Keating: Immigrants play a valuable role in our economy

An opinion piece about the immigration policy we all hope happens in the new administration. We are all very hopeful. DP

by Raymond J. Keating, chief economist for the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council.

When it comes to public policy and the economy, there’s at least one area where President-elect Barack Obama seems to get it. That is, immigration.

Make no mistake; immigrants have been the lifeblood of the U.S. labor force in recent times.

As the U.S. Department of Labor reported earlier this year, foreign-born workers accounted for half of the increase in the U.S. labor force in 2007. From 2000 to 2007, the foreign born made up 47.7 percent of labor force growth.

More broadly, from July 2006 to July 2007, immigrants accounted for 36 percent of the increase in the U.S population. From 2000 to 2007, 40 percent of the population rise was attributable to immigrants.

This has been the trend for some time. In 1970, for example, there were 9.6 million foreign-born individuals in the United States, registering 4.7 percent of the total population. By 2006, that number had climbed to 35.7 million, or 12.4 percent of the population.

To sum up, if it were not for immigration, the United States would be a smaller nation today. In recent years, business would have been confronted by worker shortages and higher labor costs. Consumers would have faced higher prices. And economic growth would have been much lower.

Of course, immigration is not just about economics; it’s also about politics. On the Republican side of the aisle, confusion and conflict have reigned of late. While President George W. Bush and this year’s Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, have pro-immigration track records, a vocal part of the GOP has staked out an often-harsh anti-immigration stance.

Regarding the 10 million to 12 million immigrants in the nation illegally, some in the GOP pushed an agenda of beefing up border security and an enforcement crackdown. They chose to ignore the reality that most people come to this nation – whether legally or illegally – for opportunity, and that they aid our economy.

While not only bad economics, the Republican strategy has been politically costly. Consider the Latino vote, for example. Bush earned 35 percent of that vote in 2000, and between 40 percent and 44 percent in 2004. With many vocal Republicans pushing an anti-immigration agenda since then, however, Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006, with Republican House candidates, for example, receiving 30 percent of the Latino vote that year.

According to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of exit polls this year, Obama earned 67 percent of the Hispanic vote, with McCain getting only 31 percent. McCain was clearly hurt in states like New Mexico, Nevada, Florida and Colorado. Republicans have been punished for their anti-immigration dalliances.

While McCain waffled on his support for comprehensive immigration reform during the campaign, Obama did not.

Obama’s immigration position basically was what Bush and McCain originally proposed. The Obama plan called for allowing undocumented immigrants “to pay a fine, learn English, not violate the law and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.”

In addition, the President-elect called for increasing legal immigration levels to keep families together and to fill the labor needs of U.S. businesses. He also supported beefed-up border security through more personnel, and enhanced infrastructure and technology.

The main negative in the Obama plan is the continued emphasis on forcing business owners to do the job of the immigration police, and imposing penalties on businesses that fail to do so. It is simply unjust to impose these costs on entrepreneurs and businesses because the government runs an inefficient immigration process, and fails to secure our borders.

Now that the Democrats will control both the White House and Congress, it will be interesting to see what they do. In a down economy, revamping the immigration system might be a tough sell. At the same time, if the U.S. economy is shedding, rather than creating, jobs, there’s obviously less of an incentive to come to our country.

But once the economy resumes growth, the flow of people seeking economic opportunity will pick up once again. Will the United States be ready with a reformed system that serves both national security and economic growth, or will we be rolling the dice with the same old immigration mess?

President-elect Obama has the opportunity to make a positive contribution to our nation’s economy by doing immigration reform the right way.