Trump's sly attempt to pit Hispanics, African-Americans against immigrants
Almost as an afterthought near the end of his nationally televised address on what he calls the "border crisis," President Donald Trump remembered his black and Hispanic constituents and what's good for us -- as he sees it.
"(A)ll Americans are hurt by uncontrolled illegal migration. It strains public resources and drives down jobs and wages," he said from behind his Oval Office desk. "Among those hardest hit are African-Americans and Hispanic Americans."
As an African-American who cares about closing income gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged groups, I appreciated the shoutout, even if it seemed to contradict his usual sunny boasts about black and Hispanic employment climbing to record highs under his watch.
History shows the public tends to turn against immigrants at times of high unemployment, quite the opposite of the currently vigorous national employment rates.
Presidents have a right to toot their own horns during good economic times because, heaven knows, they'll get the blame when things turn sour.
In that spirit, it's only fair to mention that the upward trajectory of black, Hispanic and every other group's employment rates has continued a climb that began under President Barack Obama, six years before Trump took office.
With that in mind, Trump's highlighting unemployed black and Hispanic workers as victims of illegal immigration unfortunately suggests a new version of an old sneaky divide-and-conquer political tactic: Turn one disadvantaged group against another through half-truths and stereotypes.
While there is little argument that a growing percentage of low-skilled immigrants undercuts the job supply and pay for low-skilled Americans, some researchers also have found that an increase in the labor supply through immigration often generates more jobs in the long run.
A 2016 University of Pennsylvania study, for example, found more jobs generated in home construction and food production. As Treva Lindsey, an Ohio State associate professor in women's gender and sexuality studies, told The Washington Post, "Simply put, more demand for goods and services means greater demand for those providing those goods and services."
Yet, the health of that job-creating engine is hardly helped by the fact that 800,000 government workers' paychecks are held up by the partial government shutdown, which was triggered by deadlocked negotiations over the president's proposed border wall -- or, as he put it on Christmas day, "a wall, a fence or whatever they'd like to call it."
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