This all makes me think Democrats need a broader comms campaign showcasing immigrants working alongside Americans, going to church with Americans, embracing American culture. For every right wing media story of some horrific one-off crime, we need 100 stories of somebody eating a cheese burger and praying (not necessarily at the same time but not necessarily NOT at the same time)
We could do a lot of good by making an emphatic case for increasing legal immigration and naturalization by sharing the stories of people who help make our country great
I’m already cringing thinking about what a Dems comm campaign would likely look like in practice, so inclined to agree with uncertainty. But somebody needs to vividly illustrate what immigrants offer America, and I think real world stories will be essential to doing that
I think there's way too much emphasis in The Narrative, and inadequate emphasis on doing good things that you can explain to people are good for them, in short, ordinary sentences. Like "thanks to immigration you can afford day care and social security can stay afloat."
Eh I’m not convinced “immigrants = social security” is inherently more compelling than stories about “your next door neighbor who works late keeping your local grocery store open and has a loving family.” Both might appeal to different audiences, I wouldn’t really classify either as “The Narrative.” Stories can be powerful!
It would be wonderful if the Democratic Party came out as unabashedly pro-immigrant and pro-globalism, but it doesn't feel like that is the direction they are trending. Probably better if there was a well-funded think tank or grassroots organization that made this case and tried to push both parties back from the brink on this stuff.
Also, I am worried that the Dem consultants would mess this up and it would be very cringe.
I know a good number of immigrant families, mosty from Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Mexico. I went to school with their first Gen American kids. Get them on camera and they will be effusive about how much they love this country. I travel to Red America for work with some regularity and I can tell you they absolutely love a patriotic immigrant.
I have seen several viral stories of “hardworking well respected neighbor with loving family gets ruthlessly detained and deported in front of their kids.” Granted I’m not right wing so that might just be my feed, and cheeseburgers and praying aren’t very serious on their own. But emphasizing real stories can be powerful
Moving public opinion is increasingly difficult as the media environment gets fractured. Viral videos are good, but they only go so far. You need a lot of stories. Variety around the stories. And you need them to be relentless to push back on the "immigrants stole our jobs" comment that will continue to get thrown around. The short cut or cheat code of this is celebrity support. Or a leading politician that preaches the message. Or both.
Would be great if there was a 10 million person march on Washington D.C. for National Immigrants Day (October 28th). Though Trump would likely send every ICE agent in the country there.
There may be an opening from the reality of who is getting detained and deported right now sinking in to the members of communities who considered those people to be long standing friends and neighbors but it’s not going to be an easy message despite being super true. What likelihood is there that folks like the Manhattan Institute will be willing to tell this story from the right?
Great and really important post!! It really does feel like most media orgs are ignoring/underreporting this story, either because they want to tack to the center by throwing immigrants under the bus, or because they don’t really care that much about economic growth.
I comment pretty regularly at the Dispatch. Their comment section I would say is by and large pretty to very conservative (note: that has very little to do with being a Repbulican in the year of our lord 2025).
I was suprised to find I think you could get that group of people (admittedly not a huge group in todays world) to support amnesty and permanent status with no path to citzenship (a fine is also somthing that comes up a lot) and vastly increased legal immigration for work It isn't my dream solution but it certainly isn't terrible either.
They also were extremely upset by the border situation under Biden. Can argue all day about it but having a border that can reasonaly be percieved as out of control really bothers lots of reasonable people
Yeah another interesting thing about that crowd is that there are VERY few Trump voters but not many more Harris voters. Plenty view Trump as dangerous and beyond the pale but still are nowhere near voting for anyone who stinks off progressivism at all
I was bothered by the border, and I think I'm pretty reasonable overall. I don't like the idea of asylum as a back-door way to come in either. I think if people see that the flows in are well controlled, there will be more openness to immigration (eventually).
It really depends on the immigrant, right? Some immigrants are huge economic contributors who pay lots of taxes, start businesses, and employ Americans. But some immigrants cost more than they provide. If you are focusing on economic impact it makes a lot of sense to encourage high value immigrants like more O1s and discourage channels like asylum.
I actually had a section on that in the draft, but removed it because it's a complicated, technical topic on its own and I want to devote a followup piece to it.
I think the short version is: Some people have argued migrants with a high school education or less tend cost more than they pay back in taxes their lifetime, but the the calculations that get you there rely on a lot of different assumptions that don't necessarily hold up, and tend to downplay the positive impacts of a larger, younger workforce on productivity growth. (The Manhattan Institute's model got picked apart pretty badly, and they're now working on a revision that hasn't published yet.) And yes, basically everyone agrees that higher skilled immigrants are net plus economically and fiscally; some groups like Penn-Wharton have shown you could get a big fiscal boost just by shifting the mix of immigrants to more highly educated workers. But even the pessimists find that immigrants on average in a typical year are net fiscal contributors.
The challenge (as it seems to me) is to find some common ground with the other side here. So if you can identify some set of immigrants that in fact *does* hurt the economy to allow, perhaps a consensus could be achieved on reducing that sort of immigration, and in exchange we get more high value immigration. If we insist on only treating immigrants as one lump to be analyzed by its average, I’m afraid that the political consensus will simply be “ok let’s have less of that”.
I don't think you're entirely wrong — again, I plan to write more about this. But I think there's a lot of obvious value in welcoming immigrants with different backgrounds. We'll need more engineers. We also need more people who can do construction or be home health aides or childcare workers.
But, and hear me out, what if the people you're looking for common ground with are just wrong? We're currently seeing massive spikes in the prices of produce, probably related to the sudden disappearance of thousands of 'low value' immigrants. To build the amount of housing America needs, we need to increase the workforce in construction. Our economy is shifting toward more services; delivery drivers, food service, low-end home health care. These are all jobs that Americans want done, but native born Americans don't want to do. Even if the tax:spend ratio doesn't pencil out (I believe it does but let's set that aside) the overall economy relies on these people.
Well of course I think they are wrong. If I agree with someone then by definition we don’t need to “find common ground”, we already agree! The whole point of democracy is that you have to find some policy that you like, but also a large amount of the people who are wrong about things also like it.
That graph doesn't show "massive spikes in the prices of produce". In fact, once you zoom in on the past 12 months, it shows fruit and vegetable prices are DOWN since the beginning of 2025.
I think the way we square the circle is focusing on order, as you mentioned (minimizing chaos at the border, reforming the asylum process, keeping urban areas orderly and clean, focusing on reducing violent crime of the native born and immigrant variety) as well as being unabashedly promoting assimilation as a patriotic value. I think that includes things that might make us a bit squeamish (encouraging learning English but not going full "no Spanish at HUD") but it can also include highlighting the diversity of things like our police and military (I've thought an army recruiting video that's just the diverse faces of our army with a voice over of some great American rhetoric on how we are a nation of ideas and not blood and soil would go very hard) as well as highlighting how America has taken what's great from our waves of immigrants and made it our own.
I loved this article and I especially appreciated the reference to the wonky dissection of the native vs. foreign-born worker statistics. I hope for more of this from The Argument. I am far from the right-wing propaganda bubble that has reiterated this so-called statistic, but I also heard mainstream news reports that quoted JD Vance and others making this false argument about native job growth using the bogus statistics - and I believed it!
This all makes me think Democrats need a broader comms campaign showcasing immigrants working alongside Americans, going to church with Americans, embracing American culture. For every right wing media story of some horrific one-off crime, we need 100 stories of somebody eating a cheese burger and praying (not necessarily at the same time but not necessarily NOT at the same time)
We could do a lot of good by making an emphatic case for increasing legal immigration and naturalization by sharing the stories of people who help make our country great
I don't know that a Dems comm campaign is the right way to go! But it does feel like we need a return to good old melting pot Americana.
I’m already cringing thinking about what a Dems comm campaign would likely look like in practice, so inclined to agree with uncertainty. But somebody needs to vividly illustrate what immigrants offer America, and I think real world stories will be essential to doing that
I think there's way too much emphasis in The Narrative, and inadequate emphasis on doing good things that you can explain to people are good for them, in short, ordinary sentences. Like "thanks to immigration you can afford day care and social security can stay afloat."
Eh I’m not convinced “immigrants = social security” is inherently more compelling than stories about “your next door neighbor who works late keeping your local grocery store open and has a loving family.” Both might appeal to different audiences, I wouldn’t really classify either as “The Narrative.” Stories can be powerful!
It would be wonderful if the Democratic Party came out as unabashedly pro-immigrant and pro-globalism, but it doesn't feel like that is the direction they are trending. Probably better if there was a well-funded think tank or grassroots organization that made this case and tried to push both parties back from the brink on this stuff.
Also, I am worried that the Dem consultants would mess this up and it would be very cringe.
I know a good number of immigrant families, mosty from Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Mexico. I went to school with their first Gen American kids. Get them on camera and they will be effusive about how much they love this country. I travel to Red America for work with some regularity and I can tell you they absolutely love a patriotic immigrant.
The problem is: how do you make such stories go viral? Nobody is interested in a TikTok of an immigrant eating a cheeseburger. That’s boring.
I have seen several viral stories of “hardworking well respected neighbor with loving family gets ruthlessly detained and deported in front of their kids.” Granted I’m not right wing so that might just be my feed, and cheeseburgers and praying aren’t very serious on their own. But emphasizing real stories can be powerful
Moving public opinion is increasingly difficult as the media environment gets fractured. Viral videos are good, but they only go so far. You need a lot of stories. Variety around the stories. And you need them to be relentless to push back on the "immigrants stole our jobs" comment that will continue to get thrown around. The short cut or cheat code of this is celebrity support. Or a leading politician that preaches the message. Or both.
Would be great if there was a 10 million person march on Washington D.C. for National Immigrants Day (October 28th). Though Trump would likely send every ICE agent in the country there.
There may be an opening from the reality of who is getting detained and deported right now sinking in to the members of communities who considered those people to be long standing friends and neighbors but it’s not going to be an easy message despite being super true. What likelihood is there that folks like the Manhattan Institute will be willing to tell this story from the right?
Great and really important post!! It really does feel like most media orgs are ignoring/underreporting this story, either because they want to tack to the center by throwing immigrants under the bus, or because they don’t really care that much about economic growth.
I’m curious what you think of the following study, which essentially found that for every immigrant you deport, you destroy 2.2 American jobs (which feels like a very succinct and persuasive way of making this arg but I want to check how accurate you think it is): https://www.epi.org/publication/trumps-deportation-agenda-will-destroy-millions-of-jobs-both-immigrants-and-u-s-born-workers-would-suffer-job-losses-particularly-in-construction-and-child-care
I actually had not caught this report, but it looks like the a great overview. Going to read some of the studies in its lit review too, thank you.
I comment pretty regularly at the Dispatch. Their comment section I would say is by and large pretty to very conservative (note: that has very little to do with being a Repbulican in the year of our lord 2025).
I was suprised to find I think you could get that group of people (admittedly not a huge group in todays world) to support amnesty and permanent status with no path to citzenship (a fine is also somthing that comes up a lot) and vastly increased legal immigration for work It isn't my dream solution but it certainly isn't terrible either.
They also were extremely upset by the border situation under Biden. Can argue all day about it but having a border that can reasonaly be percieved as out of control really bothers lots of reasonable people
That's interesting. Obviously not a MAGA crowd, but maybe reflects conservative-leaning independents.
Yeah another interesting thing about that crowd is that there are VERY few Trump voters but not many more Harris voters. Plenty view Trump as dangerous and beyond the pale but still are nowhere near voting for anyone who stinks off progressivism at all
I was bothered by the border, and I think I'm pretty reasonable overall. I don't like the idea of asylum as a back-door way to come in either. I think if people see that the flows in are well controlled, there will be more openness to immigration (eventually).
Terrific article— very well laid out!
It really depends on the immigrant, right? Some immigrants are huge economic contributors who pay lots of taxes, start businesses, and employ Americans. But some immigrants cost more than they provide. If you are focusing on economic impact it makes a lot of sense to encourage high value immigrants like more O1s and discourage channels like asylum.
I actually had a section on that in the draft, but removed it because it's a complicated, technical topic on its own and I want to devote a followup piece to it.
I think the short version is: Some people have argued migrants with a high school education or less tend cost more than they pay back in taxes their lifetime, but the the calculations that get you there rely on a lot of different assumptions that don't necessarily hold up, and tend to downplay the positive impacts of a larger, younger workforce on productivity growth. (The Manhattan Institute's model got picked apart pretty badly, and they're now working on a revision that hasn't published yet.) And yes, basically everyone agrees that higher skilled immigrants are net plus economically and fiscally; some groups like Penn-Wharton have shown you could get a big fiscal boost just by shifting the mix of immigrants to more highly educated workers. But even the pessimists find that immigrants on average in a typical year are net fiscal contributors.
The challenge (as it seems to me) is to find some common ground with the other side here. So if you can identify some set of immigrants that in fact *does* hurt the economy to allow, perhaps a consensus could be achieved on reducing that sort of immigration, and in exchange we get more high value immigration. If we insist on only treating immigrants as one lump to be analyzed by its average, I’m afraid that the political consensus will simply be “ok let’s have less of that”.
I don't think you're entirely wrong — again, I plan to write more about this. But I think there's a lot of obvious value in welcoming immigrants with different backgrounds. We'll need more engineers. We also need more people who can do construction or be home health aides or childcare workers.
But, and hear me out, what if the people you're looking for common ground with are just wrong? We're currently seeing massive spikes in the prices of produce, probably related to the sudden disappearance of thousands of 'low value' immigrants. To build the amount of housing America needs, we need to increase the workforce in construction. Our economy is shifting toward more services; delivery drivers, food service, low-end home health care. These are all jobs that Americans want done, but native born Americans don't want to do. Even if the tax:spend ratio doesn't pencil out (I believe it does but let's set that aside) the overall economy relies on these people.
Fruit and vegetable inflation YTD: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SAF113
Well of course I think they are wrong. If I agree with someone then by definition we don’t need to “find common ground”, we already agree! The whole point of democracy is that you have to find some policy that you like, but also a large amount of the people who are wrong about things also like it.
That graph doesn't show "massive spikes in the prices of produce". In fact, once you zoom in on the past 12 months, it shows fruit and vegetable prices are DOWN since the beginning of 2025.
I think the way we square the circle is focusing on order, as you mentioned (minimizing chaos at the border, reforming the asylum process, keeping urban areas orderly and clean, focusing on reducing violent crime of the native born and immigrant variety) as well as being unabashedly promoting assimilation as a patriotic value. I think that includes things that might make us a bit squeamish (encouraging learning English but not going full "no Spanish at HUD") but it can also include highlighting the diversity of things like our police and military (I've thought an army recruiting video that's just the diverse faces of our army with a voice over of some great American rhetoric on how we are a nation of ideas and not blood and soil would go very hard) as well as highlighting how America has taken what's great from our waves of immigrants and made it our own.
@theargument podcast when?
I hope to see record-breaking immigration in my lifetime. I want 500 million Americans.
I loved this article and I especially appreciated the reference to the wonky dissection of the native vs. foreign-born worker statistics. I hope for more of this from The Argument. I am far from the right-wing propaganda bubble that has reiterated this so-called statistic, but I also heard mainstream news reports that quoted JD Vance and others making this false argument about native job growth using the bogus statistics - and I believed it!
Really, really glad you found it helpful!