A Case for Net Zero Immigration
30th March 2025
At this historical juncture when America is at last taking action on unlawful migration on the one hand and on the other hand credible sources such as Goldman Sachs are predicting radical worker displacement by AI and robotics it might be an opportune time to examine what labor and immigration policies really will put America, and Americans, first. A reversal of the deindustrialization processes which have beset the country over the past fifty years (and became turbo-charged once China was ushered into the WTO in 2001) if it is to be accomplished re-industrialization will look less like Rosie the Riveter and more like Robby the Robot.
There are some, with whom the Donald Trump of the shockingly gold-festooned NYC apartment might instinctively side, who call for bigger because…better, right? Matthew Yglesias argues this case in One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger. Of course if it only required a mega-sized population to be successful 800 million people in India would not depend upon daily government food handouts and 1.3 billion Africans would not rely on food imports for 80 percent of their groceries. Even in China, 11 percent of the population (which translates to roughly 153 million people) are unable to afford a healthy diet. So before inviting another 666 million people to enjoy the blessings of US liberty, policy makers should best examine all the most likely future scenarios.
If America is not completely full, it’s certainly full of foreigners. A 2018 study by researchers from Yale and MIT utilized mathematical modelling and estimated that the number of undocumented immigrants could be around 22 million, nearly double previous estimates. Common sense and Fox News will tell you that the real total is likely closer to 30 million after the Biden border-free-for-all. Combine that with some 30 million legal foreign born residents/naturalized citizens and you get 60 million newcomers. If you accept the figures of perennial immigration critic Ann Coulter (author of the famously prophetic book Adios America) of 50 million illegals you get a staggering 80 million foreign born residents, fully 24 percent of the aggregate Census Bureau population.