The $4 Trillion Opportunity: Comprehensive Immigration Reform

America's Voice Blog

Posted 02/03/10 at 03:15pm

The President announced his budget Monday, sending many members of Congress into an angry frenzy over $3.83 trillion that Obama had allotted for an array of programs – mostly to fight growing unemployment and strengthen our weak economy.

But some members of Congress -- many of the same who are complaining over the “huge” deficit-- are trying to keep this big secret under wraps:

There is a $4.1 trillion choice in Washington. We did the math, and put simply:

Comprehensive Immigration Reform = $1.5 trillion increase in GDP over 10 years

Mass Deportation = $2.6 trillion loss in GDP over 10 years

How's that, you ask?

A new report called “Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” by the Immigration Policy Center and the Center for American Progress shows that a policy of comprehensive immigration reform would grow U.S. GDP by 0.84 percent over 10 years, or a cumulative $1.5 trillion.

The report also finds that deporting 4 million workers and their dependents—just over half of the undocumented workforce—would have a catastrophic impact on the economy, shrinking GDP by $2.6 trillion over 10 years

Even conservative-leaning institutions, like the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., reports these economic benefits to comprehensive immigration reform:

This study finds that increased enforcement and reduced low-skilled immigration have a significant negative impact on the income of U.S. households...legalization of low-skilled immigrant workers would yield significant income gains for American workers and households. Legalization would eliminate smugglers' fees and other costs faced by illegal immigrants. It would also allow immigrants to have higher productivity and create more openings for Americans in higher-skilled occupations.

The truth is that the majority of Americans support real, comprehensive immigration reform, and right now, the majority of Americans really support getting an economic break. The anti-immigrant lobby’s unrealistic agenda of mass deportation is set upon upending the economic health of our nation.

Congress has a $4 trillion choice to make: pass comprehensive immigration reform and grow the economy by $1.5 trillion – or enact the anti-immigrant lobby’s impractical mass deportation agenda, at any cost.