State of Denial on Immigration and the Economy
Opinion
Published: April 18, 2008
The debate in Congress over raising the number of H1-B visas for highly-skilled foreign workers reveals a self-defeating immigration policy that threatens to undermine our economy just when we need to get it back on track. America's ability to attract foreign workers, both highly skilled and low wage workers, has long fueled our competitive edge over many countries and been a source of our economic strength.
Our outdated and overly restrictive immigration quota system is cutting off the very source of labor that makes our economy strong in the first place.
We need to put the ugly politics of anti-immigrant propaganda behind us by bringing our immigration system into sync with today's economic reality.
Businesses must be allowed to meet their pressing labor demands with foreign born workers. At the same time, these same businesses must adhere to wage standards and work site protections.
Just as we must accept that there is an immediate need for highly-skilled technology experts, we must also accept the fact that low wage and often undocumented workers serve an indispensable role in our economy. We must acknowledge their contributions to our economy by integrating them into our cities and towns. In addition, we need to enhance the skill set of our workforce by strengthening our education system and investing in state-of-the-art worker training. Without improvements to education and worker training, we will remain overly dependent on temporary workers from other countries to fill our highly skilled jobs.
With an aging population that is shrinking our labor force we cannot afford to turn away the very workers we need to fuel our economic engine.
Immigrant workers bring us a just-in-the-nick-of time supply of labor to strengthen our economy.
Anti-immigrant claims that undocumented workers somehow steal jobs from U.S. citizens is baseless. The truth is these jobs do not appeal to most Americans because they pay so little. But for low wage workers just arriving in this country, undocumented or otherwise, these jobs are their best shot at the American Dream. These new immigrants contribute to the economy by purchasing their groceries from local stores, renting their apartments from landlords, eating in restaurants owned locally and even starting businesses that create jobs for other workers struggling to make ends meet. In many cases, they have tax and social security deductions taken from their paychecks. Furthermore, immigrant workers enrich our cities with a cultural diversity that most cities boast about.
For U.S. businesses to remain competitive in the global marketplace, and for our economy to regain its strength, we need to make sure our companies have the access they need to highly skilled workers and service workers.
Its time to come to grips with our flawed immigration policies by providing our economic engine with the labor it needs to fire on all cylinders.
Mike Fishman is President of Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union -- one of the largest private sector unions in the country.