Mass deportations. What would actually happen—economically—if the President-elect follows through on promises to deport millions of people from America.We don't have to guess.Today we have two stories from Planet Money's daily podcast, The Indicator. First, the story from another time the US cracked down on immigration with the expressed intent of helping the economy. We look at how that worked out. And then we distill 20 years of research on immigrants and economic growth. What does immigration do for an economy? What types of immigration help? And who benefits?Our most recent newsletter goes into more depth on some of this. Part one of two here. Subscribe to our newsletter here.This episode is hosted by Adrian Ma, Darian Woods, and Wailin Wong. These episodes of The Indicator were originally produced by Cooper Katz McKim and Julia Ritchey, and engineered by Kwesi Lee and Maggie Luthar. They were fact-checked by Angel Carreras and Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannon is The Indicator's Editor.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: How would mass deportation affect the economy?
This is Planet Money from NPR. When we asked for your questions right after the election, there were a few that we got again and again. One of those was, how would mass deportation affect the economy? Another was, how do you even measure the economic impact of immigrants and immigration?
Well, we have some answers, some evidence. And it comes in the form of two stories.
Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Darian Woods. And I'm Adrian Ma. First, Darian and our co-host Waylon Wong have the story from another time the U.S. cracked down on immigration with the express intent of helping the economy. We look at how that worked out.
And then we take 20 years of research and we distill it into what immigrants contribute to economic growth. and we run the numbers for immigration in the U.S.
Today's stories come from Planet Money's daily podcast, The Indicator. Enjoy.
In 1880, the Chinese were the biggest group of immigrants in the western US. They accounted for around 20% of all immigrants in the region. This was a time of open borders. Basically, if you had enough money to make the trip, you could come to the US.
And Chinese immigrants arrived in the West in two big waves, first during the California Gold Rush of the 1850s, and then to build the Transcontinental Railroad about a decade later. The new arrivals were mostly working-age, able-bodied men. Nancy Chen is a professor of economics at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.
The interesting thing about the Chinese is that they were very organized in the way they came to the U.S.,
She says that most of the Chinese immigrants came via US-based companies run by Chinese merchants who spoke English. They recruited workers in China, handled all the paperwork, and hired out teams of laborers to American employers.
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Chapter 2: What historical immigration crackdown can we learn from?
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.
I was not going to say anything, but since you said it, it's out there in the open now. But, you know, Zeke says this dichotomy between fear and pity, it distracts us from the larger truth about immigrants. Coming up, we break out of the binary. Zeke Hernandez has moved around a lot during his lifetime.
He was born in Uruguay and his family moved from there to various parts of Central America and eventually to Argentina. And there, he says he noticed just how different economically countries could be.
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.
When Zeke came to the US for college, he became fascinated with the question of why some countries prosper economically and others falter again and again. The answer seemed to come down to people.
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.
And since then, Zeke has been researching how immigrants shape economies around the world. He recently wrote a book laying out what he's learned called The Truth About Immigration, Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers.
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.
Zeke says the reasons for this can be broken down into five things. Five things any group of people contributes to economic growth. And because immigrants are people, they also contribute these things. They are talent, consumption, taxes, investment, and innovation.
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