A recent study by a libertarian organization in Washington, D.C., contends that allowing illegal immigrants to obtain proper documentation to stay in the U.S. would add $180 billion to the national economy over a 10-year period and save another $80 billion that could be otherwise lost if reform efforts focus only on enforcement at the border and in workplaces.
The study from the Cato Institute is titled "Restriction or Legalization? Measuring the Economic Benefits of Immigration Reform." Representatives of the organization described the work as an attempt to "quantify the benefits that would flow to the U.S. economy from comprehensive immigration reform which grants some form of legal status" to illegal immigrants currently living here.
"The report recognizes the value immigrants bring to America as workers, taxpayers, and consumers," according to Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center for the Cato Institute, a non-profit public policy research foundation.
The Cato Institute is named for Cato's Letters, a series of libertarian pamphlets that helped form the philosophical foundation for the American Revolution in the 18th century. Libertarianism is generally regarded as an outlook or ideology that favors a minimal amount of government authority and regulation. Many libertarians would, for example, see open borders as an ideal immigration policy because they would allow economic and social forces to naturally determine population shifts.
The Cato Institute study includes seven statistical models designed to simulate various immigration policy ideas that have been offered in recent years as government officials and other have discussed immigration reform. One of the models, for example, considers a crack-down approach that relies only on enforcement strategies at the border and in workplaces. The other end of the spectrum for the study envisioned a program to provide legalization for illegal immigrants, with the creation of official channels to handle future arrivals to accommodate actual demand for labor in the U.S.
The study concludes that "compared to either border or interior enforcement, a policy of legalization would, over time, raise the incomes of U.S. workers and their families."
The prediction of improvements for U.S. workers in general is based on the study's contention that a path to legalization for illegal immigrants already in the U.S., combined with new controls for the arrival of immigrant workers in the future, would increase the productivity of immigrant workers and create more job openings for others in higher-skilled occupations. The net result would be economic gains of roughly $180 billion over 10 years, according to the study, while "an enforcement-only approach would shrink the overall economy, reducing opportunities for higher-skilled American workers" and result in economic losses of approximately $80 billion over 10 years.
"As Congress begins drafting comprehensive immigration reform proposals...the report makes the essential point that reforming our broken immigration system by bringing unauthorized workers into our tax system and on the right side of the law will help our economy," said Giovagnoli. "Continuing our enforcement-only policies not only neglects the broken system, but will actually cost our economy billions of dollars over the next decade."
Sam Hassan is a writer for the L.A. Garment & Citizen.
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