OPINION

The Great Expansion Theory

By Alec Pruchnicki, MD

Right wing politicians and white supremacists have gotten a lot of mileage with their Great Replacement Theory which is their belief that the white race in many countries is being replaced by people of color by a conspiracy of liberals, socialists, Jews (often George Soros specifically) and others. Naturally occurring demographic changes are cited as proof of this conspiracy and as justification for political extremism—up to and including violence. To counteract the false narrative of this theory I propose an alternative: The Great Expansion Theory. To counter the lies we should preach the truth that these demographic changes, especially immigration, greatly strengthen the United States and do not undermine it. The Congressional Budget Office recently announced that new immigrants would increase the national GNP by $7 trillion over the next ten years. Here are the facts.

Large numbers of immigrants, both legal and undocumented, have come to the US recently. What do they do once they get here? Some come for political freedom and some come for work and economic opportunity. They often take jobs that native born Americans, of all races, often decline. For example, agricultural work, slaughter house work, factory work, and service jobs from busboy to food deliverer. We see them doing this work all the time and employers in all these fields frequently are grateful for the essential labor supplied by these new arrivals.

But there are also many middle-class positions taken by the foreign born. Many small businesses are opened or staffed by immigrants in bodegas, convenience stores and other locations. Moving up the economic ladder, home health aides are about 40% foreign born, nurses are 27%, doctors 25%, teachers 10%, STEM workers 20%, and Ph.D. scientists 43%, to name just a few professions. This is in comparison to the 14% of US residents who are foreign born. The newly arrived more than carry their weight throughout the middle class. In my own field of medicine, geriatrics, about 50% of physicians are foreign born. At a time when the US population is aging the need for these home health aides, nurses and physicians is critical.

And the upper class? About 45% of the founders of the Fortune 500 companies are immigrants or their children. One of the richest, if not the richest, is Elon Musk, an immigrant.

But isn’t 15% foreign born just too much? Canada has a foreign-born population of 23% and they seem to be doing fine without the xenophobia and racism we see rampant in the US.

Republican politicians who aren’t complete xenophobic fanatics, if there are any, still worry that these recent immigrants of Hispanic ethnicity would eventually become Democratic voters. This is foolish. Even with present voters, sometimes the identifiable Hispanic vote goes to the Republicans 30-40% of the time. Cuban American voters in Florida are about as dependably Republican as you can get. Many of the new immigrants are refugees from self-proclaimed socialist states like Venezuela and Nicaragua and there is no reason why they can’t eventually become loyal Republicans when they become citizens. Even Democratic politicians believe the Hispanic vote will help them significantly, but this overdependence on demographic changes to buoy them up is a risky “putting all your eggs in one basket” strategy that I will address in a future article.

Politics aside, and looking just at the economics, immigrants have a track record of major contributions to American wealth well above their 15% population from the lowest economic class to the richest. This is likely to continue if immigration is encouraged. Some countries, like Japan and China among others, worry that population projections predict a serious worker shortage in the future. If we can encourage and succeed in drawing immigrants to the US this is unlikely to occur. Serious limitations will produce serious problems like some of these other countries fear.

So, The Great Expansion Theory. If you can think of a simpler and more positive term, feel free to suggest it. But it is essential that we tell the truth as often as the xenophobes and racists lie, which is quite a lot. If we can’t, our economy and nation will suffer.