Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019 | 2 a.m.
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Dany Bahar’s interest in the effects of immigration on economies is partly based on academic curiosity and partly on personal experience.
The native Venezuelan grew up watching how his grandparents, Holocaust survivors who migrated to that country after World War II, contributed to their new country. Bahar then became a migrant himself, living in Israel for several years before coming to the United States.
Now he’s an economics expert at the Brookings Institution, where in recent years he’s frequently found himself addressing President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric.
He’ll do that again today at UNLV, where he’s giving presentations at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on the nexus between immigration and economics. During a precede interview Tuesday with the Sun, Bahar offered several points that counter Trump’s characterization of immigrants. Among them:
• When immigrants cross borders, they bring innovative thinking and specialized skills that strengthen the economy of their new country.
“The U.S. is an advanced economy and is at a different tier of knowledge,” he said. “For companies in the U.S. to become more productive, they need to innovate. So I’m going to show some evidence about how migrants are a game-changer for helping countries innovate more, innovate better and collaborate across borders.”
• In the same way that networking helps businesses in a local market, migration strengthens trade between nations. In both situations, it’s all about connections. Immigrants’ relationships with businesses in their home countries create opportunities for the flow of commerce.
• Trump’s stance on immigration is undermining his push to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. “The message is, ‘We want companies to come here, but then you cannot bring migrant workers,’ ” Bahar said. “Companies won’t come for a number of reasons, and a fundamental one is if they cannot hire the best workers they have in innovation, if they cannot hire the best workers they have in management, it’s not going to be profitable for them.”
• Trump and those like him contend that lowly educated immigrants are stealing blue-collar jobs from Americans and driving down wages, but Bahar says the reality is far different. When immigrants fill what Bahar calls “foundational jobs,” citizens who had been in those jobs move up the ladder. Bahar cited a study dating back to the 1990s about a crush of refugees and other immigrants in Denmark from such nations as Bosnia, Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria. “They see that because of these waves of immigrants, the workers who were potentially competing for the same jobs actually moved up to more complex jobs, to better-paying jobs.”
Bahar said he hoped his presentation would help broaden the audience’s perspective on the immigration debate. “I hope they’ll come out with more questions about all the things migration is achieving to push us forward, and how those things should be a part of the discussion on immigration policy,” he said.
Event: Seminar by Dany Bahar, the Brookings Institution
When: 4 p.m. today
Where: Beam Hall
Admission: Free
Event: Migrants and Refugees: Holding Us Back, or Pushing Us?
When: 7 p.m. today
Where: Greenspun Hall, first floor auditorium
Admission: Free
