July 22^nd, 2020

By next year, Donald Trump will have reduced legal immigration by 49% since becoming president. Recent statistics released by the Department of Homeland Security’s National Foundation for American Policy detail astronomical cuts that President Trump has been making to legal immigration policies since his inauguration in 2016. These realities contradict his often-repeated statements claiming, “I’m not opposed to legal immigration, I’m opposed to illegal immigration.” In total, as many as 1,183,505 foreigners legally immigrated to the United States in 2016. After several executive orders and countless attempts to restrict legal immigration, the number is projected to decrease to 601,660 in the coming 2021 year. That marks an astronomical decrease of 581,845 people legally immigrating to the United States over a five-year period.

Contrary to many of President Trump’s suppositions, leading economists posit that this decrease will do nothing except stifle the growth of the American economy, especially in the COVID-19 crisis. According to experts at Oxford and Citi, the majority of the economic growth gains America saw between 2011 and 2016 would have never happened without immigrants contributing to the quantity and quality of the labor supply market. In fact, Pia Orrenius and Chloe Smith, economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, explicitly state “Immigrants and their children contributed more than one-half of workforce growth in the past two decades. The economy expands with growth in the labor force and its productivity…Absent offsetting increases in productivity growth, less immigration will, therefore, translate directly into slower gross domestic product growth.”

The impact of the loss of legal immigration can be seen even more clearly in the statistical projections that determine the next course of the American economy. According to Census projections for economic growth in 2016-2060 without any cuts to legal immigration, the country’s labor force is expected to grow by 22%. With a 50% reduction in legal immigration, as President Trump’s policies have done, the U.S.’s labor force will only grow by 8.5% by 2060. These shifts have marginalized a section of the American economy and impacted the nation for decades to come. Not only that, but it is all but apparent that Trump is not finished with reducing legal immigration just yet.

With several new policies to cut legal immigration on his agenda before the 2020 election, these numbers will likely inflate. Because of COVID-19, this is especially troubling for Americans all over the nation in proposing a recovery plan. With a smaller and lesser qualified pool in our labor force, the ability of the United States to recover after the coronavirus crisis will be extremely difficult. In fact, we are almost guaranteed to never see the economic growth that we did after the 2008 recession, simply because we do not have the labor force necessary to do so. These reports clearly substantiate the fact that President Trump has not merely cracked down on illegal immigration, but that he has fundamentally misaligned America’s economic interests by reducing legal immigration. With the need to rebuild after the pandemic, the future of the country’s economy is at best uncertain.

If you have any further questions about President Trump’s immigration policies, executive orders, or future plans, please contact Jing Feng Law Group, PLLC. We have been tracking the situation since the President’s inauguration, and have assisted hundreds of our clients navigate through this trying time in American immigration. Please contact us at  jfeng@fengvisa.com or call us at 646-288-7129. We look forward to hearing from you!