The debate currently dominating American life is about the effects President Donald Trump’s trade policies will have on the U.S. economy, but not enough is being said about the positive economic effects his immigration policies will have.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to reset the playing field for Americans by prioritizing American jobs over cheap foreign labor. The Biden-era economy was largely focused on job creation for foreign nationals as opposed to American citizens. During the Biden Administration, there were more than seven times as many jobs created for migrants — many of whom were in the country illegally — than for Americans, according to a study from the Center for Immigration Studies. (RELATED: DAVIS: The US Should Not Tolerate Anti-American Migrants)
The president has taken steps to ensure that under his watch the American economy will work for the American people. Regardless of what one believes about the merits of Trump’s trade policy, his immigration policy will allow American workers to reap the benefits of job gains and ultimately boost the American economy. The Trump Administration has cracked down on employers who deprive American workers of critical opportunities by employing illegal aliens.
One of the biggest problems posed by illegal immigration and mass immigration generally is the deflationary effect they have on the wages of American workers. As George Borjas, an economist and Harvard professor wrote in 2016: “Wage trends over the past half-century suggest that a 10 percent increase in the number of workers with a particular set of skills probably lowers the wage of that group by at least three percent.”
TOPSHOT – Migrants illegally cross into the United States from Mexico via a hole cut in the border fence in El Paso, Texas, US on December 21, 2022. – The southern border of the United States has been officially closed to immigrants without visas for more than two years under a controversial health measure invoked by then-president Donald Trump during the Covid-19 pandemic. Title 42 prevents asylum seekers from presenting themselves at ports of entry, allowing border patrol officers to turn them away without starting an asylum application. (Photo by Allison Dinner / AFP) (Photo by ALLISON DINNER/AFP via Getty Images)
No matter how much anti-borders activists and politicians try to deny it, mass migration damages the job market and wage opportunities for American workers. Corporations who rely on cheap labor act as magnets for illegal immigration, because even the relatively paltry wages they are willing to pay are significantly higher than the wages in many of these foreign nationals’ home countries.
For example, the minimum wage in Mexico is less than $15 a day. In many American cities, the minimum wage is around or upwards of $15 an hour and even the federal minimum wage of $7.25 is far more than many of these workers would make in their home countries. Anti-borders activists and self-interested corporate stewards like to lean in on the trope that there are jobs Americans just won’t do, but thankfully this administration recognizes this is not true.
The problem is not that Americans won’t do these jobs. They will demand decent wages, safe working conditions, and fair benefits in exchange for their labor. By closing the border and cracking down on illegal alien employment, the president has put American workers first and has prevented them from being undercut by the prospect of cheap, illegal labor. Even The New York Times has admitted that Trump’s immigration policy could lead to significant wage increases for American workers. The economic fruit of the administration’s immigration policies won’t just come in the form of increased wages, but declines in consumer and taxpayer costs.
Housing is one area where the massive influx of illegal aliens during the Biden era caused prices to surge. Mass migration is not the only reason housing prices have surged in recent years, but it is certainly a contributing factor. As Vice President J.D. Vance said earlier this year: “You see a very consistent relationship between a massive increase in immigration and a massive increase in housing prices.”
WATCH: JD Vance interrupted by heckler as he explains how mass immigration drives up housing prices.pic.twitter.com/Xd8CgOP9kz
— Immigration Reform Law Institute (@IRLILaw) March 10, 2025
Indeed, a 2017 study from the left-leaning Urban Institute found that for every 1 percent increase in the immigration population, rent prices rose 1.6 percent and home prices in metropolitan areas rose 9.6percent. It is simply common sense that inviting millions of illegal aliens — in addition to the roughly one million legal immigrants the U.S. awards citizenship to annually — would cause demand to skyrocket for the limited supply of available housing in the U.S., and thus increase costs for American citizens.
Finding housing in the U.S. is already extremely difficult, and forcing Americans to compete with large numbers of foreign nationals for this finite supply is one of the reasons the dream of owning a home has become out of reach for so many U.S. citizens. The Trump Administration’s immigration policies could alleviate these problems and lead to more affordable housing for Americans. (RELATED: DAVIS: There Should Be No Price Tag For Border Security)
The White House has also prioritized American taxpayers with its immigration policy. Over the past few years, major American cities including New York and Chicago have faced fiscal crisis due to their anti-border policies and the large number of illegal aliens who have flooded those cities as a result. Taxpayers in these cities have been forced to pay billions of dollars to subsidize housing, food, and medical care for foreign nationals who should not have been in our country to begin with.
Hospitals, particularly in border cities, have been forced to treat the injuries many of these foreign nationals sustain during their arduous journey to the U.S. Illegal immigration costs the U.S. healthcare system at least $23 billion a year, according to a 2023 study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, with taxpayers left holding the bag for much of these costs. The president issued an executive order earlier this year barring agencies from spending money on illegal aliens, and most importantly, he has closed the border to prevent more of these illegal aliens from arriving in the first place.
While debate over tariffs and trade policy has been all the rage in Washington, D.C., few have taken the time to examine the economic burden U.S. citizens have faced due to the illegal immigration crisis. The Trump Administration’s common-sense approach to immigration policy will not only protect U.S. sovereignty and national security, but the economic interests of the American people as well.
William J. Davis is a communications associate for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.
This article was originally published at dailycaller.com
