…for The Hill…
As President Barack Obama discusses immigration reform with congressional leaders, it is important to keep in mind that such reform would deliver a much-needed boost to the U.S. economy. Contrary to the views of some, immigration is an economic resource that can be maximized to the benefit of both immigrant and native-born workers. A comprehensive immigration reform package that includes a pathway to legal status for unauthorized immigrants already living in the United States would increase their wages, and therefore their purchasing power and tax contributions, which would support hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs at a time of high unemployment, and generate billions of dollars in government revenue at a time of gaping budget deficits…
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…for the Immigration Policy Center…
With the U.S. unemployment rate hovering at 10%, some have questioned whether or not now is really the right time for comprehensive immigration reform that includes the creation of a pathway to legal status for unauthorized immigrants already living in the United States. Underlying this uncertainty is the fear that native-born Americans will lose out on scarce jobs if currently unauthorized immigrants acquire legal status—despite the obvious fact that unauthorized immigrants are already here and in the labor force. However, the best available evidence suggests that neither legal nor unauthorized immigration is the cause of high unemployment, and that the higher wages and purchasing power which formerly unauthorized immigrants would enjoy were they to receive legal status would sustain new jobs…
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…for Society…
The United States needs a new immigration policy that is based less on wishful thinking and more on realism. Spending vast sums of money trying to enforce arbitrary numerical limits on immigration that bear no relationship to economic reality is a fool’s errand. We need flexible limits on immigration that rise and fall with U.S. labor demand, coupled with strict enforcement of tough wage and labor laws that protect all workers, regardless of where they were born. We need to respect the natural human desire for family reunification, while recognizing that even family-based immigrants are unlikely to come here if jobs are not available. And we need to create a pathway to legal status for unauthorized immigrants who are already here so that they can no longer be exploited by unscrupulous employers who hang the threat of deportation over their heads…
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…for the Immigration Policy Center…
As the public debate over healthcare reform continues to rage, mention is seldom made of the vital role that immigrants play in the healthcare workforce of the United States. If immigrants are mentioned at all, it is usually in the context of heated discussions about whether or not unauthorized immigrants will, or should, be included in any of the healthcare bills now circulating in Congress. Lost in this debate is the simple demographic fact that immigrants are a critical component of the healthcare workforce at both the high-skilled and less-skilled ends of the occupational spectrum. Most notably, immigrants comprise more than one-quarter of all Physicians and Surgeons in the United States, and roughly one-fifth of all Nursing, Psychiatric, and Home Health Aides…
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…for Politico…
In his Dec. 3 Ideas piece, “Recovering Stolen Jobs Key to Recovery,” Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) misconstrues the relationship between unauthorized immigration and unemployment among native-born workers. Smith seems to think that deporting the 8 million unauthorized-immigrant workers now in the United States would magically create 8 million job openings for unemployed, native-born Americans. In the real world, however, it’s not that simple. Immigrant and native-born workers cannot simply be exchanged for one another like batteries…
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…for the Immigration Policy Center…
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released data on the Latino population of the United States that underscores the extent to which the immigrant experience is embedded in the social (and political) fabric of the United States… Nearly one out of every four people in the United States in 2008 was either an immigrant or the child of an immigrant. Two-thirds of Latinos, and one-in-ten non-Latino whites, were immigrants or children of immigrants. Immigrants who are naturalized U.S. citizens (and entitled to vote) accounted for 5 percent of the total U.S. population in 2008. Two-in-five immigrants came to this country before 1990 and therefore have deep U.S. roots. More than one-third of Latino immigrants came to the United States prior to 1990…
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…for the Immigration Policy Center…
Citizenship Day (September 17) is an appropriate time to take stock of the growing number of U.S. citizens who are immigrants to this country—or who are the children of immigrants. Roughly one-in-seventeen U.S. citizens are foreign-born, and tens of millions of native-born U.S. citizens have immigrant parents. This demographic reality has important political ramifications. A rising share of the U.S. electorate has a direct personal connection to the immigrant experience, and is unlikely to be favorably swayed by politicians who employ anti-immigrant rhetoric to mobilize supporters. This is particularly true among the two fastest-growing groups of voters in the nation: Latinos and Asians. The majority of Latinos and Asians are either immigrants or the children of immigrants, and they comprised 1 one out of every ten voters in the 2008 election…
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…for the Immigration Policy Center…
The public debate over immigration reform, which all too often devolves into emotional rhetoric, could use a healthy dose of economic realism. As Congress and the White House fulfill their recent pledges to craft immigration-reform legislation in the months ahead, they must ask themselves a fundamental question: can we afford any longer to pursue a deportation-only policy that ignores economic reality? At a time when the budgets of federal, state, and local governments contain more red ink than revenue, in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, what can we realistically afford to do with the roughly 12 million unauthorized-immigrant men, women, and children whom the Pew Hispanic Center estimates now live in the United States—plus the four million U.S.-born, U.S.-citizen children who have an unauthorized-immigrant parent? Even more to the point in the present economic climate, how can we best tap these millions of unauthorized workers, consumers, and—yes—taxpayers as a force for economic recovery?…
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…for the Immigration Policy Center…
Voting data from the 2008 election, released in late July by the U.S. Census Bureau, illustrates the growing electoral power of minority voters. A comparison of Current Population Survey data on voters in the 2004 and 2008 elections reveals the extent to which the ranks of Latino, Asian, and black voters have increased in only four years. This data should serve as a demographic wake-up call to politicians that they cannot ignore the concerns of minority voters without paying a price at the polls. In the case of Latinos and Asians—the majority of whom are immigrants or children of immigrants—one of these concerns is immigration reform. Political candidates should pay particular attention to the rapid rise of Latino and Asian voters in electorally pivotal states such as Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Nevada, New Mexico, and North Carolina…
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…for the Fairfax Times…
As Virginia grapples with a budget deficit brought on by the current recession, state and local policymakers would do well to keep in mind that immigrant communities are a potent force for economic recovery. Immigrants, and the adult children of immigrants, already contribute billions of dollars to the state economy each year as workers, taxpayers, consumers and entrepreneurs. These contributions would be even greater if currently unauthorized immigrants had a pathway to legal status, thereby drawing all of them into the tax system. Moreover, newly legalized workers could earn higher wages, further increasing their tax contributions and the amount of money they have to spend in Virginia businesses…
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