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What 100-year-old immigration policy can teach us about the economy

Outlet: Marketplace

Zeke Hernandez is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He’s also author of the new book “The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers.” He spoke with “Marketplace Morning Report” host Sabri Ben-Achour.

President Joe Biden has taken two executive actions on immigration recently. First, it was restricting the number of migrants who can request asylum in a given day. And then, just this week, the president announced a new measure to shield unauthorized immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens from deportation.

These actions comes as legislative changes to immigration policy remain stalled in Congress.

It’s a fitting time to step back and look at how immigration policy has shaped U.S. society — and the economy over time. It’s the 100th anniversary of the National Origins Act of 1924. This law essentially stopped immigration from Asia, and it put quotas on how many people could come from parts of Southern and Eastern Europe. The country-specific quotas from this legislation were dumped in 1965, but there is an economic legacy to the National Origins Act that we can learn from.