Politician says the quiet part out loud: Immigration as a redistricting tool

It’s illuminating when politicians speak the truth accidentally, letting voters know what they only say in private to their colleagues or big donors.

A video recently resurfaced of New York Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke saying that her Brooklyn district could “absorb a significant number of these (Haitian) migrants,” because, she continued, “I need more people in my district, just for redistricting purposes…” This was about the time that former President Joe Biden’s open border policies led to a humanitarian crisis with 11,000 migrants crowding under a bridge connecting Texas with Mexico in the Lone Star town of Del Rio.

Ironically, Rep. Clarke’s desire for noncitizens to bolster Democrats’ political power echoes arguments made during the 1787 Constitutional Convention, when Southern delegates wanted slaves to count as a full person for purposes of representation in the U.S. House, while delegates from the North argued for slaves to not count at all. They compromised on three-fifths.

IMMIGRANTS NEEDED FOR ‘REDISTRICTING PURPOSES,’ HOUSE DEM ADMITS IN VIRAL CLIP: ‘QUIET PART OUT LOUD’

Meanwhile, former community organizer, former California Assembly member, former member of Congress, and current Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass views federal enforcement of immigration laws as an existential threat to L.A. She called on ICE to end their enforcement of federal immigration law in Los Angeles.

Bass is correct in one aspect of her fears—that President Donald J. Trump’s enforcement of U.S. laws will cause a drop in L.A.’s population. During the first Trump administration, California’s population declined due to increased immigration enforcement and the state’s draconian COVID-19 lockdown policies under Gov. Gavin Newsom. For more than 20 years, California’s high taxes and high cost of living have pushed Californians to leave the Golden State, resulting in domestic net outmigration. But California grew by a bit because there were more foreigners—legal and illegal—moving in than Californians moving out.

Bass, and others, argue that illegal immigrants do the jobs that Americans won’t do, but recent employment data says otherwise. After five years of foreign-born employment growth while the native-born lost ground, the data since Trump took office shows a reversal.

The annual increase in employment among native-born Americans shot up to over 1.7 million last month. Conversely, the number of foreign-born workers with jobs has risen less than 400,000 over that same period.

This is a stark contrast to the situation when Trump was inaugurated. In January of this year, annual job growth among foreign-born workers was almost 1.2 million higher than job growth among native-born Americans. Fast-forward to June and the situation completely reversed, with native-born Americans seeing annual employment gains of almost 1.4 million more jobs than foreign-born workers.

The better labor market for Americans, combined with low inflation, has also been driving up real wages, meaning wages adjusted for price changes. Under Biden, the average American’s weekly paycheck did rise substantially, by almost 20 percent, but prices spiked even faster. During Biden’s four years in office, real weekly paychecks bought about 4 percent less in purchasing power.

In less than half a year, Trump’s economic and immigration policies have reversed that slide, and the average American’s real weekly paycheck has risen about 1 percent. The progress is even better when looking at the real median weekly paycheck, which is higher now than at any point in the Biden administration.

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For blue-collar workers who suffered so much from Bidenflation and were forced to go into debt to make ends meet, the real wage growth under Trump is a welcomed change, though it hasn’t completely erased the damage of the prior four years, as evidenced by the fact that households are still in $1.2 trillion of credit card debt.

Yet there’s more good news on the horizon, despite the doomsday predictions from today’s Democrats, who assert crops won’t be picked if illegal aliens are deported. Ironically, Democrats made a similar assertion regarding emancipation, asserting cotton wouldn’t be picked if slaves were freed. Of course, agriculture will adapt as necessary just as it did in the nineteenth century, with automation and productivity enhancements.

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Indeed, industries flooded with low-skill labor have suffered from a lack of investment, which will reverse as that artificially cheap labor is removed.

Ultimately, investment, especially in the age of AI, will lead to increased efficiency and lower prices for consumers.

E.J. Antoni, Ph.D., is Chief Economist and the Richard F. Aster fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a senior fellow at Unleash Prosperity.