The Important Immigration Discussion Isn't Taking Place
As Washington fights over immigration reform, much of the focus is on the wrong half of the problem. Immigration reform consists of two parts: illegal immigration (how to stop it and what to do with those already here) and legal immigration (how to select those granted permission to live and work in the United States). All the political battles are focused on the first part of the problem when the second may be more crucial to the long run economic growth, and thereby fiscal stability, of our country.
Stopping illegal immigration may help the economy and state, local, and federal government budgets by helping to raise low-skill wages and removing a burden on government to provide services (chiefly health care and education) for a large number of low-earning people. Legalizing those already here is a different story since any effect on the labor markets (such as depressing low-skill wages) and government service costs has already taken place. Actually removing people with years of experience living and working in the U.S. could do some harm to the economy, so a distinction should be made between border enforcement and what is commonly seen as amnesty for those already here.
However, as President Obama's executive order sets the stage for a political battle, and likely standoff, on comprehensive immigration reform, we should not lose sight of the second part of immigration reform: legal immigration priorities. Here, both parties should be able to reach an agreement and much could be profitably done to benefit the country.
Currently, legal immigration is controlled by a law that divides up a set number of places among different countries, family members, underrepresented groups, and some workers with needed job skills. However, the flow of legal immigrants is dominated by family members. Out of 675,000 legal slots per year, 480,000 go to family members of people already here in the United States. Only 140,000 slots are divided among five skill-based visa categories.
Effectively, this has meant that both legal immigration and total immigration to the U.S. has a very bimodal distribution of education levels and job skills. Many low-skill, low-education immigrants enter under the family program and illegally. Then a batch of high-skill, high-education immigrants fills the skill-based visa allotments. Few immigrants fall in the middle and the balance between the two main groups is heavily skewed toward the low-skill, low-education group.
Many other countries have immigration policies that are tilted much more in favor of the type of immigrants likely to start businesses, innovate, and raise average incomes. Canada, for example, limits immigration of parents and grandparents of current residents to only 5,000 slots per year. Canada does allow spouses and dependent children to immigrate without such a tight limit, but its emphasis is on skilled workers. Canada has seven categories of skill-based immigration that include both people with specific job skills (skilled trades is one, so it is not all technology workers) and programs for entrepreneurs who want to invest in and start a business.
Canada is far from alone in this. As the New York Times just reported, Spain is also trying to attract more entrepreneurial immigrants and simultaneously making it easier for them to get through the red tape of starting a business. New Zealand, Australia, and quite a few other countries have specific categories that give immigration priority to people willing to invest in a business.
While the U.S. is not completely lacking in such programs (the EB visas go to people with job skills designated as priorities), only one is for entrepreneurs (EB-5) and all five EB categories are given less than a quarter of the total slots for legal immigration.
Perhaps if Congress and the President can get past his executive action dealing with those who went outside the system and still accomplish anything on comprehensive immigration reform, increasing the number of slots for the EB visas among the total pool would be something that both parties can agree on. After all, that would increase economic growth and bring new revenue to government that needs it to pay for all the benefits that have already been passed out.
Beyond that, a simple change could also greatly benefit the country economically. The U.S. is currently home to about 900,000 foreign college students (undergraduate and graduate students). The number of these students who graduate each year is greater than the slots available for them under the relevant visa programs (both EB visas which allow permanent status, and H-1B visas which are temporary work programs). We are needlessly removing highly-educated potential workers who have good language skills and already know how to live and work in America.
A simple bill that gives all such graduates the right to permanent residency and work permits should be a bipartisan bill that Congress and the President could agree on and pass quickly, if they are still talking to each other. After all, given that most of these students attend public universities and many have worked on government-funded grant projects, we as a country have already invested money in these students. It is common sense to try to capture a return on our investment by letting them stay.
If we are going to work toward a comprehensive immigration reform, perhaps it would be best to start with the easy parts. How to deal with 11 million people that are already here in violation of the rules is a hard question. Agreeing to let around 200,000 foreign college graduates stay and work in the U.S. each year would seem like an easy point to agree on.
