A person could spend a long time taking a sincere and objective look at America's immigration laws and still not emerge with any reasonable idea of what the laws are really trying to achieve. Patched together over the decades in response to different needs and the demands of varying interests, the laws that define immigration aren't particularly coherent.
It is a testament to the drive and motivation of those who survive the system that immigration contributes so much to the Arkansas economy. The Partnership for a New American Economy has published a new report on the impact of these "new Americans" on our state and it tells an important story.
According to the report, more than 17,000 Arkansans are employed at businesses that are owned by immigrants--and 8,000 immigrants are self-employed. Immigrants in all lines of work earn more than $3 billion a year here, and pay about $900 million a year in taxes.
The main attraction for most immigrants, unsurprisingly, is work. The overwhelming majority of immigrants are of working age, and largely because of their age profile, they are almost 50 percent more likely to work than the native-born. But they must first overcome a hostile legal system that runs painfully short on visas for willing workers.
The government routinely under-supplies the college-educated H-1B visas, green cards, and the temporary H-2A visas that are used in agriculture. The cumulative effect of this under-utilization of immigrant labor is to starve Arkansas businesses of skills and workers--resources they could be using to expand and grow.
If the number of visas falls short of the desirable number for the good of the economy, and if undocumented immigration remains a challenge for law enforcement, then it would seem to be obvious that the system is in need of reform. More than 80 percent of the undocumented immigrants living in Arkansas have been here for five years or more. Their presence may be in violation of the law, but it is quite clearly institutionalized that way.
It is time for some intention to enter the picture--time for our immigration laws to be addressed comprehensively and with a coherent set of priorities in mind. The needs of immigrants should be viewed with human decency, and the needs of our economy should be addressed so that immigration can do the most affirmative good.
The power to set those regulations emerges from Congress, so that is where calls for renewal ought to be directed. The "Reason for Reform" effort invites Americans to share their own messages about immigration reform, in their own words, with Congress to motivate them to get reform underway.
Delay on this important issue only makes our problems worse. We need immigration laws that create a framework for constructive things to take place--or, perhaps more accurately, for more of the constructive things to take place that are happening already but are held back by an outdated system. Your voice matters to the growing chorus at reasonforreform.org.
We can and should insist upon reform action for the welfare of the country and the well-being of those who would add to our greatness by coming here.
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Misty Wilson Borkowski is an attorney at Cross, Gunter, Witherspoon & Galchus in Little Rock.
Editorial on 08/27/2016