Senator Jeff Sessions’ (R‑AL) Washington Post op-ed calls “for an honest discussion on immigration.” He then lays out his case against legal immigration.
Although I appreciate Sessions’ honesty in calling for large reductions in legal immigration–a level of candor too often shrouded by immigration-restrictionists’ political correctness (“I’m only against illegal immigration”)–his op-ed makes a poor case for more government regulation of international labor markets.
Below, I look at Senator Sessions’ arguments against legal immigration. His writings will be in block quotes and my responses will follow.
The first “great wave” of U.S. immigration took place from roughly 1880 to 1930. During this time, according to the Census Bureau, the foreign-born population doubled from about 6.7 million to 14.2 million people. Changes were then made to immigration law to reduce admissions, decreasing the foreign-born population until it fell to about 9.6 million by 1970. Meanwhile, during this low-immigration period, real median compensation for U.S. workers surged, increasing more than 90 percent from 1948 to 1973, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Senator Sessions only presents the income data for Americans during the time when immigration was restricted. Real per-capita GDP increased by 95 percent during the 1880–1930 period of high-immigration that he cites. There are other sources for wage data from that period, although all of them are troublesome compared to the modern economic information available.
The United States did not have closed borders from 1948 to 1973. The Bracero guest-worker visa program let in nearly five million lower-skilled Mexican workers to temporarily labor in American agriculture, a policy that did more to limit unlawful immigration during that period than any other.