The Center Square) – A new report from a Federal Reserve branch says 2024 could see millions of border crossings.
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco estimates that 3.8 million undocumented immigrants will enter the U.S. in fiscal year 2024 at January’s rates, and notes its contrast with the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate in January that 3.3 million total immigrants will enter the country in the same time frame.
However, with recent declines in crossings after President Biden signed an executive order allowing asylum applications to be rejected for individuals who illegally cross the border when daily crossings surpass 2,500 per day (or nearly one million per year), continued decreases could bring mass migration inflows below Fed and CBO estimates.
By comparing the states’ number of immigration court cases with the ratio of job vacancies to unemployed individuals, the Federal Reserve’s report estimated higher levels of illegal immigration — using CBO methods but with more recent data — and found recent immigration spikes are responsible for approximately one fifth of the decline in the ratio of job vacancies to unemployed individuals. Earlier this year, the International Monetary Fund’s managing director said the United States’ “abundant labor coming across the border” means ‘wages are not pushing up,” suggesting that high migration levels are reducing wage growth.