Why Is Unemployment Down for Foreign-Born Workers?

The economic thinking behind the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown — and it’s not just a crackdown on illegal immigration; legal channels are being shut down as well — is that if you remove immigrants from the workforce there will be more jobs for non-immigrants. This is, in a basic Economics 101 sense, not crazy: Reducing the supply of workers and would-be workers will, all else being equal, improve the bargaining position of those who remain. The mass departure from the workforce of Americans 65 and older during the pandemic and slowdown in immigration before and during it certainly seem to have had that effect.

So why has the unemployment rate been rising for native-born Americans since President Donald Trump returned to the White House and falling for those born abroad? (I use 12-month averages here because the data aren’t seasonally adjusted and the seasonal patterns are different for native- and foreign-born workers.)