Exploiting America\u2019s coronavirus epidemic, some are\nusing the crisis to push for more immigration and a new amnesty program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Migration Policy Institute<\/a> (MPI) says 263,000 U.S. immigrants with undergraduate degrees in health-related fields \u201care either relegated to low-paying jobs that require significantly less education or are out of work.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAlong with 846,000 U.S.-born\nadults whose health-related college degrees are similarly underutilized \u2014 a\nphenomenon we have long referred to as \u2018brain waste\u2019 \u2014 these immigrants\nrepresent a potentially important source of staff for the U.S. health corps,\u201d\nMPI says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The institute reports that 1.5\nmillion immigrants work in the U.S. health-care system as doctors, registered\nnurses and pharmacists. It estimates 6 million foreign-born workers toil in\nsupport of the medical sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, MPI goes on to add an\nimportant caveat. The immigration advocacy group admits that the credentials of\nthe foreign-born medical corps are often sketchy. Among them: degrees from\nunaccredited or unrecognized overseas schools; lack of proper licensing;\n\u201catrophied\u201d skills; and English deficiencies. As MPI puts it: \u201cWhere immigrants\nreceived their education matters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While America welcomes an\nall-hands-on-deck approach to the COVID crisis, it\u2019s critical to draw some\nboundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unhelpfully, MPI makes no\ndistinction between legal and illegal in its phalanx of low-paid and unemployed\n\u201cimmigrants.\u201d Current or prospective hiring of illegal aliens brings\ncomplications that extend beyond the immediate coronavirus siege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Peggy Noonan<\/a>, an occasionally conservative pundit, jumped the shark recently by proposing U.S. citizenship for illegal aliens who labor through the epidemic. What she fails to point out is that their labor is not entirely altruistic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While most illegal aliens are\nindeed caring people, they are working at these jobs for the very obvious\nreason of collecting a paycheck. Moreover, it is entirely likely that if not\nfor their illegal presence in the United States, these jobs would be filled by\ndecent caring Americans in need of a paycheck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Legal resident aliens with\nrequisite job qualifications should, by all means, be afforded opportunities to\nfill health-care jobs. But dragooning illegal workers into those positions\nisn\u2019t the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This country need not depend on immigrants \u2013 present or future \u2013 to meet the demand for nurses. As FAIR<\/a> pointed out this week, U.S. nursing schools turned away 75,029 qualified American applicants in 2018, primarily because of faculty shortages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fixing the faculty deficit and stepping up recruitment of the 846,000 U.S.-born adults already holding health-related college degrees will go a long way toward bolstering America\u2019s medical services. Illegal aliens need not apply. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Exploiting America\u2019s coronavirus epidemic, some are using the crisis to push for more immigration and a new amnesty program. The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) says 263,000 U.S. immigrants with undergraduate degrees in health-related fields \u201care either relegated to low-paying jobs that require significantly less education or are out of work.\u201c \u201cAlong with 846,000 U.S.-born adults<\/p>\n