20 United States The EconomistFebruary 15th 2020
2 graphically. According to research by Wil-
liam Frey of the Brookings Institution, a
think-tank, five big metro areas saw abso-
lute declines in their foreign-born popula-
tions in 2010-18. Wages in those areas are
now rising by 5% a year, according to our
calculations. Cleveland, which is in one
such area, has pockets of severe poverty but
seems to be doing better than before. Many
of the city centre’s astonishingly grand
buildings are being converted into luxury
lofts for millennials.
The apparent short-term boost to wages
may encourage politicians to go further.
Inspired by the president, some Republi-
can senators are pushing to cut immigra-
tion by half in order, they say, to boost
workers’ wages. But several recently pub-
lished academic papers, looking at other
occasions when America has clamped
down on immigration, suggest that theseepisodes ultimately offer little benefit to
native workers—and may even harm them.
Restrictions on Chinese labourers were
some of America’s earliest anti-immigra-
tion measures. Mary Coolidge, who wrote
one of the world’s first studies of the effect
of immigration on pay, could see no benefit
to the expulsion. The perceived decline in
wages in California which had motivated
the reform, she argued in 1909, was “due to
a number of causes with which Chinese
competition had nothing to do.” Expulsion
did little to raise earnings. A few decades
later America enacted its first big immigra-
tion reform, shutting out immigrants from
Europe for the first time. A paper released
inDecember,byRanAbramitzkyofStan-
fordUniversityandcolleagues,findsthatafter the border closure of the 1920s the oc-
cupation based earnings of native-born
workers actually declined.
Giovanni Peri of the University of Cali-
fornia, Davis, and his colleagues find that
during the Depression state and local gov-
ernments sent up to 500,000 residents of
Mexican descent to Mexico, a move intend-
ed to boost American wages. Cities subject
to a larger number of repatriations saw lit-
tle change or even declines in native em-
ployment and wages. Another paper, by
Michael Clemens of the Centre for Global
Development and two colleagues, looks at
the expulsion of 500,000 Mexican season-
al workers in the 1960s, concluding that the
exclusion “did not increase the employ-
ment or wages of native workers”.
The lesson from all these papers is that,
over time, the economy adjusts to a fall in
the number of immigrants. In the short
term, native workers may well see a wage
boost as labour supply falls. But businesses
then reorient production towards less la-
bour-intensive products; natives take jobs
previously occupied by foreign-born folk,
which may be worse paid; and bosses in-
vest in labour-saving machinery, which
can reduce the pay of remaining workers.
Even the apparent short-term benefits
to wages are a poor economic argument for
tough immigration restrictions. Migrants
have economic effects far beyond the la-
bour market. They spur innovation and en-
trepreneurship and they help create trade
links between America and their home
countries. Both low- and high-skilled mi-
gration are linked with higher productivity.
As America ages, it will need a lot more
people willing to work in health care. Study
after study finds a positive association be-
tween immigration and long-run eco-
nomic growth—and therefore, ultimately,
the living standards of all Americans. The
Trump administration’s immigration re-
strictionism may achieve a temporary
boost in wages of the low-paid now, but at a
cost to the country’s future prosperity. 7A smaller horde from abroad
United States, foreign-born population
By decade*, % of total populationSources:USCensus;“TheEffects
ofImmigrationontheEconomy:
Lessons from the 1920s Border
Closure”, R. Abramitzky et al.†The Economist
estimates for 2018-*Annualafter 201615129630
1850 1900 50 20†................................................................
For more on this story listen to
Economist.com/podcast/checksandbalanceS
usan collins, amoderateRepublican
senator from Maine, voted to acquit
Donald Trump in his impeachment trial.
“I believe the president has learned from
this case,” she said, before downgrading
that “belief” to a “hope”. On February 12th
a reporter asked Mr Trump what lesson
he had learned from impeachment.
“That the Democrats are crooked,” he
replied. “That they’re vicious.” Welcome
to the retribution project.
First Mr Trump showed that he would
retaliate against those who testify
against him. On February 7th he fired
Gordon Sondland, America’s ambassador
to the eu, who had told Congress that
“everyone was in the loop” regarding
efforts to pressure Volodymyr Zelensky,
Ukraine’s president.
That same day Alexander Vindman, a
lieutenant-colonel who had told Con-
gress that Mr Trump’s call to Mr Zelensky
was “inappropriate”, was removed from
the National Security Council (nsc). Mr
Trump suggested that the army should
consider disciplinary action. Mr Vind-
man’s brother was also removed from his
nscjob. Robert O’Brien, Mr Trump’s
national security adviser, defended the
dismissals, saying that America is “not a
country where a bunch of lieutenant-
colonels can get together and decide
what the policy is of the United States.”
Then Mr Trump showed he will help
those who break the law on his behalf. On
February 11th four federal prosecutors
abruptly withdrew from the case against
Roger Stone, a sometime adviser to MrTrump,aftertheDepartment of Justice
pushed for him to receive a lighter sen-
tence. Mr Stone was convicted of seven
felonies related to his obstruction of
Robert Mueller’s inquiry and facing a
sentence of up to nine years.
On the same day Jessie Liu—who as
usAttorney for Washington, dc, oversaw
the prosecutions of several Trump asso-
ciates, including Mr Stone and Paul
Manafort—learned that the administra-
tion had withdrawn her nomination to a
Treasury Department post. Last month
she was removed from her former posi-
tion and replaced by a top aide to William
Barr, Mr Trump’s attorney-general.
The Department of Justice is not
meant to be like other departments of the
federal government, which jump when
the president claps. But that distinction
seems to have vanished. Mr Trump
tweeted that the prosecutors’ recom-
mendation of up to nine years for Mr
Stone was “horrible and very unfair”.
Later that day the government filed an
amended sentencing request. It argued
that the court should consider Mr Stone’s
“advanced age, health, personal circum-
stances and lack of criminal history”, that
the initial recommendation “could be
considered excessive and unwarranted”,
and that “it is unclear to what extent the
defendant’s obstructive conduct actually
prejudiced the government at trial”. As it
happened, that same morning Mr Barr
gave a speech to a group of sheriffs blast-
ing “rogue das who undermine” law
enforcement with lenient sentencing.DepartmentofSelectiveJustice
Political revengeWASHINGTON, DC
Acquittal has emboldened Donald Trump