Illegal immigration. It’s one of the hottest topics in politics today. Republican presidential candidate nominee Donald Trump expressed repeatedly his plan to build a wall, and make Mexico pay for it.
Claims are tossed around about how they are taking our houses and jobs, but how true are those claims really? A recent report from Goldman Sachs provides a deeper look into the subject.
I won’t speak to the morality of illegal immigration, but I will present the economic facts.
As it turns out, illegal immigrants aren’t taking your houses or your jobs, because they aren’t even coming. Since 2008, the flow of undocumented immigrants into the country slowed dramatically, and at times even reversed as more were going back than coming in, a chart from Goldman Sachs shows.
This chart used estimates of net unauthorized migration from the Pew Research Center and researchers Robert Warren and John Warren. The number of illegal immigrants is shown in grey.
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(Source: Migration Policy Institute, Pew Research Center, Warren and Warren, Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research)
As you can see, illegal immigration fell off dramatically and even decreased in 2008 and 2009, decreased slightly in 2010, and then decreased again in 2012. These numbers hardly show a strong force of undocumented immigrants surging in to take over the economy.
But it wasn’t a politician or immigration policy that caused the sudden drop. Actually, it was the housing market.
This chart by Logan Mohtashami, AMC Lending Group senior loan manager shows a sudden drop in housing starts, and by definition, in construction jobs.
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(Source: Logan Mohtashami)
Starting to see a correlation? When the housing bubble burst, the immigrants left. Now, however, although the housing market and overall economy are starting to improve again, they have yet to come back.
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(Source: Pew Research Center, Warren and Warren, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Labor, Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research)
While estimates of the unauthorized population only extend through 2014, border apprehensions fell further in 2015, suggesting that the gap persisted last year, the report from Goldman Sachs states.
What about those construction jobs they left behind? No one is taking them.
Job openings for construction jobs are high today with hours worked at their highest ever, Mohtashami said.
In fact, San Francisco’s competitive employment market is causing many construction companies to lose workers and driving a trend towards more expensive housing.
The demand exists for more construction workers and more affordable housing, so where are all the immigrants that are “stealing our jobs”?
They’re not here, but maybe our economy could use a few of them coming back.
