Biden’s border surge reverses the trend in immigrants’ educational levels

A new report released on Thursday shows that President Biden’s new wave of illegal immigrants has thrown the demographics of immigration into disarray and sent education levels tumbling. The report raised serious questions about the ability of the country to absorb these newcomers.

The Center for Immigration Studies reports that there are now 13.7 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. and 51.42 million immigrants total. This is an increase of 6.4 million since Mr. Biden assumed office. This is an average of 172,000 new immigrants per month. That’s four times as many as in the Trump era and almost three times more than in the Obama era.

The majority of new arrivals come from Latin America, and 3.7 millions of them arrived illegally. A staggering 44% of immigrants have not completed high school and many others did not even finish high school.

Education is the best predictor for how you will do in the United States. What type of job you will do. What you will earn. What percentage will be living in poverty or close to it. “What fraction will qualify for welfare programs, especially their children,” said Steven A. Camarota.

In 2018, 55% had a Bachelor’s Degree. This has now dropped to 41%. According to Mr. Camarota, the percentage of people who did not complete high school rose from 29% up to 44%. These changes undermine a key selling point of those who support high immigration rates.

“The improvement in education levels of recent immigrants is a very good sign that a smaller percentage of new arrivals are likely to struggle with the United States. “But that’s all changed now, at least temporarily,” he said.

With a ratio of 15.5%, the U.S. has now achieved the highest proportion of immigrants in its populace, an increase of nearly 2 percentage points from 2020. The previous record was 14,8% in 1890.

Mr. Camarota stated that the U.S. has already reached 15.5%, which is a record for the country.

New calculations are being made amid a heated debate about immigrants’ contribution to the U.S. economic system.

The Congressional Budget Office says that the growth of gross domestic product over the past two years has been surprisingly strong. They attribute this to the influx of immigrants. The increase in population will boost the productivity of the nation.

Cristobal Ramon, Viktor Olah, and other authors wrote for Unidos, an important Hispanic rights organization, that recent immigrants will benefit the U.S. economy as they integrate in the labor market, and become indispensable to the U.S. work force, just like previous migrants from the Latino community.

Camarota says that workers are not better off.

The new arrivals have a 1% increase in GDP, but a 2% increase in population. The gains are spread over a larger number of people.

“Immigration increases the GDP per capita and makes it larger,” said Mr. Camarota.

Some Americans will be better off, but immigrants with lower levels of education who are now competing against more Americans at similar levels of education, may end up being worse off.

Mr. Camarota, who has closely tracked the numbers for the past few years.

The Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey provides monthly reports. The same dataset is used to calculate unemployment rates each month.

The numbers provide a new perspective on the situation at the border. Homeland Security recorded 9 million encounters between unauthorized migrants and Border Patrol since February 2021 – the first month of Mr. Biden’s tenure.

Many were sent back by the government or removed quickly, while others fled on their own. Some of the undocumented population became legal and some died.

This results in a net increase of 3.7 million illegal immigrants.

Camarota believes that the CPS tends to underestimate illegal immigrants.