SuperPAC: Law reform crucial for economy
SuperPAC: Law reform crucial for economy
At AS/COA’s immigration forum in Minneapolis, the Chairman of Republicans for Immigration Reform Carlos Gutierrez warned about the consequences of failing to overhaul U.S. immigration laws.
Carlos Gutierrez, chairman of the Republicans for Immigration Reform super PAC, was in town on Monday to tout the virtues of immigration reform and to warn about the consequences of failure. To him, the issue is economic, not political. It is also demographic.
Listen to some of the statistics he dished out during a speech sponsored by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas: In order for the country’s population to stay the same, the fertility rate for child-bearing women needs to average 2.1 children. The current U.S. rate is 1.9, meaning the population is declining. A declining population is a declining society, he said. That is unless people come in from somewhere else.
For every 100 farm workers there are 44 additional jobs waiting for U.S. citizens. One quarter of all U.S. corporations were founded by immigrants. Half of new tech start-ups are started by immigrants. One in four doctors are immigrants, as are one in three computer software engineers, one in five post-secondary degrees, and one in four Ph.D.s.
In the midst of it all, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have quietly updated their immigration laws while U.S. law dates back to the 1950s and 1960s....
