Obama is wrong in that his primary focus on low-skill immigration does not address our economy's need for knowledge workers for economic growth. Gordon Crovitz in today's Wall Street Journal column "We Need an Immigration Stimulus" points out that the waiting list for an H1B visa is 5 years, with just over 1 in 10 highly qualified applications approved, with artificially low quotas for countries like China and India. In addition, some 60% of those earning advanced degrees in engineering in the United States are foreign students; yet, many of those do not have an opportunity to stay and work in the United States. Our global competitors, including Canada and Singapore, are eager to take advantage of the United States' inexplicable policy of taking a pass on those benefiting from our world-class education or highly-skilled, motivated entrepreneurial professional workers.
Crovitz makes a convincing case for immigration, including more rapid economic growth during periods of high immigration and notes we are currently at low levels of immigration on a percentage basis. He points out that far out of proportion to their relative size in the population, immigrants hold more patents and start more job-producing businesses (e.g., nearly half in Silicon Valley alone).
Obama, in fact, during the unsuccessful 2007 drive for immigration reform, opposed reforms to end the practice of chained immigration (e.g., immigration of relatives, regardless of individual merit) and to put more emphasis on merit-based criteria (such as the ability to speak English and professional credentials).
The media conservatives, on the other hand, focus on the symptoms of a broken-down temporary worker system, i.e., illegal entry at the southern border with Mexico. The problem with the 1986 reform wasn't so much the lack of enforcement but the fact that there wasn't an agreement on an orderly flow for temporary low-skilled workers, which is fundamentally opposed by organized labor. There are only 5000 visas annually given for low-skilled positions.
Jason Riley in an April 20 WSJ op-ed entitled "Obama and the 'Amnesty' Trap" notes that the 1986 focused only on the temporary workers already here and in the labor force, not the future low-skilled labor needs for business. Obama's position simply to grant amnesty on grounds of compassion is unacceptable because it is simply "more of the same" of what we did in 1986--it refuses to address, in a realistic manner, the unsatisfied domestic need for low-skilled labor, and illegal entry of undocumented workers is what happens when the demand is there but US policy doesn't accommodate a more orderly, compassionate system for workers, most of whom are attracted by the lower wages and work circumstances (e.g., migrant farm labor) that many American workers aren't willing to fulfill.
Riley points out that FDR responded to labor-short farmers during WWII with the Bracero program, which enabled hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers to work legally as seasonal workers; by the time the program ended in 1962 (under pressure from organized labor), illegal border crossings had dropped by almost 95%, not because of enhanced border enforcement.
Obama vs. the Media Conservatives
During the 2007 Immigration Reform battle, Obama refused to abide by the fragile bipartisan compromise whereby Republicans agreed, under certain conditions, to permanent legal worker status (including a path to citizenship) for undocumented workers in exchange for an end to chained immigration, a viable temporary worker program, and a more balanced, merit-based immigration framework. Obama was more interested in a policy empathetic to the plight of undocumented workers. The failure to support a guest worker program is a payoff to organized labor support, and another amnesty (after 1986) does nothing to address future low-skilled labor requirements and sets future expectations of a backdoor path to citizenship. More importantly, Obama ignores the pro-growth side of the immigration issue, namely a merit-based approach, along with revised quota allocations.
The media conservatives see the problem as being a law-and-order issue, but seem oblivious to the benefits of a temporary worker program in stemming illegal border crossings and the economic benefits involved with expanded merit-based immigration. In particular, I loathe the form of unbridled populism instigated by the media conservatives which all but shut down the Senate's attempt to resurrect the bill after the Democratic poison pills (supported by Obama) initially killed it. (We saw the same sort of thing happen over the straw man issue regarding AIG executive bonuses.) There is no doubt that some of that outrage reflects xenophobia or racism, which is unworthy of America and her immigrant roots. I have mentioned in other posts that in Texas I went to school with and taught Latinos and find that they typically have the same work ethic, dreams for a better future, and family values. We should not blame Latinos for the fact we have a dysfunctional guest worker program; that some who call themselves conservatives would oppose our reform steps is unconscionable.
