Immigration Miscalculation?

One of our country’s most divisive issues is immigration. While this issue has various dimensions, it’s resolution is critical to employers and an important part of employment law. Everyone seems to agree that reform is needed. No one seems to agree on what the reform should be. As noted in a recent post, the current negative view of immigration belies who we are as a nation and causes the enactment of well-intentioned but unhelpful state laws.

New research by the Fiscal Policy Institute and other organizations reveals a much different picture of immigration than the stereotypes often associated with our immigrant population. The research focuses on a number of urban areas. Instead of showing a group mired in the lowest paying and least wanted jobs, the research indicates that immigrants, at least the 25 million who live in metropolitan areas, hold jobs evenly distributed across the job and income spectrum.

Cities with thriving immigrant populations (composed of high-earning and lower-wage workers) have prospered the most over the past two decades. Atlanta, Denver and Phoenix have experienced the fastest economic growth, despite the fact that many of their immigrants work in lower-paid service and blue-collar jobs. What’s sometimes overlooked is that the immigrant population has a mix of occupations. In 14 of the 25 largest cities, more immigrants are employed in white-collar jobs than in lower-wage work.

I don’t know, of course, if this research is completely accurate, but it indicates a basis for a more reasoned discussion of the subject than we usually have. It also underscores the need for reform that takes into account all aspects of immigration. With this issue being so divisive and with Congress being so divided, can the leaders of a nation of immigrants, going back to its beginning, create reform that’s essential to all workplaces and the future of our economy? We can hope.