Local opinion: Is immigration the way to make America great again?

There’s no more time-honored social tradition in the United States than legal immigration. Virtues, values and social fabric have been woven into our society by a continuing stream of immigrants. Our music, laws, sports, businesses — and even beer — can trace roots to immigrants. Current efforts to deport millions of productive workers are confusing and counterproductive.

Much to President Trump’s credit, illegal immigration has ground to a halt with southwest border encounters down 95% from its peak. However, recent statements by Vice President J.D. Vance are troubling. He said during an interview on Turning Point USA, “My honest view is that, right now, America, thanks in part to the Biden border invasion, but also thanks to a lot of bad immigration policy, we have let in too many immigrants.” He also said legal immigrants “are undercutting the wages of American workers.”

It is true that unbridled immigration during the Biden administration was a major reason for the election of the Trump-Vance ticket a year ago, and that the U.S. has seen bad immigration policy over many years. But do we have too many immigrants and are legal immigrants undercutting wages of American workers?

Anti-immigration advocates have been out in full force, using commentary that roughly translates to “immigrants are taking all our jobs.” The truth is immigrants are an integral part of our labor market, filling gaps caused by demographic changes and contributing to strong economic growth. Economists from the University of California, Davis calculated that immigrants increased wages for less educated native workers by 1.7% to 2.6% between 2000 and 2019. The current labor market bears this out with many industries reporting a severe shortage of workers. About half of small businesses report few or no applicants for job openings.

Ford Motor Corporation’s President Jim Farley recently said workers at the carmaker’s manufacturing facilities have raised warning flags that “none of the young people want to work here.” He said it’s an industry-wide problem amid a shortage of trained and skilled manual labor. Ford has around 5,000 mechanic jobs with hefty six-figure salaries, that have got no takers due to lack of skilled workers. We hear similar concerns coming from agriculture, foodservice, elderly care centers and many industries.

Why are we cutting our own throat? The National Foundation for American Policy projected that the Trump restrictions on legal immigration will reduce the US workforce by 2.8 million and GDP by $882 billion by 2018. This is in addition to the Administration’s aggressive deportation strategy that has removed more than half a million mostly illegal immigrants from the workforce. Many of those removed have been employed for years and are valuable employees. Some estimates say there are an additional ten to 20 million or more additional deportations planned. Perhaps the saddest example of deportation madness occurred at a Hyundai-L-G Energy Solution battery plant in Georgia when a raid rounded up over 500 mostly Koreans and deported them. They were here to train American workers the skills needed to make America self-sufficient in battery production. So much for encouraging foreign companies to invest in America. Curbs on H1-B visas for skilled workers and decreased foreign student enrollment at American colleges are disturbing signs that the Administration wants fewer immigrants.

Nearly half of the Fortune 500 companies, including Nvidia, Google, and Tesla, were founded by immigrants or their children. A quarter of the billion-dollar US startups were founded by an immigrant who arrived on an international student visa. The list of immigrants who made this country a roaring success include Albert Einstein, Andrew Carnegie, Elon Musk, Madeleine Albright, Bob Hope, Henry Kissinger, Joseph Pulitzer, Levi Strauss, Nicola Tesla, Sergei Brin (Google co-founder), Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rupert Murdoch and more.

Immigration reform is long overdue. We don’t have to choose between border security and immigration reform. We can and should do both. Americans deserve the right to feel safe and know their border is secure, but for decades, Congress has tried and failed to act because politics got in the way. It’s time to push forward and enact an immigration reform plan that works.