Order Reprints

Straight Talk

By James Hettinger
Senior Advisor, Battle Creek Unlimited
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The immigration issue has huge implications for the economic development practitioner. How our country deals with immigration is of great consequence to economic development. Fortunately or unfortunately, the state of Arizona has turned up the heat out of sheer frustration with the federal government’s failure to exercise its constitutional responsibility of protecting the American people. Not that every person who crosses the border is a menace to American security, but having one or two thousand people running through your front or backyard every day is bound to be a little unnerving for somebody.

Unfortunately, the immigration issue has centered a little too much on the Arizona border, political correctness and political pandering while much of the strategic value of a progressive immigration policy has been ignored. Immigration strikes to the heart of the American character. The issue must be treated with the utmost thoughtfulness.

In order to simmer everybody down, the federal government must secure the borders. If they had spent half the time exercising their constitutional responsibility as they have spent carping about the Arizona law, we might have this problem under control. While this is now President Obama’s problem, his predecessors have hardly distinguished themselves.

In 1986, Ronald Reagan and Congress pushed and approved the Immigration Reform and Control Act. Amnesty was granted to 2.7 million people. Within the legislation were plans to build a wall and to hire more people for the Border Patrol. The amnesty happened, but that was the end of it. The American people are still waiting for that wall, not to mention beefed up border patrols.

Securing the border does not mean closing the border. It does mean admitting as many people to America as can be sustained. If we had closed the border and choked off immigration, most of us would not be here, nor would we be enjoying something called “American Exceptionalism.”

Immigration is very healthy for the U.S. economy. Cities like Chicago that have higher percentages of immigrants tend to do much better economically than cities like Detroit and Cleveland which have low percentages of immigrants. Whether it is new productivity, new money or new ideas, immigration has powered American growth throughout our history.

The third observation has to do with the worldwide competition for talent. If we are to continue our exceptionalism, we must do everything we can to attract the best-educated and brightest people to live and work in the U.S. That means we must attract healthcare professionals, researchers, engineers and scientists. The American Experiment enjoys the prominence it does because our immigration doors were open while other nations were not so welcoming.

Immigration reform needs to be done immediately, and not to coddle blocs of voters, but to secure our people and to reinforce our legacy of exceptionalism — all because we are a nation of immigrants.

  Order Reprints

TAGS:

• bcu
• column
• economic development
• james hettinger
• straight talk