Sen. Cotton’s immigration change no solution
It was with dismay I read Sen. Tom Cotton’s proposed legislation, which he has chosen to call the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act.
In the one-page summary of this act, Cotton identifies legal immigration of unskilled labor to the United States as a problem, noting that only one in 15 immigrants arrives on a “skills-based” visa.
Annually, the United States issues at most 85,000 H-1B visas to skilled professionals. In recent years, the number of applications for these visas has far outstripped this number, reaching 236,000 for last April’s lottery. One could easily increase the proportion of skilled immigrants reaching the United States simply by adjusting the number of H-1B visas upward to more accurately meet the demand. With the RAISE Act, Cotton has taken a different tack.
Cotton argues legal immigration has been a “major factor in the downward pressure on the wages of working Americans.” While I share the concern for falling wage levels, I have strong doubts Cotton’s proposal will do anything to ameliorate the problem. His solution is to cut legal immigration in half, denying entry to 637,960 people in the first year. I fail to see how this will have much of an effect on the labor market when the U.S. labor force is approaching 160 million people. Will a 0.4 percent shift in either direction truly have a discernible effect on wages?
Beyond the economic issues is the issue of immigration itself.
It is inarguable this country has historically had a fraught relationship with immigration and immigrants. Time and again there have been native-born Americans who have argued that, while immigrants have proven to be an asset to the republic in the past, this current group is different and their numbers must be curtailed, be they Chinese, Irish, Germans, Italians, Jews, Japanese, Poles, Cubans, Vietnamese, etc. They do not share our values and will alter our nation for the worse, and even attack us from within, or so the argument goes. Time and again these people have been proven wrong. The RAISE Act, sadly, appears to be of a piece with similar efforts to curb immigration that came before.
Cotton is right to complain about our current system of immigration, which can be arbitrary and can fail in its stated purpose, but just as a doctor does not fix an ankle sprain by amputating the leg, simply cutting away the visa lottery is hardly a “reform.” Further, an artificial cap on the number of refugees admitted, tied to 13-year historical averages rather than current humanitarian need, appears on its face to be no less arbitrary than the programs Cotton criticizes.
Will we continue to be as a city upon a hill, a beacon of hope for those fleeing oppression the world over, or shall we bar the doors? We, as a nation, are at our best when we keep our doors open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. I urge Sen. Cotton to reconsider this legislation.
R. MORRIS RAGLAND
Fayetteville