Zeke Hernandez
Appearances
Planet Money
The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
Immigrants are villains who are here to steal your job and undermine your safety and destroy American culture and our heritage. The other narrative is immigrants are the poor huddled masses who need our compassion and we must help them even if it costs us. It's either kind of fear or pity. I'm definitely one of the villain immigrants.
Planet Money
The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
I was in the poorest slums of the city of Buenos Aires. And so, you know, when you see old men crying because they can't find work or women that are that are you know, totally anxious because they can't feed their kids, that really moves you.
Planet Money
The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
I realized that if you want to explain the movement of investment, ideas, innovation, customers, and just the evolution of economies and markets, you can't separate that from the movement of people.
Planet Money
The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
So the argument I'm making is based on 20 years of research, is that immigrants don't need your fear. They don't need your pity. They are good for you, good for you and your children. And that's both economically and socially.
Planet Money
The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
But that's really just the beginning of it. The more interesting part is what happens next. One is what I call a novelty effect. which is immigrants, just because they have different tastes and preferences, right? They grew up liking, I don't know, different foods or different kinds of music, or they use technology a little bit differently or something like that.
Planet Money
The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
They are introducing new categories of products and services or brands that they liked before where they came from.
Planet Money
The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
The research I've done in the U.S., for example, shows that when immigrants increase by 1% as a share of a state's population, that state becomes 50% more likely to get investment from the immigrant's home country than it otherwise would have been.
Planet Money
The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
If you want to see like a contemporary story on this, look no further than Pollo Campero, which is one of the fastest growing restaurant chains in the United States. And of all places, it's from Guatemala.
Planet Money
The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
That's what I call the immigration investment jobs triangle. That is, immigrants settle, investment follows, those investments create jobs, and not jobs just for immigrants.
Planet Money
The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
Immigrants are also 80% more likely than native-born people to start a business. And that means that they're putting their own capital, their own investment in a new business. Okay. Now that 80% is at the average for every business from a mom and pop restaurant to Google or Zoom or Duolingo, which are immigrant founded firms.
Planet Money
The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
I think the difference is that illegal or undocumented immigrants often have a ceiling on how much of those five things they can contribute because of their legal status. I'll tell you a short story on this. My barber is really good and we've become good friends over time. He confessed to me after years of getting to know each other, that he's an undocumented immigrant.
Planet Money
The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
He's not in the country legally. He also told me that his lifelong dream has been to start his own barber shop, and he has $200,000 saved in cash ready to start this business, which almost knocked me off my chair. I was like, you have how much money? Wow, yeah. And I was like, wow, okay. And I said, well, why don't you do this? And he said, I can't because of my legal status.
Planet Money
The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
So the real tragedy of illegal immigration when it comes to the economy is that we don't get as many of the five things that immigrants bring as we could if they were here legally.