The Hill (Op-Ed)
By Alex Nowrasteh
August 7, 2015
The
Republican presidential debates this week marked the first serious
start to the election cycle. Immigration dominated the first debate with
each candidate scrambling
to condemn illegal immigration more than the other. The bland bromides
of support for "securing the border" and more immigration enforcement
are out of date in 2015. The changing facts of immigration and our
dynamic economy require an update.
You
wouldn't know it from the rhetoric, but the illegal immigrant
population has stopped growing. The numbers have been between 11 and
11.5 million since the Great Recession,
because many are leaving and fewer are coming. In 2013, the number of
illegal immigrants apprehended on the border and returned was 306,000 —
about the same as in 1970. In 2006, that number stood at 1 million.
Mexicans
are still a majority of all illegal immigrants living in the United
States, but they are not the majority of new immigrants, legal or
otherwise. In 2014, more
non-Mexican immigrants entered the country illegally than did Mexican
immigrants — for the first time. Fewer Mexicans are coming because it's
harder to find a job here in the sectors where they can work,
opportunities in Mexico are greater and the population
of Mexicans seeking to immigrate has moderated.
Asian
immigrants are taking their place. Since 2009, new Asian immigrants
have outnumbered new Hispanic immigrants. By 2013, both the new Chinese
and Indian immigrants
outnumbered new Mexicans.
The
American economy demands immigrants of every skill level, but Indian
and Chinese immigrants are more educated than Mexican immigrants. Up to
71.6 percent of Indian
immigrants have a bachelor's degree or higher, while 53.4 percent of
Chinese immigrants do. Only 10.1 percent of Mexican immigrants are as
educated. Whereas Mexican immigrants were mostly less educated than
Americans, Indian and Chinese immigrants are much
more skilled.
This
shift from lower-skilled immigrants to higher-skilled ones makes
reforming our immigration laws even more urgent. Fortunately, there are
at least three new ideas
that could significantly improve legal immigration.
The
first idea is a new merit-based green card category that was introduced
in 2013. A merit-based system would issue up to 250,000 new green cards
a year, half of them
set aside for mid-skilled workers and the rest for those possessing
myriad skills like English or computer programming.
The
second new idea is to allow states to create their own guest worker
visa programs. A recent Cato Institute policy analysis by Brandon Fuller
and Sean Rust shows how
similar programs in Canada and Australia were huge successes. They
could invite in entrepreneurs, investors or workers for any skill level
or occupation, instead of relying upon an unresponsive one-size-fits-all
federal program. American states test different
policies like welfare reform, gun laws and tax policies on their own —
it's time they do it with migration, too.
In
2015, both Texas and California have considered asking the federal
government for permission to experiment with their own migration
programs. In previous years, at
least 14 other states have considered setting up their own migration
systems, asking the federal government for permission to do so, or
lobbying for a special allotment. It's time the federal government
allows states to do this.
A
third new idea is an immigration tariff that charges a fee for a
permanent work-visa or a green card. Such a fee, say $20,000, could
replace the immigration bureaucracy
with a revenue-generating machine. Ideally, this system would allow any
peaceful and healthy immigrant to come here based on the economic
demand, instead of government created preferences. If the economy is
booming, more migrants and employers would be willing
to pay. If the economy is slow, then fewer will come.
Immigrants,
their families and American employers currently pay thousands of
dollars in lawyer fees to immigrate — better to cut out those middlemen
and charge a single
price. The late Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker, Australian
Sen. David Leyonhjelm and others support a tariff to replace this
current system. The government could sill meddle by charging different
prices based on skills or age, but that is less harmful
than quotas or reams of regulation. Under a tariff, at least everybody
has a shot of immigrating.
Other
than screening out security and health threats, the U.S. government
cannot pick immigrants who will succeed. Only the immigrants themselves,
American employers and
consumers of American products can identify the immigrants who offer
the most. These three new policy ideas allow more immigration
flexibility and openness — especially since the source of immigrants is
switching to Asia. America needs an immigration system
for the future. Here are some good ideas to get the ball rolling.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment