Semistealthy Billionaires on Immigration
Policy issues related to immigration offer us a good opportunity to illu-
minate the different politics of social and economic issues and the con-
ditions under which billionaires do or do not engage in stealth politics.
Immigration combines a social dimension (cultural acceptance or rejec-
tion of foreigners, particularly from Mexico) with an economic dimension
(enthusiasm for or dislike of immigration of workers from abroad, which
may lower wages for competing domestic workers but which, by the same
token, tends to lower labor costs for employers). On both dimensions, billionaires tend to hold quite different views from the average American.
For decades, most Americans have strongly opposed illegal immigration into the United States. Many have been upset about legal immigration as well.35 As figure 4.1 demonstrates, national surveys by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA) have regularly found— since they first started
asking about it in 1994— that majorities of Americans have said “control-
ling and reducing illegal immigration” should be a “very important” goal of US foreign policy. Very large majorities have said it is at least “somewhat important.”36 Prior to 2012, CCGA surveys even regularly found majorities (but gradually declining majorities) of Americans saying that “large
2016
Threat)
2012
ery/Somewhat Important Goal)
– 2016
2008
1994
Reducing Illegal Immigration (%V Immigrant and Refugee (% Critical/Important ion,
t
2004
epor
educing Illegal Immigrat
opline R
2000
tance of the Goal of R
US Public Opinion T
ery Important Goal) Threat)
2016
ion and Impor
fairs,
1996
ved Threat of Immigrat
Reducing Illegal Immigration (%V Immigrant and Refugee (% Critical
ercei P Chicago Council on Global Af
1992
100
90
80
70
60
cent of Respondents
50 Per
40
30
figure 4.1
source:
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numbers of immigrants and refugees coming into the United States” con-
stitute a “critical threat” to the “vital interest” of the United States. In 2002, for example, 60 percent said so. Rather remarkably, in that year a higher proportion of Americans felt that immigration was a “critical threat” than perceived a such a threat from China becoming a world power, or from
global economic competition, or from global warming.37
Donald Trump’s successful 2016 campaign for the presidency was fu-
eled to an important extent by his strident opposition to immigration
from Mexico (Trump repeatedly promised to build a “beautiful wall”
to keep out rapists and other criminals) or from predominantly Muslim
countries (he promised a “Muslim ban” that would shut out possible ter-
rorists).38 Trump’s success in defeating both Republican and Democratic
opponents in 2016 may have resulted in part from his noisy repudiation of both parties’ long- standing pro- immigration and pro- free- trade stands.39
Among ordinary Americans, worries about immigration are based on
at least three different types of reasons: security- related, economic, and cultural. One set of reasons involves fears that terrorists may slip into the United States undetected, perhaps among refugees from war- torn countries in the Middle East. Another concern is that economic competition
from low- wage immigrants may take jobs away from native- born Ameri-
cans or undercut their wages. A third set of worries involves cultural anxieties— stresses felt about interacting with people who speak a foreign
language, engage in unfamiliar customs and behavior, or are just plain disliked for racist or other reasons. Analysts have found that cultural, economic, and security- related concerns each have substantial independent
effects on attitudes about immigration.40
Billionaires are different. For one thing, they probably worry less about terrorist acts by immigrants. Billionaires are likely to be aware that no immigrants committed terrorist acts in the United States over the course of a decade, and that stringent security measures are taken at our borders
(e.g., international cooperation in scrutinizing airline flights for passengers on terrorist watch lists). And billionaires often have their own protected homes and workplaces, with private security arrangements that cannot totally negate terrorist threats but probably reduce anxiety. Billionaires also have much less reason than other Americans to feel cultural anxieties about immigration from Mexico or elsewhere, since they can choose their own
neighborhoods (often segregated gated communities or expensive high-
rise condominiums); they can pick their own associates (mostly people like themselves or employees they select and control); and they can choose which schools their children attend (often exclusive private schools).
keeping quiet on social issues
95
table 4.7 Regression Predicting Number of Immigration Statements
B (SE)
t- Value
Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept)
– 1.5993 (0.4570)
– 3.50
0.0007
Wealth
0.0280 (0.0127)**
2.22
0.0291
Consumer Facing
– 0.4163 (0.2836)
– 1.47
0.1454
Heir
0.45167 (0.3123)
1.45
0.1514
Log(Visibility)
0.2407 (0.0712)***
3.38
0.0010
Tech
0.8389 (0.3907)**
2.15
0.0344
** p < .05.
*** p < .01.
Note: Residual standard error: 1.242 on 94 DF; multiple R- squared: 0.3876; adjusted R- squared: 0.3551; F- statistic: 11.9 on 5 and 94 DF; p- value: 6.231e– 09.
Perhaps most importantly, billionaires tend to differ sharply from other
Americans in their economic concerns and economic interests. Nearly all
billionaires are primarily employers, not wage workers or salaried employees. None have any serious reason to fear that economic competition
from immigrants will undercut their incomes or wealth. Indeed, for many
billionaires, high levels of immigration by low- wage immigrants can markedly reduce the labor costs incurred by their businesses. This is especially true of billionaires who own high- tech computer or software firms, which benefit greatly from highly skilled but relatively low- salary workers from India and elsewhere. (Research has indicated that such immigration on
special H- 1B visas puts substantial downward pressure on computer sci-
ence job salaries in the United States, while increasing profits for the tech companies.41) Similarly, however, high levels of immigration by lower-skilled workers tend to increase the profits of wealthy Americans who employ less skilled, low- wage immigrant workers in lower- tech manufactur-
ing, retail, or agricultural businesses.42
Thus, few billionaires have reasons to oppose immigration, and many
have good economic reasons to support it. That is presumably why we
found so many of our billionaires (fifteen of them) speaking out in favor of immigration— especially high- skilled immigration— and none at all opposed. Also the reason we found so many (eleven) billionaires tak
ing
policy- specific actions in favor of immigration, while no billionaires at all took action against it. (Recall tables 4.1 and 4.3.)
We were able to test the proposition about economic motives more
directly through the regression analysis presented in table 4.7. This re-
gression includes a “tech” variable based on whether or not a billionaire’s chief business involves the technology sector— where high- skilled immigrants, such as English- speaking engineers from India, are in particularly
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high demand. The tech variable had a substantial, statistically significant coefficient, indicating that billionaires with high- tech businesses do indeed tend to make statements about immigration— all of which favor
immigration of high- skilled workers, and about half of which favor only high- skilled immigration. This pattern generally aligns with the findings of David Broockman, Gregory Ferenstein, and Neil Malhotra’s study
of wealthy elites in the technology industry: that tech entrepreneurs are much more “liberal” on immigration than the general public.43
In table 4.7 one can also see the familiar finding that higher visibility leads to more public statements. The most prominent, most visible billionaires tended to speak out more often (always favorably) about im-
migration. Taking account of billionaires’ visibility, the extent of their wealth had a modest but significantly positive impact as well. Perhaps this is because the wealthiest billionaires have the fewest reasons for cultural anxiety about immigration (they live the most sheltered lives44) and the
biggest economic stakes in high levels of immigration (owning more busi-
nesses, they tend to profit more from low- wage labor). We did not find any definite effect of owning consumer- facing businesses, though the coefficient was moderately large and in the expected direction; nor any effect of being an heir (a nonsignificant coefficient with the wrong sign).
It appears likely that the pro- immigration preferences of billionaires—
and/or the preferences of affluent or elite Americans more generally45—
have had an important impact on public policy. How else can we explain
the fact that public officials, Republican and Democratic alike, for de-
cades defied the wishes of most Americans and embraced high levels of
legal immigration?46 Relatively open immigration policies, together with
policies favoring free trade without much help for those negatively af-
fected by it (another issue on which there have been large gaps between
masses and elites), played a big part in fueling recent right- wing populist revolts, from Brexit and anti- immigrant nationalist movements in Europe
to the election of Donald Trump in the United States.47
It has been suggested that the political behavior of wealthy Americans on immigration, trade, social spending, and certain other issues may have been
“greedy and short- sighted.”48 Billionaires’ and multimillionaires’ insistence on pursuing very unpopular economic policies does appear to have contributed to major tensions— revealed, taken advantage of, and exacerbated by
Trump— among various factions of Republican donors, activists, and voters, and between orthodox GOP policies and the American public as a whole.
We see our findings about immigration policy as adding up to a pic-
ture of semistealthy politics by billionaires. On immigration, as in the cases
keeping quiet on social issues
97
of tax and Social Security policies, billionaires have been very active politically in ways that have probably had substantial effects on policy making.
As in those cases, the wealthiest billionaires appear to be highly unified in their preferences (not one made a statement or took a policy- specific action aimed at decreasing levels of immigration), so that billionaires as a group may have had maximum influence on policy. On immigration policies— as
on tax and Social Security policies— billionaires nearly all appear to favor policies that are opposed to the views of most ordinary Americans. And on immigration as well as on taxes and Social Security, most billionaires have been extremely quiet in public about their views and actions.
Yet certain features of stealth politics are not present. The contrast
between private actions and public positions is less extreme; the (limited) public face of billionaires’ views is less misleading; and there is little or no evidence of inconsistency between individual billionaires’ rhetoric and their actions. On immigration policy, billionaires’ politics seem to fall somewhere between the stealthiness they pursue on purely economic policies and their mere quietness on purely social policies. With respect to immigration, billionaires tend to be semistealthy.
How should we react to this? On the more purely social policies (abor-
tion, same- sex marriage), is unstealthy quietness perfectly OK? We do
not believe so.
The Problem with Quiet Politics by Billionaires
Our data make clear that the wealthiest one hundred US billionaires tend
to be highly active politically. Most give substantial amounts of money to political causes, chiefly to Republicans and conservative groups. Remarkably, more than one- third of the billionaires we have studied held political fund- raisers or bundled others’ contributions.
Billionaires’ financial contributions to parties and candidates and their bundling probably have had significant effects on public policy decisions.
For example, the Republican candidates that billionaires have supported
have nearly all opposed abortion under almost any circumstances. Nearly
all Republican officials, during the period we studied, opposed legaliz-
ing same- sex marriage or in any way accepting homosexual behavior. 49
And nearly all favored high levels of immigration, especially high- skilled immigration.
To be sure, the orthodox Republican positions on abortion and same-
sex marriage went against many billionaires’ own preferences, but most
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billionaires appear to have put a higher priority on economics. Most of
them decided to back Republican politicians anyhow. A few billionaires
may have tried to funnel their support selectively to candidates— especially Republicans, when they could be found— who took more liberal or libertarian positions on abortion and gay rights.50 But the money donated by billionaires as a group has almost certainly tended to push actual US policies in a restrictive (“conservative”) direction on abortion and same- sex marriage, while going in a socially “liberal” (though economically conservative) direction favorable to immigration.
A fair number of the wealthiest billionaires have also taken direct,
policy- focused political actions on one or more of the three social issues we studied, by making financial contributions to, leading, or belonging to policy- oriented organizations that seek to affect government policies on those issues. In nearly every case, the billionaires’ direct actions tended to influence policy making in directions favorable to abortion rights, to legalizing same- sex marriage, and to maintaining or increasing high levels of immigration.
At the same time, a large majority of the wealthiest billionaires have,
over a long period of time, maintained complete public silence about those issues. Our rigorous web searches, covering a roughly ten- year period,
found no statements whatsoever about the specifics of any of the three types of social policies by seventy- one of the one hundred billionaires. Only one billionaire— Michael Bloomberg, a political candidate and mayor of New
York— spoke out frequently concerning all three issues. Only an additional eight billionaires (most of them enjoying above- average wealth and visibility) made more than one or two statements about any
of those issues over
the ten- year period.
There can be little doubt that the billionaires’ silence is deliberate. Billionaires are of great interest to millions of Americans. Any time they
wish to speak out on public policy they can easily find a TV channel, a
journalist, or a blogger to publicize their views. They certainly had plenty of time to speak out, during a ten- year period when the issues of abortion, same- sex marriage, and immigration were stirring fierce debate and prompting pundits, politicians, and others to fill the media with countless pronouncements about them. Yet the wealthiest one hundred US billionaires hardly participated in these debates at all.
The billionaires’ general silence on these important social issues does
not exactly match the stealthy behavior that we found in the realms of
tax and Social Security policies. In those areas (especially Social Security
keeping quiet on social issues
99
benefits and estate taxes), public statements by a handful of the very weal thiest billionaires tended to create the impression that wealthy Americans
hold moderate, even liberal views on economic issues, while in fact most
billionaires quietly favor— and in many cases spend a great deal of money and effort to enact— highly unpopular policies like cutting guaranteed
Social Security benefits.
In the realm of social issues the pattern is different. The billionaires
have been quiet, but— with the partial exception of immigration issues—
they have not been stealthy. They have had less reason to pursue stealth
politics, because they are less out of harmony with average Americans on
these issues (again except for immigration, particularly low- skilled immigration) than they are on taxation or Social Security policies.
Still, even absent full- scale stealth politics, we do not see this story as entirely a happy one. Billionaires’ silence on social issues— or on any other major issues of public policy— deprives public deliberation of voices that might be helpful to everyone’s thinking, the voices of highly intelligent, knowledgeable people who may have important things to say. Public discourse may be poorer without them.
More worrisome is the issue of accountability. If— as seems highly likely— billionaires in fact exert outsized influence in the making of public policy, a minimal condition for democratic accountability would seem
Billionaires and Stealth Politics Page 15