A bipartisan Senate deal to tighten border security and reduce immigration has stalled over objections from House Republicans, who are pushing for even tighter limits.
As the GOP pressed for more aggressive action to keep thousands of immigrants from crossing the border, experts argue such policies could dampen economic growth and deepen demographic issues holding back the American workforce.
“The vast majority of population growth that we have in the U.S. right now is from immigration,” Wendy Edelberg, director of The Hamilton Project and a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, said in an interview.
“This is a key reason
why our labor force grew in the past couple of years, and if it continues, it will be a key reason why our labor force continues to grow,” she added.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the nonpartisan budget scorekeeper, pointed to higher immigration in a recent report as a key source of new workers and
boost to economic output.
The CBO estimated the labor force would grow by more than 5 million people over the next decade mainly due to increased immigration. The agency also projected a smaller federal budget deficit over the next 10 years, partly because of the immigration surge.
Altogether, U.S. gross domestic product is on track to increase by nearly $7 trillion and federal revenue is set to rise by $1 trillion.
Despite immigrants’ well-documented positive economic effects, management of their arrival has become a political hot potato.
Republicans have largely blamed President Biden’s border policies for the rise in migration from and through Latin America, but high numbers of border encounters are in large part a result of economic and governance disparities between the U.S. and other countries.
The Hill’s Aris Folley and Rafael Bernal have more here.
