U.S. Immigration Policy Ignores Economic Reality

The root of the current crisis of undocumented immigration is a
fundamental disconnect between today's economic and labor market
realities and an outdated system of legal immigration.

The root of the current crisis of undocumented immigration is a
fundamental disconnect between today's economic and labor market
realities and an outdated system of legal immigration.

Undocumented immigration is driven in large part by a U.S. labor market
that is creating a higher demand for less-skilled workers than is being
met by the native-born labor force or by the current legal limits on
immigration.

As the past decade and a half of failed federal border-enforcement
efforts make clear, immigration policies that ignore these larger
economic forces merely drive migration underground rather than
effectively regulate it.

In short, there is an unsustainable contradiction between U.S. economic
and immigration policy, with economics winning. The problem is a broken
immigration system that sends the dual messages "Keep Out" and "Help
Wanted" to foreign workers.

The U.S. economy continues to create large numbers of less-skilled jobs
even as native-born workers grow older and better educated and are
increasingly unavailable to fill such jobs.

Yet the federal government continues to impose outdated numerical caps
and other restrictions on immigration that bear little relationship to
the economic realities of our time.

As a result, enforcement resources are devoted in large part to trying
to stem the labor migration the U.S. economy attracts and which is an
outcome of globalization. Despite the critical role immigrants play in
filling less-skilled jobs, America offers few opportunities under the
current immigration system for them to come to the U.S. legally.

There is a similar bottleneck for low-skilled workers who seek
temporary, employment-based visas. Of the 16 different types of
temporary immigrant visas available for employment and training in the
United States, only two -; H2A and H2B -; are available to workers with
little or no formal training. Moreover, the total number of H2B visas
that can be awarded in a year is capped at 66,000.

Only a truly comprehensive approach will work, one that includes a
process by which undocumented immigrants already living and working in
the United States can apply for legal status, as well as the creation of
a temporary worker program with stringent protections for both temporary
workers themselves and native-born workers.

Lawmakers must tackle the issue of undocumented immigration with less
rhetoric and more realism. Continuing the status quo by trying to
enforce immigration policies that are at war with the U.S. and global
economies will do nothing to address the underlying problem. Nor is it
feasible to wall off the United States from the rest of the world.

The most practical option is to bring U.S. immigration policy in line
with the realities of the U.S. labor market and an increasingly
transnational economy.