The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Half A Million Immigrants Get the Boot || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Our next Live Q&A on Patreon is here! On April 9, Peter will join the Analyst members on Patreon for question time! In order to get in on the fun, join the 'Analyst tier' on Patreon before April 9.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanThe Trump administration has decided to rescind legal status for over half a million immigrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Haiti. If you've listened to any of my videos, you’ll know there are some glaring holes in this decision.Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/immigration-and-auto-tariffs

Hey, Peter Zine here coming to you from a hotel room. I don't have a lot of time today, so packing up while I do this. Okay, so the issue is, I see, today is the 25th of March, and yesterday the Trump administration rescinded legal status for 530,000 immigrants, specifically from Venezuela, Nicaragua, some from Haiti. Two big problems here. The first is that we are in a labor crunch. We have record low unemployment and pulling a half a million people who were participating in the labor force kind of problem. You see, these were not your normal people who crossed up the border. These are people who got the little dispensation from the Biden administration, not just to come here, but for them to come here, they had to register with authorities, have an interview with Department of Immigration, have a financial sponsor. And so they were integrated to the system. They had passed checks.

So we've basically done all the work necessary to make them citizens. and then at the last segment, we're like, psych, so unless they've already proceeded on to the next step, they now have to go home. That's a problem one. Remember, we need to double the size at the industrial plant, if we're going to be ready for the Chinese collapse. That means a lot of construction.

That means a lot of people building things. And as a rule, construction is a sector where most American citizens don't want to work. So this is a real problem for the labor force. So to invest all of this time and effort and money and man hours and making these people ready and then kicking them out the last second, that's just a waste. Second problem is legalities and not the legalities of doing. This president obviously has the authority. The problem is on the other side.

You see, when you're legal, when you're in the system, you can get bank account. You can own property. You can register for health care. You can send your kids to school without having to worry about pulling them out the next day. And when you're in that sort of environment, law enforcement is a resource you can draw upon. So, for example, if you're illegal, illegal, you're in the cash economy. And that means that everyone in your area who knows you're not illegal migrant, knows that you basically deal with cash. And as a result, you've identified yourself as someone to rob.

And if you are robbed, you don't go to law enforcement because you're afraid you might get to hoarding. So for these 530,000 people, they weren't in that category. They were for as far as we can tell, law-abiding immigrants. And that means that now the Trump administration has basically penalized a half a million people for following the law, which means that the next half a million that come will probably not make the same mistake. This is an issue that we have had pretty chronically since the 1980s when the Reagan administration was the last administration to go through and change the legal structures for migration. We haven't really given what be migrants an incentive to participate with the system. And this sort of thing is definitely going to accentuate that problem.

Keep in mind that within the last month, the Trump administration has started arresting. would be migrants that have also participated with the system through the CBB app, arresting them on their way to their court hearings where they were supposed to be ruled upon whether or not they were legal or not, just grabbing them and send them home. So the next wave is definitely going to cross illegally and form an underclass in American society. And as we've seen with the phase one of the Trump administration four years ago, the wall did wonders for encouraging illegal migration, made it a lot easier because the sonorical. and in the Chihuahuan deserts are the greatest natural barriers in the hemisphere,

and by building 50 construction roads across the desert to build the wall, we basically obviated half of the barrier. This is definitely going to take advantage of that when we get our next big wave, which will probably happen as soon as the migrants can figure out how to navigate the new system, which, historically speaking, takes about a year or two, so we won't have to wait too long.