George J. Borjas

Borjas was the primary advisor to Jason Richwine, whose Harvard dissertation concluded that Latino immigrants to the U.S. are and will remain less intelligent than "native whites." Borjas claimed that he "played no role in topic selection or forming the research agenda" for Richwine's dissertation, but some social science scholars noted it could be problematic for a dissertation advisor to fail to challenge a student's topic selection.[14][15] Borjas later said that he did not "find the IQ academic work all that interesting".[15]

In 2017, an analysis of Borjas' study on the effects of the Mariel boatlift concluded that Borjas' findings "may simply be spurious" and that his theory of the economic impact of the boatlift "doesn't fit the evidence."[16] A number of other studies concluded the opposite of what Borjas' study had found.[17] Borjas denied that he had misconstrued the data, calling the controversy "fake news."[18][19] Borjas furthermore suggested that one of the economists, Michael Clemens, whose study challenged Borjas' was motivated by the political bias of "Silicon Valley" philanthropists who contribute to the Center for Global Development where Clemens works, accusing Clemens of being a paid shill of "open-borders plutocrats", and saying that "they wouldn’t buy or commission research that didn’t fit their priors."[17] Nobel laureates Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo wrote of the debate that Borjas's analysis omitted comparisons to relevant groups for no clear reason.[20]

In August 2017, the Trump administration, while defending its plan to reduce levels of legal immigration to the United States by 50%, cited Borjas' research on the Mariel boatlift as evidence that low-skilled immigration reduced wages for American workers.[21][22] Fact-checkers noted that Borjas' research on the Mariel boatlift was rebutted by other researchers and has received "major criticisms".[22][21][23]

That same month in The Atlantic when asked about the academic community's suppression of data showing immigration's potential costs, Borjas said there's “a lot of self-censorship among young social scientists.” Donald Davis, an economist and immigration advocate, responded stating, “George and I come out on different sides of policy on immigration, but I agree that there are aspects of discussion in academia that don’t get sort of full view if you come to the wrong conclusion.”[24]

The extent to which immigration is a detriment or boon to the American economy continues to be hotly debated.[25]

After a peer-review scandal was revealed on the website, in June 2016, Borjas praised the discourse on the Economics Job Market Rumors website as being "refreshing": "There’s still hope for mankind when many of the posts written by a bunch of over-educated young social scientists illustrate a throwing off of the shackles of political correctness and reflect mundane concerns that more normal human beings share: prestige, sex, money, landing a job, sex, professional misconduct, sex..."[26][27] A 2017 paper found evidence of outright hostility towards women on the website.[26] When asked about the paper, Borjas said, "While there is some value in that forum, there is also a great deal that is offensive and disturbing. The problem is I’m not sure exactly where to draw line."[26] According to Brad DeLong, "the only economics professor of any ideology or university I can recall ever praising EJMR is George Borjas."[28]