[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
BUILDING A MORE DYNAMIC ECONOMY:
THE BENEFITS OF IMMIGRATION
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 26, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-12
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Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on the Internet:
www.govinfo.gov
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U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-723 WASHINGTON : 2019
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COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky, Chairman
SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts, STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas,
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York ROB WOODALL, Georgia
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York BILL JOHNSON, Ohio,
BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania Vice Ranking Member
RO KHANNA, California JASON SMITH, Missouri
ROSA L. DELAURO, Connecticut BILL FLORES, Texas
LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina CHRIS STEWART, Utah
JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan CHIP ROY, Texas
JIMMY PANETTA, California DANIEL MEUSER, Pennsylvania
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York WILLIAM R. TIMMONS IV, South
STEVEN HORSFORD, Nevada Carolina
ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia DAN CRENSHAW, Texas
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas KEVIN HERN, Oklahoma
BARBARA LEE, California TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
SCOTT H. PETERS, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee
Professional Staff
Ellen Balis, Staff Director
Dan Keniry, Minority Staff Director
CONTENTS
Page
Hearing held in Washington D.C., June 26, 2019................... 1
Hon. John A. Yarmuth, Chairman, Committee on the Budget...... 1
Reports submitted for the record......................... 4
Statement submitted for the record....................... 46
Reports submitted for the record......................... 59
Prepared statement of.................................... 117
Hon. Steve Womack, Ranking Member, Committee on the Budget... 119
Prepared statement of.................................... 121
Tom Jawetz, Vice President, Immigration Policy, Center for
American Progress.......................................... 123
Prepared statement of.................................... 126
Abdirahman Kahin, Owner, Afro Deli........................... 137
Prepared statement of.................................... 139
Sari Pekkala Kerr, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist,
Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesley College............. 143
Prepared statement of.................................... 145
The Honorable Douglas J. Nicholls, Mayor, Yuma, Arizona...... 153
Prepared statement of.................................... 155
Hon. Ilhan Omar, Member, Committee on the Budget, profile
submitted for the record................................... 162
Hon. Bill Flores, Member, Committee on the Budget, letter
submitted for the record................................... 166
Hon. John A. Yarmuth, Chairman, Committee on the Budget,
letter submitted for the record............................ 214
Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee, Member, Committee on the Budget,
statement submitted for the record......................... 217
Hon. David E. Price, Member, Committee on the Budget,
questions submitted for the record......................... 223
Answers to questions submitted for the record................ 224
BUILDING A MORE DYNAMIC ECONOMY:
THE BENEFITS OF IMMIGRATION
----------
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 2019
House of Representatives,
Committee on the Budget,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room
210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. John A. Yarmuth
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Yarmuth, Omar, Higgins, Doggett,
Price, Morelle, Lee, Jayapal, Sires, Peters, Schakowsky,
Moulton, Jackson Lee, Horsford, Womack, Smith, Flores, Holding,
Stewart, Crenshaw, Hern, Meuser, Timmons, Burchett, Woodall,
Johnson, and Roy.
Chairman Yarmuth. The Committee will come to order.
Good morning and welcome to the Budget Committee's hearing
on Building a More Dynamic Economy: The Benefits of
Immigration. June is Immigrant Heritage Month, so it is a great
time to recognize and celebrate the cultural and economic
contributions immigrants make to our country.
I want to welcome our witnesses here with us today. This
morning, we will be hearing from Mr. Tom Jawetz, vice president
of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress. Glad
to welcome Mr. Jawetz back to his old stomping ground. Before
joining the Center for American Progress, Mr. Jawetz spent
seven years working under Ms. Lofgren as the chief counsel for
the Immigration Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.
We also will be hearing from Mr. Abdirahman Kahin, one of
Ms. Omar's constituents and the owner of Afro Deli in
Minnesota. We will be hearing from Dr. Sari Kerr, senior
research scientist at Wellesley College, and the Honorable
Douglas Nicholls, the Mayor of Yuma, Arizona.
Welcome to all of you and thank you for being here today.
We appreciate you taking time out of your schedules to testify
before the Committee.
Now we will have opening statements. I yield myself five
minutes for my opening statement.
Every day that we wait to fix our broken immigration
system, more families are separated, children face horrendous
conditions in detention centers, businesses face uncertainty,
and we miss out on new economic opportunities.
I spent most of 2013 as part of a bipartisan group of eight
House Members meeting privately every day for seven months,
working toward comprehensive immigration reform. And despite
the current climate that makes it seem like there is no room
for agreement on this issue, we were successful in forming a
bold bipartisan package we were confident would have passed the
House had it been brought to the floor. It was a true
bipartisan compromise, one that would have kept families
together, protected our borders, and provided pathways to
citizenship. And it was shelved because of politics.
By holding this hearing and pointing the spotlight on the
economic benefits and opportunities of comprehensive
immigration reform, it is my hope that the Budget Committee can
re-start the process. That we can establish some common ground
and help set the stage for bipartisan compromise that my
experience tells me Democrats and Republicans can find.
We all share a desire and a responsibility to improve our
economy and our budget outlook, and we have a great opportunity
to do that through an immigration system that brings
hardworking and creative people to our country.
Without question, our economy needs it. The Congressional
Budget Office released its long-term budget outlook yesterday,
and it confirms some of what we already know: working-age
Americans will account for a smaller portion of our total
population. The cost of stalwart programs like Medicare and
Social Security are increasing as our elderly population grows.
And deficits continue to rise.
One way to improve our economic outlook and strengthen our
fiscal position is by passing reforms that recognize both the
cultural and economic contributions of the people who seek to
make a home here. Welcoming more immigrants to the United
States would boost GDP, increase business dynamism, enhance our
ability to compete globally, shrink our deficits, and improve
our long-term fiscal outlook.
It is also the only realistic solution for addressing the
slow growth of our labor force and alleviating some of our
demographic challenges that put even greater pressure on
federal budgets.
Immigrants, both documented and undocumented, have already
helped extend the solvency of Social Security and Medicare, two
of the biggest drivers of our long-term budget challenges.
Increasing immigration would continue to improve the financial
outlook for these vital programs.
And there's more. America would not have its reputation as
a nation of innovation and entrepreneurship without
immigration.
That's not just my opinion. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce
and business leaders across the political spectrum would be the
first to point out that first-generation Americans create 25
percent of all new businesses in the United States, with the
share rising to as much as 40 percent in some states. Almost
half of the companies in the Fortune 500, and more than one in
four small businesses in the U.S., were founded by immigrants.
Many of these industry-shaping entrepreneurs immigrated to the
U.S. as children or as students.
So it is clearly an economic priority to make sure our
current young immigrants and DREAMers can remain here as
important contributors to our society. It also happens to be
the right thing to do.
Aside from invigorating our economy, immigrants also
strengthen our fiscal health. The CBO estimated that had
Congress enacted the bipartisan legislation that the Senate
passed in 2013, we could have boosted real GDP by more than 5
percent and reduced the deficit by nearly $900 billion by 2033.
Today immigrants and their descendants already contribute
billions of dollars in much-needed revenue each year, putting
far more into the system than they get back through social
programs. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
found that refugees strengthened federal, state, and local
budgets over the last decade, bringing in $63 billion more in
revenue than public services used, a finding the Trump
Administration tried to suppress.
Comprehensive immigration reform is not optional. It is
necessary, and it is urgent. By failing to reflect our true
national needs, current policies hurt our economy and prevent
us from addressing some of our biggest fiscal challenges.
And let's not lose sight of who wants us to enact reform
legislation. Everyone from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to
Labor Unions, Law Enforcement, the Faith Community, the
Agriculture Community, and countless other organizations and
interest groups agree that immigration reform is key to our
nation's future.
Today, with compelling evidence of the economic benefits of
reform, I hope we will be able to add more of our colleagues to
the long list of supporters.
And before I recognize the Ranking Member, I have a couple
of unanimous consent requests.
I ask unanimous consent to submit four reports from the
Bipartisan Policy Center entitled ``Culprit or Scapegoat:
Immigration's Effect on Employment and Wages''; ``Recent
Immigration Has Been Good for Native-Born Employment''; ``Don't
Neglect the Benefits of Lesser-Skilled Immigration''; and,
``Worsening Labor Shortages Demonstrate Need For Immigration
Reform.'' I ask that all four of those be placed in the record.
Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. I also ask unanimous consent to submit a
statement for the record from the National Immigration Forum.
Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Yarmuth. And finally, I ask unanimous consent to
submit two reports from the New American Economy on how
diversity raises wages and the contributions of immigrants as
entrepreneurs. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. I now yield five minutes to the Ranking
Member, Mr. Womack, for his opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Yarmuth follows:]
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Mr. Womack. I thank you, Chairman. Thank you for your
leadership on this Committee.
My colleagues across the aisle have called this hearing
today to talk about the budgetary and economic impacts of
immigration. I welcome the opportunity to explore bipartisan
solutions that will improve our immigration policies and
further strengthen our economy.
Unfortunately, we must first address the crisis at our
southern border, a crisis that both sides acknowledge has to be
managed. For those who have questioned the seriousness of the
situation, I want to quickly recap what has been happening.
Over 100,000 migrants are trying to illegally enter the
country each month, placing enormous pressure on Customs and
Border Protection agents and communities along the border. Last
month, 144,000 migrants were apprehended by CBP agents, a 32
percent increase from the previous month.
To put these numbers in perspective, the number of
apprehensions in April of 2019 is 591 percent greater than
April of 2017--591 percent. At this rate, a total of over 1
million migrants are projected to have illegally crossed the
border this fiscal year.
The systems and infrastructure we have in place are
terribly insufficient to handle this level of migration. And as
Mayor Nicholls of Yuma, Arizona, will tell us today, it is our
local communities that are having to pay the price. I, too, was
a mayor once upon a time, and even though I was not in a border
state, the effects of this phenomenon were felt even in my
city.
Our majority has had several opportunities to advance
bipartisan solutions that would provide relief to these
communities and begin to address the crisis at the border. For
nearly two months, they have refused to act.
I fear that last night's vote was an unfortunate loss of
precious time. This is a situation where Congress clearly needs
to come together and act swiftly. I am sorry to say we are
falling short of the basic obligations of our jobs here.
Another costly partisan proposal they have championed is
H.R. 6, a bill that failed to address the immediate challenges
facing communities like Yuma and that is expected to cost at
least $30 billion in new mandatory spending over the next 10
years, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget
Office. Another $30 billion of federal mandatory spending, that
is, spending that is set to autopilot.
How do my friends on the other side of the aisle plan to
pay for it? Well, they don't. They did not include a single
offset in H.R. 6 as they waive their own ``Pay-As-You-Go'' rule
to pass it.
Further, I expect to hear today the false claim that
immigration reform can improve the financial stability of the
Social Security Trust Fund, projected to become insolvent by
2032. The problem with this notion, you are only looking at
half the equation, those who would pay into the system. When
you consider the other half of the equation, those who would
receive benefits, the math doesn't add up.
In fact, the Social Security Administration's Chief Actuary
testified in 2015 granting amnesty to 5 million illegal
immigrants would only extend the solvency of the program by 90
days. That is it. Hardly the Social Security savior some of our
friends like to claim.
The truth is, I believe immigration reform, done right, can
have a positive effect on the economy and on the federal
budget. Immigration, after all, is what our great nation was
built on.
I am particularly interested in how we can improve our visa
program to meet the demands of our growing labor market and
create even more opportunity for hardworking families. I know
this is a priority for job creators in my district and across
the country.
The same goes for USMCA, a modernized trade agreement with
Mexico and Canada that cities on the border and across the
country are counting on. As Mayor Nicholls explains in his
written testimony, USMCA is critical for Yuma's economy and
creating jobs for current and future visa holders.
In April, I spent an entire week back home talking with
local workers, entrepreneurs, and business leaders about the
need to finalize this important pact, which will create more
than 100,000 jobs alone in my state.
If this Committee truly wants to build a more dynamic
economy, we should focus on the benefits of the USMCA, which
will strengthen trade with two of our largest trading partners
and make American businesses more competitive around the world.
It is clear we have a lot of opportunity to strengthen our
economy and the federal budget, but before we can deliver
meaningful reforms, we must ensure our communities are safe and
our borders are secure. I look forward to discussing how we do
that today.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I welcome the witness
testimony, and I yield back my time.
[The prepared statement of Steve Womack follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. I thank the Ranking Member for his
opening statement.
And once again, I want to welcome all four of our
witnesses. Each of you will have five minutes for your opening
statements.
By the way, if any other Member of the Committee has an
opening statement, they may submit it in writing for the
record. But each of you will have five minutes for your
testimony, and your written remarks have been entered into the
formal record.
And so I will first recognize Mr. Jawetz for five minutes,
and you may begin when you are ready.
STATEMENTS OF TOM JAWETZ, VICE PRESIDENT, IMMIGRATION POLICY,
CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS; ABDIRAHMAN KAHIN, OWNER, AFRO
DELI; SARI PEKKALA KERR, PH.D., SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST,
WELLESLEY CENTERS FOR WOMEN, WELLESLEY COLLEGE; AND THE
HONORABLE DOUGLAS J. NICHOLLS, MAYOR, YUMA, ARIZONA
STATEMENT OF TOM JAWETZ
Mr. Jawetz. Chairman Yarmuth, Ranking Member Womack, and
Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify
this morning.
So when I think of the contributions that immigrants of all
backgrounds, skills, and levels of educational attainment make
to our country, I am often reminded that my former boss and
your colleague, Representative Zoe Lofgren, describes
immigrants as people who have enough get up and go to get up
and go.
While people often think about immigrants in traditional
gateway places, like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, in
recent years, recent decades, immigrants have found new
opportunities for themselves and their families in new
gateways, like Atlanta, Charlotte, and Nashville, as well as in
the suburbs.
Immigrants are breathing new life into rural communities.
Late last year, the Center for American Progress did a new
study that found that immigrants ameliorated population decline
in nearly four out of five rural places in this country and
were entirely responsible for population growth in one out of
five rural places.
Instead of hospitals closing, schools consolidating,
businesses drying up, in these communities immigrants are
opening small businesses, they are providing essential
healthcare services, rejuvenating downtown areas, and both
filling and creating jobs. Immigrants are also contributing
their food, music, culture, and language.
Immigrants also will help to ensure our continued shared
prosperity in the years ahead. As baby boomers retire,
immigrants will disproportionately work as their doctors,
nurses, and home health aides.
Immigrants and their children also will fill enormous holes
in the workforce left behind as they retire. Over the next 10
years, without immigrants and their children, the country's
working age population would plummet by 7 million people. These
immigrants' payroll taxes will shore up the country's social
safety net for years to come and help to ensure we honor the
commitment we made to older Americans now turning to us for
support.
Refugees also are making important contributions,
particularly in places like Utica, New York, Clarkston,
Georgia, and Fargo, North Dakota. Although the image of a
refugee we are often presented with--and this is equally true
of asylum seekers now requesting protection at the southwest
border--is that of a person who comes with little more than the
clothes on their back, this fails to capture the drive and
perseverance that it takes to leave everything you have known
to find safety someplace else and start again.
Despite the obstacles, that drive is what helps to ensure
that refugees thrive in America. They have high labor force
participation rates and become a net economic positive for the
country within just eight years of arrival.
I have been speaking so far about all immigrants, both
documented and undocumented, but I want to focus now on the
10.5 million undocumented immigrants in the country, paying
particular focus to the 7 million who are in our workforce
today.
According to CBO and JCT, the comprehensive immigration
reform bill that passed the Senate in 2013, which would have
provided a path to citizenship for these individuals, would
have decreased federal budget deficits by approximately $1
trillion dollars and increased the nation's GDP by 5.4 percent
over 20 years. Average wages for all workers would have
increased by 10 years.
By contrast, in 2016, CAP worked with two leading
economists to find that removing undocumented workers from our
workforce would, in the long run, reduce the nation's GDP by
2.6 percent and reduce cumulative GDP over 10 years by $4.7
trillion. Some industries would see workforce reductions of up
to 18 percent.
In my testimony, you will see a table showing that the 23
states represented by Members of this Committee would
experience GDP losses totaling more than $350 billion annually
from such a policy. Each state would experience key losses in
key industries, including a 13 percent loss in GDP from North
Carolina's construction industry and a 12 percent loss in GDP
from Texas' leisure and hospitality industry.
With respect to DREAMers and TPS and DED holders, earlier
this month the House did pass H.R. 6, the American Dream and
Promise Act, which would offer protection for people like
Donaldo Posadas Caceres. Mr. Posadas is a TPS holder and member
of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, who
for the past 20 years has been working on some of the country's
tallest bridges, helping to make necessary repairs and hanging
larger-than-life American flags.
Attached to my testimony is a table showing that nearly
240,000 people from your congressional districts would benefit
from this bill. The individuals and their households pay
billions annually in federal, state, and local taxes, in rental
payments and home mortgages.
Everyone knows our immigration system is broken. Before
joining CAP, I spent seven years working for the House
Immigration Subcommittee and was involved in two major
bipartisan efforts to try to come up with a solution for that
system. I think the Chairman would agree that the negotiations
that we were involved in, in 2013, were spirited, but members
on both sides of the aisle genuinely thought they were coming
together to solve a problem for this country.
What gives me a hope that we will find a way back to those
conversations in the years ahead is that despite the deluge of
negative attacks that we hear constantly on immigrants and
refugees, more than three-quarters of Americans now say
immigration is a good thing for this country, the highest level
in decades. A greater share of the American public also
believes that immigration levels to this country should
increase or stay the same than at any time since Gallup has
polled that question in 55 years.
Americans want real solutions, and they want an immigration
system that actually works, and that works as designed. If we
can do that, if we can establish a well-functioning,
modernized, and humane immigration system that both lives up to
our nation's past and works for our nation's present and
future, we can be true to the vision of this country as a
nation of laws and a nation of immigrants and can begin to
restore respect for the rule of law in that system. Moreover,
we can position this country to harness the full economic
benefits that immigration holds.
Thank you so much, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Tom Jawetz follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you for your testimony.
I now recognize Mr. Kahin for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF ABDIRAHMAN KAHIN
Mr. Kahin. Chairman Yarmuth, Ranking Member Womack, and
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
speak with you. My name is Abdirahman Kahin, and I am the owner
of Afro Deli and Grill, a small fast casual chain of
restaurants in Minnesota.
I am here today to share my humble experience and my
perspective on the positive impact immigrants have in every
district in America.
Today, I share my personal story, but I wouldn't be here
before you without the support of many others who have walked
similar paths. I immigrated to the United States in 1996, and I
have been blessed to call the state of Minnesota my home since
1997.
I came to the U.S. like many immigrants, to find safety and
opportunity as an asylum seeker, a young man from Somalia
without much experience or skills.
In Minnesota, I found a rich immigrant community from all
over the globe and an opportunity to create the life I always
dreamed of. My first job was as an overnight parking attendant,
which was perfect because it allowed me to go to ESL classes in
the evening before work. After that, I was able to attend
community college and learn the skills I needed to start my
first business, a media production company.
In the 10 years after, I open several other businesses
before I found my passion in the hospitality industry. My
American Dream evolved, and now I wanted to open my own unique
restaurant with a new concept: healthy, with fresh ingredients,
accessible African food, and welcomes everyone.
I realized my dream in 2010 when I opened Afro Deli. In
Afro Deli, I saw a vehicle to bridge cultures, build a
successful business, and contribute back to my community in a
meaningful way. We now have expanded to three locations and
with a fourth location opening next month. We have over 60
employees and consultants.
Afro Deli's culture is rooted in the belief that good food
has the power to bring people together. When we sit down to
eat, we share a common connection to the world, through the
ingredients in our dishes.
Our staff is as diverse as our customers. We often joke
that Afro Deli is the only place in Minnesota where a Japanese
American cooks African food.
We are so proud to offer good jobs in a supportive and
inclusive workplace. The restaurant business can be a
challenge, and I have been successful by focusing on supporting
my hardworking staff. This is why I champion paid sick leave,
something Afro Deli has always offered to staff, to push other
small business owners to support working families, improve
working conditions, and reduce turnover. In addition, we have
been able to provide other benefits, too, including vacation
time and parental leave for new mothers and fathers.
We take pride in being a diverse organization where
Americans of different origins work together. Afro Deli
directly supports local initiatives and community organizations
that do good. We offer donations of food, money, and time to a
wide variety of good causes. It is part of our DNA.
Whether it is spearheading an initiative like Dine Out for
Somalia to raise money for the famine relief effort in 2017, or
offering free meals to our furloughed neighbors as a small
token of our appreciation for their public service, giving back
is an important part of my company.
Personally, I have been honored to serve on several local
and national boards, and I encourage my staff to do so as well.
Our efforts to contribute to our local community don't end
with nonprofit partners. Afro Deli is also a partner with local
farmers and small business owners where possible. This means
the majority of our meats, produce, or other ingredients are
sourced locally from the locals, with most of them minority- or
women-owned as well.
Afro Deli is an integral part of the fabric of Minnesota.
We are so proud to be a product of Minnesota, and we believe we
represent the best our state has to offer.
My goal is to continue expanding and open in every city
across the state and across the country, becoming the first
national African restaurant chain in the U.S. I want to grow so
I can share our food, our culture, our values, and create more
jobs across the country. I believe food has no borders and has
the power to convene people in meaningful ways.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Abdirahman Kahin follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you for your testimony.
I now recognize Dr. Kerr for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF SARI PEKKALA KERR, PH.D.
Dr. Kerr. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Yarmuth, Ranking
Member Womack, and all Members of the Committee for inviting me
to speak today. My name is Sari Kerr. I am a senior research
scientist at Wellesley College. I am an economist, and my
research focuses on the labor market, immigration, and
entrepreneurship. And today, I will tell you about my work
related to immigrant entrepreneurs.
As economists, we know a lot about immigration's impact in
the labor market, with many scholars having asked whether the
increased labor supply displaces native workers or lowers
wages. The answer is typically no or very little. Instead,
immigrants have been found to benefit their host economy,
economically and fiscally.
However, we know rather little about immigrants as founders
of new firms and creators of jobs, as actors who actually
increase the demand for labor and supply wages for local
workers. This distinction is rather important as there are
typically few concerns in the entrepreneurship arena that one
startup would displace another.
For the last five years, I have studied the role of
immigrant entrepreneurs in the U.S., and today I would like to
highlight some key findings from that research.
So first, immigrants start an increasingly large share of
all new employer firms in the U.S. From 1995 to 2012, that
share went from 16 to 25 percent. So just over one in four new
employer firms have at least one owner who was born outside of
the U.S. now, and that is twice the share of immigrants in the
population of the United States.
The immigrant entrepreneurship has also boomed at the same
time when the overall rate of business startups in America has
been falling, making them even more important.
Second, the role of immigrant entrepreneurs is large in the
high-tech sector, but just as large in other sectors of the
economy. The high-tech sector, 29 percent of new firms have at
least one immigrant owner, whereas in other industries the
share is 26 percent.
And we see that immigrant firms are especially concentrated
in the service sector, accommodation and food, professional and
technical services, healthcare and social services, as well as
in retail trade.
Third, the U.S. states definitely differ greatly in terms
of the share of firms that are owned by immigrants. But in all
states in all cases, immigrants start more firms on a per
capita basis than natives do. If we look at the least dependent
states, like Montana, the Dakotas, and Idaho, we notice that
about 6 percent or less of the new firms are founded by
immigrants, whereas in California, New Jersey, and New York,
that share is more than 40 percent.
But wherever we look, immigrants are more likely to start
companies than natives are. So, for example, in 2007, about 3
percent of Kentucky's population was born outside of the United
States, but 9 percent of all new employer firms in Kentucky in
that year had immigrant owners.
Fourth, the job creation share of immigrant entrepreneurs
is also high. The average immigrant-owned firm hires slightly
fewer employees than the average native-owned firm, but
nevertheless, they account for about 23 percent of all jobs
created in these young employer firms we looked at. This is
very important as young firms tend to account for almost all of
the net job growth in America.
And my final point is that the jobs that immigrant
entrepreneurs create pay somewhat less and provide a little bit
somewhat fewer benefits in terms of paid time off, retirement
savings accounts and health insurance, and that comes largely
from their concentration in those three key sectors that I
mentioned.
If I look at high-tech sectors, then immigrant-owned firms
actually pay higher wages and offer relatively similar employee
benefits as the native-owned firms. And, again, if I compare
apples to apples, where my apples are firms that are very
similar in terms of all their observable traits, then the jobs
created by immigrant entrepreneurs look very similar as those
created by native owners of firms.
As a conclusion, I would like to state that the
contribution of immigrant entrepreneurs to the U.S. economy is
quite significant and often not fully recognized even among the
dedicated immigration and entrepreneurship scholars. The U.S.
landscape in terms of firms and jobs would look rather
different without the immigrant entrepreneurs.
I am very happy to answer any questions you may have today,
and I thank you again for this opportunity to come and talk.
[The prepared statement of Sari Pekkala Kerr follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you, Dr. Kerr, for your testimony.
I now recognize the Honorable Mayor of Yuma, Arizona, Mr.
Nicholls, for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DOUGLAS J. NICHOLLS
Mr. Nicholls. Thank you very much, Chairman Yarmuth and
Ranking Member Womack and Committee Members for this community
today to speak to you about immigration and the impact on the
Yuma community.
I am Doug Nicholls, the Mayor of the City of Yuma. And just
to give you little background on Yuma, Yuma has 100,000 people
year round. Our location is where Arizona, California, and
Mexico meet. So we are right on the southern border.
Our county has a GDP of $5 billion, with $3.5 billion
associated with the agricultural industry. And that industry
produces 90 percent of the leafy green vegetables the United
States and Canada consume during the winter season.
That requires 50,000 agricultural workers to make that
happen. They are comprised of 3,800 H-2A visa holders, over
30,000 domestic workers, and 15,000 workers that cross the
border each day to work in the United States and then return
home each night to their homes in Mexico.
So as you can see, the immigration system is vitally
important to the Yuma agricultural industry. However, the guest
worker program is cumbersome and truly doesn't meet the needs
of the industry.
Yuma lost 10,000 potential acres of fresh produce to
Guanajuato, Mexico, and also lost $2 billion worth of
opportunity in building agricultural infrastructure to support
that industry. And that is because of a lack of consistent and
sustainable skilled labor work sources.
On the medical front, Yuma is designated a health
professionals shortage area. So our hospital reaches out and
utilizes the H-1B visa program, the J-1 visa program, and the
T-1 visa program in order to fill an average of five doctor
slots every year for our community.
However, the most pressing situation that we have at this
time is the release of migrant families in Yuma by the U.S.
Border Patrol. When the crisis began in March, I brought
together all the nonprofits to see how we could set up a
temporary 200-bed shelter system in order to address the
humanitarian concerns of the migrant families being released
and also address the public safety concerns with the community.
On April 16, the capacity of that shelter was exceeded, and
I had to declare a local emergency. A few days later, we had
over 300 people in the shelter, and we had to close the door to
new migrant families. That has happened three more times since
that first event.
To date, we have had 5,146 people come through that shelter
system in three months. This is completely unsustainable.
In those three months, the NGOs have spent $700,000, have
provided 93,000 pounds of food and clothing, and have
contributed thousands of hours of volunteer time. The hospital
has seen 1,300 migrant patients since the beginning of the year
at a cost of over $800,000, and only one-third of that cost is
reimbursed by the government.
Our trade and port operations have been compromised. The
reallocation of 37 temporary duty customs agents has reduced
the San Luis Port of Entry from eight lanes to five lanes,
which has increased border wait times an amazing 46 percent.
That is 1.2 million trips through the port that no longer will
impact our sales tax and tourism.
Border Patrol closed the checkpoints on the interstates to
reallocate personnel at a time when our communities are
experiencing a record level of fentanyl and methamphetamine
transportation through the communities.
But an unquantifiable impact is the negative perception of
the border communities in terms of investment and tourism. The
Yuma County Chamber of Commerce reports that since the
beginning of the year, they have had a 50 percent reduction in
relocation packet requests. Our Greater Yuma Economic
Development Corporation reports that 2 multimillion dollar
projects that were slated for Yuma were redirected to Mexico
due to the perception of port issues and timely movement of
workers.
The status of immigration is a critical issue for Yuma, and
the humanitarian issues are real. The community needs effective
immigration policies for trade and commerce. However, the drain
of resources and the strain on the community needs to stop.
Thank you for your time and your attention, and on behalf
of the people of Yuma, I invite the members to come visit Yuma
and experience the border firsthand. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Douglas J. Nicholls follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you, Mayor Nicholls.
Thanks once again for all of your testimony. We will now
begin our question-and-answer session.
As a reminder, members can submit written questions to be
answered later in writing. Those questions and the answers of
the witnesses will be made part of the formal hearing record.
Any member who wants to submit a question for the record may do
so within seven days.
As is our habit, the Ranking Member and I are going to
defer our questions until last. So I now recognize, as a matter
of courtesy, the gentlelady from Minnesota, Ms. Omar, for five
minutes.
Ms. Omar. Thank you, Chairman Yarmuth.
Thank you to all of you for testifying. [Speaking foreign
language.] It is really wonderful to see you here. Thank you so
much for accepting our invitation to come and testify and tell
us about the wonderful successes immigrants are having in
Minnesota.
I am a little disappointed you didn't bring us Afro Deli
tea and sambusas. I was showing pictures to my colleagues of
your restaurant and what it offers. It is one of my favorite
places to spend time in.
So I wanted to talk about the economic impact of
immigrants. There was a project called Map the Impact from New
American Economy, which is a bipartisan research, that showed
how immigrants are having an economic growth--driving economic
growth in every region of the country.
Particularly in our district, immigrants have paid $760
million in taxes last year. We contributed $2 billion in
spending power. Again, this isn't just in Minnesota's Fifth
District. It's statewide. Immigrants paid more than $4 billion
in taxes and contributed $11.5 billion in spending power.
In Minnesota, there are more than 22,000 immigrant-owned
businesses that employ more than 35,000 people. One of those
entrepreneurs and people who are having successes is you.
When we think about the kind of saying that was used, you
know, we get going, you became an entrepreneur just a few years
after entering the United States and have been quite
successful. You have been featured in the New American Economy.
There was a profile of you last August, which I would love to
enter into record.
Chairman Yarmuth. Without objection.
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Ms. Omar. You talked about the kind of opportunities that
were afforded to you in Minnesota and how the Minneapolis
community has contributed to your success. Could you talk a
little bit about some of the policies that we have in
Minneapolis that have impacted your success as an entrepreneur?
Mr. Kahin. I think the most successful impact that we have
in Minnesota is because the people of Minnesota are very warm
people and very welcoming people. And especially the economic
development from locals in the state and county level is very
encouraging people to do business. And because of that, I think
I maneuver the system, and I encourage most of my family and
friends to start business, because I think that is the easiest
place to start a business, I think, across the country.
Ms. Omar. I mean, we say in Minnesota, it is a cold place,
but the people have warm hearts.
Mr. Kahin. Exactly.
Ms. Omar. And that certainly has an emotional impact on all
of us and allows us to have the kind of successes we have had.
Mr. Kahin. That is right.
Ms. Omar. So thank you so much for creating employment
opportunities for so many Minnesotans and for being a shining
example for what immigrants can do in this country.
Mr. Jawetz, I wanted to talk to you about the kind of
impact the Muslim ban has had. Today is the one-year
anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling. And so if you can tell
us a little bit about the kind of impact--economic impact--the
Muslim ban has had on our economy.
Mr. Jawetz. Yeah. So thank you so much, Congresswoman.
Today is the one-year anniversary since the Supreme Court
allowed the third iteration of the Muslim ban, the travel ban,
to go into effect. And as you all may know, the case is still
under litigation right now.
One of the things the Supreme Court relied upon in their
ruling was this waiver process that had been set up by the
State Department to grant waivers of people who were subjected
to the ban. We now know over a year that about 5 percent of
those waivers are being granted.
Consular officers say that they don't actually have
authority to grant the waivers. They can just send them to
headquarters where they get sent into a black hole.
You have got people who have been waiting now for--a third
of the people basically who were in the line, according to a
new collection by Georgetown, shows that they have been waiting
for two years or more for their visas to be adjudicated.
Marketplace actually did a recent piece looking at small
businesses owners who are seeing their businesses stifled as a
result of the travel ban and their inability to get workers.
You also, of course, see the impact on families, U.S.
citizens, around the country who are being forced to remain
separated from their family members.
And one of the really nefarious effects of this, of course,
is if you look at the impact on admissions to this country for
people from Muslim-majority countries, it has plummeted, more
than a 90 percent drop over two fiscal years for people from
Muslim-majority countries, and our refugee program, about a 30
percent drop in the immigrant visa program, and about a 20
percent drop in temporary visitors.
So across the board, we are reshaping what admissions and
immigration and visitors to this country will look like.
Ms. Omar. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlelady's time has expired.
I now recognize the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Smith, for
five minutes.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit into the record for
Representative Bill Flores, who had to leave for the Energy and
Commerce Committee, a letter that he has from the Mayor of El
Paso.
Chairman Yarmuth. Without objection.
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Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding
this hearing today.
Yesterday CBO released its forecast for our nation's long-
term fiscal stability. The numbers are shocking: $80 trillion
in new deficits over the next 30 years. Yet we have no plans
from the other side on how they would address this crisis.
It is time for them to step up with a budget. It has been
72 days. I keep counting the days, keep addressing the numbers
at every one of our Budget Committee hearings, hoping the other
side will present a budget.
We are the Budget Committee. We need to present a budget.
We are 72 days past due. In order for us to address our
priorities, we need to have a budget.
It is clear that we agree that legal immigration can have a
positive impact on our economy. I said legal immigration.
We know how good our economy is right now. We have all
heard the numbers about job openings. In fact, in April, the
number of job openings exceeded the number of unemployed by the
largest margin on record, 1.5 million more jobs available in
this country than people seeking employment--1.5 million more
jobs available than people seeking employment.
We have had 15 months of unemployment under 4 percent--15
straight months--10 straight months of wage growth, 5.8 million
new jobs since President Trump was elected.
Those are wonderful numbers. No one can deny the economy is
doing very well under this Administration.
In southeast Missouri, we know the positive impact legal
immigrants can have on communities and local economies. We have
many examples. A specialty doctor in Poplar Bluff, Missouri,
who helps the medically underserved. A restaurant owner in
Farmington, Missouri, originally from China, who is not only a
successful business owner, but an incredible community leader
who volunteers and helps out needy students.
In my district we also have Missouri S&T, a leading STEM
University. Many foreign students who graduate from S&T go on
to great jobs here in America in advanced technology fields. My
office has helped many of these students pursue their career
goals through obtaining visas.
Where we disagree is on the issue and the impact of illegal
immigration. But it wasn't that long ago that Democrats and
Republicans seemed to be on the same page. President Clinton
deported 800,000 people. President Bush deported 2 million.
President Obama deported 2.9 million people. Right now,
President Trump actually has a lower deportation rate than
President Obama did at the same point in his Administration.
What we need to understand, these deportations of the
numbers that I just said are people that went through the
courts, the courts ruled that they needed to be deported after
having their appropriate hearings, or they are individuals that
are criminals. So our system can function in regards to that if
we just allow it to work.
I went to the border just a few weeks ago and saw firsthand
what the men and women in our Border Patrol face every day. It
has been 57 days since President Trump asked for emergency
funding. HHS runs out of money next week. We have 19,000
migrants currently in custody for a system designed to hold
4,000 people.
Securing our border and enforcing our laws is the only way
to help solve this problem. The situation will only get worse
if we all don't come together.
Mr. Chairman, I see that my time is about to expire before
I can even ask a question, so I will yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. I thank the gentleman. His time has
expired.
I just want to mention, in relation to your comments on the
budget, as of tomorrow the Democratic House will have
appropriated 97 percent of all federal spending. So there will
be a very clear picture of what House Democrats' budget
priorities and values are at that time.
I now yield five minutes to the gentleman from New York,
Mr. Higgins.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think one of the things that we have lost in this country
is our national story, because it is an exodus story. For more
than 250 years people fled persecution from all over the world.
They crossed seas and deserts for the freedom found in the
promised land.
This Administration has made policy decisions that deny
fundamental rights to migrants and has unjustly separated
families for acts that are not criminal violations.
Nearly one-quarter of all new businesses in the United
States are started by immigrants. Almost half of the Fortune
500 companies were founded by immigrants to America, creating
jobs for Americans. And over half of the patents filed in the
United States are filled by immigrants.
Mr. Jawetz, despite the quantifiable economic benefits of
immigration, why does this President, but in fairness his
predecessors, both Republican and Democrat, adopt an extreme
hard line on immigration policy?
Mr. Jawetz. It is a great question, I think, and it does
get to something that the Congressman, Mr. Smith, raised as
well.
No one supports illegal immigration. Illegal immigration is
a system of a dysfunctional system. It is also a reality. It is
a reality in response to what the country's actual realistic
needs are. There is a reason why immigrants are not just
contributing for those who come through legal channels, but
also--and this is very real and the literature is clear on
this--also people who are undocumented who came in without
status, those who fell out of status, they are still economic
contributors to this country in myriad ways.
So the question for me is, do we support legal immigration?
Yes. Everyone supports legal immigration. So then we have to
take a step back and say, well, how can we build a system that
can be based upon legal immigration? How can we get out of the
system we have now, which for decades has relied upon this
dysfunctional, outside-of-the-law immigration system in which
all of us rely upon the labor of unauthorized workers,
undocumented workers, either directly or indirectly?
So for me, if we want to think about how to restore respect
for the rule of law in our immigration system, that means
building a system that lives up to our values as both a nation
of immigrants and a nation of laws and a recognition that we
cannot be a nation of laws if we don't have laws that are
consistent with our values and ideals as a nation of
immigrants.
Mr. Higgins. Claiming back my time.
So in a political context, what we are doing then is
conflating legal immigration with illegal immigration to create
a negative perception of immigration generally. Is that a fair
characterization?
Mr. Jawetz. Yeah, I think over time basically--no one is
proud of the system we have right now, basically. And so what
we have is, what you have is, as the system becomes increasing
dysfunctional over time, because Congress and administrations
have been unable to actually fix the system and build a
workable system.
Mr. Higgins. And that is a failure of Congress----
Mr. Jawetz. And the Administration.
Mr. Higgins.----and the Administration?
Mr. Jawetz. Yeah. I think all of us, yeah.
Mr. Higgins. Moody's Analytics says that doubling the
number of legal immigrants that we take in each year from 1
million to 2 million would increase economic growth by 2
percent each year over the next 10 years.
Mr. Jawetz. Yeah. And I think Moody's also studied what
happened in Arizona when Arizona adopted legislation that would
try and drive immigrants, undocumented immigrants off the
workforce. And what it ultimately did, basically, was decrease
the job market, hurt American workers as well, because jobs
just left the state. So, I mean, I think that is exactly right.
And one thing, I think, it is a really striking thing, I
mentioned this in my oral testimony, but Gallup has since 1965
been polling the question of Americans whether the level of
immigration to this country should decrease, increase, or stay
the same. And we are now at, basically, nearly 55-year highs in
the American public saying that immigration to this country
should remain the same or increase.
So we can keep banging our heads against the wall with our
broken system and be really angry about the fact that we have
10.5 million undocumented immigrants here, 7 million in our
workforce, and you know that number is going to continue to
fluctuate around that amount, or we can fix the system and
bring people within the legal immigration system so that our
system can work as it is designed, rather than through work-
arounds and us just turning a blind eye to what is going on.
Mr. Higgins. And with that, I will yield back, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Yarmuth. I thank the gentleman.
I now yield five minutes to the gentleman from Utah, Mr.
Stewart.
Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And to all your witnesses, thank you.
It is often said--always said--we have a crisis at the
border. I think that is an enormous understatement, frankly. I
don't think we have a crisis at the border; I think we have
three crises.
One of them is obviously humanitarian, something that every
one of us in this room cares about. One of them is security.
And the third one is political, a political crisis here in D.C.
in our inability to fix this. And I think, frankly, the
political crisis may be the more difficult of these to fix.
And some of the rhetoric around this is, honestly, it is
just cynical, much of it is dishonest, and some of it is just
intellectually lazy. There are many of us who want to fix this.
For example, from the very first day I decided to run some
seven years or so ago, I have always wanted to fix DACA. I
think if we had a DACA bill on the floor, we would have 350
votes for it.
And we ask ourselves, would we rather have a cynical and a
political tool and do what is right for these families, for
these children, and ultimately for the security of our nation,
or would we rather have a tool that used and use it as a
bludgeon against some of our political opposition.
I am a father, I am a grandfather. I can't even begin to
imagine the concern and the stress of these families and what
they must feel and the difficulties of these individuals as
they face this journey.
I have been to the border. I have been to the region many
times, and we see what is happening to the children and them
being used. It is truly heartbreaking.
As a member of the Appropriations Committee, I have voted
numerous times to support the children and their parents
whenever possible. I am pro-family, and I am also, as we have
just said recently, I am pro-legal immigration.
And there is one more realty, and I want to mention this
just quickly, and that is human trafficking. It is where I
would like to focus my attention. Out of the many elements of
this crisis, I really do want to spend some time on this.
We were recently told in an Intel briefing you can purchase
a child to be used as a tool to cross a border for $80--$80 you
can purchase a child. And some of these--and as young as a few
months. Not a toddler, a few-month-old baby. And some of these
children have been recycled across the border 40 and 50 times.
And I just think it is our responsibility as a Member of
Congress to really, truly do something to fund DHS and HHS,
something that we all know here is going to reach a crisis in
the next few days if we don't have adequate funding for that.
Mayor, I would like to spend some time with you, if I
could, and see your personal experience in the responsibilities
you have in the city of Yuma.
Have you seen, have your citizens seen elements of this
trafficking of children or other, you know, sex trafficking or
other human trafficking?
Mr. Nicholls. Thank you, Congressman.
We have seen some evidence of it through the shelter
system, where people have had plans to go to their host family
with tickets purchased, and then a truck pulls up and they get
in the truck and they leave, which is not a usual thing you
would do if you are trying to get to a host family. And that is
evidence of trafficking.
The struggle on trafficking is it is not something you can
just walk into and understand that that is going on at that
moment. It takes a lot of research, and ICE right now is
overwhelmed in the number of cases that they are researching.
But that does go on. And as far as the recycling of the
children, there is quite a bit of work done at the Border
Patrol station to try to identify whether the children are
associated with the parents, units that they are with.
Sometimes by the time they get to the shelter, that still
hasn't been determined. So there is always that concern.
As people leave the shelter, we are not sure really where
their ultimate situation is when they get to wherever they are
going. So very, very few migrants actually stay in the Yuma
community. They come through and they move through.
Mr. Stewart. So let me ask you, as a mayor who is
responsible for law enforcement in your community, do you have
the resources that are necessary to combat trafficking or do
you need help from the federal government on that?
Mr. Nicholls. We do not. We need help from ICE and the
different federal agencies.
Mr. Stewart. I mean that is just obvious, isn't it?
Mr. Nicholls. Yes, very obvious.
Mr. Stewart. This is beyond your capability. I hear that
again and again and again in local communities, this is beyond
the capabilities of our local law enforcement to deal with
adequately.
Mr. Nicholls. And it reaches outside of jurisdiction
because that kind of crime goes across boundaries.
Mr. Stewart. Yeah.
To any other panelists, anything you would like to respond
or add to the conversation regarding the tragedy of human
trafficking.
Mr. Jawetz. Sure. Thank you so much, Congressman.
So I have a few things on that. I would say, one, it is
important to keep in mind that the legislation that many people
have been talking about for the last few years, really since
2014, that people want to make changes to, the so-called asylum
loopholes, are embedded in the Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Act.
The proposed changes that many of you have voted for over
the last five years would change that law and make it so that
children who come without a parent or without a guardian can be
turned around immediately, even if they don't comprehend--I
mean, this is literally in the bill--if they don't comprehend
the consequences to them of accepting a return. They would
allow kids who pass that threshold to remain in Border Patrol
stations under law for up to a month.
So that is what the legislative change is that we have been
driving toward for all this time would look like.
And the last thing I would say, real quickly, is I agree
that we should be trying to protect children. That is
critically important, and protecting children or victims of
trafficking is important, but I also want to think about the
child who died just a day or two ago in the Rio Grande whose
picture became ubiquitous on social media just last night.
This is a family that tried to come through the port of
entry to request asylum and they were told the port was closed,
and they looked at the river and the father said it didn't look
that bad, and so they decided to try and cross just so they
could avail themselves of the right, under our law, to apply
for asylum.
Mr. Stewart. Well--and I will conclude, our time is over--
but that your point is the asylum and the legislation around
that has got to be reformed to dissuade people from taking that
type of risk, so----
Mr. Jawetz. That is not my suggestion, I would say.
Mr. Stewart. Well, you and I may disagree on that, but we
understand and agree that it is a real problem and that if we
don't do something it is going to continue to be a problem.
Mr. Jawetz. That I would agree with, yes.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
I now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr.
Price, for five minutes.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And let me, too, thank all of our panelists for a very
useful discussion.
I represent the Research Triangle area of North Carolina,
and we are an area that has welcomed immigrants and benefited
from the presence of immigrants in all aspects of our
workforce, whether we are talking agriculture or construction
or hospitality or healthcare or high-tech industry.
We have a large immigrant population, and we are attentive,
therefore, to national policy and to the trends that national
policy may encourage.
What we see with the Trump Administration is an array of
national policies that are hostile and alarming and have spread
panic in the immigrant community and beyond: the Muslim ban,
the revocation of temporary protective status, the virtual
cutting off of the flow of refugees, the betrayal of the
DREAMers, indiscriminate deportations, separating families at
the border, and on and on and on. There are those explicit
policies.
Secondly, there is a widespread perception, justified or
not, of bureaucratic slow-walking, not just in the refugees,
that is a reality, but also just in the processing of visas and
other bureaucratic procedures associated with immigration.
And then there is the question of the optics, and that is
what I want to get to, the message this sends, the conclusions
that are drawn by people who may be thinking about, let's say,
studying in this country or teaching in this country or
undertaking entrepreneurial ventures in this country.
That is really my question, and it is focused on higher
education, since we are a center of higher education. We have
many, many international students, undergraduate, graduate,
postdocs. We have talented, trained people who hopefully would
stay in this country and lend their talents to our economy. And
we have many examples of the kind of entrepreneurship that we
have heard described here.
So that is my question, about the trends. What are the
relevant policies when we think about the kind of student and
postdoc and entrepreneurial talent we want to attract, what can
you tell us about the trends in terms of students choosing the
U.S.?
I hear a great deal that we are losing students to Canada,
Germany. I hear about incredibly difficult times just with
visas and with just processing the student and faculty papers
and so on.
That is my question, what do the trends look like, and what
are the relevant policies?
Dr. Kerr. Thank you. I will start to respond to that.
So you are absolutely right that the U.S. depends heavily
on high-skilled immigrants, and a lot of these immigrants don't
necessarily arrive with high-skilled kind of credentials, they
arrive as students. And they arrive under a student visa, which
is basically of a fairly unlimited supply, then they have to
figure out what they can do after they graduate. And then there
is a more limited supply of visas at that point.
And then eventually, given that they are high-skilled, they
will probably like to stay and continue working on a work visa.
And there is yet another, more limited supply of visas
available, the H-1B.
And I think that is a very difficult situation that we are
facing. The U.S. is facing also some stiff competition from
Canada, Australia, U.K., other immigrant destinations that have
great University systems. And I think it will be very helpful
to think through kind of how does this process of actually
attracting and retaining these high-skilled individuals who are
going to pay taxes and contribute to innovation.
Mr. Price. Do we actually have data on the trends in this
regard?
Dr. Kerr. On the trends. So what I have seen, and sort of
you can see also some anecdotal evidence out there, is that
there is definitely--the increase has stopped. We don't see
this ever-increasing supply of high-skilled students entering
the United States the same way as we have before. I think we
need to wait a little bit longer to see kind of where the trend
is turning.
Mr. Nicholls. Congressman, what we have seen in Yuma is
still a consistent desire to come into the United States from
Mexico. I do an extensive amount of engagement in Mexico. We
have formed a binational organization called 4FrontED, and one
of the things we have done is sign an MOU with the three
Arizona State Universities, our local community college. And at
first it was just seven Mexican uiversities, it is now 17
Mexican Universities that are interested in doing exchange
programs and coordinating curricula and really working together
on that.
And in talking to the students and talking to the faculty,
there is still very strong anecdotal evidence that the desire
to come to the United States, the desire to work in the United
States, even after obtaining a degree at a Mexican University,
is still very much there. And our economy, as I tried to
describe in my remarks, is dependent upon that, from our
hospital, to our agricultural industry.
And when I say agriculture industry, it is not just the
skilled farm workers, it is the chemists and all the
researchers, and those are frequently internationally sourced.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you for your response.
The gentleman's time has expired.
I now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Flores, for
five minutes.
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I also want to thank Representative Smith for submitting my
letter from the Mayor of El Paso for the record. And I will
just talk a little bit about what is in that letter.
Since January of 2019, more than 75,000 migrants have been
released into El Paso, climbing from 7,800 migrants in January
to 18,804 in April.
CBP facilities are at capacity and federal officers are
spread way too thin to appropriately handle the processing
claims. As a result, delayed processing and wait times on the
northbound bridge of the point of entry in El Paso resulted in
an estimated $483 million loss of imports for the month of
April alone.
Cross-border spending and trade also coming from the border
is a boon for the city of El Paso and the region along our
border. It is unfortunate that my colleagues on the other side
of the aisle are unwilling to adequately fund ICE and CBP to
meet the increased levels of migration we are experiencing,
leaving open the prospect of dangerous individuals entering our
country.
Mayor Nicholls, I would like to begin my questioning with
you, if that is all right. And thank you for being here today.
Mr. Nicholls. Thank you.
Mr. Flores. You are giving a firsthand perspective of the
crisis and what it is like on the southern border. The
statistics that we have seen today are undeniable.
And your city is not alone. As I mentioned, El Paso has
experienced the same increased levels of migration, seeing the
substantial impacts reverberating through their local economy
because of a lack of resources. While legal immigration is
important to all of us and to our economy, underfunding the
humanitarian crisis on our border will have the opposite
effect.
Yuma is home to more than 100,000 people, as you have
stated, but it is reported that you have seen more than 24,000
families cross into your city over the past year. The only
shelter available is significantly overpopulated. CBP is
understaffed and overworked, so when 1,300 migrants were
released into Yuma over the course of the last few weeks you
had no choice but to call a state of emergency.
My questions are this. Do the numbers you talked about add
up to a crisis in your opinion?
Mr. Nicholls. Thank you very much, Congressman, for the
question.
They very much do. And just to kind of maybe put it in
perspective, when you talk about 5,000 people that I mentioned
in my comments, maybe not seem like a lot when you live in a
large city. But if you translate that to a community of, say, 4
million people, a large city, like the city of Phoenix, the
proportionality of that is 200,000 people. That would be
200,000 people coming through a community of 4 million. That is
a substantial impact.
And so there is really--it's no--no clear way to describe
it, except for exactly that. It is unsustainable to continue to
have that kind of flow through our community.
Mr. Flores. So the analogous impact on Phoenix, as you
stated, would be essentially two times the population of Yuma?
Mr. Nicholls. Yes.
Mr. Flores. Is that right?
Mr. Nicholls. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Flores. Can you expand on some of the positive impacts
that come, that your city usually experiences from legal
immigration and the benefits of cross-border spending for small
businesses and the local economy?
Mr. Nicholls. Our economy is definitely based upon that
international relationship.
And just to give you maybe a quick anecdotal story. I met a
gentleman 30 years ago who emigrated to this country at 18. He
started a small business, raised a family, bought a home, sent
his kids to college, really the true American Dream. He was
engaged, still is, in that $3.5 billion agricultural side of
our economy, and he has become a real hero to me in a lot of
ways, helped me start my own engineering firm, and he is my
father-in-law.
So this is really a very personal, a very real, everyday
thing for us. And this is not an unusual story. This is--60
percent of our community is Hispanic. So this story occurs all
the time. And so it is very, very well-connected. And we spend
a lot of time promoting the region, not just the city of Yuma,
but the region, because we understand that the economies
throughout the region benefit everybody.
Mr. Flores. We see the same thing in Texas also. And for
several years Congress has attempted but failed to address our
broken immigration system. This starts with securing the
border. Securing the border requires an all-the-above approach,
which includes barriers, technology, smart infrastructure, and
also people.
What immediate resources are needed from a federal
perspective, from the federal government, so that we can start
getting a handle on this crisis, the security part of the
crisis?
Mr. Nicholls. From the security part of the crisis, it is
all based upon having the resources complementing with the law.
So we have talked about a lot of the law changes, but really
until we get a full complement of agents to enforce the law,
the law isn't enforceable, which is a lot of the problems right
now in the process.
Also, access to judicial process. So instead of waiting six
months to two to three years, being able to get asylum claims
processed. And when people have an asylum claim they can get
that protection right away instead of waiting, would also help
with this whole process.
I think there is the ability to not--or the condition to
not release in communities smaller than a million people would
also help that pressure that is created and would move the
federal burden from just a local community to the greater
country.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. Sorry.
I now recognize another gentleman from Texas, Mr. Doggett,
for five minutes.
Mr. Doggett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thanks to all of our witnesses. We have a markup of
legislation concerning Medicare going on at the same time next
building over, but I have had a chance to review your written
testimony and appreciate it and your appearance here today.
It seems to me that the Trump Administration's immigration
philosophy is sick in both heart and mind. His campaign of
stoking fear and prejudice ignores reality, a reality you have
described this morning, and it lashes out against the most
vulnerable.
He relies upon authoritarian tactics to twist our laws and
to inflict cruelty. He has lashed out by stripping protections
for DREAMers, undermining the legal status of high-tech visa
and green card holders, and inflicting cruelty on asylum-
seeking children on our border. We are all the worse off for
these policies.
Let's talk about this failure of the Congress to address
immigration, because it is correct that there has been a
complete failure of the Congress to address immigration, but it
didn't begin this year. Indeed tomorrow, to be exact to the
day, June 27, 2013, six years ago, the United States Senate
passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority comprehensive
immigration reform.
Only but for the obstruction of Republicans has that
legislation been blocked. You will recall that Speaker Boehner
first, after making many promises to the contrary, refused to
let the House vote on that comprehensive immigration reform.
And after him, Speaker Ryan did exactly the same thing.
Our immigration system could and should have been repaired
long ago, but Republicans have stood in the way to prevent any
comprehensive immigration reform.
Unfortunately, we now have a President who likes railing
about immigration far more than doing anything about it, who
relies on an imagined crisis that he created himself, and
people can see through that, no matter the cost of human life,
as we see at the border today.
This is a President who, when presented with a bipartisan
consensus bill option sitting there with him in the White House
exclaimed that he wanted more immigrants from Norway and
referred to Central African and Central American countries with
an expletive that I will not repeat this morning, but is well
known and reflects his heart, which goes to the very core of
bigotry around this policy.
So what we are tasked with today is laying out a framework
of what a President with the slightest sense of human decency
and humanity might be able to do the year after next. And your
testimony is important in doing that.
Meanwhile, this year, the House has already recognized that
our DREAMers, who have cleared a criminal background check, are
contributing in our country, they should not have to rely only
on court decisions, which the Trump Administration is trying to
undermine in order to be assured for them and for their
employers and their schools that they are able to continue
here.
Unfortunately, the situation again, when we talk about the
failure of Congress, yes, there is a failure of Congress, there
is a failure of now the Majority Leader in the Senate doing
exactly the same thing that House Speakers under Republican
control did in the past, refusing to even let the Senate
consider protection for our DREAMers, the easiest and most
direct piece of immigration legislation that we might approve.
And then there is the claim of the President recently that
his solution to the immigration problems that we face is to
deport a million people from this country.
Fortunately, the President, because we have now an acting
Homeland Security Secretary, a vacancy for the head of Customs
and Border Protection, an acting head for Citizenship and
Immigration Services, has given us an immigration policy with
many tweaks, but with no leadership, with a lack of
organization, and with general incompetence. And so many of our
immigrants and the businesses and industries that depend upon
them are protected in some cases by our courts and in other
cases by just the incompetence of this Administration in
carrying out its policies.
All objective economists who have looked at this recognize
that giving our DREAMers legal status that stop tearing
families apart and let those who have been here legally in our
country contribute to our economy will aid us greatly.
The irony in Texas is so great. We face worker shortages
right now, particularly in construction, in agriculture, in the
service industries. Those are the industries that will be hurt
the most if this heartless policy of deporting and separating
families is allowed to develop.
I have confidence in the lack of leadership of this
Administration, in its total incompetence, that that will not
occur. But I appreciate your testimony about what a brighter
day in America might hold, not only for immigrants, but for all
of our country, and that the Statue of Liberty was calling out
not just to Norway, but to all the world. And I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
And now I yield five minutes to another gentleman from
Texas, Mr. Crenshaw.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
holding this hearing. I appreciate that we are talking about
the immigration issue. And I wish we had been able to talk
about the supplemental bill in this Committee as well, and in
the other Committee that I am a part of, which is Homeland
Security. But unfortunately, we hardly ever talk about
immigration, so I appreciate that we are doing it here.
But we have to be clear about something when we are talking
about the costs and benefits of immigration, and it is this: we
cannot conflate illegal and legal immigration. That is often
the case. Every time we point out the issues with illegal
immigration and the abuse of our asylum laws, well, the
response is always, Well, immigrants are good. Yes, done.
Absolutely. Immigrants are good. We like immigrants.
And if we want to have a really reasonable conversation
about increasing quotas for legal immigration and more
streamlined work visas, all of that would be great. That is not
something we are opposed to. Legal immigration is good. Period.
Illegal immigration is bad. Period. We should be seeking to
diminish one almost in its entirety as much as possible, and we
should be seeking to streamline the other, meaning the legal
immigration. Illegal immigration is infringement on our
sovereignty. It is an abuse of our rule of law, and you have to
be deliberately naive right now to believe that what is going
on at the border is just typical rule of law, that 144,000
people apprehended last month is not an abuse of our asylum
system. Of course it is. Of course it is. The word has gotten
out how easy it is, as long as you bring a child with you, to
cross our border. And then you will be caught and released
inside the homeland.
This is not fair to our citizens and their sense of
sovereignty. This is not fair to our rule of law. This is not
fair to the basic notions of personal property rights that our
country was founded on. This is not fair to legal immigrants
waiting in line to do it the right way. This is not fair to
these children who were trafficked. This is not fair to them.
This is not moral. This is not sustainable. To use the words of
the Mayor, that is a word we have to use more often,
sustainability. We cannot sustain blatant abuse of our rule of
law.
Let's talk about the costs, too. Yesterday, when we passed
a supplemental bill, over $4 billion, that is a direct cost of
illegal immigration. Direct cost, right there. Over $4 billion.
In Texas, we have to deploy 1,000 National Guardsmen down to
the border. That is not free. It costs something.
Communities are stretching their resources to absorb
illegal immigrants. The Mayor is talking about this. That has a
cost. We can slice and dice the numbers however we want, but
the fact is that illegal immigration disproportionally impacts
communities that are already struggling. It just does.
Just last week, we had a hearing about stretching scarce
federal resources to impoverished communities. Talking about
Americans. Another good hearing to have. But last week also,
Ways and Means, Democrats voted for an amendment that will
allow illegal immigrants to claim an additional $6,000 in
refundable tax credits. I don't understand this. We have
American citizens, we have legal refugees, we have green card
holders in poverty, but we are extending generous tax benefits
to illegal immigrants.
In Texas, we spend over $50 billion on education. We also
have 158,000 illegal immigrant children in Texas. This costs
$3.5 billion. There are real costs here. And to put this into
perspective, a local school district which already has to
finance the education of their own children, now has to raise
taxes on their own community to pay for the education of people
who came here illegally. I don't understand how this is
possibly fair or, more importantly, sustainable.
Mr. Mayor, can you tell us the impact of illegal
immigration on being able to provide an education for local
children in your city?
Mr. Nicholls. Well, I don't really have the statistics with
me on the immigration----
Mr. Crenshaw. Generalities.
Mr. Nicholls. Right. But there is definitely a big burden
when it comes to young families that come across, and that is
what we are seeing through the Yuma area, is young families.
Most of these families do move on to their host communities,
and so they don't stay. But being close to the border, it is
one of those things that we currently have a growing
educational system, which is important, but the impact of
illegal immigration is a little bit tougher, because most
migrants don't stay in Yuma.
Mr. Crenshaw. Okay.
Mr. Nicholls. They do move on to the interior.
Mr. Crenshaw. Go on through. What about emergency room use?
I will tell you what, we have low-income hospital in Houston,
LBJ Hospital. I have toured it. It is for low-income Americans
who don't have insurance. A quarter of their costs go to
illegal immigrants. Do you see anything similar in Yuma?
Mr. Nicholls. We do. In our hospitals, just this year
alone, has saw 1,300 patients from the illegal immigrant
process, whether it is through the Border Patrol or through
ICE. And that has netted over a half a million dollar cost to
the hospital, because those costs aren't 100 percent
recoverable. And being a community-type hospital, they have to
pass that on somewhere. And so it gets passed on, and we do
have a higher cost of healthcare in Yuma, and that is one of
the elements that causes that.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
I now yield five minutes to the gentlelady from California,
Ms. Lee.
Ms. Lee. Thank you very much. Let me thank yourself and the
Ranking Member for putting together this very important
hearing. First of all, let me just say, that I was born and
raised in an immigrant community, El Paso, Texas, and I know
from personal experiences the contribution that immigrants make
to our diverse and economically prosperous and frankly making
America a better place. Our communities--our immigrant
communities, because every person, quite frankly, in this
nation is or was an immigrant.
Now, as a mother, I have been horrified and outraged by the
actions taken by the Trump Administration to deliberately
separate families in our country, to cage families at the
border, and to really look--to really see this really overall
inhumane immigration policy and policies. Like any immigrant
mother, I love my children, and cannot imagine having been
separated from them when they were children.
Now, when I was down at the border--and I go to El Paso
periodically--and I was in Brownsville and McAllen last year,
and I saw the prison-like conditions that these children were
kept in. There were kids sleeping on concrete floors, with only
thin, emergency blankets--I think they are called mylar
blankets--to keep them warm. No family should have to endure
this.
In my own district, the 13th District of California,
Northern California, Oakland, Berkeley, California, we have
heart-wrenching separation stories for the last two years. So I
hope that this hearing is yet another wake-up call to all of
us, because we owe it to our families, to the Constitution in
our country, to fix our broken immigration system without
delay. Now, I guess let me direct this question to anyone who
would be able to answer it. Maybe Mr. Kerr?
Mr. Nicholls. Nicholls.
Ms. Lee. Yeah. You know, President Trump renewed his pledge
to deport millions of--he called--his language is illegal
aliens. They are undocumented men, women, and children, in my
opinion. But he decided that he was going to do this. And these
policies, quite frankly, are inhumane and threaten the
fundamental rights of millions. Now, in terms of the economics,
though, something the President likes to say that he
understands, what do you--how do you see this move toward
deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, and can you see
what contributions they could make to our economy or not?
Mr. Nicholls. Thank you, Congresswoman, for the question.
There is definitely--as we talked about immigration, there is
definitely a lot of positives that people can bring. However,
being in an undocumented-type status makes that very difficult
because of a lot of the different situations that you end up
in. For instance, the 50,000 people that we--that are used in
the agricultural industry for the harvesting, all the way
through the research and development, a very, very high
percentage are all legal, working individuals. They have either
their American residence, citizens, or have a guest worker
program that they are in through.
Ms. Lee. Well, let me ask Mr. Jawetz a question. You know,
coming from California, it is an agricultural state. I was with
Congressman TJ Cox in the Central Valley and meeting with
farmers and workers. And it is my understanding that they are
very limited now, agricultural workers, and the impact on our
economy, of course, will be sooner or later the increased cost
in produce and in food. And the argument always is that, you
know, I know this Administration tries to pit black workers
against immigrant workers, that, you know, the availability of
workers exists in the African American community. Can you talk
about that a little bit in terms of ag industry and ag workers
and how that dichotomy and that pitting against immigrant
workers and black workers plays out, in your perspective, in
terms of the jobs?
Mr. Jawetz. Sure. So I will say a few things on that, and
one is, different crops in different parts of the country rely
in different ways on the visa programs that may be available,
like the H-2A programs for agricultural workers. And so it may
be the case from that in Yuma, they have greater success with
H-2A and with cross-border crossers for work. In a lot of other
places--California is a great example--there is a very, very
heavy reliance on undocumented workers, many of whom have been
in the workforce for a decade, two decades, rather. They are
skilled workers who have sort of managerial responsibilities.
And if you look actually at what the California Farm Bureau
and the American Farm--I mean, all these folks basically when
they look at the need for immigrant workers in their
businesses, you know, that is really the reason why over the
years, Congress--one of the major reasons--even when
Republicans controlled the House, they couldn't put a mandatory
nationwide E-Verify bill on the floor because growers came out
and said very, very clearly, you are going to kill our
industry. And if you are going to kill our industry, the
consequences are going to be greater food imports from Mexico
and elsewhere. It is going to be losing jobs in trucking, in
grocery lines and packing, that are often held by American
workers. And so, you know, it would be greatly disruptive to
the entire food economy.
Ms. Lee. But in the availability of the workforce in
America, you know, oftentimes, again, this Administration says
that they can't, you know, that immigrant workers are taking
away jobs from other workers.
Mr. Jawetz. We had a natural experiment with that in
Alabama and Georgia when they passed legislation to try and
drive immigrants out of their states, essentially, and what you
found was growers saying repeatedly, farmers, I cannot find
workers when I go and try and recruit workers to come work for
me. Now, I am getting people who, you know, very, very few are
actually taking these jobs, and those who do can last a day,
maybe, in the fields.
Now, we need to work on improving wages. We need to work on
improving conditions. That is the reason why the United Farm
Workers--and they are a part of any real negotiation over the
years, for how we can fix our immigration system and provide a
steady and humane and responsible flow for agricultural workers
who are in the fields doing this work. But the response can't
just be to plug our ears and pretend that there aren't
undocumented workers who are doing this work.
And one thing really quickly is to finish on something
that----
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman needs to conclude.
Mr. Jawetz. Oh, I am sorry. On Yuma, I will just say, you
know, in terms of data that came up earlier, you know, there
are about 2,500 people in the county, in Yuma County, who would
be eligible for relief under H.R. 6. The number of kids and
TPS, DED holders who would benefit from that bill, they live
with about the same number, about 2,500 U.S. citizens, or
households. They pay millions of dollars in federal, state, and
local taxes in the county. They hold tens of millions of
dollars in spending power annually. So even in the county where
there are great positive contributions of legal immigrants the
way you described, there is a thriving and significant
population of undocumented immigrants who are contributing to
that community, and I am sure that you know them, and I am sure
the folks in your city know them as well.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlelady's time has expired.
I now recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Hern, for
five minutes.
Mr. Hern. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. I am glad we are
having this conversation today. It is interesting, as my
colleague from Texas said, next to me here, that we have
devolved this whole conversation into an illegal conversation.
There is not a person in this room who doesn't think we need
more legal immigration. In fact, we have a lot of legal
immigration every year, about 757,000 people that were
naturalized last year; 716,000 the year before that. So that
process is working for those who want to do it the right way.
It has averaged that for decades now, 600,000-plus. Is it
enough? Probably not for the robust economy that we have. We
could fill jobs a lot if we could get more folks here.
We heard the great conversation here from our restaurateur
in the restaurant business for a long time. It is tough work. I
applaud you.
You know, what we are looking at here, though, is an
immigration system, and I think we all agree, every one of us
agree, if we could take the cameras out, take all the recording
out, we probably could find a solution in about 30 minutes. We
could all go and we could vote quietly, we would have an
immigration policy.
As a person that has only been in Congress about seven
months, it is amazing to me that we can't fix something as
simple as the problem we have right now. I have seen it for
years. It has been very frustrating.
We should--you know, we have talked about the various level
of folks that are allowed to come in this country. People are
still wanting to come to this country. They still see us as the
greatest nation in the world, the freest. And yet, we argue
that it is not free and that it is a bad place to live. And,
you know, folks that have come here, disagree with us, disagree
with the politicians. You must be, if you are, you know, sir,
if you are on the immigration policy team and you have been
doing this for a long time or friends across the aisle, you
have got to be extraordinarily saddened by the fact that the
previous Administration, when they had, as part of their
campaign to fix immigration issue, had the first two years of
their Administration, a super majority in the Senate,
filibuster-proof, you had the House, that no immigration policy
was taken up.
So while we are sitting here degrading and demeaning the
current Administration, I think there is plenty of political
opportunities have been there for every administration.
You know, we also talk about what has happened in the
illegal immigration. Since we are going to go there, we have
had over--year to date, we will have about 750,000
apprehensions in this country which is about the size of our
congressional districts. So if you want to put it in
perspective, the impact of that, in a half a year, we are going
to apprehend a congressional district. In a whole year period,
two congressional districts of folks coming here illegally,
seeking to come to a country that is the greatest in the world.
You know, based on the National Academies of Science,
Engineering, and Medicine data, illegal border crossers create
an average fiscal burden of approximately $75,000 during their
lifetime, and excluding any costs for the U.S.-born children.
In order to pay for the President's previous $5 billion border
security request, we would only have to prevent about 60,000
crossings, less than 3 percent of expected legal crossers in
the next decade, to warrant that cost.
I have been there. Three weeks ago, I was in McAllen,
probably the worst of the worst places on the border right now.
It is a travesty what is going on. We need to fund the
opportunity for these children. You know, we could go into, and
I could digress and talk about what my colleagues have talked
about, of why we have so many children here, unaccompanied
children, people that are coming in the way they are coming in.
It's terrible. There is no question about it. There is not a
soul in this room--I am a father of three, a grandfather of
one. If anybody believes that it is okay--but the reality is,
we do have a rule of law, so--and so and we have, again,
750,000 people that are using that rule of law appropriately,
just as the gentleman did from Minnesota to come here and seek
out the American Dream. That is all we are asking, let's just
do it the right way.
You know, as we talk about Mayor Nicholls as a person who,
again, is in charge--for--of the law enforcement of a city, and
you are responsible for the safety and health of a lot of
citizens in Yuma--you live this every day--can you tell us what
our current conflicting message of immigration policy, how it
impacts cities on the border?
Mr. Nicholls. Thank you, Congressman. The conflicting
message is really one like--there is a lot of different angles,
I guess, I could take with that question. But one that really
comes to mind is, we are dealing with a very large population
coming through, and it is definitely a national issue, but it
is not being funded nationally. It is being--it is on the backs
of our communities, backs of our nonprofits, in order to deal
with the release of these people into the communities, and
helping them to get to their ultimate destination. So there is
a dichotomy there.
And then also we have given the job to our DHS to enforce
the law, but they don't have enough people, they don't have
enough resources, they don't have enough facilities to
adequately do that. And so at the same time, we bring forth a
criticism of how the process works, but they are handcuffed on
how they----
Mr. Hern. So my time is short. Mr. Chairman, can I just ask
a follow-up question? My colleague just went over two minutes.
I promise it won't be two minutes.
Chairman Yarmuth. Go ahead.
Mr. Hern. Just as a follow-up to that, what I have seen,
interesting enough, is that we have had, you know, a lot of
people go ask CBP agents, mayors, along the border, and you
give them these facts, the naysayers, but they must not believe
you, because they are still saying it's the President wanting
this, when the requests are actually coming from the mayors and
the CBP agents up and down the border. I mean, how do you--that
has got to be immensely frustrating.
Mr. Nicholls. It is. You know, I stay in my lane as the
mayor and not as, you know, telling Congress exactly what needs
to get done, but there is--the fate of our community in this
area is at the hands of those that do set those laws, and that
is Congress and the Administration.
Mr. Hern. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
I now recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. Morelle,
for five minutes.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for bringing this
important conversation to the forefront today. I applaud the
folks in this hearing on facts rather than fear. For far too
long, our national conversation on immigration has stoked panic
that immigration is stealing jobs from hardworking Americans
and making our communities unsafe.
The reality, backed up by data, is very different.
Immigrants, like my great grandparents, are job creators, not
takers. First-generation immigrants start one-quarter of all
new businesses in the United States, and are twice as likely as
native-born Americans to become entrepreneurs.
Moreover, the evidence shows that immigrations and
immigrants do not reduce overall employment levels or working
hours, and do not drive down the wages of working Americans. In
my own district, new immigrant communities have revitalized
Rochester when population decline threatened our livelihoods.
Thanks to those new arrivals, our city's population is stable,
and our economy has the opportunity for growth and innovation.
Today, almost 10 percent of the Rochester population was
born outside the United States. They are our friends and
neighbors, our coworkers, our customers, and our family
members. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss how
immigration policy can best nurture the economic power of
hardworking families that are eager to bring their expertise
and drive to America to build a better future for our nation.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for this opportunity.
I would like to ask Dr. Kerr, President Trump has claimed
that our country is full. How can that be accurate when the
Census Bureau show that 44 percent of American counties lost
population last year?
Dr. Kerr. Thank you for that question. I think it is
interesting this is happening elsewhere as well. We have
increasing concentration of population into specific growth
centers, and that can be problematic both for the places where
population is rapidly increasing, the cost of living is
increasing, the congestion is increasing, as well as to the
areas that are actually losing population. So I think it is
certainly not the case that the country is full.
In fact, other places use immigration policy to
specifically try to attract people to declining regions. There
are examples in other countries where that is one part of the
immigration policy, for example, setting up firms in declining
regions, or just placing individuals into these declining
regions to try to alleviate the loss of population.
Mr. Morelle. Yeah, I would like to follow up. Economics is
obviously your expertise. I am just curious. In those regions,
in particular, where there was a reduction in population,
population levels actually declining, can you talk about the
economic consequences of that?
Dr. Kerr. Yes. So that can be very problematic. If the
economic activity of the population is declining, that means
that it is harder to maintain services, like good public
schools. It is harder to maintain many programs. It is harder
to provide economic opportunities for the young individuals
residing there, and that can lead to this vicious cycle where
the areas become less and less attractive, and the young
individuals will leave because there is nothing much for them
to do. And those kinds of situations can be very hard to
correct.
Mr. Morelle. If I might, in the last couple of minutes,
there has been a lot of conversation in my region, in
particular, Rochester, New York, has a long history of
manufacturing, and as we are transitioning from a manufacture
and industrial base, to a knowledge-based economy, one of the
things we continue to pursue is advanced manufacturing. And
much of that involves defense industry and other important
manufacturing that is critical to the United States. And there
has been a lot of concern expressed about the supply chain, and
the lack of skilled workers--in some cases, unskilled workers--
to take jobs in that supply chain.
And there is a lot of talk about how some immigration
involves highly skilled and highly educated workers, but what
about immigrants that come here without an advanced STEM
degree, or even a college education, can they participate in
that supply chain in our efforts to promote advanced
manufacturing? And could you talk about that and how important
that might be to us over the next decade or two?
Dr. Kerr. Yes. So I think everyone seems to like highly
skilled immigrants, but it is a false notion that less skilled
immigrants, or immigrants without a college degree, don't
provide something for the economy. In fact, if you look at the
entrepreneurs--immigrants entrepreneurs in the U.S., it is
about half of the entrepreneurs who have a college degree, and
the other half don't. It is the same actually for American
entrepreneurs as well. So they--both type of entrepreneurs,
skilled and not, create a lot of jobs. In fact, their firms are
often more similar than different on any of these metrics that
we have studied. And also non-college-educated workers are very
important, as you mentioned, for many local economies, for
American businesses in different sectors. They are an economic
powerhouse, as well as the skilled immigrants as well.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you. Again, Mr. Chair, thanks so much
for this important hearing. I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
expired.
I now recognize the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr.
Timmons, for five minutes.
Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you
holding this hearing on immigration. It is critically important
at this juncture in our country's history. We have a major
problem, and I wish that we were talking more about how to fix
that problem, than about building a more dynamic economy, the
benefits of immigration. I don't think many people would say
that we are anti-immigrant. I couldn't be more pro-immigrant. I
just--I have a very strong emphasis on the rule of law. I think
that laws matter. We have to enforce our laws. That is why
people want to come here. Our society is one of the freest and
safest places in the world, and we have people traveling
thousands of miles, risking their lives and their families'
lives, and it is just a tragic situation that we are in.
I went with Mr. Hern to McAllen, Texas. We had a bipartisan
trip that was eye-opening. Honestly, I have been here for six,
seven months, and we were arguing here in Congress whether
there was a humanitarian crisis at the border. And I trusted
the Administration. I trust the President. And I trusted the
Secretary of Homeland Security. But it didn't seem that that
was unanimous. A lot of people just didn't believe them. So we
have made progress here in Washington in that, I don't think
anybody thinks there is not a crisis at our southern border.
Having been there, it was probably the only time in my life
that I felt shame as an American. There was the facility I was
at in McAllen. It is designed for 3,000 people. There were over
9,000 people. They had detention cells where it was designed
for probably five people, they had 40. And I am not faulting
the Administration, I am not faulting Homeland Security, I am
not faulting CBP or Border Patrol. We have failed as a Congress
to fix the problem. And we are currently--now we are fighting
over what to do about the humanitarian crisis at the border.
And the answer is not just throw money at it. That is part of
the answer. It is a critical part of the answer. We need to
send more resources to the southern border. But we also have to
create a system that does not facilitate what is going on right
now.
Our laws are broken. I stood under a bridge right about a
mile away from the Rio Grande River, and about 20 immigrants
illegally crossed the border. They literally waded across the
river, and they immediately, very calmly, in what would be
described as through relief, turned themselves in to Border
Patrol. And they were then taken to processing, and weeks
later, they are going to be in an American city somewhere
pursuing the American Dream. They have a court date, they got
to go back, and it will probably be four or five years, but the
vast majority do not show up.
So we can't just throw money at it. We have to throw money
at it and fix the problem, and that is to create an immigration
system that encourages people to come here to pursue the
American Dream, but do so in a way that abides by our laws.
Come through our ports of entry.
I guess my first question is to Mr. Jawetz. So what can we
do to change what is going on? What would you propose that we
do to fix the onslaught of immigrants coming across the
southern border, not going through our ports of entry, crossing
our border illegally, claiming asylum, and really just--it is a
bad situation--so what is the proposal from the ACLU?
Mr. Jawetz. I used to be at the ACLU. Now I am at the
Center for American Progress.
Mr. Timmons. There we go, there we go.
Mr. Jawetz. But between that, I was on the Hill. So thanks
very much for the question. A couple of things I want to flag
first before I respond specifically. The first being the data
on appearances in immigration court are being badly
misconstrued. The vast, vast majority of people are appearing
at their hearings on a regular basis. If you look solely at the
data on closed cases, it is true that a large percentage of the
closed cases are cases where someone didn't show up, but that
is only because the cases don't close in just a matter of
months, right? And so if you look at actually who is appearing
as the process is going on, like 90 percent of folks are
appearing, and if they have counsel, it is even higher than
that.
Mr. Timmons. How many undocumented immigrants, what is the
number that you are using in the United States, currently? How
many undocumented----
Mr. Jawetz. There are about 10\1/2\ million people.
Mr. Timmons. Okay. So enough people aren't showing up that
we have a very large number?
Mr. Jawetz. Oh, sorry. If you are speaking specifically
about the southern border situation right now, that is the data
I am referring to there. The 10\1/2\ million people we are
talking about have been in the country now, on average, for
about 15 years, right? That is the result of a system in
which--you know, we spoke earlier about the conflicting
message. I thought that was a really great framing for it, the
conflicting message. When I was on the Hill, Richard Land from
the Southern Baptist Convention, used to talk about how there
are two signs on the southwest border. One says ``help
wanted,'' one says ``no trespassing.'' That is the conflicting
message for 20, 30 years we have been sending to the world,
right? We as a country, as an economy, rely upon immigrants for
their labor, for their contributions, as consumers. They are an
integral part of our current and our future economic stability.
But we don't actually have pathways to facilitate that. So when
we yell about legal versus illegal and try and make that a
really significant thing, we have to stop and say, Well, why is
the law what the law is right now? If the law is unenforceable
and we count upon it not being enforced, in order to realize
the exact economic gains that we are all pointing--that you all
are pointing to in this current Administration, you know, if
that is what we are counting upon, let's try and harness the
benefits of immigration within the legal system.
Mr. Timmons. So you would agree that we need to create a
legal system that actually facilitates immigration and then
enforce those rules?
Mr. Jawetz. I would 1,000 percent agree with that
statement, and I will tell you, I would love it if it was true,
frankly, that as I have heard repeatedly today, that every
member on the other side of the aisle, on the Republican side
of the aisle, supports not only legal immigration but
increasing legal immigration levels. Because I will tell you
that when I was in Congress, the most powerful voices who were
lobbying on your side and on your issues were NumbersUSA and
the Center for Immigration Studies, who are--setting aside they
are designated hate groups,--their mission is to decrease legal
immigration levels into the country. And Stephen Miller and
President Trump, who listens to them, their goal is not what
you are expressing. Their goal is not support for increased
immigration. Their goal is to drive down significantly legal
immigration to, like, 300,000 people a year, maybe, and to
massively deport everyone who already is here, notwithstanding
the economic disaster that would cause.
Mr. Timmons. I don't know if I agree with--thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
I now yield five minutes to the gentlelady from Washington,
Ms. Jayapal.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for holding
this hearing. And I just want to pick up where my colleague
across the aisle left off. I would 150 percent agree--or you
said 1,000--I would agree 1,000 percent as well, with the
statement that we all are trying to create a legal system that
allows us to bring in the immigrants that we need, that allows
us to meet the values and the demands of our economy. And it is
not that we don't know how to fix that, and, in fact, in 2013,
Mr. Chairman, you were a critical part of a very small,
bipartisan group of House Members, that worked on an
immigration proposal. The Senate in 2013--it is kind of--it is
hard to believe this, but 68 bipartisan votes for a
comprehensive immigration proposal that would have fixed much
of what we are dealing with. And I think that the--what we have
to understand is, you presented it much more diplomatically,
Mr. Jawetz, than I did--maybe all those years on the Hill
really helped--but I find it hypocritical, as a nation, but
from a political perspective, because I actually think you are
right, the statistics of Americans across this country,
Republican and Democratic and independent, across this country,
who know that immigration is a good thing for this country,
that want to see increased levels because they understand the
economic benefits of immigrants to this country, but the
political hypocrisy of a nation that continues to rely on those
benefits and yet has not fixed the system. And so I wanted to
go to that system question, because one of my colleagues on the
other side said, why do you keep conflating legal immigration
and illegal immigration? It is because the system is broken. So
tell us, when was the last time, last year, when we did any
kind of comprehensive reform to our nation's immigration laws
to update them to the needs of our economy?
Mr. Jawetz. So the last time we reshaped our legal
immigration system was in 1990.
Ms. Jayapal. 1990?
Mr. Jawetz. And since that time, of course, in 1996,
Congress, notwithstanding the fact that the system itself still
had deficiencies, layered on top of that, a number of really
serious and heavy enforcement provisions that only further
basically brought the immigration system out of step with the
realities of the country.
Ms. Jayapal. We started to criminalize immigration and
migration in 1996, but 1990 was the last time----
Mr. Jawetz. Yes.
Ms. Jayapal.----that we have actually had any kind of a
positive contribution in terms of reforming our immigration
laws. And when people say, people should get in line, is there
a line for people to get into?
Mr. Jawetz. Yeah, there is certainly not one line. There
are lots of different potential lines. Some of those lines, if
you look, for instance, at, like, if you are a--years ago when
I was working for Congresswoman Lofgren, when you looked at
like a U.S. citizen who was pushing for their sibling who was
in Mexico, how long a Mexican sibling getting into the wait
line would wait at this point, it was something like 120
years----
Ms. Jayapal. Right.
Mr. Jawetz.----based on the number of people who were in
the line ahead of them, and the number of visas given out each
year.
Ms. Jayapal. And, in fact, I took 19 years on a whole
alphabet soup of visas to be able to get my citizenship, and I
am so proud to be one of only 14 Members of Congress who is an
immigrant myself, has gone through the system and seen all the
ways in which it was broken. Give us one or two very quick
examples, because I do have a question for Dr. Kerr as well,
very quick examples of where you see this out of step. We have
a certain number of visas per category, and yet the number of
workers that we need for that category is dramatically out of
step. Just one example to help my colleagues.
Mr. Jawetz. The most ridiculous basically is that we have
an immigrant visa program, on statute, 10,000 visas given out
every single year to other workers. These are for lesser
skilled, immigration visas, full-time immigration visas into
the country, and for two decades, we have taken half those
visas and used them for adjustments under NACARA. So there are
5,000 visas available every single year for people who don't
have college education or highly technical skills who want to
emigrate to the U.S. and contribute as workers.
Ms. Jayapal. So that is a kind of out of step, but it is
across the board in every single category.
I wanted to say, Mr. Kahin, that I hope that we get to
taste your food someday. I was looking at the beautiful
pictures. And the National Association of Evangelicals has said
that our refugee resettlement program is the crown jewel of
American humanitarianism, and you are a perfect example of
that. So thank you so much for that.
And let me turn to Ms. Kerr for this question about labor
markets and entrepreneurship. We have heard the incredible
story of Mr. Kahin. It is not just Mr. Kahin that is in this
situation. We are seeing tremendous entrepreneurship. Can you
tell me what your findings have been specifically around
immigrants, the composition of the labor force, and then the
entrepreneurship levels of immigrants?
Dr. Kerr. Thank you. So, if you look at immigrants in the
population, and the labor force immigrants are about 13 percent
of the U.S. population, and a little bit higher than that in
the labor force, around 16 percent. They are almost double
that, still, in the entrepreneurial population. And that is not
just U.S. alone. I think immigrants are generally found to be a
lot more entrepreneurial than natives in any immigrant-
receiving country, and that happen both in self-employment as
well as sort of employer entrepreneur arena, so that is a very
typical finding----
Ms. Jayapal. Much greater than their share of the
population----
Ms. Kerr. Much greater than--exactly. They are much more
likely to start firms than natives are.
Ms. Jayapal. And that is part of the reason we have had so
much support from the Chamber of Commerce, and back in 2008, I
wrote an op-ed with the Pacific Northwest director of the
Chamber on the need for comprehensive immigration reform.
Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for holding this hearing
and for all of your work on this issue. I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you. The gentlelady's time has
expired.
I now recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr.
Meuser, for five minutes.
Mr. Meuser. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all very
much. I think it goes without saying, and it is undeniable, we
have a border crisis. 144,000 illegals were apprehended in May
alone. Of course, we don't know how many were not apprehended.
Yet, at the same time, no one denies, or at least I don't think
they should, that we are a proud nation of immigrants. The
President and the Republicans here in Washington are trying. We
now have engaged Mexico's help in controlling the border and
their borders. I do believe we follow a ``wide gates, high
fences'' concept. So as we have orderly known entry into our
country, and we do our very best to keep drugs and criminals
from entering our country. We have spent a lot of money on
expanding judges for asylum adjudication, and we are spending
billions for care and trying to expand detention centers
appropriately.
On the other hand, I think we have the--the Democrat side
is--provided no funding. It has no interest in border security.
They have passed an amnesty bill in the House; they have a bill
now that basically will institutionalize the idea of catch and
release, where 85 percent do not show up again, and no money
for law enforcement, ICE or border security.
So that is the situation here. Mayor, I would like to talk
about Yuma. Human trafficking, you touched on that a little
while ago. You said it is certainly--you know, one poor person
being humanly trafficked in that manner, unwillingly, is a
tragedy. Could you speak on that briefly?
Mr. Nicholls. It has a--thank you, Congressman. It has a
lot to do with, you know, providing for the humanitarian aid,
you know. I have been accused of taking really strong positions
one way or the other, but at the end of the day when people
arrive in the community, that is my concern is the humanitarian
concern for them and the public safety. So human trafficking
shows up in a lot of different ways. To me, it shows up in
recycling children so that people can cross the border. And
whether or not they claim asylum, because right now only 7
percent of migrant families that come through the Yuma sector
actually claim asylum, but as long as they have that minor with
them, they are able to enter the same process to see a judge
and await in country. So to me, that child, if it is not a
family member, is part of that trafficking issue.
And then the trafficking starts in Mexico. I have talked to
several officials there, where they track it, but they don't
have enough--the problem with trafficking is that it moves
across too many borders, so there is not enough continuity in
local governments in order to have an impact. It is really a
federal-level issue to try to get our hands around that.
Mr. Meuser. All right. I hope to hear from you ideas on
trying to correct this terrible situation.
Mr. Nicholls. I have a few.
Mr. Meuser. Great, all right.
Mr. Nicholls. Thank you.
Mr. Meuser. Costs to your budget, to your city,
unsustainable? Manageable?
Mr. Nicholls. As a community, it is very unsustainable. Our
city right now, we don't have a line item for migrant support,
so we don't actually have dollars, but our community has
experienced over a million and a half dollars, in the last
three months, worth of impact for the different elements that
it takes in order to support that effort. Right now, this is
the part of the year where our nonprofits are already stretched
in trying to serve our homeless veterans, the different
elements of the community that need the support. Temperatures
hotter, there is less work, and now that our nonprofits, some
of them are diverted to providing for the migrant families as
they come through. So there is a real impact from a community
level of just under a half a million--a million and a half
dollars since the beginning of the year.
Mr. Meuser. What about schools, how are your schools doing?
Mr. Nicholls. You know, the schools right now because the
migrant families are moving through and they don't stay, we
don't that dramatic of an impact. There is a constant presence,
just being close to Mexico, but there is no dramatic impact
right now in the school system.
Mr. Meuser. And so housing as well? Housing?
Mr. Nicholls. Housing, it really has to do with that
temporary housing and moving through the families. Our shelter
has gone over capacity four times in the last three months. It
is just not a sustainable situation, where we can continue to
bring people in, because the numbers continue to grow.
Mr. Meuser. And lastly the farms, you mentioned how this is
disrupting the ability for them to come in and do the work they
have traditionally provided?
Mr. Nicholls. Right. So there we have, a lot of the labor
comes legally through the port of entry. Well, because we have
removed resources in order to support the family migrants that
have come through, the wait times are getting dramatically
longer. As we enter into the winter season, where we have the
15,000 people--15,000 workers coming through a day, they are
going to be waiting in line an extra hour to an hour and a half
just to cross the border because the resources aren't allocated
where they need to be for the legal part of the migration
process every day.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time----
Mr. Meuser. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
expired.
I now yield five minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey,
Mr. Sires.
Mr. Sires. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member, for
holding this hearing. You know, I represent a district of New
Jersey which is 44 percent of the people in my district who are
born outside of this country. I, myself, am an immigrant. I
came to this country when I was 11 years old as a refugee,
refugee from Cuba, and I always tell this story. When we landed
in Miami, they took us to the refugee center. They knew that we
were going to New Jersey. They gave me a hat, glove, and a
coat. My brother also. And we went on to New Jersey. My parents
also. I tell people, that was a great investment by this
country. I have been paying taxes all these years, my family
and myself. I am still paying taxes. So as far as I am
concerned--I also created a business. I employ people--so as
far as I am concerned, this country made a great investment in
the Sires family, because I am here. And the greatness of this
country is the fact that I came as a refugee, I am here in
Congress, and my vote here is as good as anybody that was born
here. And I care for this country as much as anybody that was
born here. Probably more. Because I appreciate the opportunity
that was given to my family. So when I hear about all these
things about immigrants, how bad they are, you know, I just
don't buy it.
Of course, everybody wants legal immigration. Nobody wants
illegal immigration. The condition of some of these people in
this country are so horrible that they may not have a choice.
But they do come and work. And one of my questions that I have
is, when people that are not legally here work, some of them
contribute taxes, right? Some of them contribute to Social
Security, right?
Mr. Jawetz. Absolutely.
Mr. Sires. Do they get that money back?
Mr. Jawetz. Not now, no.
Mr. Sires. No. Do you know how much they contribute that
they don't get the money back that they work for?
Mr. Jawetz. I should have that in front of me right now. It
is trillions. I mean, trillions of dollars basically in payroll
taxes that are contributed into the system in the long run.
Mr. Sires. And they don't get that back in Social Security?
Mr. Jawetz. I mean, at this stage, no. I mean, there is a
way in which if you can--if you are paying through an I-10, you
can sort of track that down the road. There are ways in which
you could potentially do it, but most of that money right now
is left on the table.
Mr. Sires. Right now it stays in the budget, wherever it
goes?
Mr. Jawetz. That is right.
Mr. Sires. The other aspect is that we make it more
difficult for people even who are here legally to become
citizens. You know, I go to ceremonies all the time, and I
swear people all the time. I just find out the other day that
if you become a citizen, and you get the certificate that says,
you know--which my father used to have in the living room, if
you lose that certificate, now they charge you $500 to get a
copy of that certificate. Or if you misplace it. And it is now
close to a thousand dollars to become a citizen. We just keep
making it more and more difficult for people to become
citizens, even if you are here legally.
You know, we had a bill that came from the Senate, close to
70 votes in the Senate, came here, and because a group of
people didn't feel like they were going to support it and were
going to create hell, it never went through. And that was a
bipartisan effort for a comprehensive immigration bill.
Mayor, I know--I was a mayor for 12 years. Ninety-four
percent of the student body in the town that I represented were
Hispanic. So you can--and they didn't speak English--so you can
imagine the pressure on the budget of that community. Pressure
on housing, pressure on everything. And you know, one of the
things, across the street from me there is the supermarket, and
when this whole thing started with the President and people
became fearful, the owner of the supermarket came to me and
said, you know, my business is down 35, almost 40 percent,
because a lot of people became afraid and moved someplace else,
and they didn't buy in that store.
You know, I had the same problems with housing, police. And
generally I find that immigrants are pretty respectful to
teachers and police officers. This business that they all come
here and somehow they are criminals, I don't buy that. I lived
it. So, you know, we just can't keep making it more difficult
for people who are here to become citizens. And it is all about
the fear of the vote. Let's be realistic. They don't want 10
million people to become voters in this country. And that is
the reality of it, because you know which way they are going to
vote, most of them anyway, except for the Cubans. Thank you,
Chairman.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
I now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Woodall,
for five minutes.
Mr. Woodall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding the hearing. I wanted to answer Mr. Sires' question
about do you know how they are going to vote. The immigrants I
know, and 26 percent of my bosses are first-generation American
families. They vote based on faith and family and education and
opportunity. So to Mr. Sires' point, who is my good friend, I
know exactly how they are going to vote in the great state of
Georgia, and we will continue to----
Mr. Sires. Let's make them citizens.
Mr. Woodall. You are exactly--you are exactly right.
Mr. Sires. Let's make them citizens.
Mr. Woodall. I took offense to Mr. Jawetz, it was a side
comment that Georgia was passing laws to run immigrants out of
that state. That is just nonsense. There is a rule-of-law
conversation that has happened in the great state of Georgia.
And, again, my immigrant population is growing wildly in the
very best tradition of America. The past of this country was
based on robust immigration, the future of this country is
based on robust immigration, and Georgia is no exception to
that.
I wanted to ask Mr. Kahin, opening your fourth restaurant,
can you just tell me, did the tax bill, did it help you at all?
Did it help the family business at all, like, when we passed
the tax bill two years ago?
Mr. Kahin. You know, lately, it has been--it has been good,
but I think--I opened my restaurant in 2010.
Mr. Woodall. The first one in 2010?
Mr. Kahin. Yes. I opened the first one in 2010.
Mr. Woodall. And when the second one?
Mr. Kahin. The second one, 2015. And two----
Mr. Woodall. And the third?
Mr. Kahin. This year.
Mr. Woodall. This year?
Mr. Kahin. So it is equally----
Mr. Woodall. I am following that growth. I hope that growth
continues. We were having an economics discussion. I just
wanted to ask, is there anybody of economic thought that says
that illegal immigration is more economically valuable to the
country than legal immigration?
Dr. Kerr. And so, I can start with that. It is actually
surprisingly hard. So in many of the data sets that I use--and
I use these large Census Bureau-collected data--we don't know
whether someone is an illegal or legal immigration. We don't
know anything much about the circumstances upon their entry. So
the best case we can usually tell is whether they arrived as
children or as adults. But there is nothing really in there
that would tell us anything about the circumstances surrounding
their entry. So I would love to have data to be able to
actually look at some of these questions regarding illegal
versus legal, but that is just--that is sort of, almost by
definition, is not there. And even among the legal, the
different groups of immigrants, whether you came under an H-1B
visa or came under--as a sort of--your parents migrated and you
migrated with them and they had a legal immigration----
Mr. Woodall. I guess I wouldn't of thought it was that
complicated, Dr. Kerr.
Dr. Kerr. I wouldn't have thought either.
Mr. Woodall. But I am thinking about the folks who are able
to live out their very best American Dream in my district.
Those folks with papers are able to pursue that dream in ways
that folks without papers can't. Even in my district, we have
so many H-1B and E-2s, folks with H-4 visas now are struggling
to live out that highest and best dream.
And Ms. Jayapal, and I have a bill to fix that. You see
that in real life every day, Mayor, the wonderful benefits of
legal immigration. Tell me about the 15,000 folks that--we
always talk about H-2As as if they are going to make a big
difference. You said your legal-immigration population that
comes in every day and goes back home every night dwarfs the H-
2A participants in your area?
Mr. Nicholls. That is correct. That is correct. There might
be a little bit of crossover in that, in the H-2A population.
Some of them are American citizens who have just chosen to live
in Mexico, and then some of them have different guest worker
program participation.
Mr. Woodall. We have talked a lot about a lot of topics
that are not what the Chairman had on the agenda today, but I
was surprised, as many of you were, when President Trump said
in the State of the Union, I want people to come into our
country in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come
legally. Again, economics discussion, does anybody take issue
with that? I support that. I also want folks to come in the
largest numbers ever, but I want them to come--to come legally.
Mr. Kahin, I have in my district, folks on H-1Bs, so they
brought their children here with them. They are on H-4s. They
have been in line for 15 years in some cases, paying taxes just
as your family is. Now their kids are aging out of the system.
DACA protects families who came without a visa, but it does
nothing for families that came here legally with a visa. How
long was the wait for you? From the day that you decided to
make your way to this country, what was the wait time?
Mr. Kahin. I think about eight months.
Mr. Woodall. Eight months?
Mr. Kahin. Yes. And it was to Georgia--Atlanta, Georgia.
Mr. Woodall. You flatter me by saying that. My question is,
why couldn't we keep you? Why couldn't we keep you there? What
led you to leave--to head to Minnesota instead of sticking
around in the great state of Georgia?
Mr. Kahin. Maybe the snow.
Mr. Woodall. I can believe that.
Mr. Chairman, I hope we have a chance to do a round two,
because from the apples to apples comparisons that Dr. Kerr was
making earlier to some of the dysfunctional, legal-system
issues that Mr. Jawetz observed earlier, there is a lot more
information to gather from this witness panel.
Chairman Yarmuth. We will think about that. The gentleman's
time has expired.
I now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Peters,
for five minutes.
Mr. Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have really enjoyed
this. You have been a great panel. In San Diego, which I
represent, we know that our community is vibrant and booming
from immigration. And in my district, the fastest growing
racial group actually is Asian American Pacific Islanders. AAPI
businesses have created over 50,000 jobs in San Diego County.
I also think it is kind of amusing to sit here where we
seem to agree on so much. We agree that the immigration system
is broken. We agree that we are against illegal immigration. We
agree that we are for legal immigration, but no one has
acknowledged the--what maybe we should say out loud is that
Congress has the power to decide what legal immigration is. And
if we don't like what it is today, why don't we make legal what
is good for America?
And I would just ask Mr. Jawetz a question. If the--well,
and just maybe say one more time that people have acknowledged
that the Senate did take this up in 2013. That was my first
year in Congress. And I thought, oh boy, we are going to solve
this problem. And then I found out that the Speaker, Mr.
Boehner, at that time, could keep something off the floor from
even being voted on. Sixty-eight votes in the Senate, very
bipartisan, would have provided $40 billion for border
security, which was a big, tough nut to digest for a lot of
Democrats, but would have solved a lot of the numbers problems,
would have reunited families and done a lot of the other things
we all say we want to do. So that is before us. Again, we could
do that.
Mr. Jawetz, we hear often this notion from opponents of
immigration that immigrants will take American jobs. Would you
explain why that is not the case?
Mr. Jawetz. Sure. And I think Dr. Kerr can get into it as
well, but economists have looked at this repeatedly and what
they basically do is they talk about this in terms of whether
immigrants are competing or if they are complementing the
American workforce. And by and large, in most aspects,
immigrants are complementing the American workforce, not even
considering the additional entrepreneurship of just straight
creating jobs out of whole cloth.
Mr. Peters. Because they are filling new jobs, not taking
existing jobs, is that essentially what it is?
Mr. Jawetz. They are often filling new jobs, and frankly,
because of the complementary aspect of it, by filling new
introductory-level jobs, they actually free up the opportunity
for additional managerial jobs and other things for American
workers. We see some of the biggest gains actually among
African American workers who end up getting higher level, more
managerial jobs often when the entry-level jobs are being taken
by immigrants, especially new immigrants who may not have the
same native language fluency as American workers.
Mr. Peters. Right. And with respect to the 2013 bill, you
mentioned that the CBO estimated a reduction in the federal
deficit of nearly a trillion over 20 years.
Mr. Jawetz. That is right.
Mr. Peters. How is that possible?
Mr. Jawetz. I mean, it is two things basically. One part--
and this sort of goes to the question that was asked earlier by
Mr. Woodall whether legal immigrants or illegal immigrants are
more economically productive--there is an economic boon
essentially from getting legal status. It is absolutely true
that the wages of undocumented workers are unnaturally
suppressed, and that is not good for them or for anybody else.
And so providing a path to citizenship for the 10\1/2\ million
people who are undocumented right now, 7 million of whom are in
the workforce, would actually result in an economic benefit to
them and to their wages and to the wages around them.
But then separately, also, what that bill did was actually
change the legal immigration system going forward to bring in
those immigrants that it seems like we have general consensus
would be a good thing to have in this country because we can
stimulate additional economic growth, and if the economic
growth and the dynamic scoring that was done on that bill and
the tax contributions made by those individuals over 10, 20
years, that would end up paying down that deficit.
Mr. Peters. So legalizing people who are here today, 10\1/
2\ million people, who are--most of them are part of the
economy, would actually help the Americans who are already
citizens?
Mr. Jawetz. Absolutely.
Mr. Peters. Economically speaking?
Mr. Jawetz. Absolutely, yes.
Mr. Peters. Would not take their jobs?
Mr. Jawetz. No. That is--first of all, for the folks who
are here, they are already in the workforce----
Mr. Peters. Right.
Mr. Jawetz.----so let's be clear with that, they are
already in the workforce anyway.
Mr. Peters. Can you talk to me about how aging plays into
this? So the population is aging. How is the addition of
immigrants consistent with or helpful to dealing with that?
Mr. Jawetz. Yeah, totally. So immigrants who come into the
United States today are, by and large, in their working and
reproductive prime of their lives, unlike, frankly, the
American, you know, workforce which is aging and is reproducing
at a lower and lower rate over time. And so, when you think
about sort of the growth rate curve, the growth rate for this
country and the prospects of not being a country that is skewed
toward people who are no longer in the workforce and are
counting upon retirement benefits and the like, immigrants are
breathing new life into that system, and are hoping to keep it
solvent today and for years going forward.
Mr. Peters. So someone suggested that the cost of
immigrants offset the benefits they were providing by paying
into social benefits programs. Is that correct?
Mr. Jawetz. No. I mean, the National Academy of Sciences
did an exhaustive study and literature review two years ago,
and what they found is, yes, there are costs--this is actually
relevant to the Mayor as well. There are costs of immigration
to this country, particularly the cost of children, because
surprise, surprise, I am a father of two. Children are a huge
suck on the economy, right. They are pretty economically
useless at first, but they are an investment, and then
eventually that investment pays off, and it pays off in spades,
especially for second-generation immigrants.
And so, you know, also there are additional costs in
certain communities that have the largest populations
initially. And so, you know, as part of the immigration reform
conversation, we maybe should have a conversation about the
redistribution of support from the federal government to
communities that have the largest shares of immigrants and new
immigrants who are seeing some impact in their housing market,
in their schools, and the like. But overall, immigrants are an
economic boon for this country, fiscally and economically.
Mr. Peters. For all of us.
Mr. Jawetz. For all of us.
Mr. Peters. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I yield
back.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
I now recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Johnson, for
five minutes.
Mr. Johnson. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Important
hearing today, and I appreciate our panelists being here. I
represent rural eastern and southeastern Ohio, where many small
businesses rely on H-2B visas.
As you may know, the H-2B program is a small but very
necessary part of the American economic landscape, helping to
create and sustain jobs in my district and across the country.
I am grateful to the Administration for recognizing the
unprecedented employer demand for H-2B workers and raising the
cap by an additional 30,000 visas for the rest of fiscal year
2019, but this temporary relief does not solve the problem.
In fact, without substantial and immediate reform to this
visa program, some of the small businesses in my district are
at risk of losing everything because they can't get their
workers. I think we can all agree that there is no reason to
have a visa program that puts American businesses out of
business, and that was certainly not the intent of this
program.
Mayor Nicholls, as the Mayor of Yuma where 175 different
crops are grown year round, can you talk about your business
community's experience with this visa program? What kind of
economic impact would immigration reform that allowed for a
stable legal immigrant workforce have on seasonal businesses
where you live?
Mr. Nicholls. Thank you, Congressman. Yeah. We focus
primarily on the H-2A program, and it is a very difficult
program to enact. In order to have someone participate in that
program, they have to go to a certain embassy in their country,
sign up for a very particular workforce element, whether it is
picking a specific crop during a specific time period for a
specific employer. And then, if there is an event that ruins
that crop, now that worker's in limbo. The company is having a
hard time figuring out what to do with that worker, so there is
those kind of constraints. And there is a shared limit, a
number of people that can be in the program in the region. And
that is limiting our workforce, which is part of what I talked
about with the tens of thousands of acres of fresh produce that
went to Guanajuato, Mexico. It is because there weren't enough
workers and enough visas to service that area.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. Well, thank you.
Mr. Jawetz, in your testimony, you say, and I quote, ``The
contributions of foreign-born workers through the payroll taxes
are shoring up the country's social safety net for years to
come and helping ensure that we honor the commitment we made to
older Americans now turning to those programs for support,''
unquote.
When you say foreign-born workers, are you including the
undocumented immigrants who would be given lawful permanent
resident status under H.R. 6?
Mr. Jawetz. Yes. So in general, all foreign-born workers--
--
Mr. Johnson. Yes.
Mr. Jawetz.----undocumented and documented, yes.
Mr. Johnson. Well, then let's take a look at the effect on
Social Security with H.R. 6. In your view, would H.R. 6 make
Social Security solvent?
Mr. Jawetz. Well, so I mean, you know, it is hard to say,
right? So right now, you are talking about H.R. 6----
Mr. Johnson. How much does it move the dial?
Mr. Jawetz. So that hasn't been calculated and CBO didn't--
--
Mr. Johnson. So we don't know. So you say it is going to
improve the economic status and shore up that safety net, but
you have no idea how much?
Mr. Jawetz. Sir, it is two different parts of my testimony.
I mean, you know----
Mr. Johnson. All right. Well, for the record, let me tell
you that CBO has reported that H.R. 6 would barely move the
dial on Social Security, so CBO's opinion is diametrically
opposite to yours. Let me ask you another question.
Mr. Jawetz. And so on that point, can I say----
Mr. Johnson. In your testimony, you mention H.R. 6, that if
enacted, I quote, the bill would have a positive social and
economic impact on states and communities all over the country.
So do you endorse H.R. 6?
Mr. Jawetz. We fully endorse H.R. 6, yeah.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. Great. Do you know the impact that H.R.
6 would have on the federal budget?
Mr. Jawetz. Yes. So when you look at the CBO score----
Mr. Johnson. What is your view? How much?
Mr. Jawetz. So when you look at the CBO score, what CBO did
not do for H.R. 6, but they did do----
Mr. Johnson. Well, according to CBO, H.R. 6 would add over
$30 billion to the federal deficit over 10 years. So how would
you recommend that we pay for H.R. 6?
Mr. Jawetz. So we did a study of the DREAM Act
specifically, just the DREAM Act portion of it and----
Mr. Johnson. No, no. I want to know how you think we are
going to pay for it.
Mr. Jawetz. So I am going to try and answer this question.
Mr. Johnson. I have only got 24 seconds. How do you think
we are going to pay for it?
Chairman Yarmuth. I will give the gentleman more time if
you allow him to answer the question.
Mr. Jawetz. I think it would be helpful for you to know we
did a study of just the DREAM Act portion of the legislation,
not H.R. 6 specifically, but the DREAM Act, generally, a couple
of years ago. And if you do do essentially what CBO would do if
they did dynamic scoring, if you look at the long-term economic
impact of the bill, we saw a gain of $1 trillion basically over
10 years, in providing legalization for people who are
DREAMers, right, because they are----
Mr. Johnson. But you are still not answering my question.
How would you recommend that we pay for H.R. 6?
Mr. Jawetz. I think--honestly, I mean, I wasn't here for
when PAYGO--I mean, I wasn't a Member of Congress who voted for
the PAYGO rules that exist right now. I would say that just
like what I said earlier about children being an economic suck,
but really actually are an investment in our future, passing
legislation like H.R. 6 that would provide an opportunity for
legalization for individuals who are already in our country,
who are becoming educated here, who we have invested in, who
want to contribute more fully, and unlocking that potential
would be a great long-term investment for this country, and we
would reap the benefits of that in the long run.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
I now yield five minutes to the gentlelady from Illinois,
Ms. Schakowsky.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you. You know, it is tempting to use
a bunch of time just venting my fury about what I am seeing and
the heartbreak at the border, but also in my community, where
there is so much fear.
Mr. Jawetz, you have a lot of experience working on issues
related to immigration detention, and you have even represented
detainees challenging unlawful conditions of confinement. So,
in your experience, what have the courts found to constitute
unlawful conditions of confinement, and how does that compare
to what we are seeing at the border today?
Mr. Jawetz. So under the 8th Amendment to the Constitution,
you cannot provide deliberate indifference to serious medical
needs, for instance. That is just the general 8th Amendment
standard. The 8th Amendment, though, isn't actually the
relevant standard when looking at civil detainees like
immigrants in custody who are not being punished. They can't
constitutionally be punished. And so, really, what it comes
down to there, essentially, is looking at their fundamental 5th
Amendment due process rights to protection. And you know, the
courts are different as to what that means in different
circuits. But in the 9th Circuit, certainly, under a case
called Jones v. Blanas, if you treat a person who is in civil
custody the same as you would treat someone who is in pretrial
criminal custody, or certainly post-conviction custody, then
that would be--you know, that would be presumptively
unconstitutional under the----
Ms. Schakowsky. So is it safe to say that failing to
provide children with soap and a toothbrush and forcing them to
sleep on concrete floors in cold, overcrowded cells is not only
inhumane, but unlawful, an unlawful condition of confinement?
Mr. Jawetz. So it is certainly unlawful with respect to the
actual settlement agreements that govern the treatment of
children in custody, and that is just as enforceable,
obviously, as the constitutional protections. You know, I would
say over time, courts and Congress have reduced the ability for
individuals who are in custody to actually recover for
violations of their rights. Actually, the last time I was here
testifying back in 2007, I was sitting right next to a client
of mine at the time, Francisco Castaneda, who had been in
immigration custody for 11 months. And from day one, when he
walked in the facility, they knew that he needed a biopsy in
order to rule out cancer, and for 11 months, they denied it to
him. And when he finally walked out the facility door after we
did a demand letter, the doctor who walked him out said get
yourself to an emergency room. By that point, he already had
metastatic penile cancer, testified before Congress, and a few
months later, had passed away.
And the Supreme Court, frankly, 9-0 actually, ruled that
because Congress under the Public Health Services Act ruled
that the Federal Tort Claims Act is the exclusive remedy for
individuals who are mistreated by veterans--by the folks who
are treating him in the public health service, he was not able
to recover at all for the unconstitutional conduct that he was
subjected to that the----
Ms. Schakowsky. Let me ask.
Mr. Jawetz.----lower courts thought was abhorrent.
Ms. Schakowsky. What kind of impact will the
Administration's cruel and inhumane mass detention of refugees
and asylum seekers have on the economy? I heard a woman on
television last night say that each child actually costs about
$750 per night to keep in the ineffective, inhumane custody
that they are in right now. But we keep hearing about there is
not enough money. We are spending a lot of money, aren't we?
Mr. Jawetz. Yeah. We are spending a tremendous amount of
money on the most expensive way of handling the situation
possible. There were, at the time the Administration started,
took over, basically, there was a program in place that allowed
for pennies on the dollar, basically, to release families into
intensive supervision programs, basically, in which we are
seeing, actually, phenomenal results of folks showing up for
proceedings.
Ms. Schakowsky. Let me also--I met with the U.S. tourism
operators, and they said there has been a 20 percent decline in
tourists in the United States. What does that mean for us? I
mean, and they attribute it--I asked, have these immigration
policies deterred people from coming, and they attributed that
to the decline.
Mr. Jawetz. Yeah. I think this sort of goes to the earlier
points, you know. If it is, in fact, the case that the
Committee Members on all sides of the aisle are supportive of
immigrants and more immigrants coming to the country, I think
that is not what the Administration's official policy is, and
what their stated preference is. Stephen Miller's goal, and
many people who he has brought into the Administration who are
influencing policy, the folks again at FAIR, Members USA and
several other immigration companies----
Ms. Schakowsky. All right, let me ask----
Mr. Jawetz.----is to reduce immigration to the country.
Ms. Schakowsky. Let me ask you one more question. The
President has threatened to remove millions of Americans, to
deport them from the United States. How would mass deportation
impact our economy?
Mr. Jawetz. I certainly got to that in my initial
testimony, and I would refer folks to my remarks. But if we
were to pursue a policy of mass deportation and removing all of
just the 7 million workers in our economy who are undocumented,
it would, you know, potentially lead to a reduction in
cumulative GDP of up to $4.7 trillion over 10 years, and
reductions up to 18 percent of the workforce in certain
industries. It would be devastating.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlelady's time has expired.
I now yield five minutes to the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Roy.
Mr. Roy. I thank the Chairman. I thank all the witnesses
for being here and taking the time to address the Committee on
this important issue. I realize the purpose of this hearing, of
course, is to focus on the economic impact of immigration,
illegal, legal, et cetera, and trying to figure out policies to
address it. A number of times in this hearing, both sides of
the aisle, we have been talking about the crisis at the border.
I would just like to bring to the attention when we are
talking about pointed comments about this Administration's
handling of the border, that it was my colleagues on the other
side of the aisle for the last five months who repeatedly kept
saying there was no crisis at the border. There is public
record over--and it is true. It is true. There is statement
after statement after statement after statement by Members of
the Democrat House of Representatives, Democrats in the House
of Representatives, making statements saying there was no
crisis. Look at the public record. Go find it because it is
true. They called it a manufactured crisis, said it wasn't
happening.
And as a result, we have dead migrants. We have pictures on
the front of the newspaper showing a father trying to get his
child across the Rio Grande, understandably, because we, the
most powerful nation in the history of mankind, refused to
create a system and to secure the border in such a way that
that father with his child knows how to get here, the rules to
follow, and to do so safely. Rather than risking a difficult
journey, being guided predominantly by cartels, and not just
cartels generically as if this is some sort of fictitious
thing. Very specifically, the Gulf cartel's Reynoso faction,
the cartel Los Zetas, the Sinaloas, who are making hundreds of
millions of dollars moving people through Mexico to come to the
United States, and not one of us on either side of the aisle
takes anything away from the individuals who want to do that.
It makes sense. We understand it. But it is unconscionable
that this body won't do anything about it. And now we have, on
the floor of the House of Representatives, legislation that is
alleged to address this situation but does not do anything to
stem the flow or the pressure valve. It does nothing to create
places where we can have detention facilities at ICE in order
to push back on the numbers of people that the cartels are
going to continue to drive across the border for profit. And to
use the facilities that we would create with this $4.5 billion
for Border Patrol to house people at the border, to process
them, to then do what? We are going to complete the cycle of
the profit-making machine that the cartels use to move people
across our border.
When are we going to sit down around a table on a
bipartisan basis and recognize that this problem needs to be
solved? Last year, I heard one of my colleagues here talk about
previous legislation that was rejected for one reason or
another. I would remind this body that last July, there were
two votes on the immigration issue. One vote got 191 Republican
votes. The other bill got 121 Republican votes. Differences of
opinion within the conference. Not one Democrat supported
either of those bills, bills that would have reformed the
system to be a points-based system, to help streamline the
process and get people here so they can work and have a better
immigration system. Another part that would have secured the
border, dealt with the asylum issue, dealt with the Flores
issue, dealt with the very magnet that the catch-and-release
system is empowering the cartels to profit, moving these people
across the border, in which they then die in the process.
It is the height of arrogance and hypocrisy for those who
sat here ignoring this problem for months on end, to then point
to Border Patrol, to point to the people who are trying to
figure out how to solve the problem, when they have got
facilities to house a few thousand, and they have got three and
four and five times that number of people to figure out what to
do with. And to then point to them and say they are somehow
violating the decency of how they are handling these people
when Border Patrol is saving lives on a daily basis?
Unfortunately, they didn't get to save the life of that
father and that child yesterday, or a few days ago when that
unfortunate tragedy happened. But when are we going to come
together to solve this problem? We cannot, to the point of one
of my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle made this point,
at the same time, have a ``help wanted'' sign and a ``no
trespassing'' sign at the border.
And that is a bipartisan problem, I will acknowledge, but
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been ignoring
this crisis for a long time. I would like to talk about the
cost issue. It is an important issue. But it is not possible
for me to continue to listen to that kind of pointed testimony
about this Administration, ICE, and CBP, when you go back and
you look at the previous Administration, and we talk about kids
sleeping on floors. The pictures that were circulating around
this week of kids sleeping on concrete were from 2015, and yet,
they were being said as if it was this Administration.
We have got to stop the hyperbole and actually figure out
how to sit down and solve the problem. I yield back to the
Chairman.
Chairman Yarmuth. I think the gentleman's time has expired.
I now recognize the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee,
for five minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the Chairman very much and the
Ranking Member for this important hearing, and I feel the
passion of my fellow Texan, understand his interpretation.
Having been here a little longer than the gentleman, I have the
historical perspective of how we dealt with immigration and the
question of immigration reform. Almost two decades, I
introduced comprehensive immigration reform. Most of my bill
was incorporated in the 2010 McCain Gang of Eight effort that
was almost at the front door of the President of the United
States. But unfortunately, the Republican-controlled Senate did
not have the passion and capacity to pass the legislation. I
say that to say so that the record can be established that the
crisis was really created by the pointed remarks of the
Commander in Chief, President of the United States, throwing
immigration bombs, if you will, mass deportation, blocking the
bridges, setting policies for people to live in squalor on the
Mexican side of the border.
And so, unlike those of you who seem to be presenting here,
we are having elusive discussion, we lost all reason. Let me
set the record straight. The tragedy of Mr. Martinez, or the
family of the gentleman and precious daughter and precious wife
actually presented themselves at the international bridge at
Matamoros, and were told to seek asylum, fleeing violence, and
were told that the bridge is closed.
I am from Texas, so I know bridges cannot be closed. And I
know that there is no end to the amount of people that could
get in line, although it would be a long line to present
themselves for asylum, which is still not only the law of the
United States, but it is international law which we have agreed
to.
I think it is important to set the record straight, having
been at the border during the time of the gentleman's comments
in 2014, 2015, having seen unaccompanied children come off the
bus, I was there. I understand. At least in the previous
Administration, there was the effort to try to address it in a
mandatory manner.
So let me go quickly as my time--Mr. Jawetz, let me just
get a number of how much the economy would be driven positively
if comprehensive immigration reform was to be passed. We have
had a variety of numbers. It would mean people would have
access to citizenship. They would get in line. Let me be very
clear. The legislation would not put people that were
undocumented in front of those who had been in line, but what
would that engine be?
Mr. Jawetz. Sure. So when Congress in 2013 passed S. 744,
CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation did a number of
different reports, both a specific score of the bill, and also
an economic impact report that was part of the dynamic scoring
of it. And what they found was that passing that legislation
would have decreased federal budget deficits by about $1
trillion over 20 years, would have increased the nation's GDP
by about 3.3 percent in 10 years, and 5.4 percent in 20 years,
and the increased average wages of American workers within 10
years.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And so over a period of time, there would
be constant growth----
Mr. Jawetz. Yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee.----in the budget, maybe to be able to have
a more humanitarian response to those who would be possibly
still coming, unfortunately, but maybe because of regular
order, we would have a process for individuals to cross the
border, whether it is the northern border, the southern border,
or otherwise. Is that correct?
Mr. Jawetz. I mean, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security
Kevin McAleenan, just a couple of weeks ago, testified before
Congress that had that bill itself been enacted into law, it
would have actually provided additional resources that have
could help to address the challenges they are facing now.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I am always seeking common--reasonable
ways--commonsense, reasonable ways to address this question.
Give me that trillion number again, please. I need it to be in
the record louder than ever.
Mr. Jawetz. Sure. So basically if that legislation had been
enacted into law, the budget deficit would have been decreased
by about $1 trillion over 20 years.
Ms. Jackson Lee. $1 trillion. Mr. Kahin, let me thank you
for your presence here. Tell me how you got here, sir?
Mr. Kahin. I got here as asylum, and I apply asylum, and I
got it about 12 to 18 months, and I started going to school.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So you fled violence from Somalia?
Mr. Kahin. Yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And so you understand it is reasonable
that people could be sacrificing their lives to flee violence?
Mr. Kahin. Actually, I am one of the luckiest people, you
know, from there, but I know thousands of people in Africa and
Somalia who are fleeing from the civil war and dying, you know,
in the sea. Those are by thousands, I think, every month.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And so you have a business. Are you
pouring into the economy--when I say that, is your business now
turning back into the economy with employees? Can you tell me
how many employees you have?
Mr. Kahin. I have about 60.
Ms. Jackson Lee. About 60 employees?
Mr. Kahin. Yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And training young people or training
others as well in your employment?
Mr. Kahin. Yes. I have, you know, students who, you know,
do--I mean, I employ during the school year or, you know, they
are off. And I also have people who started from dishwashing
who are right now chefs, and some of them are also managers.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the gentleman. I am sorry I didn't
get to the other witnesses, Mr. Chairman. I thank you and the
Ranking Member for your courtesies, but I think we have made
the record over and over again. Thank you so very much.
Chairman Yarmuth. I thank the gentlelady, and now recognize
the gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Horsford, for five minutes.
Mr. Horsford. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This is a
very important hearing to allow us to discuss the economic
benefits immigrant families contribute to this country, and
certainly in my home state of Nevada. Since the founding of
this country until today, immigrants have made strong
contributions to our society and culture. But they have also
served as engines for economic growth and innovation, creating
new economic opportunities for all of us.
I would like to focus my time today on temporary protected
status holders. Households with TPS holders contribute $2.3
billion in federal taxes, and $1.3 billion in state and local
taxes annually. They hold more than $10 billion in spending
power. However, the Trump Administration has worked to
systematically dismantle our immigration system over the past
two years, in which he has ended TPS protections for six out of
10 countries, including El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal,
Nicaragua, and Sudan.
That represents nearly 318,000 individuals from those
countries alone. And according to the National Immigration
Forum, TPS holders contribute more than $6.9 billion to Social
Security and Medicare over 10 years. That cannot even--these
individuals cannot even access those benefits because they are
not legal immigrants, but they pay into it for you, for me, and
for everyone working to benefit.
In my home state of Nevada, there are over 4,000 TPS
holders from places like El Salvador and Honduras. They work in
the hospitality, construction, and food and beverage
industries, contributing over $40 million in federal taxes and
over $15 million in state and local taxes.
One of my constituents, Erica Lopez, came to the U.S. from
El Salvador and has been a TPS holder for 15 years. She is a
member of the culinary union, and works hard to provide for her
family every single day.
Now, when I met with Erica, she told me that when she heard
about the Trump Administration's efforts to deny the renewal of
her TPS status, she felt scared and worried for her family. Her
oldest two children, who are 19 and 22, are also TPS holders.
But her two youngest daughters, 16 and 12, are both U.S.
citizens. And again, I want to underscore, these are
individuals who are here as asylum seekers. They are legally
permitted to be here. These are not individuals who have broken
the law. They have followed the law. And now, because of this
Administration's policies, they are at risk of having their
families torn apart, losing the homes that they built up, and
the contributions that they make to our communities.
So Mr. Jawetz, if the Trump Administration has its way with
crippling our immigration system, I want to know specifically,
how would TPS holders be impacted? What would happen to our
nation's GDP? What would happen to the housing market and
industries, such as food and beverage and hospitality and
construction that many TPS holders work in?
Mr. Jawetz. Thank you so much for the question. So as you
know, for TPS holders right now who have had their protection
terminated, because of preliminary injunctions in place by
trial courts right now, those protections have been preserved.
And so, people who have TPS, who had TPS, currently are able to
hold onto their TPS, but that is just holding on by a
shoestring, right? I mean, you know, court decisions are going
to come down at some point, and we will see what they
ultimately decide. If courts permit the termination of TPS to
go forward, then individuals will lose that protection. And
unlike with DACA, which is interesting, DACA, because, you
know, how long you get your protection depends on--the duration
is two years, but when it expires depends on when you get your
protection. With TPS, it is all a single date. And so, you
know, you will see for 200,000 Salvadorians plus, for 50,
60,000 Hondurans on a single day, they are all going to lose
their ability to work lawfully in this country and to remain
lawfully in this country.
And then, I think, it remains to be seen what happens to
them in their jobs, whether or not they will be able to leave
that current job and go to a new job where they are going to
have to go through another I-9 process and not have work
authorization for that job. I think that is going to be
disruptive. If you look at actually TPS holders in
construction, for instance, we did a specific paper looking at
TPS holders in six states that experienced really, really
devastating natural disasters over the last two years. And the
work that TPS holders in construction right now are already
doing to help rebuild states like North Carolina, Texas,
California, Virginia, et cetera, Florida.
Mr. Horsford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that this is
an important area that we need to understand more. I know that
we are limited on time, but I am thankful to have the
opportunity to bring the perspective of many of my constituents
who I am fighting for, and we cannot allow their status to
expire. They are contributing too much to our communities and
to our economy to allow that to happen.
Chairman Yarmuth. I thank the gentleman. His time has
expired.
I now yield 10 minutes to the Ranking Member for his
questions.
Mr. Womack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will try not to
take all of my 10 minutes. I was prepared to yield a little bit
to Mr. Woodall, only because I like to hear him talk. And I do
appreciate our panelists today, and particularly, the honorable
Mayor of Yuma. Boy, us mayors, we have got to stick together,
and I do appreciate the work you do. I have often said that I
think Congress would be a lot better off if a criteria for
being elected was to having been a mayor once upon a time,
where you had to balance competing interests, and make
decisions for the greater good of the group that you represent,
and I think mayors pretty much do that routinely.
And you know, today in this conversation, we have, I think,
remarkably found that we agree on a lot of things. First of
all, we agree that we have a broken immigration system.
Everybody says that. It rolls off the tongue pretty easy now
because it is pretty true. And if you polled the average
American out there, it would be an overwhelming result that the
feeling border to border, across all political biases, is that
this immigration system that we have is just simply not working
for the betterment of the people. Probably so, overwhelmingly,
in that way, that the only thing that I can think of that might
be a bigger vote in something broken is our budget process, but
I will leave that to another conversation. Mr. Yarmuth and I
happen to have serious agreement on those issues.
But as I said, we have agreed that we have a broken system.
So here is a question. Should we have open borders, Dr. Jawetz,
or Mr. Jawetz?
Mr. Jawetz. No. I think we can have a system in which we
have borders, but we also have pathways. We heard earlier this
idea that we should have, what is it, wide gateways and tall
fences, I think. But you know, as Sheila Jackson Lee pointed
out in the case of the father who died with his daughter just
two or three days ago, they went to one of those gateways, and
that gateway was closed. And so that is part of dysfunction.
Mr. Womack. And so if we can agree that we definitely need
some level of border security in order to protect the
sovereignty of our country, I mean, there is--I don't know how
many people are on this planet right now, 7\1/2\ billion?
Mr. Jawetz. I don't know.
Mr. Womack. Something like that. I don't know that we
really know, but it is a lot of people. And a whole lot of them
are living in abject poverty, read, a lot of those people would
love to be able to come to this country and enjoy the benefits
of the pursuit of the American Dream. So the fact is, we have
to have some kind of a system set up to where people not from
this country can actually come to this country. And I think
that the ability to do that, in a manageable way, begins with
having a secure border.
Mr. Jawetz. Sorry.
Mr. Womack. I see you shaking your head in somewhat
disagreement. So disagree with me on that.
Mr. Jawetz. Sure. So I don't think it begins with the
border. The border is too late. You have already--you know,
David Aguilar, when he was the chief of the Border Patrol,
testified before Congress in 2007 on the issue of immigration
reform, and essentially said, the best thing I can do to secure
the border would be to pass comprehensive immigration reform
and reform the legal immigration system because I want to get,
in his words, the busboys and nannies out of the desert and
through the ports of entry, so I can focus on the folks who
can't come through the ports of entry, right.
So before you get to border security and patrolling the
border and the walls and the rest of it, you would reshape
entirely what that flow, the mission of security is, having----
Mr. Womack. Let's say for the sake of the argument that we
did some kind of comprehensive immigration reform. We are
probably still going to create lines. Are we not?
Mr. Jawetz. Sure.
Mr. Womack. There is going to be a wait time.
Mr. Jawetz. Yes.
Mr. Womack. People are impatient. So if the border is not
secure, what guarantee is there that the people who want to
come to this country today and don't want to stand in a line,
are going to be willing to go stand in a line, because we have
done some kind of comprehension, or when there is a hole in the
fence, and they can just crawl through the hole in the fence?
Mr. Jawetz. I guess I have a few thoughts on that. I mean,
one is the Department of Homeland Security Officer of
Immigration statistics under this Administration just two years
ago, reported that the border is more secure now and more
difficult to cross than ever before in our history. So you
know, we often hear--and when I was in Congress for seven
years, we always hear about enforcement first, enforcement
first, secure the border first, all that discussion. As we
talked about with Congresswoman Jayapal, we haven't changed our
legal immigration system since 1990. It has not only been
enforcement first for the last 30 years, it has been
enforcement only for the last 30 years. And so, we have got a
broken immigration system, and it is the system that is broken.
You cannot enforce your way into fixing that system. More
enforcements of that broken system will not improve it, and the
policy proposals that were voted on last year that would shrink
illegal immigration, that would eliminate the diversity visa
program, that would make it harder for folks to have an
opportunity to dream that they could come to the country, will
only increase the tensions on coming illegally.
Mr. Womack. So Mr. Kahin, you did this right. You came here
as a refugee, sought asylum, waited in line, and you are the
beneficiary of having done that. Should we have a very strong
immigration policy in this country that would be respectful of
the fact that people like yourself did do it the right way?
Mr. Kahin. That is right, Your Honor. I think it is a good
idea, and I also think it is a good idea to legalize those who
are already in the country and who are working for years and
years.
Mr. Womack. Even if they came into the country illegally or
overstayed a visa which makes them undocumented today?
Mr. Kahin. I have no opinion on that, but I will say those
who are not committing any crime who have benefited, you know,
this country and the economy, I think it would be best for our
economy to give them a chance.
Mr. Womack. So my argument against that is simply this,
that if, in fact, there is a reward for somebody who has either
entered the country illegally or overstayed a visa and is now
if the country illegally, if the reward is that we are just
going to look the other way on the law and allow them to stay
here, I think it reinforces my position on border security. If
that is the case, then you can have all the comprehensive
immigration reform you want to have and the interior changes
that you want to make in this country, but if you can still
come into this country across an unsecure border, I think it is
not going to serve as the proper deterrent that it should.
So now I want to kind of switch over to my friend, the
Mayor. When did you do your budget?
Mr. Womack. When is your fiscal year?
Mr. Nicholls. Our fiscal year starts in July.
Mr. Womack. All right. So you started in July. So you are
about to end a budget cycle and enter into a new budget year,
correct?
Mr. Nicholls. Correct.
Mr. Womack. So when did you do the budget that affects the
spending up through the month of June?
Mr. Nicholls. For this fiscal year, we did last year during
the May----
Mr. Womack. Was it early in the year, the spring?
Mr. Nicholls. Spring. Spring to early summer.
Mr. Womack. So in your budget deliberations, you and your
city council, what--how--how were you forecasting the
allocation of taxpayer dollars to support the institutions
affected by the crisis that we are facing today?
Mr. Nicholls. So in the city budget, what our real
struggles have been is with law enforcement to make sure that
we can supply for the protection of the community, and so that
is really where our focus has been, to maintain and grow our
capabilities in that arena. So the exact--working exactly with
the migrant situation didn't come into play, except for in that
arena, because we have been dependent upon the non-profits to
carry that burden.
Mr. Womack. So up here we call them supplementals, money
that we have to allocate down the road, because we didn't see
it on the front end. Have you had to do supplementals?
Mr. Nicholls. We have not at this time, because the
different non-profits have come through with some funding.
Mr. Womack. Have you had to reallocate money from other
programs in order to supplement the police? Did you do some
internal transfers of money from line items to line items?
Mr. Nicholls. We actually approved the raise prior to the
budget, but knowing that we are going to the budget, we were
prepared for that. So we have had some of that going on in the
years past, and we are prepared with the timing on it this
time.
Mr. Womack. So you obviously, because July 1 is Monday,
have probably completed your budget cycle for fiscal 2020,
correct?
Mr. Nicholls. Well, actually, our final approval is in
July, and there is some overlap there.
Mr. Womack. And what has happened to the budget
deliberations for next year that begins on Monday, that were
influenced by what you have been dealing with here for the last
several months?
Mr. Nicholls. Well, we actually lay a little bit into the
fall before we start our next budget deliberations, so it kind
of is a wait and see, where does this go as an issue in our
community to see how things are handled.
Mr. Womack. So it is uncertain.
Mr. Nicholls. It is very uncertain, yes.
Mr. Womack. And so how would Congress doing its job, and we
can argue about, you know, what the outcome would look like,
but at some point in time, the Congress, the right and the left
have to get together. They have to hammer out their
differences, come to some kind of a compromise to benefit you.
So how important is Congress doing its job to you?
Mr. Nicholls. It's extremely important. And if I could
comment a little bit on whether it is security or law, it has
to be both at the same time, because where we sit, we are on
the border. And while it remains unsecure, our community can
remain unsecure, so we can't wait for the law to catch up. It
needs to happen now.
Mr. Womack. I want to thank the panelists. Mr. Chairman,
thank you again for leading on this hearing. These are
conversations that we need to continue to have, but we also
need to be mindful that we have got a crisis that has emerged
on our border that is still raging and has not been fixed, and
will not be fixed by what we did yesterday. And I would
admonish our Congress to get back to work and take the steps
necessary to solve for that current crisis. And thank you. I
yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. I thank the gentleman, and I now yield
myself 10 minutes.
You know, it is, I guess, inevitable that this discussion
would have focused, to a significant extent, on the current
crisis, even though that was not the intent of the hearing. The
hearing was a prospective look at how important immigration is
and will continue to be for the sustainability of our economy
and our society.
And this was mentioned. I was part of the so-called Gang of
Eight in 2013. We worked for seven months. We negotiated in
secret. We negotiated as normal human beings would negotiate,
like you and I would negotiate, and we came up with a plan that
we were convinced would have at least 260 to 270 votes in the
House. Again, the Senate had already passed a bill.
We started with only two preconditions to the discussion.
One is it had to fix the problems. Two, it had to be able to
pass both houses. That was it. And we actually knew, the four
Democrats in the group, that we were going to have to come up
with something that was at least perceived to be more
conservative than what passed the Democrat-controlled Senate,
and we did that.
And I had no experience in immigration policy. People say
why in the world are you on that panel? I said well, Kentucky
was a border state during the Civil War. But I learned an awful
lot, and one of the things I learned, and Mayor, this relates
directly to what you just said, that the real problem in doing
comprehensive immigration reform is that in today's world,
Republicans want to focus on border security. Democrats want to
focus on family reunification, the undocumented, and the
DREAMers, and the easy part is border security.
That is the easy part: Put up walls, militarize the border,
put up drones, do all of that stuff, and yeah, you can pretty
much shut the border down. But you haven't solved the problem
that this hearing was really meant to address which is how do
we get people into this country that we desperately need.
And I was astounded a couple weeks ago. The Chief
Technology Officer from Microsoft was in my community, and she
made a statement then that will blow everybody's mind. It was
over the next 10 years, we will experience 250 years' worth of
change. If she is 50 percent wrong, we are still talking about
the same amount of change that we have experienced from before
1900 until now.
I talked to a chief, a top guy at IBM who said in the next
three years alone, artificial intelligence will eliminate or
significantly change 120 million jobs around the world in the
next three years. With this kind of activity going on, most of
it is technology related.
Dr. Kerr, how critical is it that we have the best minds in
the world in this country to cope with the rapid change that we
are going to be facing?
Dr. Kerr. I do think it is very important, and we are not
the only country who would like to have the best minds in the
world to be thinking about some of these problems. I think we
don't even quite research-wise know what is coming up yet. We
are trying to grapple with it. I have seen some studies that
are trying to understand what the impact of artificial
intelligence and robotization and all these things are going to
be on our jobs. But I think high-skilled immigrants and, in
general, just having some of the best minds thinking about it
needs to be there.
Chairman Yarmuth. And a huge percentage of our technology
companies were founded by immigrants. Isn't that correct?
Dr. Kerr. That is correct. A huge percent. It is actually a
little bit hard to think about sometimes because some of them
migrated as children. Some of them migrated as adults. Some of
them are second generation immigrants. How do you even put a
number on that? But most of them have immigrant founders as
part of the founding team.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you.
Mr. Kahin, I am touched by your story. I am impressed by
your story, and I have seen it replicated in my community many
times over. We have a very significant Somali population in
Louisville, Kentucky, and they have become very productive,
cherished members of our community.
And one of the things that occurs to me is that we have an
economy, basically, it may change. Again, if we are going to
change 250 years in the next 10 years, it may change, but right
now, our economy is about 70 to 75 percent based on
consumption, consumer spending.
You have hired 60 people who are spending money in your
community. You have people from your community spending money
with you that enables you to pay them and to provide for
yourself. How important do you think that immigration is to
actually just bolstering--if most of the growth in the economy
and in the population is going to be immigrant-based over the
next few decades, how important is that going to be to
sustaining your business, growing your business, and creating a
consumer base?
Mr. Kahin. I think it is very, very important. And I just
want to add into this discussion that not only immigrants are
creating jobs, but they are also bringing new ideas into
personal entrepreneurial spirit. I, myself, go to high schools
and college to tell my story, so young American can be
inspired. Those who have never seen or anyone who look like
they would succeed in business. And not only that, but I also
promote American entrepreneurship outside of the United States.
I went to the U.K. and South Africa, Kenya, Somalia, and
Djibouti just to promote how we do things in America, and how
this country is so pro immigrant.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you very much. About 25 years ago,
I was at a conference of some sort, and I heard a speaker named
John Naisbitt who was a futurist, wrote many books. And one of
the things he said struck me so dramatically, and that was he
was talking about the birth rates in the United States of white
women, African American women, and Hispanic women and how they
were all different, the whites being the lowest, African
American being next, and then Hispanic women being the highest.
And he said why should this concern white America? And his
answer was it should concern white America because if we don't
make sure that brown and black America is as productive as it
can possibly be and succeed as well as they could, that white
America will not be able to retire.
When I think about this whole discussion and just in the
CBO's long-term budget outlook released yesterday, they
projected that immigrants will account for nearly 87 percent of
U.S. population growth by 2049, up from 45 percent today. So
the base of taxes, the tax base that is going to support
native-born Americans, is going to be largely dependent on
making sure that this immigrant population is part of our
economy. Is that not correct, Dr. Jawetz? Mr. Jawetz?
Mr. Jawetz. Yes. So it is certainly the case in the current
decade that is about to end right now, immigrants are
responsible for all of the growth that we have achieved in our
working population. And like I said in my testimony, just
looking 10 years out, basically, but for immigrants and their
children, we would see the working age population of the
country drop by 7 million.
Chairman Yarmuth. And if we were to take the steps that we
have discussed in the hearing, deporting large--millions of
immigrants right now and restricting our immigration numbers,
that is going to make it very--a lot more difficult for those
who are left in this country to have a safe, secure retirement.
Is that not correct?
Mr. Jawetz. Yeah. That is absolutely true. And it will be
disruptive, you know, up and down. Up and down the economy, you
would see impacts. One thing I mentioned for the agriculture
sector earlier. When you take out the undocumented workforce in
the agricultural sector without doing the work you need to do
in order to have an effective, meaningful replacement for those
workers, and you are looking at, you know, greater food
imports. You are looking at the people who have those jobs
stocking shelves, doing the trucking, doing the inspections.
All that work potentially can go away. Farmers who have been
owning their farms for, you know, one, two, three generations
losing their farms. The impact spreads throughout the entire
economy, and it is a house of cards at the end of the day, and
one that is--going back to sort of the broken system, it is a
house of cards built on a shaky foundation. And we have all
just sort of, you know, allowed, like, spit and glue to hold it
together through exercise of discretion or just looking the
other way or whatever. It is not sustainable, and it degrades
respect for the rule of law on every side of the debate, and it
feeds calls for more enforcement on one side. It feeds calls
for less enforcement on this side. None of it makes sense at
the end of the day.
Chairman Yarmuth. I appreciate that.
Well, I agree with my Ranking Member, my good friend, and
everyone who has really testified today that as a Congress, we
really have to deal with this subject. We can't put it off. And
there is one set of responses probably to the current crisis
and crises, but there is another whole aspect of this problem
that is much more significant in terms of our future. And I
thank you for contributing to what I believe, if people look at
the record of this hearing, the testimony that has been
submitted which there is a lot of documentation, a lot of
important information from all four of you, that it is probably
one of the most significant pieces of a collection of
information about immigration and the future importance of it
that exists. And I thank you for making that contribution and
for your time and wisdom.
And before I adjourn, I do want to ask unanimous consent
that the letter from the Coalition for human--Humane Immigrant
Rights is entered into the record.
[The information follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. Without objection, so ordered. Once
again, thanks to the Ranking Member, thanks to all of the
witnesses, and without objection, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:04 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
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