We’ve probably all heard by now that Donald Trump wants to build a wall. He wants to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico to keep immigrants out.
A study done by the U.S. Census Bureau showed that 40.2 percent of all immigrants entering the U.S. in 2013 were Asian. Hispanics came in at 25.5 percent.
We should probably get a wall built to keep Asia out too, right? Trump’s so rich he’d probably figure it out.
There’s a video online called “Trump’s America (without unauthorized immigrant workers).”
The video was posted by Attn:, an online news source. In roughly 90 seconds, it’s clear that the intent of the video is to spark fear in the viewer, spewing statistics about how the U.S. economy would collapse if we deported all unauthorized immigrants.
Some of those statistics are 11 percent of fast food workers are unauthorized immigrants; 26 percent of farming, fishing and forestry jobs are held by unauthorized immigrants; and 14 percent of construction and extraction jobs are held by unauthorized immigrants.
Therefore, if you were to deport them all, you would lose that many people from the workforce who currently keep the economy going in those industries.
Not only that, but according to studies done by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, unauthorized immigrants contributed $13 billion in taxes in 2010 and just under $12 billion in 2012, while only using around $1 billion in benefits, leaving anywhere between $11 and $12 billion benefiting the economy.
If we deported them all, we would lose that contribution.
The video wraps things up by saying that for Trump’s plan to pan out, it would take 650 busloads per month every month for 20 years to find and deport all of the 11.4 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
Okay, friends, you lost me.
So, what you just effectively said is that assuming Trump were elected, and then, assuming he got elected for a second term, by the end of both terms, he wouldn’t have even succeeded in deporting half of the unauthorized immigrants.
Does that mean that every statistic I just watched you throw at me to convince me of how terrible this plan is, is now only less than 50 percent as scary? That’s what it sounds like to me. The creators of this video kind of shot themselves in the foot here.
But here’s what I’m wondering: of Attn:’s almost 1.6 million followers on Facebook, the 9.7 million people who viewed the video, the 176,000 who shared it and the 91,000 who commented on it, did they make that connection? Or, did they spend 90 seconds of their life listening to information and then just blindly believe it?
Having no desire to diminish my brain cells, I can’t go through all the comments posted on the video, but you can only imagine. From my three minutes of skimming, it was clear that people went straight to arguing either for or against the points made in the video, rather than questioning them.
Be an educated consumer of media. Question what you hear and see. Do research. Don’t just believe, like or share something simply because it aligns with your belief system and it sounds good. Educate yourself.
I, in no way, shape or form remotely support Donald Trump or any of his ideas. I find him to be a foul human being and a poor excuse for one. And, I literally feel queasy when I see his face —even worse, when I see him talking.
So, I’m all for proving him wrong. The right way. The smart way.
Obviously, ridding a country of 11.4 million people who are working, legally or not, is going to have all sorts of repercussions. A renowned economist could tell you what’s going to happen, while another would tell you the opposite.
The truth is: nobody has any idea what would happen if any one or series of things happened. That’s fact.
As the Socratic paradox says, “I know one thing: that I know nothing.”
For real. Except, having Trump as president would be disastrous. That I know. Sorry, Socrates.