Why a Top Trump Aide Said ‘We Are Desperate’ for More Immigrants – By Jeanna Smialek and Zolan Kanno-Youngs (The New York Times) / Feb 27 2020
WASHINGTON — At a private event last week, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, stated a reality that economists treat as conventional wisdom but that the Trump administration routinely ignores: The United States needs immigration to fuel future economic growth.
“We are desperate, desperate for more people,” Mulvaney told a crowd in England, according to an audio recording provided to The New York Times. “We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth.” He said the country needed “more immigrants” but wanted them in a “legal” fashion.
Mulvaney’s sentiments are at odds with the approach and language embraced by President Donald Trump and White House officials including Stephen Miller, a senior aide who is a driving force behind the administration’s immigration policies.
The White House has been trying to crack down on undocumented entries and family-based immigration into the United States, and its measures are slowing the flow of refugees. While the administration has said that it wants to foster high-skilled immigration, Trump has described the country as “full.”
But growth in the native-born workforce is rapidly slowing as the population ages and people have fewer children, so immigrants will probably be needed to drive the economy. They have already been a crucial source of new workers, accounting for about half the labor force’s expansion over the past two decades.
The foreign-born population has been expanding only tepidly during Trump’s tenure. That slowdown could have long-lasting and profound repercussions, economists warn.
Continue to article: https://news.yahoo.com/why-top-trump-aide-said-201215669.html
