Updated 11:30 AM EDT, Thu, Mar 28, 2024

Immigration Reform 2014: Will Immigration Reform Help or Hurt the US Economy?

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While the majority of the U.S. agrees that there needs to be an overhaul of the broken immigration system, Congress cannot agree on how to address the issue.

Republicans don't trust President Barack Obama to enforce the regulations they put forth, which includes increased border security that is connected to a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Yet, Democrats contend that Republicans are using excuses to deny President Obama a victory, and to push the legislation until after the 2014 midterm elections.

While lawmakers are unsurprisingly looking at the issue from a political standpoint, experts argue that it is more of an economic issue than a political one, according to Voice of America. Most immigration and economic experts believe that bringing an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants out of the shadows will be an economic boon to the U.S.

"I think that each day that Congress delays this decision people are getting hurt, are getting hurt by the deportation machine, that is as I said before, separating families every day," said Guillermo Cantor, a senior analyst at the Immigration Policy Center.

He also touched upon immigration reform's economic benefits. "And one of them that sometimes gets overlooked is that it would result in enormous economic benefits for this country," he said.

Marc Rosenberg of the Migration Policy Institute explained the tax benefits of immigration reform.

"Legalization is probably going to help the U.S. economy," he said. "It's also going to bring more people into the tax system, so it probably has a net fiscal benefit of people paying more taxes," he said. "In the long run however, unauthorized immigrants who become legal will also be eligible for additional services, so the fiscal impact has pluses and minuses."

Critics of reform suggested the opposite, stressing reform's negatives over its positives.

"How can we vote for a bill that our own Congressional Budget Office says will reduce average wages in America for 12 years?" said Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions.

Yet, Sessions is not entirely correct. The Congressional Budget Office said reform will reduce average wages one-tenth of 1 percent by 2023, but that is because the estimate included wages from lower-skilled workers who will become legal residents. The report said that after 10 years, wages will rise about half a percent, which is more than they would without immigration reform.

The Center for Immigration Policy said the current immigration system imposes economic burdens, which could be lifted by enacting reform. Marguerite Telford, a spokesperson for the Center, said the economic gains by immigrants are currently diminished by the greater demand for social programs.

Telford said, "and when you look at 36 percent of immigrants are on at least one welfare program and you look at how much it's costing, you know, how long can we keep affording it?"

She said that with the economy still in recovery, the annual admission of 1.1. million immigrants should be cut in half.

Some believe that there should be a more selective approach to immigration.

Ting Gong, a Chinese student, said work permit programs should be expanded for foreign students who graduated from American universities.

He said it was a great place to start "because you know the students who work here are highly educated and we can contribute our skills and everything to this country."

As of now, reform of any kind is stalled in the House of Representatives as the contentious debate continues.

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