A Few Thoughts on America’s Immigration Crisis on the Eve of The Democratic National Convention

“‘It’s time for us to do what we have been doing and that time is every day.”

–Kamala Harris

 

---

August 19, 2024 — It’s hard for me to have anything but a positive view on immigration. 

I’m writing to you this morning from our family farm in New Hampshire. This particular piece of land west of Concord, NH has been in our family for five generations on my mother’s side. 

But on the Wiggin side, we were one of the nation’s original immigrants. 

In the early 1600s, Thomas Wiggin was a “privateer” for the Shrewsburys, a branch of the British aristocracy who had a commercial interest in developing the New World. 

Privateers were legal pirates. Wiggin’s job was to raid French ships during the Hundred Years’ War and bring the loot and “impressed” French sailors back to England. 

Even then, pirate work was hard. Wiggin retired in his 4os because he was too old to float around on boats and get into broadsides with French ships anymore. His pension from the Shrewsburys was a three-square-mile plot of land along the Great Bay in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 

Today, the same 3-square-mile piece of land is the modern-day town of Stratham, New Hampshire… where I grew up on a farm. There’s a long, strange history between the town’s incorporation in 1630 and the present-day suburban “bedroom community” that exists 48 miles north of Boston. 

Most of what I know about the Wiggins comes down to me as family lore. Occasionally, a cousin will take some professional interest in documenting the stories. So, at least some of what I believe I know can actually be found in historical societies around New England. 

As immigrants, it’s fair to say, we had some less than pleasant interactions with the indigenous population. Nor did we get along, per se, with similar (mostly) English families who trace their own lineage back to the colonial era. 

It’s also fair to say as well we haven’t always been welcoming to the Irish… Italians… French Canadians… who have come to settle here during various epochs either. 

It’s a modern political cliche for people to say “We’re a nation of immigrants.” Like all cliches that have no meaning, especially as a political rallying point,  the details are sordid and they matter.  

In my own personal life, I met my wife over 30 years ago at a small college in Colorado where we’d both escaped the East Coast to ski for an education.  She is Philippine by heritage and grew up in another bedroom community outside New York City, Paramus, New Jersey. 

Both her parents were professionals and U.S. citizens who came to the United States under the immigration policy in place between Washington and Manila in the 1960s. My children’s grandmother on their mother’s side is one of the most outspoken people I’ve ever listened to about the current state of immigration in the United States. 

She’s a living embodiment of saying “Yes, we’re a nation of immigrants but there have to be rules and the rules have to be upheld, otherwise it’s chaos.” 

If you want to hear it in colorful language with a strong Philippine accent and, at times, violent hand gestures, you only have to ask her. She lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which in many respects is a frontline border state. She has a Trump 2024 calendar in her kitchen next to the coffee maker. 

Against the backdrop of our family history and personal experience, it’s hard for me to take anyone seriously about their politics about immigration. 

We’re a lot like Kamala Harris ourselves… we haven’t been to the border. 

That is, unless you consider Tuscaloosa, New Orleans or a few spring break outings to Matamoras and Tijuana as going to the border. Our experience is in no way tantamount to understanding the immigrant crisis. 

 

Venezuelan Migrants crossing at Eagle Pass, Texas September 26, 2023 (Source: Voa News)

One thing is painfully obvious, however:  Immigration provides a populist tactician with a dream “wedge” issue. You can fire up just about anyone you talk to using immigrants at the border as the starting off point. 

Race? Oh yeah. Income disparity? Why not. Freedom of movement? Globalization? The War on Terror…? It’s all there. Why not throw in Biden’s “secret” plan to import voters?  

There’s no image of the culture wars that can’t be encapsulated better than that of border guards on one side of a bale of razor wire … and a line of young families with children wading through the Rio Grande on the other. 

Immigration touches on everything that makes America, well, America. The idea and the place. Right now, most can see that our immigration policies aren’t being enforced by design or by incompetence. The “rules,” as my mother-in-law would call them, matter.

But seriously, beyond politics what are the economic outcomes, if any, of immigration — legal or otherwise…? (He asks, knowing full well that’s a loaded question.) 

Today, the Democratic National Convention (DNC) opens in Chicago. The Republicans would love nothing more than for Kamala Harris to make some stupid comment about border policy and her once grand and heralded, now tarnished and disavowed role as “border tsar” so they can own the issue. 

Similar to our astonishment Friday, Harris had so ignorantly announced an investigation into “price gouging” at the nation’s grocery giants as part of her economic plan… it’s going to be pure entertainment to see how the events in Chicago fuel the debate online over immigration.

Below, Lau Vegys, doing some bang-up investigative work of his own at our friend Doug Casey’s Crisis Investing, helps connect a few dots between the fateful imperial presidency of Richard Milhouse Nixon and today’s immigration chaos. Enjoy ~~ Addison

 

U.S. Immigrant Population Has Skyrocketed Since 1971

 

Lau Vegys, Doug Casey’s Crisis Investing

As I told you this Wednesday, nearly every aspect of life has taken a turn for the worse since the U.S. went off the gold standard 53 years ago. From out-of-control inflation and stagnant wages to plummeting housing affordability and soaring incarceration rates, all the worst trends have exploded since 1971.

Another thing that has exploded since then is immigration. Today’s chart shows the number and percentage of the foreign-born or immigrant population (both legal and illegal) between 1850 and 2024. I’ve also included some projections for the coming decades (see grey bars) if the growth rate under the Biden administration persists.

As you can see, the nation’s foreign-born population share hit an all-time low of 4.7% in 1970, only to dramatically reverse course, soaring to 6.2% in 1980, 11.1% in 2000, and 13.7% by 2020.

This year was especially significant, though, with the immigrant population hitting a new record of 51.6 million in March. That means immigrants now make up 15.6% of the total U.S. population, which is also a record high in American history.

If we rewind two years, the foreign-born population has increased by 5.1 million. That’s the largest two-year increase in American history. The immigrant population has never grown this much, this fast.

Now, keep in mind, I’m not saying all of this has happened solely because America went off the gold standard—the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act and Biden’s open border policies have had a much more direct impact on these trends. But you have to admit, it’s pretty interesting when you look at this in the context of all the other not-so-positive things that have mushroomed since 1971.

Okay, but where might things go from here?

Well, since President Biden took office in January 2021, the U.S.’ foreign-born population has jumped by 6.6 million in just 39 months—almost 60% of that due to illegal immigration, by the way. If this pace continues, we could see the immigrant population reach 62.5 million by 2030 and 82.2 million by 2040. That’s more than the combined populations of 30 states plus D.C.

~ Lau Vegys, Doug Casey’s Crisis Investing

 

So it goes, 

Addison Wiggin,

Founder, Grey Swan