Justin Fox, Columnist

The Past, Present and Future of U.S. Immigration

How do current levels compare to those of a century ago? And why does it matter?

August 7, 2017 at 11:17 AM EDT

Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business, economics and other topics involving charts. A former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review, he is author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”

Poetry isn't policy.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

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White House policy adviser Stephen Miller's prickly performance at a news conference last week to discuss new immigration legislation didn't get the greatest reviews. But I actually kind of enjoyed his response to CNN correspondent Jim Acosta's charge (the quotes that follow are from CNN's transcript of the briefing) that "what you're proposing here, what the president's proposing here does not sound like it's in keeping with American tradition when it comes to immigration."

Acosta said cutting immigration quotas and favoring skilled immigrants and those who already speak English went against the Statue of Liberty motto of "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Miller retorted:

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