[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 20 (Tuesday, January 30, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S564]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Immigration

  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, as we continue the debate on the issue of 
immigration as it relates to providing a permanent solution to those 
young immigrants who benefited from the Deferred Action for Childhood 
Arrivals, or DACA, the scope of this debate has expanded to include 
other issues.
  Some of these issues are directly related to the DACA issue, 
including persistent concerns on our southern border, like improving 
barriers and border access roads, providing hiring and retention 
incentives for Customs and Border Protection personnel to ensure that 
all locations on the border remain secure. Other things being debated, 
like changes to legal immigration levels, truly need their own debate.
  Some appear to have seized on this as an opportunity to push forth an 
agenda aimed at limiting the future flow of legal immigration. Before 
this idea gains any steam, we have to fully discuss and debate its 
potentially enormous impact on our economy. It is easy for some to see 
unemployed Americans and point to immigrants as a scapegoat. To suggest 
that every immigrant who passes through our borders represents a job 
being pried from the hands of an American citizen is farfetched, at 
best.
  After taking the time to actually examine the facts, the 
shortsightedness of this thinking is exposed. For example, cleaving the 
number of new legal immigrants by almost 50 percent--which is what the 
White House proposal appears to envision over time--would initially 
reduce the overall rate of economic growth in the United States by an 
estimated 12.5 percent when compared to currently projected levels 
through 2045. This is because labor force growth is one of the most 
important factors tied to economic growth. More troubling, these 
changes in legal immigration would come just as the aging U.S. 
population increases our dependence on a growing workforce.
  Some have suggested that legal immigrants represent some sort of drag 
on government resources. In fact, the National Academy of Sciences 
estimates that the average immigrant contributes, in net present value 
terms, $92,000 more in taxes than they receive in benefits over their 
lifetime.
  We can only expect these numbers to increase as we move to a kind of 
merit or employment-based system. I should note that in the bipartisan 
approach in 2015, we did restrict the number of family-based visas. I 
think it was from a total of 75 percent of legal immigration, we moved 
it down to 50 percent from family-based visas. At that same time, what 
we did was reallocate those visas to merit-based or employment-based 
visas so we wouldn't have an overall drop in legal immigration.
  To look into the future of what happens when the philosophy of 
limiting legal immigration takes hold, we need to look no further than 
the current economic struggles Japan is having. In a timely piece by 
Fred Hiatt in the Washington Post this last Sunday, he points out that 
Japan's population of 127 million is forecast to shrink by one-third 
over the next half century. The increase in lifespans coupled with a 
decrease in fertility is projected to lead to near-stagnant economic 
growth, reduced innovation, labor shortages, and huge pressure on 
entitlements and pensions in Japan.
  These disastrous realities facing Japan are the direct result of that 
nation's historically low level of immigrants. As Hiatt astutely points 
out, ``You can be pro-growth. You can be anti-immigration. But 
honestly, you can't be both.''
  Legal immigration policy is complicated, but it is important, and it 
is worth debating this reform on its own. There may be a strong 
appetite for merit-based immigration, but rather than drastically 
cutting legal and necessary immigration flows, we need to work together 
to provide a way for the best and brightest to make it to the United 
States, both for their benefit and ours.
  Let's not be lured into thinking that legal immigration is some kind 
of simplistic zero-sum game that can be easily reformed without 
consequence. During the last administration, many of us rejected the 
new normal of low economic growth driven by overregulation and 
irrational tax policy. It would be a supreme irony if we were to fix 
those anti-growth fiscal and regulatory policies only to counteract 
them with immigration restrictions that affect our workforce.
  Let's give this important and complex issue the time for discussion, 
analysis, and debate it deserves and not shoehorn it into a DACA fix.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.