David Webb Gets it Right on Refugees - It’s About Economics Not Emotion

David Webb at CPAC

During his final segment yesterday (April 16) David Webb hit the nail right smack on the head during a back and forth with his guest, Jenny Yang, Senior Vice President for Advocacy & Policy, World Relief. World Relief is a church based charity organization that (from their website).

World Relief empowers the local church to serve the most vulnerable.

We partner with churches and communities around the world to provide vital programs and create lasting change

Ms. Yang herself, has a very impressive resume which can also be seen on the World Relief Leadership page.

Ms. Yang espouses what at first glance, seemes to be a reasonable position—a position common to many faith based charitable organizations who follow the Biblical, personal mandate to “Welcome the Stranger.” She spoke of how her organization worked within the laws of the United States to help refugees. In most instances they attempt to place these refugees with friends or family already living here and who could support them until they could find a job and support themselves.

In doing so, World Relief and Ms. Yang err by essentially commingling personal wealth and responsibilities covered by Christ’s teachings, with responsibilities of the public at large. I personally believe is noble to offer your own home, food and other things that you own to a stranger in need. I fail to see any nobility however, in forcing your neighbor to do so, either directly or via taxpayer funded services—or even more indirectly but still bad, distorting the job market by depressing wages and/or increasing American unemployment, especially at the margins.

Webb was blunt, “I don’t care about the emotion. I care about the economics.” He went on to explain that each and every job that for whatever reason, legal & moral or illegal & immoral, taken by an immigrant, is one job lost to an American. He is dead right. It’s a one for one swap when an Alien, legal, illegal or refugee takes a job from an American citizen.

Unfortunately due to time constraints (Mr Webb had to leave early for an event at the White House) Mr. Webb & Ms. Yang were unable to dive deeper into the details. Webb got a good start by positing a one for one swap in the job pool—Alien for American. Here’s the part I would hope they would have gotten to given more time.

The number of aliens we can allow in the U.S. without damaging our job market and economy and/or overloading our social safety net, is limited. That number does not change based on the status of the applicant. This is where politicians love to play the shell game with terms in order to hide the actual truth, like they do when they conflate wealth and income when discussing tax rates.

Every year, the United States legally admits several classes of aliens based on skill sets, relatives (chain migration) and a lottery system. That total number is (allegedly) based on the number of aliens our economy needs, can support and (again, allegedly) does no harm to the Americans and legal immigrants already here.

The political, administrative and business establishments are deliberately failing to account for illegal aliens and refugee applicants at our southern border. If we were doing this properly (we wouldn’t be admitting “refugees” from the South in the first place) for each border jumper or “refugee” applicant, we would decrement the number of “legal” immigrants for that year. (Full disclosure: To my knowledge, David Webb has not advocated for this.)

Of course if we tried this, the left would be up in arms. Legal suits and injunctions from the Ninth Circuit would fly. However, much like President Trump’s recent “threat” to send “refugee” candidates to sanctuary cities to await their court dates, this could have the effect of getting a real conversation going—a real conversation based on facts and demonstrated consequences of an unregulated flow of aliens into the U.S. economy. I mean, if a well known leftist like Cher can tweet:

“I Understand Helping struggling Immigrants,but MY CITY (Los Angeles) ISNT TAKING CARE OF ITS OWN.WHAT ABOUT THE 50,000+Citizens WHO LIVE ON THE STREETS.PPL WHO LIVE BELOW POVERTY LINE,& HUNGRY? If My State Can’t Take Care of Its Own(Many Are VETS)How Can it Take Care Of More?”

then we have a good shot at having this conversation. Once the leftists lose Cher on a particular issue, it’s pretty apparent that their position is crumbling on that same issue.

David Webb is on Sirius 125 M-F 9:00-12:00 AM. Give him a listen. He has a great knack for boiling down issues to their essentials.

Mike Ford is a retired Infantry Officer who writes on Military, Foreign Affairs and occasionally dabbles in Political and Economic matters.

Follow him on Twitter: @MikeFor10394583

You can find his other Red State work here.

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