Scare tactics aside, immigration reform strengthens our economy

Scare tactics aside, immigration reform strengthens our economy


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SALT LAKE CITY — As the debate over comprehensive immigration reform heats up through the summer, the messages—just like in any political campaign—will grow more divisive. Think of it like an election year, but over an issue rather than candidates.

Unlike in a presidential election, Utah will be somewhat of a battle ground state. So if you got sick and tired of Mia Love and Jim Matheson ads last fall, brace yourself; we may be in for more of the same on the immigration front.

Take for example an ad running in Utah right now, paid for by a group called Numbers USA.

If you've taken the 30 seconds to watch, you should notice right away it has all the makings of a political scare ad, including its extremely loose relationship with the facts.

Scare tactics aside, immigration reform strengthens our economy

Last month, I spoke with KSL's Richard Piatt about the ad; you can see a portion of that interview here.

As Piatt points out, 20 million unemployed Americans is guessing on the very high side. And the 33 million immigrants? Well, that number is spread out over a decade. Also, many of those immigrants are working now so unless they're taking their own jobs, it doesn't factor into the equation.

Comprehensive immigration reform will strengthen the U.S. economy and create more middle-class jobs.

It's a principle we call, "growing the economic pie."

Not all jobs are the same. Some require high levels of education and technical skill; others requiremore intensive manual labor; many fall in between. In order to grow the number of jobs in the middle—the kinds of jobs the vast majority of us hold—you need to have people working in both other categories. Our economic engine cannot fire on all cylinders when there are holes in our labor market and we have two sizeable gaps right now.

Numbers USA got one thing right. Today, there are far too many Americans out of work. We do have an unacceptably high unemployment rate (7.5 percent nationally) and a modest at bet job growth rate (just 1.5 percent for the U.S.). What they don't understand, however, is that reforming our broken immigration system will have the opposite effect than what they claim.


Our housing market is growing but homebuilders struggle to find the construction workers they need to keep pace with demand. And Utah ranchers and farmers consistently rank finding able workers among their biggest challenges.

Even here in Utah where the economic picture is much brighter (4.7 percent unemployment, 3.5 percent job growth), we have thousands of high skilled jobs that we can't fill. Our housing market is growing but homebuilders struggle to find the construction workers they need to keep pace with demand. And Utah ranchers and farmers consistently rank finding able workers among their biggest challenges.

These are all jobs waiting to be filled, but the native workforce doesn't have the necessary skills or willingness to do the work.

That's where smart immigration policy can help. We can bring in the top talent from around the world to drive innovation. We already play a key role in developing talent in our universities… right before we send them off to strengthen our competition.

And we have people who want to come and make a better life for themselves and their children in America. They work hard, often in the jobs we have real difficulty filling. They cook, clean, make up hotel rooms and harvest crops. They supplement our native construction workforce as dry-wallers, cement workers, framers and landscapers. The jobs they take may not make them middle class Americans right away, but they come for the opportunity to build a better life for their children.

Scare tactics aside, immigration reform strengthens our economy

Fill a high-skill position and that creates a demand for jobs to support it. The work done by a software coder creates a need in other areas like human resources, accounting, marketing and more.

Filling hourly positions helps a homebuilder build more houses, a hotel host more events and a farm grow more produce and harvest it more efficiently and effectively.

Those workers also play a role as consumers as they take their wages and pay rent, buy food, gasoline, electronics and recreational activities.

A recent study by the Immigration Policy Center shows just how important immigrants are to the Utah economy. They account for nearly 12 percent of our state workforce. If all unauthorized immigrants were removed from Utah, the state would lose $2.3 billion in economic activity and $1.0 billion in gross state product. Those consumers keep a lot of people in jobs and a lot of companies in business.

We need to increase the amount of consumers in our state and strengthen their purchasing power. That increases demand. We also need to create more jobs for the middle class. We do that by filling the gaps in our workforce, and that requires using the skills of immigrants.

Smart immigration reform strengthens the American economy and that's good for everyone.

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Marty Carpenter

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