And they are much more skeptical of the very idea of having immigration limits, whereas the public - again, independents and Democrats, as well as Republicans, although not necessarily all in the same proportions - have a much stronger sense of the American government and American law having responsibility to Americans specifically rather than to people around the world. So the polarization is up versus down, not really right versus left.
Mark KrikorianBy holding down natural wage growth in labor-intensive industries, immigration serves as a subsidy for low-wage, low-productivity ways of doing business, retarding technological progress and productivity growth.
Mark KrikorianIn enforcement, you always have to have both a focus on the really worst actors - you know, gang bangers, in this case, drug dealers, that sort of thing - but also routine enforcement because think about, for instance, the IRS. They don't say, OK, well, if you're not a money launderer, it doesn't matter whether you fill your tax return out right or not. They have both. They go after the really bad actors and they have a kind of general, routine enforcement.
Mark KrikorianThe interesting point is that the polarization is not so much among the public, although there's some of that. The polarization on the immigration issue is really between the elites and the public. In other words, this is not so much a right-left issue, which it is partly.
Mark KrikorianAnd they are much more skeptical of the very idea of having immigration limits, whereas the public - again, independents and Democrats, as well as Republicans, although not necessarily all in the same proportions - have a much stronger sense of the American government and American law having responsibility to Americans specifically rather than to people around the world. So the polarization is up versus down, not really right versus left.
Mark KrikorianBut the other audience, I think, is people in Central America because since last summer, they've been running ads down there - the United States government has - don't come, it's dangerous. You will be immediately deported. That's literally what it says in Spanish.
Mark KrikorianOf 472 civilian occupations defined by the Department of Commerce, only six are majority immigrant (legal and illegal). These six occupations account for 1 percent of the total U.S. workforce. Many jobs often thought to be overwhelmingly done by immigrants are in fact majority native-born: 51 percent of maids are U.S.-born, as are 63 percent of butchers and meat processors, and 73 percent of janitors.
Mark Krikorian