New push for immigration action is overdue

Editorial by Winston-Salem Journal, October 8, 2013.

The national debate over immigration reform is often couched in inflammatory language about low-skill workers who entered the country illegally. But there is another side to the debate, and it has prompted some of the nation’s biggest and most technologically important employers to lobby North Carolina’s Republican congressmen on the issue.

Major high-skill employers like Facebook and SAS Institute need computer engineers and other technologically proficient employees. Often, people with these skills are studying at North Carolina universities.

But, as McClatchy Newspapers reports, the employers can’t hire these people when they graduate because they are not American citizens. American universities educate them, and then our immigration laws force them to return to their homes where they will contribute to another nation’s economy.

The news organization said that there is a major lobbying effort underway to persuade some of the most strident opponents that the nation’s economy needs comprehensive immigration reform. The lobbying strategy is aimed at newly elected Republican congressmen and women, hoping to push the issue in the U.S. House Republican caucus.

For years on this page, we have advocated for comprehensive reform along the lines that former President George W. Bush proposed a decade ago, reform that combines a path to citizenship with border security. But the longer that Congress fails to address this issue, the longer our government nibbles at its nose to spite its face.

The U.S. economy needs more high-skill computer and scientific workers than our educational system can produce from citizens alone. And, our farmers, as evidenced by one of the gubernatorial veto overrides that our General Assembly conducted a month ago, needs laborers. In addition, we cannot ignore the 11 million people who are living within our borders without proper immigration status.

All of these issues require comprehensive immigration reform and there is no chance on earth that any one of these will be solved without a solution for all of them.

We can only hope that this business-inspired lobbying effort moves our U.S. representatives to move past the impassioned howling of those who oppose all compromise so we can solve all of the immigration issues we face.