Thread: Don't play politics with immigration

Don't play politics with immigration

Updated 3h 16m ago
By Carlos M. Gutierrez

If we can fix our immigration system and design it for economic prosperity, our country will have a competitive advantage that can last a century. Yet, I am deeply concerned, after listening to the president's July 1 speech, that this administration will squander the opportunity for a great American victory by using immigration for partisan political purposes.

President Obama's approach to immigration reform sounded disappointingly tactical and opportunistic; put more "boots on the ground" at the border; convince fellow Hispanics to vote for Democrats by continuing to promise reform; and, blame the lack of any progress on Republicans. Ironically, he emphasized the need to be "above politics" and not allow "special interests to hijack the process."

As Commerce secretary, I was intimately involved in the 2005 Immigration Reform effort with then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and a bipartisan group of senators. But the failure to pass the bill in 2006 was the fault of both Republicans and Democrats. Immigration reform is a complex and intricate issue that demands compromise from both parties.

When we lost the comprehensive immigration bill in 2006, I predicted that the country would splinter into dozens of separate laws. That's exactly what's happening today. I understand why the Obama administration is moving ahead with the lawsuit challenging Arizona's controversial law; immigration laws are federal. However, I find it ironic that the Obama administration is suing Arizona because of its own failure to pass comprehensive reform.

As a former business executive I find the Arizona law highly inefficient: we will be using our best law-and-order officials in the state to search for people who are just trying to make a living. Arizona is solving the wrong problem. The enemies are not gardeners, maids, parking lot attendants and other hard-working people trying to feed their families. The enemies are drug dealers, gang members, people smugglers and terrorists. This requires a different strategy. The criminals are probably relieved that the Arizona police will be distracted, executing the wrong game plan. What a waste of effort.

Make reform a priority

During his presidential campaign, then-Sen. Obama promised Hispanic Americans that he would "reform immigration" during his first year in office. However, it was evident by the content of his recent speech — his first major address on the subject — that this will not get done any time soon. It now appears that Hispanic Americans have begun to realize that they are being played for political reasons. Some poll findings, such as the one issued by Public Policy Polling on July 2, suggest a 15-point drop among Hispanic Obama supporters since January because of his handling of the immigration issue.

In his speech, the president spoke about the need to legalize most of the 11 million undocumented workers in the country. Like President Bush, I support this move for economic, national security, and humanitarian reasons as part of a comprehensive reform of our immigration systems. But the Obama administration needs to understand that dealing with the 11 million undocumented workers does not constitute comprehensive reform. The problem of illegal immigration is the result of a broken legal immigration system. Unless we address the core issues, we will continue to foster the conditions for future illegal immigration.

The question of how to design an effective legal immigration system for the 21st century is less politically attractive for Democrats. For instance, the president said little about reforming our temporary worker programs or other programs for future immigration. This is a clear nod to labor unions who see temporary worker programs as low wage competition. So much for not allowing special interest groups to hijack the process.

A two-pronged approach

Reforming our legal immigration system means dealing with two key issues: designing a temporary and seasonal immigration system that meets the immediate needs of our economy and creating a permanent immigration system that strengthens our communities and our country's long-term competitiveness.

Temporary workers: Currently, they enter the United States for 1 to 3 years for specific jobs where no U.S. workers are available. However, the current system is inflexible, complicated, and so bureaucratic that it almost encourages the employers to bend the rules.

One of the most common complaints among businesses relates to the H-1B visa. This is a three-year permit (with only one renewal) for highly educated and/or highly skilled workers and used extensively by the high-tech industry. The annual quota is 65,000. During better economic times, that quota filled in days. In 2009, in the midst of the great recession, the quota filled in about seven months, suggesting the number of visas is still insufficient to meet employer needs. Democrats claim this is another example of "big business" importing "cheap labor"; in the meantime, more R&D centers are moving overseas threatening U.S. dominance in critical fields such as information technology and medical research.

Seasonal workers. This is a unique sector of the U.S. economy because the jobs are short-term and often strenuous. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Research Service, about 1 million to 2.5 million farm laborers are hired each year. In 2006, more than half were unauthorized. The reason is clear to any agricultural employer who has tried to abide by the law: the lengthy bureaucratic process is unrealistic and damaging to the needs of an effective agricultural industry.

As long as this continues, growers will be faced with difficult choices: shut down the business, hire unauthorized laborers, or move to another country. The Obama administration and a Democrat-controlled Congress have done nothing to alleviate this problem. A number of farms have chosen to move to other countries where labor is available and legal. This will continue until our system is fixed.

Between 350,000 to 500,000 new permanent immigrants enter the country annually. An estimated 10% come for employment reasons; the rest are primarily driven by family ties. While I am proud that family ties are the bedrock of our immigration system, we need more skills-based immigration. A logical solution would be to increase the number of visas that are employer sponsored; empower the private sector to choose the people who have the skills they need. However, once again, the cries against big business importing cheap labor stand in the way of sensible immigration reform. Sweden, for example, implemented an employer-based system in 2008 that has proven highly successful.

Economic growth is a function of the size of the labor force and productivity. Without an expanding work force with the skills we need at the right time, all growth must come from productivity — an extremely improbable feat. This is a problem that nations ignore at their own peril.

In spite of the worse economic crisis in a generation, the U.S. Department of Labor statistics estimates that the U.S. economy will require 1.3 million additional workers each year over the next 10 years (assuming annual GDP growth of only 2.4%). The bulk of the population growth within the U.S. will come from the U.S.-born children of immigrants.

Global labor force challenges

Every major country in the world will face demographic challenges in the future. Their populations are getting older, are retiring, and the countries are not producing enough workers to drive economic growth, let alone pay for the entitlements of retirees:

•The population of Russia is already declining;

•40% of all Japanese will be older than 65 by 2040;

•China will face similar problems in a number of decades (as others have said they will "get old before they get rich").

•Spain, once known for its large families, has seen its fertility rate decline from 2.7 children per woman in 1977 to 1.4 children per woman in 2007; it has not equaled or exceeded the universal replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman since 1980. All of its growth has come from immigration.

Many of these countries have already or will resort to immigration to ensure their economies can grow in the future. Few of them have any meaningful experience integrating immigrants into their societies. The European Union is struggling to assimilate an immigrant population largely from the Middle East, and countries like Japan have virtually no experience with immigration. The U.S. — while often a reluctant but highly successful home for immigrants — has the most experience.

Fixing our immigration system will require leadership and vision. Again, if we get this right, it will give us a competitive advantage that will last a century.

Carlos M. Gutierrez is a distinguished international business expert who served as U.S. Secretary of Commerce from 2005-09.
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•Spain, once known for its large families, has seen its fertility rate decline from 2.7 children per woman in 1977 to 1.4 children per woman in 2007; it has not equaled or exceeded the universal replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman since 1980. All of its growth has come from immigration.

So why aren't we sending all our Hispanic illegals to Spain?

Instead Spain is importing culturally divise Muslims? Somebody is really asleep at the switch here.

People in euro-descent environments have been taught about population control and personal responsibility for 50 years. I remember first hearing it in the 60's. Meanwhile nobody is telling that to the rest of the world and they laugh at us as we pay for them to have babies to replace and outnumber us. I'm not saying it's PC for euro people to turn around and also have lots of babies - but then again, maybe it is.