immigration reform – Immigration Briefs

Education Spending, Social Security and Immigration

In looking at news reports over the last several weeks, several jumped out at me. A couple discussed immigration and social security, and several more discussed immigration and education spending. These are two very different issues, but both are being impacted by immigration – both those coming with documentation and those coming without.

First, in terms of those coming to the US with documentation. In terms of the article on Education spending, that is not really addressed because, according to the article, those people are paying taxes, etc., so they are paying for their educational costs. Regarding social security, immigrants coming to the US on valid non-immigrant and immigrant visas are helping to keep our Social Security system solvent. Why is that? According to the article in the Motley fool:

Most people legally migrating to the U.S. tend to be younger, which is an extremely important point. These are people who will spend decades in the labor force contributing to Social Security via the payroll tax. The 12.4% payroll tax on earned income (wages and salary) was responsible for providing approximately $981 billion (90.1%) of the $1.088 trillion in revenue Social Security collected in 2021.
The intermediate-cost model in the 2022 Trustees Report — the “intermediate-cost model” is what the Trustees view as the outcome likeliest to happen — is based on average annual total net immigration of 1,246,000 people. Between July 1, 2012, and June 30, 2017, fewer than 955,000 total net migrants entered the U.S. annually, according to data from the World Bank. If net migration into the U.S. continues to fall, or even steadies at these reduced levels, it’s all but a certainty that Social Security’s funding shortfall will grow.
Motley Fool, January 28, 2023

As can be seen, immigrants to the US, in general, are younger, thereby providing more productive years in which they are earning taxes and paying into the system. And in fact, the lowering levels of immigrants being allowed in legally is HURTING our ability to fully fund Social Security.

What about those coming in without documentation? Surely they are costing us more money? The answer is not relatively that easy. In terms of education, because of a Supreme Court case from 1982, Plyer V. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, ALL children are eligible for free public education, including those without documentation. So States are required to spend money to educate those who come to the US and are age-eligible for public education (under the age of 21). How much does this cost? It is difficult to figure out exactly, but looking at the figures that The Hill used in a recent article, here is what it comes out to:

The Pew Research Center says that the number of illegal immigrants expelled under Title 42 – which allows the government to expel immigrants during a public health emergency – declined during 2022, from about 50 percent to about a third. That would leave some 1.5 million.

There was another estimated 600,000 who avoided border patrol in 2022, for an estimated total of 2.1 million new undocumented immigrants living in the country.

If we use TRAC’s estimate of 37 percent being children, that’s about 777,000. Of course, not all of them are school age. If we subtract, say, a third of them for being too young to enter public school, that leaves us with about 513,000 school-age children.

Multiply that times the average cost of a public education, $14,840, and that equals about $7.6 billion in new public education costs for just one year’s worth of undocumented children. And while the migrants have spread out across the country, a relatively small number of states and cities must cover most of those costs.
The Hill, 1/31/2023

While the article goes on to say that the adults who come over without documents will eventually work, maybe, and equivocate about whether they can legally work or will work, the article does present a stark picture of approximately $7.6 billion in additional costs every year. Again, however, this is not the full picture. While those who ENTERED this year may not be able to contribute immediately, there are other people in the US without documentation – how much do they contribute? Well, again, according to the Motley Fool article:

What’s more, a study from New American Economy showed that undocumented workers contributed $13 billion in payroll tax revenue in 2016. These undocumented workers either used a friend’s or family member’s Social Security number to obtain work, or their employer failed to properly vet the worker. Either way, more than 1% of Social Security’s annual revenue derives from undocumented workers, yet not one cent of benefits from traditional Social Security will be returned to these workers.
Motley Fool

So while there may be $7.6 billion in education costs a year, there is $13 billion in payroll taxes – which more than covers those costs. In addition, our Social Security system is receiving 1% of its annual revenue from these sources, and these are people who will never see any of that social security money.

As stated at the beginning of this article, it is tricky to look at the costs and benefits of immigration, either for those who come with documentation or those who come without documentation. But overall, almost every study has shown that there is a net benefit not just to those who come over with the correct papers but also to those who have entered without documentation. Hopefully, someday, our politicians will look at our immigration system and how much it is hurting our economy and our society and start making policies based upon that instead of the current climate of scare politics being used to frame the immigration debate.

Can we afford to not reform our immigration system?

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

While reviewing immigration news this week, two articles jumped out at me. Both were about the importance of immigration to the US economy.

The first was in Yahoo! Finance and reported on a press briefing by the Secretary of Labor on the November Job Numbers. During this briefing, he (the Secretary) first highlighted the fact that there was overall growth in job levels and well as in average hourly earnings, but that the unemployment rate remained quite low, at 3.7%. According to the Secretary, this showed that the current US Immigration system, allowing only a very limited number of skilled workers in every year, is a threat to our economy. (Link to article here). The Secretary also noted, that during his travels across the country, while talking to businesses, he repeatedly heard that businesses are desperately looking for employees and cannot find them. Considering there are approximately 10.3 million open jobs in the US, many for skilled worker, it is no wonder that they cannot find employees and no wonder that they are very in favor of immigration reform.

In addition to showing the need to fix our broken immigration system, these numbers also showed that, as of yet, there was no rush of US Citizens looking for employment once pandemic restrictions eased and people started going back to acting normally, which economists thought could happen and would ease the current employee crunch.

The second article discusses a speech given by the Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell at the Brooking’s Institute , in which he touched on the state of our economy, immigration, and the potential for a recession. It quotes Mr. Powell saying:

The truth is that the path ahead for inflation remains highly uncertain. For now, let’s put aside the forecasts and look instead to the macroeconomic conditions we think we need to see to bring inflation down to 2 percent over time.

In the labor market, demand for workers far exceeds the supply of available workers, and nominal wages have been growing at a pace well above what would be consistent with 2 percent inflation over time. Thus, another condition we are looking for is the restoration of balance between supply and demand in the labor market.

The second factor contributing to the labor supply shortfall is slower growth in the working-age population. The combination of a plunge in net immigration and a surge in deaths during the pandemic probably accounts for about 1-1/2 million missing workers.
Jerome Powell

When looked at together, both these articles paint a strong economic argument for everyone to be in support of immigration reform and expanding our current immigration system. Instead of hurting our economic situation, immigration helps. Study after study has shown this, and these two prominent government officials are simply stating the obvious at this point – in order to keep from sliding into more of a recession we need to reform immigration now.

Immigration, Points and Canada – Would a Canadian-like System work in the US?

Forbes recently published an excellent article looking at efforts to reform the US Immigration system and make it more like the Canadian system. For those who are not familiar with the Canadian system, they have a point-based system designed to bring in those with skills needed in Canada. In addition, Canada has steadily been INCREASING the number of immigrants it allows in, from 405,000 this year to 500,000 in 2025. They project that 100% of their labor force growth in Canada has come from Immigration.

In the US, Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arizona, proposed changing the US System into a point-based system as well. There are several issues with his proposal, however.

First, unlike Canada, we have a divided Executive and Legislative branch. Why is this important? Because, any changes to such a point system would require the Legislative branch to change the law, which is a slow and cumbersome process. While it is possible to make the system adaptable by the Executive branch, it is hard to imagine that either the Democrats or Republicans would agree to this. Unfortunately, both sides would be afraid that if the other side controlled the Executive branch, they would use such flexibility to either limit immigration or expand immigration. In Canada, having a parliamentarian system, they can affect changes to the point system quite quickly in order to reflect what is happening in Canada and the world. According to the article:

While Canada’s structure allows for relatively quick adjustments in point criteria, that is unlikely to happen in the United States. Instead, Congress would pass a law and set qualifications that might not change for decades. Ceding greater authority to an immigration bureaucracy would be unlikely to work, since it can take many years for a federal agency to enact a regulation and enact changes.

In Canada, (permanent) immigrants for employers often first work for Canadian employers on temporary visas, similar to the U.S. transition from H-1B status to an employment-based green card. The difference is that Canada awards points for age, language, schooling and work experience in Canada and grants permanent residence each year to those who achieve sufficient points. The system has evolved and been adjusted so that employers can retain highly skilled employees. Another key feature: Canada allows provinces to select immigrants based on unique regional needs, something U.S. point system advocates generally have not favored.
Stuart Anderson, Forbes Magazine

Secondly, the Act proposed by Senator Cotton would also eliminate Family-based immigration, thereby lowering immigration overall. This lowering of immigration would not, as Senator Cotton has stated, spur economic growth. It would, in fact, do the opposite.

Cotton and Purdue made what economists would consider a contradictory argument for their bill. The senators argued their legislation would “spur economic growth” while “reducing overall immigration by half.” However, reducing immigration would lead to lower economic growth, not “spur” it. Joel Prakken, senior managing director and co-founder of Macroeconomic Advisers, estimated a 50% reduction in legal immigration would lead U.S. economic growth to decline by 12.5% from its projected levels.
Stuart Anderson, Forbes Magazine

As reported in previous blog posts, this is supported by multiple studies as well. Immigration is one of the driving factors of our economy, and growing our labor pool is one sure way of growing our economy overall.

Overall, it would be ill-advised for the US to move towards such a system, as our government is not as quick and flexible in changing laws as the system in Canada. In addition, the act pushed by Senator Cotton would hurt our economy, which is already in pain. The Senator would be better off listening to economists and working on ways to improve our current system and increase immigration so that we can help our economy grow. Increasing the number of employment-based green cards and H-1B visas would be one way to affect such a change.

For the full article, please go to: This Link

Please remember, as always, this blog does not offer legal advice. If you need legal advice, consult with a lawyer instead of a blog. Thank you.

Is Immigration Reform Possible Soon?

Is there a possibility that congress may be able to pass immigration reform soon? Democrats are making a big push to do so, but there margin is extremely slim (1 Senator), so how can they get this done? What the Democrats are trying to do is using the budget process to enact this far reaching legislation.

Budget Reconciliation

In general, most legislation in congress requires a 60 member majority to enact. However, an exception to this is the reconciliation process for the budget (where the house and Senate get together and hash out their bill) – for this a only a simple majority is needed. Democrats have been trying to utilize this process to get some type of immigration reform passed, however they have run into a road block – the Senate Parliamentarian. You see, in order for non-budget provision to be included, the budget effects of the legislation are suppose to outweigh the actual statutory changes. It is the Parliamentarian that determines if this balancing act has been achieved and advises the Senate on whether a provision should be included. In terms of the proposed Democratic Immigration provisions, the Parliamentarian has stated that they should NOT be included as the statutory changes outweigh the suggested economic benefits that the Democrats indicated.

The next logical question is – Is the approval of the Parliamentarian needed to enact this legislation? The answer is no, the approval of the Parliamentarian is NOT REQUIRED. However, it is commonly sought, and the advice is usually followed. The last change that was made that went against what the Parliamentarian advised was just a couple years ago when Republicans removed the required 60 votes needed to approve a Supreme Court justice. And in this case, where the Democrats only have a 1 vote majority in the Senate, and where some Senators stated they would most likely not vote against the Parliamentarian, they are very eager to get that approval.

So what does this mean for the chances of passing some reform? The biggest obstacle that the Parliamentarian pointed out was the provisions that would allow those in the US without status to adjust. It appears that if Democrats are willing to pare back their ambitions in that area (and I do understand why they wish to pass this, and agree that it is needed) and submit a smaller bill, that the Parliamentarian may well approve of the addition. So, overall, I would say that there is a good chance that some immigration provisions will be included and passed, the only question is how much and which provision.

Biden wants to Roll Back the Immigration Policy changes made by Trump. Will that be possible in his first four years?

There was a recent, very interesting article published by NPR that highlighted the problems that may be faced by the Biden administration (if he wins the election) in rolling back the changes implemented by the Trump administration. You can read the full article here.

While there were several possible barriers raised by the article that could stand in Biden’s way of changing such immigration policies, the biggest, and hardest barrier to break through, in my mind, is the culture that has been created at USCIS, ICE, CBP and other related agencies. According to the article:

“That isn’t something that’s a light switch. You can’t change culture within an organization that vast overnight,” says Angela Kelley, senior adviser to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “So I agree that it’s going to be a long, long road.”
CBP produced an ominous, fictionalized video on the Border Patrol’s YouTube channel that depicts a Latino migrant who had just escaped from agents, attacking and knifing a man in a dark alley. The video was released at a time when Trump has been stoking fears about violent immigrants at his campaign rallies. For an example of how the Border Patrol is marching lockstep with the White House, look to a video titled “The Gotaway,” posted earlier this month.
NPR inquired why the video was made and why it was removed a week later before being re-posted. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott said in a statement that the video was produced “to enhance awareness that effective border security helps keep all Americans safe,” and it was briefly pulled because they misused copyrighted materials.
NPR, Morning Edition, September 14, 2020

Changing such a culture will take time. While changing those at the top will help change the policies the officers act under, getting those changes to be implemented by officers, and getting them to change their attitudes will take quite a while, especially at ICE and CBP. USCIS may be somewhat easier to crack as the officers there are not dealing with deportation or apprehending people on a daily basis and are not necessarily as hard lined (although, most likely, some are as well). Changing the policies at USCIS may be enough to allow officers to change the way they adjudicate cases without to much time passing.

Again, according to the article:

“I don’t think it’s realistic that Biden in four years could unroll everything that Trump did,” says Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.
“Because of the intense volume and pace of changes the Trump administration enacted while in office, even if we have a new administration, Trump will continue to have had an impact on immigration for years to come,” Pierce says.
NPR, Morning Edition, September 14, 2020

While, overall, it may take a long time to affect all these changes, I do think, that there are some basic policies that could be changed much quicker (in terms of USCIS). First, the requirement of an interview for all cases – that could be changed very quickly. In addition, some of the more hardline looks at H-1Bs could also be changed rather quickly, as could the removal of harmful Executive Orders that limit immigration. So there is a lot that could be done relatively quickly as well.

We must also remember, that, if Biden is able to get Congress on his side as well, and a new immigration law is passed, that could significantly increase the rate at which changes can be made both inside USCIS as well as inside ICE and CBP (if such a law limits their jurisdicition and ability to act inside the law).

Overall, it could take longer for many changes, especially those at the border to be fully put in place. While some changes, those that primiarily are implemented by USCIS, may be able to be implemented earlier. We shall see what happens in November and what happens in January, should there be a change of administration.

Immigrant Visa Backlogs and Congress: Can They Fix the Problem?

Unknown Not everyone realizes but there are huge backlogs of cases for employment based immigrant visas. For about 1 year now the EB-1 category (Extra-ordinary Ability, Outstanding Professor and Researchers and Intra-Company Transferees) category has been backlogged about 1 year for most of the world and several years for China and about 4-5 years for India. The EB-2 category, while current for most of the world, has been backlogged about 4 years for China and about 10 years for India. The same is true of the EB-3 category. For those from India and China especially, the requirement of having to wait 10 years or more for a green card is hard on the family. It can cause children, who may be 2 or 3 when they arrive in the US, to age out before a green card can be obtained – forcing these now grown Children to either go home or get their own visas and begin their own processes. Furthermore, the employees are working for years without hope of major pay increases or promotions, for fear of being fired (if they ask and are denied) and loosing their place in line.

Congress has been looking at ways of fixing this. The most popular bill currently, that almost passed the Senate, would alleviate the issue by removing the per country limitations currently in place for employment based immigrant visas. Currently, all employment based immigrant visas are divided among all countries in the world evenly. While the Department of State can reallocate some visas based upon usage patterns, no country can get more than 7% of the immigrant visas in any given category. That means, for example, for EB-1 visas India can only get about 3,000 visas per year (and that includes visas for all dependents of the primary applicant (spouses and children). The bill in congress would remove those limitation in steps and would put in place protections so those from other countries who already applied in the employment categories when the bill was filed, would not loose their place in line. However, the effect of this bill would hit people from EVERY country.

Within 4-9 years all countries would be facing major backlogs in all categories. While the current backlog would be cleaned out by then, there would still be significant delays for everyone. Another bill, in addition to removing the per country limitations would also remove dependents from the visa count. This means a family of 6 or a family of 4 would be counted as just one immigrant visa against the quota. This would greatly help to reduce the backlog and would go a long way towards ameliorating the issues caused by just removing the per country cap. This bill, however, would also raise the number of employment based immigrant visas, a portion of the bill that is unlikely to pass this Congress or, even if it were, to be signed by this President. There are currently other Senators working at removing the increase in immigrant visas from the bill to try to make it more passable.

Overall, while all these bills try to tackle this issue, the problems with our current immigration system are fairly widespread. Our immigration laws were written over 30 years ago now in many cases, and longer in some. Many things have changed since then and a major overhaul is certainly in order. However, because of the current polarization of our political system, it is doubtful that any such major reform could be passed anytime soon. Therefore, smaller fixes are all we can hope for in the near term. Hopefully congress can get together and put together a bill that will help everyone and help prevent the current backlogs we have.

Those interested in this issue can read a good article in The Washington Post here.

Please remember, as always, this blog does not offer legal advice. If you need legal advice, consult with a lawyer instead of a blog. Thank you.

28 Days and Counting

Congress only has 28 days left in its latest legislative session. After that, they take a break for two months, and then, when they come back, the election season is on in full force and there is not much chance of anything of significance passing. What does this mean for Immigration reform? It means that every day that passes we are less likely to see anything done to reform our immigration system and modernize it with today’s realities. This reform will not just allow more people to come to the US, but will hopefully, finally, allow USCIS to work in a more timely manner.

What is the chance that such reform will happen? Well the most supportive Republicans put it at 50/50 at the best. I think even that may be somewhat optimistic. Many of the Republican politicians facing challenges from the right have distanced themselves from Immigration Reform to show that they are conservative. The Democratic plan has little to no Republican support but there is no guarantee that Democrats will support a watered down version of their bill. Democrats have also flatly refused to support cutting the bill into several smaller bills, which many Republicans have said is a necessity.

For all the above the chances of immigration reform happening this year seem to be dwindling rapidly. While not gone, every day makes it less and less likely that anything will happen.

House Republicans release Immigration Reform principles

Just the other day House Republicans released what they called their principles for pursuing Immigration Reform. These included creating a method for many of those in the US to illegally to legalize their status, the need to strengthen our border controls as well as our tracking systems for when non-citizens enter and leave the US, increasing the number of employers required to check immigration status for new employees, increasing the number of employment based immigrant visas and decreasing the number of family based immigrant visas, and the need to make it easier for those looking to work in the US to be able to do so, especially those who come to the US to attend college and then get frozen out of H-1Bs because of the cap.

Overall, while the principles look fairly good, there really are no details yet so we cannot tell what will or will not be any final bill. However it now looks like there may actually be a final bill, which is a great improvement. As those details become flushed out, we will update you. For now, if you wish to read the actual principles and read a good article that summarizes what they say, follow this link.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Goodlatte held Press Conference on Immigration Reform

Rep. Goodlatte (R) held a press conference this morning regarding immigration reform efforts underway in the Senate. While he stated that he welcomed such efforts, he also stated that the House Judiciary committee would be looking at Immigration differently. The House will be dividing the legislation into separate bills so that Representatives can review and look at each aspect of immigration reform separately, as opposed to having one take it or leave it bill. According to Rep. Goodlatte, the first two bills will be introduced tomorrow and will concern the agricultural worker program and mandatory e-verify provisions. It should also be noted that Rep. Goodlatte does not support providing legal status to the thousands of people in the US without status at this time.

Considering Rep. Goodlatte’s previous stands on immigration, and considering the fact that the Senate, at this time, most likely will not consider piecemeal legislation, I think that this move makes it less likely that we will actually see immigration reform anytime soon. While I sincerely hope that I am wrong, and I hope that this can be worked out, I am not as hopeful as I was even yesterday. The primary issue is the fact that when each piece is separate, there is no guarantee that once one part is passed, the other parts will also be passed. In other words, if the House passes mandatory e-verify, what is to stop Republicans at that point from voting against the pathway to citizenship, even if they previously agreed to support it? I really see this move more as a way to end the immigration debate rather than as a way to move it forward. The only hope I see is that there can be some compromise whereby the senate agrees to modify the bill somewhat in return for having it pass as one bill. At this point, only time will tell.

Goodlatte outlines cautious path (politico.com)
House Will Do Immigration Reform Piece-by-Piece (politicalwire.com)

Budget Reconciliation

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