WashPo Laments Trump's Immigration Plan 'Could Keep Whites in U.S. Majority For Up to 5 More Years'

President Trump's proposal to cut legal immigration rates would delay the date that white Americans become a minority of the population by as few as one or as many as five additional years, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

The plan, released by the White House last month, would scale back a program that allows people residing in the United States to sponsor family members living abroad for green cards, and would eliminate the "diversity visa program" that benefits immigrants in countries with historically low levels of migration to the United States. Together, the changes would disproportionately affect immigrants from Latin America and Africa.

The Census Bureau projects that minority groups will outnumber non-Hispanic whites in the United States in 2044. The Post's analysis projects that, were Trump's plan to be carried out, the date would be between 2045 and 2049, depending on how parts of it are implemented.

All told, the proposal could cut off entry for more than 20 million legal immigrants over the next four decades. The change could have profound effects on the size of the U.S. population and its composition, altering projections for economic growth and the age of the nation's workforce, as well as shaping its politics and culture, demographers and immigration experts say.

"By greatly slashing the number of Hispanic and black African immigrants entering America, this proposal would reshape the future United States. Decades ahead, many fewer of us would be nonwhite or have nonwhite people in our families," said Michael Clemens, an economist at the Center for Global Development, a think tank that has been critical of the proposal. "Selectively blocking immigrant groups changes who America is. This is the biggest attempt in a century to do that."

But by reducing the country's overall population, the plan could eventually reduce the overall growth rate of the U.S. economy. Under Trump's plan, the U.S. economy could be more than $1 trillion smaller than it would have been two decades from now. That's largely because the economy would have fewer workers.

The plan could also raise the median age of U.S. workers. About 4 of every 5 immigrants is projected to be younger than 40, while only half of the country's overall population is that young, according to Census Bureau data. A demographic crunch is already expected because of millions of upcoming retirements from the baby boomer generation, raising concerns about the long-term solvency of programs such as Social Security and Medicare that rely on worker contributions.

But perhaps the most lasting impact of Trump's policies would be not to America but to the millions of immigrants from poor and developing countries whom the United States would be denying entry to, said Angélica Cházaro, a law professor at the University of Washington who specializes in questions of immigration.

"We're talking about susceptibility to pain and violence and economic and social instability for millions of black and brown people," Cházaro said. "People have organized their lives around the possibility of legal immigration, and this forecloses that route."