Visa Lawyer Blog
According to a recent Newsweek article, Immigrants irrespective of their legal status are actually good for the job market, and boost the economy.
Lou Dobbs, take note: immigrants are good for our economy. The most skilled create jobs in technology and engineering, says Duke professor Vivek Wadhwa, who estimates that in 2005 immigrant-founded engineering and tech companies employed 450,000 people and generated $52 billion in sales. But even the least skilled more than repay their costs in schools and health care. Two highly respected Australian economists, Maureen Rimmer and Peter Dixon, studied the issue for the libertarian Cato Institute. “The net impact on U.S. households from tighter border enforcement is unambiguously negative,” they found, because even low-skilled immigrants expand the economic pie and create jobs farther up the ladder. Cato’s Dan Griswold says the study shows a $250 billion difference between the most and least restrictive immigration policies.
Here is what Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York, had to say about Immigration and the economy:
America’s deep pool of talent and technological knowhow will continue to make it a highly desirable location—and investment opportunity. And if Congress has the sense to fix our broken immigration system, our open society and world-class universities will remain a magnet for the world’s best and brightest. That’s important: Economists have estimated that every person arriving on an H1-B visa creates jobs for five native-born Americans. Competing for talent and capital will also require all levels of government to invest more in our quality of life—mass transit, parks, schools, and so forth. That will help raise our long-term standard of living, even if real incomes don’t rise appreciably in the near term.