DONALD Trump would be well advised to take a short break in his busy schedule and read a new report on immigration published by the Pew Research Centre. It shows that with his six-page immigration policy-proposal, which includes building a wall on the Mexican border (somehow making the Mexicans pay for it) and deporting all America’s approximately 11m undocumented immigrants, Mr Trump is not only intent on causing misery for millions of people, but is also barking up the wrong tree. The report finds that over the last five years net unauthorised immigration has been zero because the number of illegal arrivals was offset by the number of undocumented immigrants leaving the country. And the number of undocumented Mexicans dropped 300,000 a year between 2007 and 2009 and 150,000 a year ever since.
Mr Trump says he doesn’t read statistics, so it’s unlikely that he will let facts trouble the misguided dogma he is touting. But his obstructionism is a shame because the findings of the report show how much America was changed (and improved, in the eyes of many) by the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which abolished an immigration system that favoured white northern and western Europeans and severely restricted immigration from all other parts of the world.
Read more: Immigration: How a 1965 law changed the faces of America | The Economist
