From the interview:
The Trump administration announced a new immigration plan this week. According to White House adviser Stephen Miller, it’s a “pro-American immigration reform that the American people want, that the American people deserve, and that puts the needs of the working class ahead of the investor class.”
Vox’s Dara Lind explained the details of the plan here. In short, it will cut the number of legal immigrants entering the country in half by 2027 and shift to what the White House calls a “merit-based” system that favors “applicants who can speak English, physically support themselves and their families, and demonstrate skills that will contribute to our economy.”
Ostensibly, the plan rests on a simple economic premise: If we continue letting low-skilled immigrants into the country, working-class Americans will suffer because there will be fewer jobs.
I called up Michael Clemens, an economist at the Center for Global Development, a policy-oriented nonprofit think tank. Clemens’s research focuses on migration and development, economic growth, and economic history. I asked him if immigrants from poor countries really do take jobs from native workers, and whether he thinks the Trump administration’s economic justification for the new immigration plan is sound.
Here’s what he told me.
Read full interview here.
