{"id":22784,"date":"2020-04-09T08:48:49","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T12:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=22784"},"modified":"2020-04-09T08:48:52","modified_gmt":"2020-04-09T12:48:52","slug":"immigration-reform-legal-immigration-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/04\/09\/immigration-reform-legal-immigration-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"This Isn\u2019t What \u201cImmigration in the National Interest\u201d Looks Like"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In one fell swoop, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the American economy to its knees and thrown many American workers out of their jobs.\u00a0 More than ten million Americans have lost their jobs in the last month, and St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard estimates that before this is over, unemployment could reach <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/04\/05\/bullard-economy-not-in-free-fall-despite-32percent-unemployment-estimate.html\" target=\"_blank\">32 percent<\/a> \u2014 that\u2019s nearly ten percentage points higher than the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebalance.com\/unemployment-rate-by-year-3305506\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">24.9 percent<\/a> jobless rate the nation suffered during the worst of the Great Depression in 1933. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But many of those workers who are laid off will eventually seek to return to their jobs in the nation\u2019s small business sector, comprised of some <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/5b7263daf7c4aaa65aae0587b2751580\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">31 million small businesses<\/a> across the country.\u00a0 These small companies \u2013 ones\u00a0 with less than 500 employees \u2013 range from hairdressers to bookstores, from small factories to restaurants, and last year these companies employed 52 percent of all Americans who work for the private sector.\u00a0 And while Washington is trying to pull\u00a0 a new rabbit out of its hat to keep these entrepreneurs open, many may not be able to survive an extended COVID-19 shutdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite a potentially bleak future, marked by economic ruin and previously unseen unemployment rates, there\u2019s one bad policy choice we can rely on the government to keep on making, albeit on a delayed basis, due to the pandemic.\u00a0 This nation will continue its historically high levels of immigration that are driven largely by <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fairus.org\/issue\/legal-immigration\/chain-migration\" target=\"_blank\">chain migration<\/a>.\u00a0 In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dhs.gov\/immigration-statistics\/yearbook\/2018\/table1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">2019<\/a> the U.S. admitted:\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>1\nmillion legal immigrants;<ul><li>65,000\nH-1B \u201chigh skilled workers;\u201d <\/li><\/ul><ul><li>66,000\nH-2B low skilled workers; <\/li><\/ul><ul><li>55,000\nvisa lottery immigrants;<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>25,000\nrefugees;<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>38,000\nasylees.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>And those numbers are just new admissions, they\ndon\u2019t include extensions of status or changes from one status to another by\nforeigners already in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why would the U.S. continue admitting such an\nenormous number of immigrants when it knows \u2013 at least for the short term \u2013\nthat its economy will be in shambles and its own citizens will be in desperate\nneed of work?&nbsp; Because our immigration\nsystem operates on autopilot, with congressionally mandated levels for each\ncategory. There is very little flexibility built into the system to allow the\nExecutive Branch to respond to changing economic and political conditions\nthroughout the world. It\u2019s an outdated, immigration framework that operates in\na vacuum, outside of the economic and political realities that affect the lives\nof everyday Americans.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The current immigration system is dysfunctional\nbecause it doesn\u2019t address either international economics or geopolitics as\nthey currently exist.&nbsp; Thankfully, as the\nSupreme Court affirmed in <em>Trump v. Hawaii<\/em>,\nthe president has the ability to temporarily close the border to broad\ncategories of immigrants in times of crisis. However, that power does not\npermit our Chief Executive to create new immigration classifications or do away\nwith existing ones. America needs an immigration system that is flexible enough\nto meet the needs of our ever-changing economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And if\never there was a time to enact real immigration reform, it is now. Congress\nneeds to stop forcing American workers to compete with foreigner workers for\ngood jobs. It is time to make immigration policy work for Americans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In one fell swoop, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the American economy to its knees and thrown many American workers out of their jobs.\u00a0 More than ten million Americans have lost their jobs in the last month, and St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard estimates that before this is over, unemployment could reach 32<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/04\/09\/immigration-reform-legal-immigration-immigrationreform-com\/\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":15446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[11],"tags":[1524,986,754,545],"yst_prominent_words":[1938,2169,2140,3304,3175,8279,2745,1980,1963,2040,2137,3895,2095,1942,4723,8280,2014,7081,2128,1937],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22784"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22785,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22784\/revisions\/22785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22784"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=22784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}