The defenders of former President Barack Obama’s DACA amnesty are touting a rigged study to claim economic benefits from the controversial policy.
The study shows post-amnesty wage gains for illegals, but it is based on a skewed sample of relatively successful DACA illegals who were identified by advocacy groups.
For example, one-third of the people in the study sample who are older than age 25 hold four-year college bachelors’ degrees or better. In contrast, an August 2013 report by the pro-amnesty Migration Policy Institute showed that only 7.5 percent of the 800,000 DACA-qualified illegals who were 18 or older had four-year college degrees or better. An August 2017 study by the MPI showed only 5 percent of 832,000 DACA illegals who were older than 18 had four-year college qualifications.
Also, the 7.5 percent graduation rate reported by the new study is roughly one-quarter the 33 percent of native-born Americans with four-year degrees.
The study’s author, Tom Wong at the University of California, San Diego, admits that his study data is unreliable. “Because there is no phone book of undocumented immigrants, and given the nature of online opt-in surveys, it is not possible to construct a valid margin of error,” he said in a brief introduction to the study.
The flawed study is being used as P.R. ammunition amid increasing evidence that President Donald Trump will soon allow Obama’s amnesty to end, likely over a two-year period.
Democrats want Trump to sign legislation that will legally confirm the amnesty, and Trump’s globalist aides likely would recommend signing the amnesty legislation if it helps them gain a big tax-cut bill. Pro-American immigration reformers oppose any near-term DACA trade, saying Trump should concentrate on passing a comprehensive immigration reform in 2018 or 2019 which would trim the inflow of low-skill workers, streamline enforcement procedures, strengthen border defenses and require companies to exclude illegals from job applications.
The Wong study was supported by amnesty groups and by the Democrats’ leading advocacy center, the Center for American Progress, which favors amnesty. CAP touted the DACA amnesty by claiming that the extra population of illegals expands the economy and directs more taxes to the federal government:
These higher wages are not just important for recipients and their families but also for tax revenues and economic growth at the local, state, and federal levels … The broader positive economic effects of home purchases include the creation of jobs and the infusion of new spending in local economies.
However, the progressives’ calculation did not account for the elite’s financial gain from cheaper labor and from welfare-funded consumers, nor the civic conflict caused by large-scale illegal immigration, nor the roughly $1,500 per person annual taxpayer cost of educating and supporting each lower-income migrant.
The Wong study includes some startling data. For example, the average age of people who took part in the survey is 25, contradicting Democratic efforts to paint the illegals as “kids.”
The study says that roughly 65 percent of the DACA recipients older than 25 had a job before the 2012 amnesty.
Before 2012, half of the skewed sample earned below $20,000 per year, and half earned more than $20,000 per year, said Wong. Their median wage rose to $32,000 after the amnesty, he reported. But even with Wong’s college-skewed sample, the illegals’ median wage is still lower than the $33,500 median wage earned by Americans aged 16 to 34.
Curiously, the length of the illegals’ work week did not increase at all after getting their DACA work-permit, according to Wong’s study.
Almost 47 percent of the DACA illegals live in blue-locked states, of California, New York, Illinois, Washington, New Jersey and New Mexico. That skew explains and spotlights the existing political gain that Democrats slowly gained by importing foreign migrants into American elections — albeit with much assistance from business groups.
Overall, almost 800,000 illegals are now enrolled in the DACA program. Roughly 1.1 million additional illegals could qualify if they gain high school credentials and are older than 14, according to the MPI report.
Wong did not respond to an email from Breitbart News. He is an advocate for amnesty and immigration, according to his bio:
Tom K. Wong is an associate professor of political science at the University of California, San Diegoand recently served as an advisor to the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders(WHIAAPI) under the Obama administration. He is also Director of the International Migration Studies Program Minor. His research focuses on the politics of immigration, citizenship, and migrant “illegality.” As these issues have far-reaching implications, his work also explores the links between immigration, race and ethnicity, and the politics of identity …
He is also on the leadership committee of the California Immigrant Policy Center, the board of the New American Leaders Project, and recently served on the advisory council of Unbound Philanthropy. Wong also consults on campaigns and elections, specializing in mobilizing low-propensity voters of color and immigrant communities.
Under current immigration policy, the federal government accepts 1 million legal immigrants each year, even though 4 million young Americans enter the workforce to look for decent jobs.
Each year, the government also hands out almost 3 million short-term work permits to foreign workers. These permits include roughly 330,000 one-year OPT permits for foreign graduates of U.S. colleges, roughly 200,000 three-year H-1B visas for foreign white-collar professionals, and 400,000 two-year permits to DACA illegals.
The current annual flood of foreign labor spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families.
Multiple business groups admit that Trump’s popular RAISE Act immigration and economic reform would raise Americans’ salaries.
Many polls show that Americans are very generous, they do welcome individual immigrants, and they do want to like the idea of immigration. But the polls also show that most Americans are increasingly worried that large-scale legal immigration will change their country and disadvantage themselves and their children. Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” policies are also extremely popular, including among Democratic-leaning voters.