NEW JERSEY

Are NJ, Northeast too full for more immigrants, as Trump says?

Mike Davis
Asbury Park Press

While President Donald Trump has argued that the country is too "full" to accept any more immigrants, experts contend that the Northeast would become a ghost town without immigrant growth.

New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware make up some of the nation's most dense and diverse areas, with huge immigrant populations that have grown at an exponential clip compared with the total population: 

  • New Jersey: The 2 million immigrants in the state is the fifth most in the U.S. and represents about 23 percent of the total state population. The number of immigrants grew by 11.4 percent from 2010 to 2017, while the total population grew to over 9 million, up just over 3 percent. 
  • New York: About 4.5 million immigrants (third most) make up about 24 percent of the population. The immigrant population has grown by 5.6 percent since 2010, compared with just 1.37 percent growth in the total population.
  • Pennsylvania: Nearly 900,000 immigrants make up 7 percent of the population, and have grown at a rate of 21 percent since 2010. The total population has grown 1.39 percent.
  • Delaware: About 98,000 immigrants makes up 10.2 percent of the population. The total population has grown 7.9 percent since 2010, while the immigrant population has grown 37 percent.

"You don't get economic growth if you don't have population growth," said Rutgers University Professor James Hughes, dean emeritus of the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. "And if we didn’t have international migration, we’d be losing population. It’s keeping the state on a growth path — but it’s very modest growth."

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Trump's remarks came while calling for the end of "catch and release" immigration enforcement — in which immigration authorities release an immigrant without legal status back into the community while they await the legal process — by stating that the country was "full."

"I told my people yesterday: Our country is full. We're full. Our system is full. Our country is full. You can't come in," Trump said during a speech at the Republican Jewish Conference "Our country is full. What can you do? We can't handle anymore. Our country is full. You can't come in. I'm sorry. It's very simple."

But despite all four states sitting in the Top 10 for population density — New Jersey leads the pack at 1,224.6 people per mile — Hughes said that density isn't a bad thing for economics. 

"If you're a store owner and you're in the middle of nowhere, you've got a problem," he said. 

“We’re getting denser, but there’s a distinction between density and overcrowding,” Hughes said. “And density yields the support base — restaurants. Nightlife. These new populations have purchasing power, and you have to provide the facilities and the real estate.”

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President Donald Trump speaks with members of the US Customs and Border Patrol as he tours the border wall between the United States and Mexico in Calexico, Calif. on April 5, 2019. President Donald Trump landed in California to view newly built fencing on the Mexican border, even as he retreated from a threat to shut the frontier over what he says is an out-of-control influx of migrants and drugs.

But if a state is going to commit to growing its economy, it must grapple with the realities of a growing population, said Rutgers University Professor Jennifer Hunt, a former economist at the Department of Labor.

“Immigration is generally good for the economy, but there’s an assumption built in that the receiving state will be able to deal with increasing population,” Hunt said. “If the population is increasing, you need more schools. You need more public transportation. You need to do a good job with the infrastructure.”

New Jersey is lagging in that regard, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. In 2016, the group awarded a "D+" grade to New Jersey's infrastructure. And the state's public transport system, NJ Transit, has been the target of scorn from Republicans, Democrats and transportation experts alike.

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'New discoveries'

Earlier this month, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the president "liked the idea" of sending unauthorized immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities, municipalities where officials have said they won't fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities, such as ICE. 

But while the Trump Administration's anti-immigrant rhetoric has put nativism in the spotlight since the 2016 presidential campaign, it's far from a new way of thinking.

It's been prominent in the United States for over a century, often targeting the most prominent ethnic group of the day. In the 1800s, Irish immigrants were targeted.

By the 1920s, the rhetoric against Italians and Jews hit such a fever pitch that Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924, which completely banned immigration from Asia and set quotas on immigrants coming from most other countries, specifically those from Eastern and Southern Europe, including Italians and Jews.

Since the 1960s, Latinos have been the country's largest group of immigrants. 

While Hunt said the Trump administration hadn’t “looked at the evidence,” she said the immigration debate would always be subjective. 

For example, about 8 percent of native-born workers are employed in low-skilled jobs that could be “hurt” by an influx of low-skilled immigrants, she said. 

“If that’s what you really care about, it’s a subjective decision,” Hunt said. “I can’t argue with that.”

But often lost in the immigration conversation in the Northeast is its specific reliance on highly-specialized immigrants, she said. And the influx of those workers, often admitted to the United States on H-1B visas, has linked the region's economy to its immigrants even more, she said.

New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are home to nearly 134,000 new, renewed or transferred H-1B visa applicants from other states, according to MyVisaJobs.com, which aggregates visa application data. It represents over 20 percent of all H-1B applicants nationwide.

“The benefit of immigration really comes from immigrants being different from natives. It’s not measured by their wage,” Hunt said. “They have a different set of skills, so everyone can specialize just a little bit more in what they’re really good at. And that’s what makes it more efficient.”

New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania all rank in the top 10 states with new, renewed or transferred H-1B visa applicants, according to MyVisaJobs.

  • New York had 58,660 H-1B applications, third most in the United States
  • New Jersey had 48,365 H-1B applications, fourth most in the United States
  • Pennsylvania had 23,376 H-1B applications, eighth most in the United States, and;
  • Delaware had 3,521 H-1B applications, 26th most in the United States

Hunt's research largely focuses on the relationship between immigration and innovation and economics. And when such highly specialized immigrants come to the United States and file patents for new inventions? They're not replacing the work of native-born inventors.

"On the contrary, these highly-skilled immigrants coming here spurs natives to innovate more," she said. "They’re working together. That input leads to new discoveries.”

    Mike Davis; @byMikeDavis: 732-643-4223; mdavis@gannettnj.com