Fifty-five percent of Americans want increased limits on immigration, according to a July 2024 Gallup Poll. This is the first time in nearly two decades that a majority of Americans have supported reductions in immigration.
Donald Trump has made border security his signature issue in his 2024 campaign. Trump’s hardline anti-immigrant stance promises mass deportation of “illegal aliens” and reduced immigration. Kamala Harris has offered support for asylum seekers and acceptance of some “undocumented immigrants” living in the US. Recently, the Harris campaign started running an ad that calls for adding more Border Patrol agents, stopping human traffickers, and prosecuting transnational gangs. The presidential nominees’ stances reflect the national mood on immigration.
Republicans and Democrats in our nation have very different opinions on immigration, according to the Pew Research Center’s Annual Policy Priorities Survey. Dealing with immigration is a policy priority for a majority of Republicans, but a lower priority for Democrats. In fact, there are only two issues that saw a larger divide between folks in the two parties: “protecting the environment” and “dealing with climate change.” The economy is a different story. Strengthening the economy is the top policy priority for Democrats and Republicans in 2024.
Immigration and the economy are intertwined. Insights from demographers can help us to understand why immigration is essential for a healthy US economy. Social demographers consider how economic, institutional, social, cultural, and biological processes shape birth rates, death rates, and migration.
An increasing share of developed nations are in a demographic trap that forecasts bleak futures for their economies. Excluding any immigration or emigration, countries need a fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman to replace their population or maintain their population size. There is an initial economic boom when birth rates decline below replacement level as there are more working-age people than dependent children and elderly people. However, decades of low birth rates result in a shrinking and aging populations. Developed nations face the dual economic challenges of a rising population of dependent seniors and a dearth of working-age adults participating in the economy.
More than half of the nations on earth have fertility rates that are below replacement level. The demographic situation is especially dire in nations like South Korea, Ukraine, Italy, and Spain. The US has a 2024 fertility rate of 1.84 children per woman—far below replacement level. Conversely, the world population overall continues to increase due to rapid population growth in developing nations due to high fertility rates, which brings a different set of challenges. Immigration and emigration can address or exacerbate these economic challenges in both developing and developed nations.
Immigration is essential to the health of economies in developed nations with fertility rates below replacement level, especially those with a growing population of dependent seniors. Workers are needed to provide labor in many essential industries, including construction and farming. In addition, immigrant workers, including many undocumented immigrants, fund entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Immigration under the Trump and the Biden administrations has been a significant factor in US economic growth. Many economists claim that the influx of working-class immigrants have reduced inflation. Immigration can fuel an economy by providing necessary workers for nations with low fertility rates.
The US has not passed comprehensive immigration reform in a half century. Comprehensive immigration reform can stymie illegal immigration and facilitate legal immigration that is essential to fuel the US economy. Gridlock and ever-increasing partisanship in Congress makes bipartisan legislation unlikely. It’s hard to imagine a future where our elected officials compromise to pass bipartisan legislation that meets the needs of the American people. Instead, each presidential administration attempts to manage immigration through executive orders. The immigration laws and policies that are enacted will have repercussions for the US economy and shape the future of our nation.
Roscoe Scarborough, Ph.D. is chair of the Department of Social Sciences and associate professor of sociology at College of Coastal Georgia. He is an associate scholar at the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. He can be reached by email at rscarborough@ccga.edu.
Reg Murphy Center