Americans not already at the Kabul airport safe passage to the airport, and the State Department has advised these individuals to “shelter in place.” Many could be widely scatttered throughout Afghanistan’s Texas-sized territory.

The Taliban might agree to allow the United States to keep troops in the country beyond the August 31 total military withdrawal deadline set by the President – which Mr. Biden now says may be necessary to complete the evacuation. Or it might not. And if its leaders (whoever they really are) do decide to play nice with the United States, some groups in its jihadist ranks might not.

It’s plausible to believe that those Taliban leaders would want the American military completely gone as soon as possible, and therefore have strong incentives to play ball with Washington. But it seems to me just as plausible to believe that they’d find hostages very useful – say, as leverage to prompt the United States to release large amounts of the ousted Afghan government’s funds (which are currently held at the U.S. Federal Reserve), and the International Monetary Fund to release the smaller but not negligible amount of economic credits (called Special Drawing Rights or SDRs) that the previous regime was scheduled to receive about now. (See here for the details.)

If a hostage situation does emerge, then Mr. Biden could find himself with a problem at least as bad as former President Jimmy Carter suffered after the Iranian revolution in 1979. But even if hostages aren’t taken, a Biden administration decision to keep American troops on the ground in the country in defiance of  Taliban wishes in order to find U.S. personnel and escort them to the airport, or even increase the deployment to carry out these missions, could trigger renewed fighting and American casualties. And this fighting could last for weeks and even months.

Afghan refugees admitted into the United States could vex President Biden for years to come as well – and in two ways. First, as noted, if his administration casts too wide a net (and it’s widened already), any number of Taliban or Al Qaeda members or other jihadists could wind up resettling here. Few question the desire to protect Afghans directly employed by the U.S. military or other government agencies – and I don’t, either.

But calls are being issued to extend visas to still other categories of Afghans, and as always, it’s difficult to imagine that all of them could have been adequately vetted in peacetime given that the previous Afghan government wasn’t exactly the gold standard for efficiency or honesty. Now of course, conditions in the country are utterly chaotic, so the vetting challenge looks that much greater.

If any of those resettled in the United States wind up committing terrorist acts, there’ll surely be political hell to pay for the President. In fact, although, as I’ve argued repeatedly (e.g. here) the key to preventing Middle East-spawned terror strikes on America was never sending U.S. forces to chase around that terminally dysfunctional region every new jihadist group it would inevitably spawn. Instead, it was always securing America’s borders.

Consequently, Mr. Biden can now be fairly accused of failure on both these fronts.Thanks to his Afghan pullout, the Taliban might indeed permit jihadists from re-establishing a terrorist base benefiting from the protection of a sovereign state. And it’s reasonable to conclude that Islamic extremists in other countries and regions will be emboldened as well. At the same time, his Open Borders-friendly immigration policies were making it harder to keep them out even before Kabul fell. Talk about the worst of all possible worlds.

There’s a third refugee-related problem that could stain the Biden record long-term also: crime. Europe’s naive admission of literally millions of Afghans and other Middle Easterners fleeing their war-torn lands greatly undermined public safety in countries like Austria, Germany, and Sweden. No comparable problem has yet appeared in the United States. But so far, U.S. refugee admissions have been much more limited – largely, but not exclusively, because of the Trump administration’s more restrictive policies. If their numbers greatly increase during the Biden years, either because of more indulgent policies or failure to secure U.S. borders, all bets are off.

The 2020 U.S. presidential election showed that it’s dangerous to count Mr. Biden out. After all, until his primary victory in South Carolina, he was derided as a political “dead man walking.” In that contest, however, he benefited from powerful political allies like longtime South Carolina Democratic Congressman James Clyburn. I’m straining to see any similar saviors on the ground in Afghanistan or over the horizon. 

Glad I Didn’t Say That! Border, Shmorder?

Tags

amnesty, Biden administration, Biden border crisis, border, Glad I Didn't Say That!, immigrants, Immigration, Kamala Harris, migrants, Open Borders

“Vice President Kamala Harris pushes back on criticism for not

visiting the US-Mexico border”

– USAToday, June 8, 2021

“Kamala Harris to make first trip to the border as vice president this

week”

– CNN, June 23, 2021

 

(Sources: “Vice President Kamala Harris pushes back on criticism for not visiting the US-Mexico border,” by Rebecca Morin, USAToday, June 8, 2021, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/06/08/kamala-harris-lester-holt-interview-pushes-back-border-criticism/7600802002/ and “Kamala Harris to make first trip to border as vice president this week,” by Jasmine Wright and Priscilla Alvarez, CNN, June 23, 2021, https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/23/politics/kamala-harris-going-to-the-order/index.html)