Tangle - A conversation with Alex Nowrasteh
Episode Date: January 29, 2021On today's Tangle pod, we sit down with Alex Nowrasteh to discuss Joe Biden's immigration bill. Alex is the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank. --- Se...nd in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle.
all right i could listen to that song for a really long time uh i probably need to make that intro a little bit shorter
listen a lot of people have been asking for tangle audio, Tangle Podcast. Obviously, it's something I've been trying to engage readers on.
I want to deliver. This is our second attempt at putting out some audio content. I thought
one of the first things to do that'd be pretty cool would be to give you guys an audio version
of one of the typical Friday transcribed interviews that we do. This week, I think we have a really interesting guest,
somebody whose expertise is super relevant right now.
There was a lot going on in the news world this week.
Obviously, the GameStop stuff is all anybody's talking about right now.
But, you know, Joe Biden's immigration plan
was arguably the biggest news of the week, in my opinion.
And this legislation, I think this potential legislation, we don't yet have a bill,
is going to potentially be one of the most significant things Biden tries to pull off
during his time in office. So I wanted to bring on somebody who knows this stuff like the back
of their hand. And I think I successfully did that. And, you know,
one of the tricky things about this interview, which is kind of a funny thing, is that I think
me and this person have some similar political views. You know, we land in some similar places
on immigration. And, you know, I don't think interviews need to be adversarial to be interesting,
but I did try to do my best to sort of put myself in the shoes of some readers i know who don't agree with me and ask some questions that people might want
answers to uh that that you know maybe i wouldn't necessarily have asked myself so i tried to do
that uh hit me back reply to this email if you're listening to this on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, drop me a line, tangle at
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Let me know what you think.
We're going to keep getting better, keep trying to do this as often as we can.
But I was super excited to get this off the ground.
So as always, thank you all for the support.
Thank you so much for the love.
I got a ton of really nice emails this week about some of our coverage kicking off the
Biden campaign.
And I'm just, you know, I'm so grateful and humbled by all of that.
If you're not yet a Tangle subscriber, please do that.
ReadTangle.com backslash subscribe.
That's the best way to show your love. Appreciate you guys. All
right. Enjoy. Hey, everybody, and welcome to Tangle, one of the first ever Tangle podcast
guests today. I am super thrilled to have Alex Narasta. Alex, thank you so much for being here.
Did I get your last name right? Because I don't want to mess that up. You did. It's good enough
for a podcast.
When people see how it's spelled in the newsletter, they'll have some sympathy for me, I think.
I hope they have sympathy for me, too. I've had to live with it for 37 years.
Before we jump in, I think it'd be awesome if you could just give our readers and listeners
a little bit of information about where you work, some of the research you do,
and what you've been up to for the last few years. and listeners a little bit of information about where you work, some of the research you do,
and what you've been up to for the last few years. So I'm the Director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute, which is a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C. And so as my title implies,
I focus entirely on immigration policy with about 95% of what I do focused on the United States.
So I've studied the effect of immigration on the economy, crime, terrorism, national security,
cultural assimilation issues, how the government can do a better job in terms of liberalizing immigration,
expanding legal immigration opportunities, and basically make it so that immigration is a much
bigger win for Americans as well as the sort of the new Americans, the immigrants themselves who
are coming here. Obviously, this last week has been huge. I mean, the last two weeks, really,
since Joe Biden came into the office, he hit the ground running trying to undo a lot of President Trump's
immigration agenda. And we don't yet actually have any legislation which makes this a little
bit tricky, but he has released at least the outlines of a massive immigration bill that,
you know, essentially is an overhaul in every imaginable way and includes a pathway to
citizenship for 11 million undocumented
immigrants. I think maybe we should just start with, you know, from your perspective,
what sticks out to you from this bill as a net positive, the things that you're seeing that
sort of get you excited? I'm most excited by the scope of the amnesty or the legalization program,
whatever you want to call it, based
on the outline that we've seen, and we haven't seen bill text yet, right?
So this is just the summary released by the Biden administration.
They basically plan to legalize any and all illegal immigrants who are not criminal, national
security, or other public safety threats.
So that would be somewhere around 11
million illegal immigrants, or it'd be the vast majority, almost all illegal immigrants in the
United States. And that is a very bold proposal. The last several immigration reform bills,
comprehensive ones that touch on every aspect of the immigration system would have only legalized small portions of the illegal immigrant population so the one in 2013
that was the closest to becoming law that would have only legalized about 7
to 8 million of the 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants so this one really is
big it goes bigger than all the other ones.
And that's what I sort of am most excited about. It doesn't compromise off the bat.
The policy downside of this bill, according to some of your own writing, is that you don't
really see a pathway for it to be passed in the Senate. I'm curious if you could maybe talk about
that or if there are some other
weaknesses, soft spots in the bill that you see that maybe you hope to see change when the actual
piece of legislation comes out. Yeah, so I guess I'll start with some of the policy downsides I
see in it. One, it doesn't do enough to liberalize and expand legal immigration. There are lots of opportunities to do this
for high-skilled workers, low-skilled workers,
mid-skilled workers, family immigrants, entrepreneurs.
But the bill doesn't do a whole lot for that.
It does a bit for expanding skilled immigration
and clearing the backlogs
because there's long wait times
for some of these categories, especially for family-based immigration. It does some good things there,
but it doesn't do anything to increase lower skilled immigration, which is really important
if the government is going to get total control over the southwest border, to be able to channel
those would-be illegal immigrants into the legal market so that they can be regulated
by the government. This bill really doesn't do enough for that. But I think you hit on what the
biggest downside is, which is there's like no way this bill is going to become law in any way
similar to what the outline is. What makes you say that? I mean, to you, what do you think?
I'm assuming obviously your view is that maybe moderate Democrats like a Joe Manchin or Republicans are never going to
buy into this. But, you know, what do you view as being the sticking points for them, for the
people who are who are not going to get on board? So there's two sticking points. One, the outline
doesn't have very much in there about border security. It has
some sort of words about using technology along the border. So that might be an area where somebody
like a Joe Manchin or other Republicans can come on board and push for more funding in order to
gain their vote. I'm opposed to all that stuff, but that's just like the political reality of what's going to
be in there the other thing is the amnesty is just too big like republicans are really skeptical
about immigration because of the amnesty because of the illegal immigration portion and amnesty
really is like a scarlet letter uh scarlet letter a um this debate. So the notion that you're going to get, you
know, 10 Republican senators to vote for a bill that would basically be a full amnesty
for 11 million illegal immigrants without any kind of fines, just for all of them except
for criminals, I think is fanciful at this point.
And some moderate Democrats are going to balk at this.
You know, Kristen Sinema from Arizona, Joe Manchin as you mentioned, they're not going
to go for that either.
So at best this is a starting point, this bill. At worst, it just has no legs and people just won't have interest in it because there's really no chance it's going to become law in any way related to how it currently is.
security element of it is maybe not something that's necessary. I mean, I think a lot of people who are sort of in the middle are going to look at this and say that in exchange for, you know,
11 million undocumented immigrants getting a pathway to citizenship for border security,
increased border security, whether it be technology on the border, things like drones or, you know, the most recent
imaging technology they're using to track migrants crossing. I mean, that to me sort of strikes me as
like a fair or reasonable proposal. What about it do you think is kind of missing the mark?
So I think it's fair and reasonable from a purely political perspective, but from actually getting operational control over the border, I think it misses the mark.
The reason why so many people try to cross the border illegally is because they can't do so legally.
There is no visa available for the vast majority of these people so we can spend all we want on border security people are still
going to try to come in and break the law doing so if there's no visas available to them because the
benefits of coming to the u.s legally from central america for instance is a increase in wages of
six-fold increase right you go from making five thousand dollars in guatemala a year to over thirty
thousand dollars in the united states with the same income, language ability, anything.
So you can throw as many Border Patrol agents at the border as you want, drones, boats, along the Rio Grande, fences, whatever you want.
There's still going to be a large black market of people trying to get in and multiple different ways so if we want to actually get control of this expanding
legal immigration opportunities for these folks is what's actually going to
work in the long term that's what's worked in the past that's what worked to
decrease Mexican illegal immigration that's what worked in the 1950s to
decrease illegal immigration along the border But I realized that is not really the
political discussion going on right now, right? It's all about walls and fences and drones and
things like that versus legalization for the illegal immigrants. But I think that really
misses the mark. You know, sort of in that same vein, I mean, when I hear you sort of describe
that sixfold increase in wage that a migrant can make coming here from Guatemala, you know, a lot of people, I think conservatives would hear that and say, well, then let's, you know, do something to invest in Guatemala so they can stay there.
Let's make their home countries a little bit safer and maybe spend less money to do something like that. What is your research
shown about, you know, the efficacy of programs like that, that sort of put money into
these migrants, native countries, so they may be experiencing better situations and they don't
feel like it's worth making this 2000 mile trek by foot to get into the United States?
this 2,000 mile trek by foot to get into the United States? There have been a lot of foreign development funds sent overseas by the US government over the
years and the general effect is either nothing or negative. You know there are a
few examples of these development funds actually helping people, helping economic
development, but they're few and far between and we don't, the government
really doesn't know how to do that well, and I don't think they're going to figure it out.
So a lot of the money spent on that is just not going to be effective,
and they're frankly just not going to spend enough to potentially make it effective.
Secondly, if it is effective, because Guatemala is so poor,
actually increasing their income by several thousand dollars per capita
would lead to
more immigration from Guatemala because one of the things holding people back is the fact
that they're so poor.
So we see this general trend around the world which is sort of out migration from a country
peaks when that country's income is between about $8,000 to $10,000 per year, adjusted
for purchasing power parity, that's the cost of living in the united states so in some of these countries actually increasing income increasing per capita
gdp in the short run could actually incentivize more immigration because you're having more money
go to poor people who now would have the opportunity and the means to leave because
immigrating isn't cheap right it takes a lot a lot of money. It takes a lot of resources. You have to take time off work. You have to pay a smuggler. You have to
pay visa fees. You have to buy tickets. And so we're at this situation where, you know,
increasing the income in some of these countries will actually lead to more people leaving.
I think just, I guess, full transparency, my position on this bill and writing about this bill
has been relatively positive. I mean, I think I generally support a pathway to citizenship for
the 11 million undocumented immigrants who are here. And from reading your writing, I get the
sense that you're sort of in a similar place. Obviously, I mean, just talking to you now,
it's clear that the general outlines of the bill are something you think on the whole are good, even if you sort of dock at points for not being politically feasible.
So I want to be conscious of the fact that a lot of Americans and a lot of my listeners and readers don't feel that way. And I'm interested to hear from you, you know, what's your pitch to people
who are saying, look, like we're in the middle of a global pandemic. Americans are seeing the
highest unemployment rates they've seen in years. And, you know, we have this really viral disease
kind of wreaking havoc on the country, opening the floodgates right now and giving mass amnesty
and encouraging migrants to make the trek here seems like a really dangerous thing to do.
Not even in, you know, I don't mean to be scare tactic about it, but the fundamentals of it,
the economics of it, the idea of, you know, having like an open door, quote unquote, policy on the southern border.
I get those concerns. I think that they are they're fair concerns. And I'm wondering what
your response to that is. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of those concerns are fair. And I think one
of the roles of the government is to make sure that immigrants don't violate the rights of
Americans once they're here. And that includes, I think, by spreading disease.
So I think, you know, immigrants who are sick,
who have diseases,
maybe even during the duration of this pandemic,
we shouldn't have a much more liberal immigration policy
as long as this pandemic is a serious threat,
as long as vaccinations aren't being rolled out.
So I'm willing totally to concede that point.
But on the point of amnesty, right? I mean, these amnesties are people who are already here.
So they're already working in the labor market here. They're already inside of the country.
So making it legal for them to work, bringing them above board, giving them work permits,
et cetera, would allow the government to actually know who they are and to
more precisely focus in on those who are the actual national security threats or the actual criminal threats who are actually bad people who are here to violate our rights because that's a
small number of them. So if we can shrink that pool of illegal immigrants by 90, 95, 98 percent
down to the one to two to 5% who we actually don't
want here, that will actually make it a lot easier to improve the quality of immigrants
in the United States rather than having this policy where everyone's illegal and the government
will target them sort of willy-nilly.
But when it comes to sort of the economics of it, right, like the bad job situation, you know, immigrants come in their opportunities.
So they don't come as much during, you know, recessions in the U.S. or depressions or things like that.
It's a self-regulated economic system in a way, just like any kind of market is, like all market economics is.
And what immigrants do is they bring human capital.
They bring human beings to this country who increase
the amount of production they're not just workers they're also consumers they buy things by buying
things here they increase demand for goods and services which increases jobs they start
businesses they work alongside native-born americans and increase the scale and scope
of economic product productivity. So for the
same reason why people are a blessing no matter where they come from, why people are good for the
economy whether they come here by births, by procreation, or by immigration, there's not a
good argument against the increase in the population of the United States. It's all good arguments from the economic perspective.
Yeah, I mean, it's a point I think that I have sort of come to buy into,
but I know is still such a hot topic of debate in the political scene
because there's something just sort of intuitive or it feels like common sense.
Like if these people are coming here who are willing to work for a dollar less an hour under the table,
then how are they not going to undermine the job opportunities of Americans who are here?
I mean, that it seems almost hard to believe.
Yeah, I mean, I get that. And I would say the reason why they're willing to work under the
table is because a lot of them are illegal immigrants. So the evidence is pretty clear
that when you compare a legal immigrant to an illegal immigrant, who's the same in every other
way, right from the same country, same education, same age, same number of years in the United States,
the illegal immigrant is paid about 11% lower than the legal immigrant because it's risky for the employer to employ that person. So they have to pay them a little bit less. So the employer
pays them less to compensate themselves for the risk of hiring them. What's interesting is
legalizing those people gets rid of that incentive to work under the table entirely and brings their wages up to what any other person would get paid in that circumstance.
So it's something where legality, bringing it above board, bringing them into the legal market will solve a lot of those problems because those immigrants once they're here you know they want to maximize their income they didn't leave their home countries their families their cultures their language
their religions behind uh to come here and uh get paid less than everybody else here you know they
came here to get paid more and if they can get paid you know a few dollars more an hour there's
no incentive for them to want to be underpaid in the same way there's no incentive for them to want to be underpaid. In the same way, there's no incentive for you or me or any other rational economic actor to want to be paid lower than
anybody else. You know, one of the things about this bill that stuck out to me and that I wrote
about that I found to be an overwhelming positive was a call to expand the number of immigration
judges in the U.S. And this is something that I've written about in the past
that sort of always seemed like a no-brainer to me because my sense is that with fewer judges,
it's harder for asylum seekers who are here, you know, making legitimate asylum claims to make
their case in front of a court. It's easier for people who might be criminals or dangerous and
coming here illegally to get lost in the system. It's this sort people who might be criminals or dangerous and coming here illegally
to get lost in the system. It's this sort of cyclical thing where then the backlog just grows
and grows and grows. Am I right there? I mean, is that instinct accurate? Do you feel like
expanding the number of immigration judges in the U.S. will have a really positive impact on the
system? So I'm torn on that.
It depends entirely upon the policies that the judges are actually enforcing.
So during the Trump years, when he basically massively restricted asylum and you had this
huge court backlog of, you know, what is it?
1.2 million, I think, by the end of the Trump administration.
That backlog, I think, helped in the sense that people who were going to get their claims denied
and then were going to be removed from the United States or deported from the United States,
they had several years before that would happen.
And that was due entirely to the backlog.
On the other hand, people who have legitimate claims to be able to be here under the law,
who are waiting for that legal work authorization, who are waiting to get out from under that shadow, they also have to wait years.
So it's really like this double-edged sword, right?
What I would love to see is much less reason for judges to play the important role in the immigration system that they do, right?
the important role in the immigration system that they do, right?
Like a simplification, an expansion, and a legalization without having to run everybody through sort of an immigration court,
I think would be the best way to try to do that.
But, you know, I agree with you now.
Like, I think the immigration policy is going to improve over the next four years.
So more judges might be a blessing in the near future.
But if another president who supports immigration restrictions improve over the next four years. So more judges might be a blessing in the near future.
But if another president who supports immigration restrictions as much as Donald Trump gets
into office, you know, having fewer judges might actually be a blessing in disguise,
even though it creates all this administrative inefficiency.
You know, when we when we talk about this bill and so far with you and I, we're focusing
a lot, I think, on the border with Mexico, the southwestern border, you know, migrants coming from South Central America.
What's your insight into how this bill is going to impact other immigrants?
Obviously, a lot of illegal immigrants are here because they have overstayed visas.
And I know this bill is getting quite a bit of attention from the big tech industry, this market that has a vested interest in bringing in skilled workers. What do we know about the Biden plan so far as it relates to this other element of immigration?
So the Biden plan is fairly conservative on the legal immigration side for these high skilled workers.
side for these high skilled workers. It does increase the number of green cards, which is great, but it does it primarily through
recapturing green cards that weren't used in the past, so about 200,000 of them, and
also by exempting the spouses and minor children of the skilled immigrants from the cap.
So as it works right now, there's 140,000 green cards issued annually to high-skilled
immigrants, but that also includes the immediate relatives and family members of those high-skilled
immigrants. So that in practice, only something like 44% of them actually go to the workers
themselves and the rest are for their family members. So what the Biden plan would do is it would essentially double those numbers
by exempting the family members from the requirement of getting a green card through that system
and just grant them automatic green cards that don't come from any kind of capped category.
So it basically doubles it that way.
However, the bill, at least as we've seen in the outline,
would not increase the number of h-1b visas which
are temporary worker visas for high skilled workers it wouldn't do anything to increase
those numbers unfortunately so you know it's sort of a mixed blessing on this on this regard
uh it does a lot to help with green cards but not as much as other bills. And it doesn't do anything to expand
legal immigration for temporary workers. And that's really, I think, a lost opportunity.
It could do a lot more in that regard. Alex, one last question and we'll let you go.
You know, the next couple of weeks, obviously, everybody seems to be feeling out how this
plan is being received and who's going to get on board.
You know, what are you keeping your eye on over the next few weeks?
Where are you going to be sort of having your ear to the ground
to get an idea of what the future of immigration looks like in the U.S.?
I'm going to be following Senator Bob Menendez from New Jersey,
who is supposed to be in charge of this bill,
to see what he says, to see what he says,
to see what he tweets, and then to hear what Democratic staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee and others up there and both the House and the Senate are saying about this.
I suspect that a lot of it will not be very positive. We're going to see a lot of delays.
But those are the people who I'm going to be watching.
Alex, thank you so much for joining us. Super informative. And we'll be keeping an eye on you
for readers and listeners who want to check out your work. Where's the best place to find you?
So please check out my page on Cato's website. That's C-A-T-O dot org. Also,
on Cato's website.
That's C-A-T-O dot org.
Also, check me out on Twitter at Alex Narasta.
That's at A-L-E-X-N-O-W-R-A-S-T-E-H.
And you can see all of my writings, research, and arguments up there.
Awesome.
Alex, thank you so much for the time.
I really appreciate it. You're welcome. And thanks a bunch for having me.