More Immigration Will Help the U.S. Economy

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Little known secrets of fiancé visa and green card interviews from an attorney with 20 years of experience

Bloomberg Businessweek published an excellent article by Charles Kenny titled: Why More Immigration, Not Less, Is Key to U.S. Economic Growth.

The article states that there are forces that are making immigration reform more urgent in the United States, including: growing crackdowns on undocumented workers which are hurting farming and are likely to spread to other sectors of the economy including construction the aging populations of the U.S. and Europe; and increased opportunities in countries in the developing world (these other countries are luring the skilled immigrant workers that the U.S. needs)

The article goes on to say that U.S. high tech companies probably have the most to gain from immigration reform (high tech companies successfully file about 80% of the H-1b applicants. The article cited a study which found that “one quarter of science and technology companies founded from 1995 to 205 had a foreign-born lead technologist or chief economist. These businesses employed 450,000 workers”.

The article argues that it is not just immigrant entrepreneurs and inventory who are helping to sustain America’s quality of life, foreign educated nurses now account for 20 percent of those who are taking the nursing exams (up from only 6 percent in the 1980s).

Surprisingly, even at the low-education end of our economy, low-skilled immigrants in the U.S “had a higher level of employment and a lower rate of household poverty than native low-skilled populations, despite the fact that emplyoyed immigrants earned $5,000 less than employed natives.

Interestingly, the article talks about how immigration affects entitilement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. “If low-skilled migration stops, the fertility rate could remain permanently depressed  in which case the long-term “crisis” in entitlement programs, from Medicare to Social Security, that rely on a good ratio of workers to retirees will become an urgent problem.”

Immigrants are also important to the U.S. housing market. “By 2030, nearly 70 percent of Latinos who came to the U.S. during the 1990s are expected to own a home…. That’s good news, the researchers point out, because the 78 million strong baby boom generation in the U.S. will be looking to downsize as their children leave home.”

The U.S. unfortunately is going to have competition for these immigrants. Vivek Wadhawa in a recent update to his Kaufman study, called “The Immigrant Exodus” states “that an unprecedented number or Indian and Chinese students being educated in the U.S. intend to go home rather than try to stay in the U.S to work”.  As a country we should encourage these students to stay in the United States so, among other things, our economy can benefit.

The article concludes with what should be done to ease restrictions on immigration into the United States. These include removing the country caps on H-1b visas and expand the number of H-1b visas which may be granted each year, fixing the EB-5 program, improve the immigrant investor programs in the U.S. It is also recommended that the “U.S. can also adopt the Shumer-Lee Bill, which provides a residency visa for anyone who spends $500,000 on a house”. Automatic green cards should be given to graduate students from U.S. universities. “Passing the Dream Act and raising the numbers on programs from the visa lottery through H-2 unskilled visa programs would boost low-skilled immigration,which is vital to the U.S. economy as well. Finally, the article states that we should give permanent status to the 1 million workers and their families on temporary visas waiting for green cards.

Hopefully, Congress will study this article and help make the above changes to our Immigration laws.  These changes would help, not hurt, our country.

Lawrence Gruner is a fiance visa attorney  a fiance visa lawyer and a green card through marriage attorney . He has almost 20 years of experience. His office handles immigration cases throughout California (including San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, San Diego and Sacramento) the United States and the World. You may reach us from anywhere in the world toll free at 888-801-6558 . You may also email us your questions. Attorney Gruner would be happy to review your situation and all of your options. He can help you come up with a plan for your Immigration case. His office handle green card cases  (both family based green cards, including green cards through marriage, and business based green cards K1 fiance visa cases (how do I get a fiance visa), naturalization and citizenship cases, E1-E2 investor cases, H1b cases ( visit our blog: How to get an H1b visa).

We handle cases throughout the state of California and the World. California cities include: Sacramento, Stockton, San Diego, San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, Daly City, Fremont, Hayward, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, San Rafael, Santa Rosa, Richmond, Fairfield, Grass Valley, Nevada City,Vallejo, Berkeley, Concord, Walnut Creek, Orinda, South San Francisco, San Bruno,Daly City, Pacifica, Half Moon Bay, Millbrae, Brisbane,  Foster City, Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City, Menlo Park, Palo Alto,Elk Grove, Woodland, Mountain View, Mt. View, Sunnyvale, Campbell, Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Gatos, Yuba City, Santa Cruz, Modesto, Fresno, San Luis Obispo, Morro Bay, Coronado, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Roseville, Rocklin,Auburn, Dixon, Davis. We also have clients in Seattle, Los Angeles, Portland, Reno, Denver, Dallas, Pheonix, Pittsburg, Miami, Cleveland,Boston, Philadelphia, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago.