Refraiming the Immigration Debate

Five years from now, the United States will need 1.2 million more registered nurses to meet the needs of retiring (and aging) baby boomers. Supply is already short in the United States and around the world, promising that fierce competition will only grow more intense for these essential workers.

So which country makes it hardest for qualified foreign nurses to obtain work visas? The United States. It takes on average 12 times longer for a nurse to enter the U.S. than the U.K. or Australia. "Some nurses in India have been waiting for seven years," says Mick Whitley, president of HCL International, a health care recruitment firm. This shortage represents "a threat to the quality of patient care," according to an ombudsman at the Department of Homeland Security.

The scarcity of nurses says something about the problems facing the U.S. health care system, but it also delivers a pointed message about the need for immigration reform. This shortage -- and others like it in the agriculture and food processing industries -- should inspire politicians to fix the system. The potential economic and social impact of all those shortages should reframe the immigration debate as President Obama considers when to begin his discussion with a bipartisan group of congressional leaders.

The need to change the terms of the debate is clear: In the last four years, comprehensive immigration reform has failed twice. Both attempts broke down because debate devolved into bouts of moral outrage.

On one side were those who consider it unconscionable that the nation allows millions to live in the shadows of society -- unable to vote, vulnerable to abuse, working for low wages and in poor labor conditions. Opposing them were those who find that any concession to "illegals" is reprehensible and undermines the rule of law. It's no wonder we're stuck.

Reorienting the discussion could cultivate a middle ground. Doris Meissner, a former immigration commissioner now at the Migration Policy Institute, thinks we need to make sure that "immigration can have a variety of purposes that serve our national interest in the years ahead."

The institute, in a report issued last month co-authored by Meissner, suggests the creation of an independent, bipartisan commission to issue "regular recommendations to the president and Congress for adjusting employment-based immigration levels." As the institute sees it, such a commission would turn immigration into a "strategic resource," keeping the U.S. competitive. The commission's recommendations would inject "much-needed flexibility into a system currently adjusted only every few decades."

Though the institute doesn't suggest it, the commission could also address the status of the 12 million people already living and working illegally in the United States. While determining future labor needs, the commission could identify the sectors in which illegal immigrants have been meeting demand for years.

Based on the commission's findings, the government could finally settle a currently undocumented worker's immigration status based simply on the country's labor needs. To fill a job opening in California, it would cost less to hire someone who is already there (and conceivably already doing the job) than to recruit someone in El Salvador.

That plan certainly makes more economic sense than the proposed attempt to deport millions, a logistical impossibility. Plus, as people come out of the shadows, unscrupulous employers will have a harder time paying low wages and maintaining poor labor conditions. If immigrants were earning better salaries, their purchasing power would improve and tax revenues would increase.

To be sure, this is not comprehensive reform. It would require a piecemeal, sector-by-sector approach better suited to bureaucrats than politicians. It certainly wouldn't satisfy everyone, but it may tone down the debate in Congress and redirect the discussion toward meeting U.S. labor needs.
The sooner Americans can move beyond the discussion about whether letting illegal immigrants stay is rewarding lawbreakers or doing what's morally right, the quicker such important fixes to the country's current immigration system can be achieved.

"Legalization is not going to take place because it is morally the right thing to do, but because it is the best thing for the country," says Ali Noorani, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum. "Reforming our immigration system is part of reforming our economy." It would also be an acknowledgment that the status quo is unacceptable.