Immigration Is Better Than Industrial Policy

In demonizing the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, J.D. Vance and Donald Trump have forgotten what makes an economy work.

We have heard a whole lot over the past eight years about the need to revitalize blue-collar America.

But factories don't operate because presidents dump billions of borrowed dollars into places chosen for politically strategic reasons. Widgets don't get made and the supply chain doesn't keep churning along because the president orders it—no, not even if he uses the word "hereby."

Mostly, the economy spins ever onward because individuals show up for work and produce something that other people—their employers, customers, clients, donors, etc.—value and are willing to pay for, and then they do it again the next day.

The much-maligned Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, which has become the center ring of America's stupidest political circus over the past week, seem to have been doing exactly that: showing up.

"They are assembling car engines at Honda, running vegetable-packing machines at Dole and loading boxes at distribution centers," The New York Times reported earlier this month. "They are paying taxes on their wages and spending money at Walmart. On Sundays they gather at churches for boisterous, joyful services in Haitian Creole."

Sen. J.D. Vance's (R–Ohio) recent criticisms of the Haitian immigrants in Springfield lacked "real knowledge of what the work force situation in Ohio is," Ross McGregor, CEO of Pentaflex Inc., which makes brake and axel parts for trucks, told Kevin Williamson for a must-read essay published this week by The Dispatch.

"I don't think [Vance] really understands from a boots-on-the-ground perspective what employers are dealing with in trying to have a consistent and reliable work force," McGregor explained. "If he were to apply a business mindset to this situation, he would see the benefit that we get from simply being able to rely on somebody coming to work every day." (Emphasis added)

A Republican Party that was less blindfolded by its nativism and less committed to reassuring its supporters that cultural change is always bad—as opposed to being a natural part of the modern world, and a necessary part of a functioning, dynamic economy—would see an opportunity to tell a different kind of story about Springfield. After all, the Haitians in Springfield are simply the latest chapter in the story of Ohio: a story that includes waves of immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and other parts of the world who came to Ohio to take the same sort of bottom-rung jobs and begin the process of working their way up the American economic ladder.

If acknowledging the reality of the role that immigration has played in America's history is too much, a saner group of Republicans could at least have used Springfield to draw a sharp contrast with the Biden administration's views on what drives economic growth.

Take the CHIPS Act, for example. In the two years since it passed, the Biden administration's attempt to spur semiconductor manufacturing in the United States has funded 23 projects in 15 states, according to the Commerce Department. Let's be extremely generous and assume that all 23 of those projects will reach their planned conclusions, and will eventually employ thousands of Americans.

Springfield, Ohio, is not one of those 23 locations. It will not be benefitting from the Biden administration's taxpayer-funded largesse.

What are the Springfields in the rest of the United States to do? Shall they simply fold their hands and pray that certain lobbyists push the right combination of federal officials in the proper direction to ensure that the next windfall of dollars from the money printer lands in their backyard?

This is the problem with industrial policy. It might benefit the government-picked "winners" but it does nothing for the places that don't get to host ribbon-cutting events and campaign speeches. It leaves everywhere else behind.

Even though immigration is ultimately overseen by the federal government, it's a bottom-up rather than a top-down solution. Let people into the country, let them work, and they'll go where the jobs are available and where the housing is cheap. They'll go to Springfield, and places like it.

And they'll show up.

"They come to work every day. They don't cause drama. They're on time," Jamie McGregor, chief executive of McGregor Metal, a family-owned business in Springfield that fabricates parts for cars and other vehicles, told the Times.

If nothing changed, Springfield would simply experience an ongoing slide into oblivion. The city has been losing population since the 1960s and more than a fifth of those who remain are below the poverty line. Translation: Anyone who had better economic prospects somewhere else was already gone, or on their way out.

"The real story is that for 80 years we were a shrinking city, and now we're growing," a local pastor told NBC News.

In other words, immigration isn't the cause of Springfield's problems. Stagnation is.

Is the influx of thousands of foreign-born workers going to be smooth? Of course not. Some culture clash is inevitable. More workers willing to pay market rates for housing and a more competitive local economy might make life marginally more difficult for, as Williamson writes, "a reliable Trump-voting constituency: marginally employed white people on the dole."

Vance and former President Donald Trump have rushed to amplify those culture clashes—and knowingly exaggerate them too, as Reason's Jacob Sullum explained yesterday. In doing so, they've demonstrated how little they understand about what make an economy work and what makes a place successful. Thriving cities, even small ones, are home to a constant churn of cooperation and competition between newcomers and natives. Places that don't grow are doomed to die.

To the parts of America that have stagnated in recent years, Democrats offer little beyond the dangled promise of federal handouts, for factories or fatter welfare checks. In reality, that means residents of Springfield end up paying for economic development that happens elsewhere.

What a tremendous opportunity that could be for Republicans. Instead, Trump and Vance are only offering magical economic thinking and a conservative-branded version of picking winners and losers. Piling more tariffs onto foreign goods won't save Springfield, and mass deportations—of legal immigrants, as Vance has threatened—would rob the town of a productive work force.

What the Springfields of America need is more immigration, more dynamism, and less centrally planned industrial policy. There's little hope they'll be getting it soon.