A Quick Refresher on Legal Immigration—and Its Impact on the U.S. Economy

According to White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, the United States is “desperate” for more immigrants—those who come here legally, that is. In Mulvaney’s words: “We are desperate—desperate—for more people. We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth that we’ve had in our nation over the last four years. We need more immigrants.”

The one caveat? That they come here in a “legal fashion.”

Mulvaney’s on to something. We do need to welcome more immigrants to come here through the proper channels. Economic growth is dependent on it.

In fact, the United States would not be the United States, as we know it, without the contributions of legal immigrants. From starting new businesses to working late hours, those immigrants are an integral component of the American workplace. And, by extension, legal immigration is an integral component of the U.S. economy.

Let’s go through the numbers. America is home to over 44 million immigrants—more than any other country in the world. That’s roughly equivalent to the entire population of Argentina or Ukraine. In fact, U.S. immigration accounts for about one-fifth of the world’s migrants in any given year.

This begs the question: How many immigrants are here legally?

Short answer: An overwhelming majority. More than three-quarters (77 percent) of immigrants in the country are legal immigrants. That means tens of millions of people.

While much of today’s political discourse focuses on “illegal immigration” and talking points like “border security” (and, often, for good reason), it is simply shortsighted to assume that most immigrants are here illegally and need to be deported. Most people who come to our shores follow the rules, wait in line, and become law-abiding citizens—wherever they happen to migrate.

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, but the rule is this: America’s immigrant experience is by and large a positive one.

This is especially true in economic terms. Between 1990 and 2014, U.S. immigrants have contributed about 15 percent of the country’s total economic growth. Part of the reason is that immigrants are generally of working-age (between ages 16 and 64), coming here to find jobs and earn a living. Over the past two decades, foreign-born people have accounted for roughly half of the U.S. labor force’s growth.

America’s job creators are increasingly reliant on the immigrant workforce to fill talent gaps. Nearly three-quarters of employers report that the ability to obtain work visas in a timely, predictable, and flexible way is critical to their business goals.

What is more, immigrants aren’t just working nine-to-five jobs; they are disproportionately represented among the entrepreneurial class. From 1995 to 2005, immigrant entrepreneurs and their children founded or co-founded more than 25 percent of America’s technology and engineering companies—from Google to Yahoo! Immigrants are more likely than their non-immigrant counterparts to secure a patent and launch a start-up.

In this way (among others), immigrants and non-immigrants work together to power the U.S. economy into the future. Their interests are not necessarily at odds.

Take Jerry Yang, a Taiwanese immigrant who co-founded Yahoo alongside American businessman David Filo. Their idea created thousands and thousands of good-paying jobs—jobs for immigrants and non-immigrants alike. But those jobs never would have existed without Yang. If he had never come to the United States, he wouldn’t have made thousands of Americans better off.

That’s just one example—one tiny drop in a vast ocean of immigrant contributions. I’m proud to be an immigrant myself, doing my own small part to make American society a better place. My parents brought me here as a child from former Yugoslavia, with few tangible resources but an eagerness to live the American Dream. Fast forward to today, and they live it every single day. America was kind to us, just as it has been for millions of other immigrants.

That is a tradition to cherish. America’s immigrant experience is worth celebrating. The more legal immigrants we welcome here, the better off our country will be.

As Mick Mulvaney said, immigrants can indeed “fuel economic growth.” But, in truth, they contribute much more—immigrants make America, well, America.

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Reassessing Stop, Question, and Frisk

In 1986, the Supreme Court granted limited approval to police officers to stop, question, and frisk if the officer believes a person to be dangerous. (Photo: Jose Luis Pelaez Inc./Getty Images)

Before former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg threw his hat into the 2020 presidential race, he defended the New York Police Department’s use of “stop, question, and frisk” policing.

At the U.S. Naval Academy’s 2019 Leadership Conference, Bloomberg said: “We focused on keeping kids from going through the correctional system … kids who walked around looking like they might have a gun, remove the gun from their pockets and stop it.”

He claimed that as a result of his policy, New York’s murder rate fell from 650 a year to 300 the year he left office.

In the cases of Terry v. Ohio, Sibron v. New York, and Peters v. New York, the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1968, granted limited approval to officers to stop, question, and frisk, even though they lacked probable cause for an arrest, if the officer believed the subject to be dangerous.

The high court’s decision made suspicion of danger to an officer grounds for a “reasonable search.”

The stop, question, and frisk policy has taken on racial overtones because most of the people stopped are black men. Let’s look at the numbers.

Last year, NYPD data showed that 93% of suspects arrested for murder were black or Hispanic. Ninety-six percent of those nabbed for shootings were also minorities. Eighty-eight percent of New York City’s homicide victims were black or Hispanic, as were 96% of shooting victims.

Although these percentages have been roughly the same for decades, New York police have brought the absolute number of crimes, including homicides, way down from its 1990 peak at 2,245 to 289 homicides in 2018.

Since blacks and Hispanics are the major victims of homicide, as a result of the NYPD’s proactive response to crime, possibly tens of thousands of blacks are living today who otherwise would be dead.

For a law-abiding black person to be stopped, questioned, and frisked—in a word or two, be racially profiled—is truly insulting. However, to analyze the policy, let’s look at the origins of racial profiling or any other kind of profiling.

First of all, police officers are neither mind readers nor are they equipped with X-ray vision. That means good policing requires learning how to use an easily observed physical characteristic as a guess or proxy for some other difficult-to-observe characteristic.

Thus, the reason officials profile is that information is costly and they seek methods to economize on information costs. One way to do that is through profiling.

The reality is that race and other behavioral characteristics are correlated, including criminal behavior. That fact does not dispel the insult, embarrassment, anger, and hurt a law-abiding black person might feel when being stopped by police, being watched in stores, being passed by taxi drivers, standing at traffic lights, hearing car door locks activated, or being refused delivery by merchants who fear for their safety in the black person’s neighborhood.

Bloomberg is a politician in pursuit of his own agenda. President Donald Trump is also a politician in pursuit of his own agenda. Both will deny their support for and talk down the policy of stop, question, and frisk in an effort to curry favor with black voters.

Most Bloomberg and Trump supporters don’t live under the horrible conditions that so many blacks live under in high-crime cities like Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago, and Detroit. Black people must ask what needs to be done to stop criminals from preying on them and making so many of their communities economic wastelands.

If stop, question, and frisk can contribute to that goal, so be it. They need not listen to politicians, academics, talking heads on the news, and others.

I’ll add that even if the police, intimidated by leftists, are not doing their job to safeguard black residents in high-crime communities, that doesn’t mean that black people should not organize to take independent measures to protect themselves.

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Once again antisemitism leaks out from the British Left

Labour has launched an anti-Semitism investigation after a deputy leadership contender was branded a “Mossad agent” by party members after stating that he was proud to have received support from Jewish activists.

Ian Murray, the MP for Edinburgh South, has reported a torrent of abuse directed at him after he emailed Labour Party members last month asking for their support.

In his message, Mr Murray, a Labour moderate backed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, said he was proud to have received the endorsement of the Jewish Labour Movement and intended to “tackle the stain of anti-Semitism”.

However, his comments provoked a series of highly abusive responses, including claims that “Jews thought they owned the Labour Party” and that he was working on behalf of the Israeli intelligence agency.

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Women Excel in the Trump Era

President Donald Trump issued a proclamation last week recognizing Women’s History Month in March. “My administration,” he wrote, “is committed to empowering all women across the Nation and around the world to continue pursuing their dreams and lifting humanity to new heights. As president, I have championed policies that create economic prosperity and opportunity, enabling women to thrive as workers, parents, consumers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and investors.”

This sounds like standard presidential lip service, but with one big difference: The Trump administration has real statistics to back up his claims.

For example, during his first year in office, the president directed $200 million in technology education grants to women and minorities in order to promote tech-based careers and resolve the concern over gender inequality in that industry. And let’s not forget this president’s support for the pro-life movement. Trump has a stellar record of appointing pro-life judges, has boldly condemned legislation that allows abortion throughout pregnancy, and earlier this year became the first president to attend the March for Life.

As for those parents already with children, Trump and the Republican Congress expanded the child tax credit in his first year, which doubled the per-child credit for middle-income families.

And with likely Democrat nominee Joe Biden already having pledged to eliminate Trump’s tax cuts for families, we’ll have a clear contrast between a pro-family president and an anti-family challenger.

What else has the Trump administration done for women’s progress?

In 2019, first daughter Ivanka Trump revealed the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative. Joanne Lu writes that the program “aims to get all U.S. foreign assistance agencies — including the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Peace Corps and six others — to give top priority to push for women’s economic development.” In addition, “it sets up a $50 million fund for USAID to invest in new programs that can help make it easier for women to find jobs, start their own businesses and do business.”

Sure, these policies all sound good, but are there real numbers to back up Trump’s efforts?

One of the more noteworthy developments during Trump’s first term is the significant drop in female unemployment. As of this week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the unemployment rate for women is at 3.5%, the lowest number since 1953. The bureau also reports that the U.S. economy has not only added more than four million jobs for women since Trump’s election, but also more than 58% of the 7.1 million jobs added have gone to women.

All this makes for an impressive record to run on in November — especially with suburban women, a constituency that went strongly for Democrats in the 2018 midterms.

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High drama and even higher stakes: it’s the moment of truth for Cardinal Pell

His Eminence was given no benefit of the doubt at all.  He was convicted for the sins of his church, not for anything he personally did

It is a measure of George Pell’s lot that he finds himself in notionally better surrounds but not necessarily better company.

The cardinal, still Australia’s most senior Catholic, will monitor next week’s High Court developments while in isolation in his ­relatively new home at Victoria’s maximum-security Barwon Prison, near Geelong.

Barwon is a hole that swallowed gangland murderer Carl Williams but it’s not quite as deep as Pell’s former holding cell in the centre of Melbourne.

Pell, 78, now has more room to move, with a more modern but still austere toilet, shower and general living facilities. He is served shoddy food and his main human contact is with the prison guards who bring him his medication for twin heart conditions.

It remains a life of deprivation.

Given his convictions, most people will be happy with Pell’s plight. For others who have followed the facts of the case closely, including the brightest minds in the law, next week’s High Court appeal will be a significant moment in Australian legal history.

There are deep divisions about whether Pell should even be in jail.

“If you look at all of the case law about unreasonable verdicts, it’s (the Pell convictions) right on the borderline of what’s reasonable and what isn’t,’’ Sydney University academic Andrew Dyer told ­Inquirer.

Dyer, who has co-authored a paper on the Pell case with the university’s Professor David Hamer, is not predicting in any way how the High Court will act. Nor is anyone else with any certainty.

But the paper, published in the Sydney Law Review, makes clear what many independent voices suspect: Pell’s convictions may be flawed.

Dyer and Hamer write that it appears open to the High Court to overturn the Pell verdicts on the basis of the cumulative effect of the evidence, but they doubt the court will make this finding.

They express concern about the impact that rejection of the Pell decision would have on the standing of juries.

Dyer and Hamer’s views are not black and white. They also make clear that the law allows for convictions based largely or solely on the complainant’s evidence and a different tack would “undermine the prohibition against child ­sexual assault’’.

This is a tick to the prosecution’s heavy reliance on the surviving choirboy, whose evidence was central to the Pell convictions.

In the paper, however, Dyer and Hamer note that key aspects of the evidence regarding Pell pointed to no opportunity to ­offend against A, the surviving ­victim, and B, another choirboy who died of a drug overdose.

“Once we also consider the ­inconsistencies in A’s account ­(however understandable), the unlikelihood that Pell would take such risks and B’s and Pell’s denials, it becomes apparent that a reasonable jury might not have convicted,’’ they write.

“Indeed, the case seems close to the borderline between one where the jury was entitled to return a guilty verdict, and one where it should have had a doubt.’’

On Wednesday, five or seven members of the High Court will gather in Canberra to decide Pell’s fate. Dyer thinks there will be seven but we probably won’t know until Tuesday afternoon.

The High Court will determine whether the Victorian Court of Appeal erred when it decided, 2:1 last year, that the County Court jury was within its rights to convict Pell of five sexual assault charges that occurred in the priests’ sacristy at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996 and in a corridor in 1997.

Or whether there should have been a reasonable doubt.

Central to deliberations is whether belief in the complainant, now a family man in early middle age, could be used as a basis for eliminating doubt raised by other witnesses, several of whom were highly credible.

Pell’s submissions asked: “Was it open to the jury to find the ­offending proven beyond reasonable doubt?’’

As one well-informed observer noted this week, of all the charges that were filed against Pell, the ­cathedral claims were among the most difficult and even unlikely to have progressed to any court.

Those with deep understanding of the cathedral, Catholic rituals and Pell’s practices are incredulous that the archbishop could ever have been left alone for the five or six minutes upon which he was convicted of forced oral sex and other abuses.

It was not uncommon in that period for literally hundreds of people to gather after Solemn Mass, the numbers bolstered by busloads of Taiwanese tourists who swarmed into the cathedral.

Justice Mark Weinberg, the former Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, was the dissenting voice at the Court of Appeal, arguing that aspects of A’s evidence lacked the necessary weight. But on A’s side were ­Justice Anne Ferguson and Justice Chris Maxwell, as were the County Court jury, Victoria Police and the prosecution.

Jeremy Gans, a professor of law at Melbourne University, said it would be most unlikely if any decision were to be made next week, with the court sitting on Wednesday and possibly Thursday.

There are four options for how the court hearings may unfold.

The court could decide not to hear the appeal and end Pell’s chances of being freed early. Special leave could be granted to hear the appeal and the appeal is rejected. And special leave could be granted and the appeal is allowed.

The fourth option is that special leave is granted and the case is sent back to the Court of Appeal with three different judges.

The latter would be awkward for all, but mostly Pell, who would have to wait months more to know whether freedom was a genuine prospect for him.

One technicality is over whether the Court of Appeal appropriately used video evidence to come to its conclusion. Gans believes the only way Pell would walk next week would be if the court ruled on the spot. Even so: “I still reckon they’d wait.’’

Mirko Bagaric, dean of law at Swinburne University, notes the difficulty in predictions but says the High Court may opt for a ­narrow, contained judgment.

“The court ultimately will have to grapple with the issue about whether or not the jury verdict was reasonable,’’ he said. “It’s impossible to anticipate.’’

The prosecution’s submissions are firm in their view that the jury decision should not be overturned. The first County Court jury failed to reach a verdict; the second convicted. In a submission lodged by Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd, the prosecution argues: “It (the jury) is best placed to decide matters of credibility and reliability. The jury has the benefit of being able to deliberate as a group in private throughout the trial. And its decisions are subject to the discipline generated by the requirement of unanimity or a very high majority.’’

The prosecution also argues that Team Pell glosses over the quality of the evidence provided by A, who correctly identified the ­location of the first offending and correctly described the layout of the priests’ sacristy.

It calls into question the so-called “alibi’’ evidence provided by key witnesses. But overshadowing this is the fact that Weinberg, the legal expert on the Court of Appeal, effectively raised the spectre in his dissenting judgment of an innocent man having been wrongly convicted. Weinberg observed: “These convictions were based upon the jury’s assessment of the complainant as a witness and nothing more.’’

Further, he was damning of the conviction of Pell on the final charge, which was that in 1997 the then archbishop assaulted A in front of others, grabbing him on the testicles in front of dozens.

“I would have thought any prosecutor would be wary of bringing a charge of this gravity against anyone based upon the ­implausible notion that a sexual ­assault of this kind would take place in public and in the presence of numerous potential witnesses,’’ Weinberg ruled.

The final element of the High Court deliberations is expected to relate to the way the Court of ­Appeal assessed A’s evidence, which was videotaped.

The court, The Australian reported last month, was weighing the importance of viewing A’s testimony compared with reading the transcript.

A technical point is being considered by the High Court over what the Court of Appeal should have viewed by way of video evidence and whether, chiefly, the Court of Appeal should have strayed from the trial transcript.

Team Pell had argued that no matter how favourable the view was of A, it was not open to the jury to conclude the prosecution had eliminated all reasonable doubt. This is in the context of the combined effect of the unchallenged evidence of other witnesses.

While apparently a technical point, it could become significant if the High Court believes that the majority Court of Appeal judges went too far in their use of the video evidence.

Pell himself, meanwhile, will have no idea what is happening on Wednesday.

The proceedings will not be livestreamed outside the court and he will have to wait, probably until each night, when he may have the opportunity to telephone someone who was at the High Court for a briefing.

Maybe even his lead silk, Bret Walker, SC, depending on whether he is on the cardinal’s limited telephone list.

Regardless of the outcome, the assessment of Pell’s guilt or innocence will resonate for years.

His supporters and a fair slab of the legal community are questioning whether the jury and the ­majority on the Court of Appeal got it right.

Within sections of the Catholic Church there is a strong view that the maths don’t add up.

How could one of the busier parts of Melbourne on a Sunday morning be the site for such depraved acts? More broadly, if Pell is acquitted, it will provoke one of the ­fiercest debates in the history of Australian law and order, and ­religion.

The best hope is that the facts are allowed to tell the full story.

As we’ve been told repeatedly, it doesn’t matter what you might think of the man. But it matters if an innocent man has been jailed.

The Pell critics will get another chance to dance on his reputational grave after the High Court has finished.

That will come when the redacted sections of the sex abuse royal commission are finally released by the Morrison government.

Like so many pronouncements about Pell in recent years, they are unlikely to be kind.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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