WaPo OpEd: Will the U.S. follow Britain's wrong turn on immigration?

[pampango]

Economists will say that high-skilled workers are the primary source of growth in a nation's per capita income. Immigrants with such skills have been central to the rise of almost every major empire in history, including the British Empire and America. Germany, Canada, Australia and others now compete for these immigrants, while India and China are trying to attract them back. Yet in many countries, conservative political parties such as the Tories or the Republicans, who normally trumpet economic growth, have turned inward, sidelining their business constituencies on immigration. Most are protecting their flanks from a far-right movement that stokes popular fears and, sometimes, xenophobia. Think Tea Party.

The fears aren't totally groundless. There is a limit to how many immigrants a nation can absorb without its natives feeling culturally insecure, its institutions being overtaxed or the wages of some workers being temporarily undermined. But these concerns argue for rational policies to balance competing economic interests and to educate the public and immigrants alike.

The British case is particularly instructive of what not to do. Cameron campaigned last year on reducing the annual number who came from outside the European Union, 196,000, to "tens of thousands." Many immigrants coming here are relatives of British citizens, however, and hardly any unskilled workers get visas. That leaves just skilled workers as an easy target. Cameron capped their number at 24,000 this year and plans to make it 22,000 next, a fifth less than in 2008.

Cameron has dragged along his reluctant coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats, and large multinational corporations by allowing these companies to transfer skilled employees from abroad. That ignores the smaller entrepreneurial businesses that generate most jobs in an economy - and Britain's shrunk by 0.5 percent last quarter. In other words, policy is being made almost blindly out of frustration, not rational thinking. The public wants cuts, the high-skilled workers are the easiest to go after, so politicians take the easy win - at the economy's expense.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/10/AR2011021003393.html

[dmallind]

1. Don't have to look across the Atlantic. Look at DU any time H1B's are mentioned. nt