Just based on his tweets, President Trump has apparently
turned back 40%
of illegal immigrant crossers into the U.S., according to Department
of Homeland Security data.
The first thought that comes to mind is how many billions
in taxpayer money the president saved us by discouraging that illegal
immigration. Illegal immigrants cost Americans $54.5 billion a year in
education, medical, welfare, city service, and prison costs, to name but a few
things, far outstripping their supposed contributions as low-skilled labor to
the economy, according to a Heritage
Foundation study. That Trump could merely tweet them out of coming
testifies to how believable he is worldwide.
But the bigger favor is the one he's done for Central
America, particularly the "northern triangle" states of Guatemala, El
Salvador, and Honduras. Those nations, plus Mexico, in varying degrees,
are in a demographic
death spiral, losing too many people in prime working years they cannot
afford to lose. Their window of development is getting narrow, a UCLA
professor of economics explained to me. The statistics here show that by
2025, the fertility rate will be just 2.08% for
the region as a whole, which is at or below replacement rate. The years
following will be below replacement rate. Immigration, which primarily
involves young people in their prime working years, has been a disaster for
those countries, as has been their government's dependence on remittances.
There is not just a negative
effect of dollars coming in to displace local productivity; there is
also a social cost as families are broken up by migration. In fact, the
IMF has pointed out that remittances tend to keep a country artificially
underdeveloped. The money itself tends to benefit government cronies
and make corruption less costly.
So let's not kid ourselves as to what has happened.
Trump's statements and tweets have spared Americans billions in costs
associated with illegal immigrants. But they have spared Central
Americans the near fatal cost of unchecked emigration. Trump's been a
life-saver to all the nations that ship out immigrants.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/03/trump_does_central_america_a_favor.html