From The Wall Street Journal, "Guest Workers Are the Best Border Security: The antidote to illegal immigration in the U.S. is creating a legal immigration system that works." by Tamar Jacoby:
The U.S. workforce is changing. Americans are having smaller families, and birthrates are well below replacement level. Baby boomers are retiring: 10,000 leave the workforce every day. Younger workers coming up behind them are much more educated than earlier generations. In 1950, according to the Census Bureau, 56% of U.S. workers were high-school dropouts. Today, the figure is less than 5%.
The result is that the pool of people available to fill low-skilled jobs has shrunk dramatically. It is not so much that the native born don't want to work as busboys, farmhands or nurse's aides. But the overwhelming majority of Americans are now overqualified for these jobs and have other options. Meanwhile, less-skilled immigrants with no family in the U.S. have no way—no access to a visa program—to enter the country legally and work in year-round jobs. This is why so many immigrants have flowed into the country illegally in recent decades and remain here, underground.
The challenge facing Congress is to create a better system—one that works for willing immigrant workers and willing employers, replaces the current illegal influx with a legal labor force, and protects the rights of Americans who are looking for low-skilled jobs.
The worker-visa program in the Senate bill meets most of these tests.
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