The Economic Power of Immigrants

Robert Hunziker

 August 14, 2026

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Image by Barbara Burgess.

Immigrants have been horribly mischaracterized by shameful deceiving politicians looking for cheap political gains, an American tragedy happening right under all our noses. It’s a horrible mistake that’s destined to hurt America’s economy and Wall Street.

America’s economy cannot function very well without immigrants. Currently, the US economy is threatened with contraction by loss of immigrant entrants. This will cripple the economy.

One of America’s best kept secrets: Immigrants are among America’s most productive resources and a bonanza for growth.

Immigrants strengthen America.

Immigrants Contribute $14.5 Trillion Fiscal Surplus to US Economy

According to Brookings Institution d/d March 30, 2026, The Impact of Immigrants on the US Economy: “Immigrants are a fiscal boon to the U.S. In a new report released by the Cato Institute, the authors update a model created by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to examine the impacts of immigrants on the U.S. government’s budget. Their findings are clear: In each year from 1994 to 2023, across all levels of government, immigrants paid more in taxes than they received in benefits. This resulted in a cumulative fiscal surplus of $14.5 trillion in real 2024 U.S. dollars over that period, including savings on interest payments on the national debt.”

Undocumented Immigrants Pay $90 Billion in Taxes

According to The Council on Foreign Relations d/d Dec. 4, 2025, How Does Immigration Affect the U.S. Economy? “Immigrants- totaling almost 48 million out of a population of roughly 335 million people – generated about $1.7 trillion in economic activity in 2023, according to an American Immigration Council analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey that year. They also paid roughly $652 billion in local, state, and federal taxes. Undocumented immigrants, meanwhile, held $299 billion in spending power in 2023, and undocumented households had a combined income of nearly $389 billion – paying close to $90 billion in taxes.”

Immigration Reduction: “Not Helpful for US-Born Workers”

According to Forbes d/d Feb. 22, 2025: New Research Finds Reducing Immigration Does Not Help U.S. Workers:

“New research confirms that reducing immigration is not good for the economy or U.S. workers. In recent weeks, several studies have concluded that the United States would prosper by welcoming more immigrants rather than reducing their entry and engaging in mass deportation. The latest economic data show that U.S.-born workers did not benefit from a decline in foreign-born workers in 2025.”

2025 First Immigrant Decline in 50 Years – Bad for US Economy

According to Pew Research Center d/d Aug. 21, 2025, based upon Census Bureau data effective June 2025: “After more than 50 years of rapid growth, the nation’s immigrant population is now in decline.”

Immigrant population decline negatively impacts the US economy, according to Brookings Institute studies: (1) immigrants contribute more in tax revenue than they receive in public benefits, creating a fiscal surplus (2) immigrants serve a critical, absolutely necessary, role in mitigating the economic effect of an aging population, by increasing share of working-age people to support social programs (3) immigrants positively impact economic growth by expanding labor force, increasing consumer demand.

CBO: Increasing Immigration “Grows the Economy”

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirms that cutting off the immigrant pipeline “slows down the national economy and raises prices for consumers.”

According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Economic Analysis: Sharp reductions in net immigration and enforcement crackdowns shrink the overall labor force and slow economic and GDP growth. Conversely, prior CBO reports noted that elevated immigration flows expanded the labor pool, boosted tax revenues, and increased economic output.

Immigrants Create Tremendous Entrepreneurial Value

New research concludes that immigrants have founded or cofounded most of America’s privately held startup companies valued at $1 billion or more. The role of immigrant entrepreneurs receives little attention in daily press coverage. Immigrants have founded or cofounded 59% (455 of 775) of America’s privately held startup companies valued at $1 billion or more,” according to a new National Foundation for American Policy analysis.” (Source: Immigrants Are Founders of Most U.S. Billion-Dollar Companies, Forbes, June 3, 2026)

Alas, Immigrant Entrepreneurs Hit Brick Wall with New Trump Regs

In March 2026 the U.S. Small-Business Agency for the first time in history stopped approving loans to firms not fully owned by U.S. citizens. “The change is part of the quieter side of the Trump administration’s push to discourage immigration. As many agencies have limited how noncitizens can qualify for programs — like housing subsidies or commercial trucking licenses — the SBA moved to do the same… ‘It was a bit of a shock to the system,’ said Eda Henries, who runs a firm that helps small businesses raise and manage funds. ‘No one even thought for a second that would be on the table. No one expected that it would include legal permanent residents… In announcing the policy change, the SBA referred to permanent residents as ‘foreign nationals.’ And the head of the agency, Kelly Loeffler, has argued they shouldn’t benefit from American taxpayer dollars, though permanent residents pay taxes to the U.S. government just as citizens do.” (Source: Door Shuts on Some Immigrant Entrepreneurs as U. S. Restricts Small-Business Loans, NPR, June 12, 2026)

Mass Deportations Clobber GDP & Boost Inflation

“Mass deportations significantly reduce the U.S. labor supply, contract real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by multiple percentage points and drive-up consumer prices in labor-intensive sectors like agriculture, construction, and caregiving.” (Source: The Economic Impact of Mass Deportations, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2026)

Immigrants – Important Driving Force of Growth

Unfortunately, “President Trump’s actions to reduce immigration resulted in net international migration dropping from 2.7 million in July 2024 to 1.3 million in June 2025.” (Immigrants Make the Labor Market Great, Center for American Progress, March 6, 2026).

“Immigration is the driving force behind America’s labor supply growth, accounting for about half of labor force growth each year for the past three decades and an even larger share in recent years. The U.S. population is aging, with deaths expected to exceed births by 2030. In an economy with low birth rates, immigration is an integral component of America’s labor supply. If reductions to immigration continue this aggressive path, negative job growth could become the new normal,” Ibid.

Immigrant Crime Issue, a Non-Issue

WASHINGTON, D.C. April 1, 2026— Despite widespread public perception linking immigration to rising crime, immigrants are significantly less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans, according to a recent report by the Cato Institute.

Incarceration Rates

+Native-born Americans: Incarcerated at a rate of 1,195 per 100,000 residents.

+Undocumented immigrants: Incarcerated at a rate of 674 per 100,000, roughly 44% lower than native-born citizens.

+Legal immigrants: Incarcerated at a rate of 303 per 100,000, roughly 75% lower than native-born citizens.

America is safer and economically stronger with immigrant strength.

Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Another Blow Against Pax Americana

John Feffer

 August 14, 2026

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1906 political cartoon depicting Theodore Roosevelt using the Monroe Doctrine to keep European powers out of the Dominican Republic – Public Domain

Remember that photo from Donald Trump’s first overseas trip as president back in 2017?

The new president was in Riyadh. Instead of going to Europe or Japan or Canada, Trump was making his first presidential trip to Saudi Arabia. And there he was, at the opening of a new World Center for Countering Extremist Thought, flashing his trademark smirk as he put his hands on a glowing orb that represented the globe. Next to him, their hands also on the magic ball, were the Saudi king and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

The three leaders looked like they were in a film, playing an evil trio plotting to take over the world. Twitter lit up with comparisons to the three witches from Macbeth. It was a terrifying irony that Trump and company were inaugurating a center for “countering extremist thought” since they all three, in their own way, represented the promotion of extremist thought.

This appearance in Saudi Arabia was effectively Trump’s announcement that the liberal international order was over. The new president didn’t want to associate with European liberals or Japanese democrats or Canadian moderates. He preferred the company of a military strongman from Egypt and a religious autocrat from Saudi Arabia. Their hands on the globe symbolized their desire to spin the world in a different direction.

A decade later, Trump can still be judged by the company he keeps. He’s buddies with war criminals like Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He’s tight with autocrats like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, and Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman.

But, increasingly, even the autocrats are leery of Trump. Sure, no one wants to piss off Trump since, after all, he controls both nukes and tariffs. But the U.S. president is unpredictable and, frankly, erratic. Richard Nixon pretended, more or less, to be a madman in the 1970s so that the North Vietnamese would not be able to predict his next move in the war. Trump is probably not pretending. Other leaders are playing it safe by quietly treating him like a lunatic.

In 2017, the autocrats couldn’t wait to visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago and then return the favor by inviting him to join their clubs, like the absurdly titled World Center for Countering Extremist Thought. But now, a decade later, some authoritarian countries like India and Russia haven’t even joined Trump’s Board of Peace.

More concerning, at least from the point of view of an American exceptionalist, are the clubs that have been set up to exclude the United States. And that’s where the new Mecca Defense Pact comes in.

It’s Our Party

Last week, Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia signed a mutual security pact in which they pledged to come to each other’s defense in the event of an attack. The new alliance is built on a bilateral agreement signed last year between Islamabad and Riyadh.

Two things are significant about this announcement. The first is that three U.S. military allies have decided that they shouldn’t rely overmuch on Washington for their security. Instead, they will increasingly rely on each other.

Second, this new pact won’t stop at three. The next member will likely be Egypt, which already consults with the other three countries in an arrangement called R4. Also likely to join at a certain point will be Gulf countries like Qatar and Kuwait.

This “Mecca Defense Pact” amounts to a strategic convergence of Sunni-majority countries. It also brings together three largely authoritarian countries, with Turkey subject to the whims of its leader, Pakistan dominated by its military, and Saudi Arabia functioning as a religious monarchy.

The current tripartite alliance is not targeting any particular adversary. But it’s not difficult to guess who they’re thinking about: the three Is of India, Israel, and Iran. These adversaries are a mixed bunch—one majority Hindu, another majority Jewish, a third majority Shia—with no likelihood of responding with their own military pact. They don’t constitute a unified threat even if you add the Houthis of Yemen to the mix. And none of these potential adversaries has identified the new pact as adversarial. It’s tempting, then, to dismiss the Mecca pact as just a Sunni friendship alliance, more declarative than substantive.

But if that were the case, the three countries wouldn’t be so eager to include an Article 5-like provision in their pact and, in so doing, challenge certain geopolitical realities. Turkey is a member of NATO, so now it will be committing to fight in wars on several continents? Pakistan is currently trying to mediate in the war involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, so will it now commit to intervene against Tehran the next time Iranian missiles fall on Saudi Arabia? Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has strong economic and military relations with India, so is it now willing to cede all of that to Israel?

All of these complications point to one conclusion. The three countries are willing to make some sacrifices to align against their adversaries, but the real aim is to protect themselves from their ally, the United States. Ever since his first term, Donald Trump has threatened not to uphold U.S. security commitments if countries don’t spend more on their own militaries (NATO), if countries don’t spend more on their alliance commitments (Japan, South Korea), or if countries look at the U.S. president the wrong way (Canada and much of the rest of the world).

Instead of just complaining about U.S. fickleness, the leadership of Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia have decided to do something about it.

Trump’s Version of Globalism

For a guy who has trashed internationalists and globalists, Trump seems to be spending a lot of foreign policy energy on creating new multilateral security arrangements. His Board of Peace, with its 27 members willing to pay the $1 billion entrance fee, is a rather anemic version of the United Nations, but it’s also clear evidence that Trump doesn’t want to go it alone. He wants other countries to follow behind him like ducklings in a row.

Then there are the purpose-built associations. Trump has created a Pax Silica to secure mineral access in friendly countries. This grouping only has 24 members, but they’re powerhouses, including the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India. The U.S. president continues to push forward with his Abrahamic Accords to integrate and elevate Israel in the Middle East. The Quad—India, Australia, Japan, and the United States—is designed to contain the ambitions of China in the Indo-Pacific region.

At the same time, Trump has pushed back against other multilateral efforts. He has pulled the United States out of a plethora of UN institutions, including UNESCO and the World Health Organization. He has threatened the BRICS with economic devastation if they have the temerity to issue a currency to compete with the dollar. He pulled the U.S. delegation out of the last G20 meeting in South Africa and ignored the last Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in South Korea.

The message is clear: it’s my multilateralism or no multilateralism.

So far, the Trump administration seems to view the Mecca Defense Pact as a friendly grouping that can implement the burden-sharing that the president has pressed on U.S. allies. It’s the same kind of tacit approval that the administration has shown the greater coordination between Japan and South Korea or the moves to expand the European Defense Fund.

As with so many things, the Trump administration is failing to read the room. U.S. allies are not openly defying the Trump administration, but they are also not following orders. The actions of these allies, from Europe to Asia to the Middle East, are more akin to family members telling a violent, dangerous, and unhinged father that they’re taking him to a lovely vacation spot when they’re really shipping him off to a lunatic asylum. Papa, still powerful in his dotage, needs his ego stroked and his suspicions allayed before he can be nudged off the stage.

In the global version of Succession that is currently taking place, everyone is making contingency plans. The Mecca pact is just the latest indication that the liberal international order is dying, Pax Americana is on its last legs, and the rough outlines of what comes next is just becoming visible.

John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus, where this article originally appeared.