This is very much in the president’s hands because he’s got advisers that seem divided, some substantively, some tactically, i just don’t think we’ve had any clear signs of the resolution he wants. Edward Alden More Quotes by Edward Alden More Quotes From Edward Alden I think, you know, what we've had for many years is a federal government that's not particularly concerned with the structure of the economy at all, just looking at the basic rules. I think we're going to see a different approach under Donald Trump with more kind of specific concern for the health of the manufacturing sector. I'm not necessarily sure that's a bad thing. Edward Alden government years thinking A lot of countries do fight to maintain or expand their share of global investment in manufacturing. Edward Alden investment fighting country Look at Germany where 20 percent of the labor force is in manufacturing compared to about 8 percent in the United States. Germany pays a lot more conscious attention at the level of the federal government to attracting and keeping manufacturers in Germany. So this is something that other countries do that the United States has not historically done. Edward Alden labor-force government country Closing the borders would shut many American businesses and shut them quickly. Edward Alden top-news How can we expect Congress to make decisions on border enforcement if it doesn’t know how many people are entering illegally, if it doesn't know the apprehension rate, if it doesn’t know the detection rate…. what percentage of people the border patrol is seeing, all of these are critical variables about making intelligence decisions about border enforcement and they simply at the moment are not in the hands of the Congress and the public. Edward Alden latest-headlines We have seen a significant decline in illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States and it's clear that the Border enforcement build up has been a big reason why that decline has been as sharp as it has been, our estimates suggest that the number of successful illegal entries has fallen from extremely high numbers – more than 3 million annually up to the mid-2000s– to much, much smaller numbers, about 250,000 last year. Keep in mind that these numbers do not represent individuals who came to stay in the United States – these are the total number of illegal border crossings. Edward Alden latest-headlines In doing what Secretary Clinton is recommending here, the administration could well lose the support they have on the Republican side. Edward Alden politics There’s no combination that the administration could really offer to get the AFL-CIO to support the deal. Edward Alden politics
