The Obama administration seems to want to take on everything from education reform to immigration reform. However, many believe that President Obama should be focusing on the current economic crisis. Of course, education reform would make the United States more competitive in the global market in the long run, and therefore it would make sense to address the education issues. However, there are many people that think that other reforms that the President is pursuing should be placed on the back burner until the United States recovers from the economic crisis.
One such reform deals with immigration. At the beginning of the month, Obama announced that he would be addressing immigration reform this year. In a NYTimes article, it says that Obama plans to address the public in May on the issue and then work with a group to begin discussing possible legislation. As I said before, the economy is a bigger priority for many politicans and they will focusing on stimulating the economy, and restructuring many public services before they will address immigration reform. However, some believe that immigration reform is vital to stimulating the economy.
For instance, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) released a publication titled “Why Enactment of the DREAM Act Would Aid the Ailing Economy and Generate Tax Revenues" outlines how the DREAM Act would impact the economy. Not only would legalized immigrants increase tax revenues, they would also contribute to the Social Security system. Additionally, it would stimulate the economy by increasing productivity in the educated workforce. The publication also makes the point that many of these students have been educated from K-12 through the United States public school system. Their elementary and secondary education has been invested in through both federal and local taxpayers’ money. However, since these students are not allowed to attend public universities, the return on the investment is not seen. The NILC has another brief called the “Basic Facts about In-State Tuition for Undocumented Immigrant Students.” According to this brief, states that have already passed legislation similar to the DREAM Act have not experienced a substantial cost in its implementation. School revenues have increased because students that would not otherwise be there are now attending.
Additionally, Simon Rosenberg of the Democratic think-tank NDN says that legalizing immigrants would help to end unfair competition for low-wage American workers. At the moment, illegal immigrants are not protected by the same minimum wage rights that citizens are. Therefore, employers will hire undocumented immigrant, pay them under the minimum wage and not report it. This leaves the rest of low-wage American workers without jobs.
According to NPR, Simon also made the same point that NILC made about tax revenues. As more and more illegal immigrants become citizens, they will pay more to federal and state taxes. Furthermore, Rosenberg states:
It means they can start an entry level job, but they can't really make the step to improve their education, get to the next level," he says. "And so you're essentially holding a whole contingent of people back from contributing even more to the economy than they do.
While there are counterpoints to the argument (some of which are in the NPR article), I believe that it is time to address the immigration issue with a reform that will benefit everyone. With the growing numbers of illegal immigrants entering the United States there needs to be more structure around what will happen to them, especially in regards to education.
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