Anti-immigration mania that captured voters in the last election focused on illegal immigrants suspected of crimes. Whether true or not, and data shows it is not, the focus has shifted to a different immigrant population: International college students.
While technically not immigrants, since they simply obtain visas to attend U.S. colleges, an attempt to ban international students by ending their ability to get visas is only the beginning. Perhaps this requires understanding the risk and reward of international students. They study in the U.S. based on the quality of our universities. While they benefit, so do we.
When we examine risk vs. reward, the risk is truly minimal. The number of international students committing crime is miniscule, and the economic reward is significant. According to the very conservative Cato Institute, on whose board one of the Koch brothers sat, international students total 5% of college students and 27% of graduate students, but contribute $43.8 billion to the U.S. economy.
They also provide leadership for a quarter of all the $1 billion-plus U.S. startups. This leads to massive job creation, and huge financial benefits. Clearly the percent of international students that grow our economy and contribute is staggering. And the full tuition paid by international students cuts the tuition for American students.
So perhaps this is a good time to revisit why we’re targeting international students. Is it part of the war against academia? Perhaps, but it’s more like anti-immigration 2.0. So let’s revisit immigration’s upsides and downsides.
We have close to 50 million immigrants in the U.S. with spending power of $1.6 trillion, paying federal taxes of $390 billion. Recent studies show immigrants bring the U.S. financial gain of $254 billion. In colleges, close to 6 million first- and second-generation immigrants attend, a third of U.S. college students. In one area, immigrants make up 16% of all U.S. nurses.
When we look behind short term financial benefits, nearly a quarter of all patents, the engine of growth, are produced by immigrants, and when we add the immigrants who help file patents by U.S. inventors, the total number of patents rise to 36%.
But what about downsides? Aren’t immigrants tied to crime? That’s what we’d conclude from a scan of rumors on social media.
But, looking beyond rumors, just at facts, a U.S. study shows incarceration rates for immigrants are 33% lower than native-born Americans, in the state of Texas, that sent busloads of immigrants to NYC. U.S.-born citizens in Texas are two times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes than immigrants, two and half times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and four times more likely to be arrested for property crimes.
So where does anti-immigrant fervor come from? Could it be distrust of people who look and sound a bit different from Americans? Probably. But is this level of discrimination new? Hardly.
A century ago, on May 26, 1924, the National Origins Act was signed into law restricting U.S. immigration. When the U.S. was created, America allowed immigrants to enter without restrictions, many from Ireland, England, Germany, Russia, and Italy. From 1850 to 1914 immigrant population rose to 10% and with the growth of jobs it grew in the early 1920’s to 15%, with champions in places like the White House, where President Lincoln, driven by the fact that immigrants represented 20% of the Union Army in the Civil War, was a supporter.
But then, as now, some distrusted immigrants and pushed for restrictions. Restricting immigration for decades dropped the number of immigrants to 4.7% by 1970. The decline hurt our economy and was misguided. In one measure, patents declined by 68%. LBJ and Reagan, who understood all this came from both parties, and the U.S. turned things around, but distrust didn’t end.
Should we restrict international students in the U.S. and immigration overall? Not if we want true economic benefit and educational excellence. If we want a robust economy and no needless cuts to vital services like health care and education, intelligent policies on immigration must be high on our agenda. Does that mean failure to punish those who commit crimes? Of course not.
We need a system that is fair and just and abides by the rule of law and protects a prosperous stable and secure economy for all Americans.
Litow, a professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, is a SUNY Trustee and former president of the IBM Foundation and former NYC deputy schools chancellor.
