Immigration in context of talent strategy & economic health
This issues explainer is part of the S3T materials on Talent Strategy and the Economy. Paid subscribers have full access to the S3T platform of insights and tools.
Context
The talent strategy of individual firms - large and small - needs to be informed by the broader picture of how national policies impact the supply of talent.
Unfortunately, our operating assumptions about the national talent pipeline and job economy are often shaped by unhelpful memes and narratives about immigration. And recruiting agencies can play a perverse role in helping undocumented workers find jobs - a troubling example of employers using these firms to relieve themselves of the responsibility to properly vet workers.
Immigration is a complex problem that deserves to be understood and solved. A well functioning immigration process is critical to the health of our economy.
Here is a recommended set of context and data points to deepen your understanding of important issues, and hopefully encourage you to advocate for improvements for our immigration process, that can benefit individual organizations, the national economy, and the working individuals and families who are at the center of this important subject.
Considerations
Understanding Immigration as a Process
An indepth understanding of the immigration process, its process steps and where its flaws reside. Go google "immigration flowcharts" or "flowchart of immigration process" and you may be surprised at how complex and convoluted the immigration process is. Whether these charts come from left or right leaning orgs, the problem is clear. Our immigration process needs to be modernized.
The complexity problem
The "open border" meme misses the fact that the immigration process is overly complex. Its sheer complexity forces agency teams and data systems to carry an unnecessarily large overhead just to simply keep track of the sprawling process. A large process like this has too many openings for error, and for unscrupulous players, and makes it hard to hold it accountable. It's a very clogged border impacted by an overgrown process that needs to be understood and modernized.
Big Picture Perspective: Why an effective immigration process is a critical need
The US economy outperforms the rest of the world for 2 core reasons:
- The US has higher birthrates, and
- The US has higher inflows of immigrant workers.
(For context and data see this Foreign Affairs piece by Nicholas Eberstadt)
Unfortunately the US has higher demand for skilled immigrant workers than our immigration system is currently supplying - in part because it needs to be modernized. (Many in IT have direct experience w this, recruiting, hiring, going through the legal process of H1B to try to get workers needed ...it's an expensive inefficient process that could be improved). Few understand that when we impose "close-the-border-deport-them-all" policies, we just constrict the flow of labor required for our food and housing industries - and then prices go up.
Why "safety net" provisions like healthcare for immigrants are being proposed
The jobs immigrants often get (in farming, restaurants, construction) typically don't offer the same wages, benefits and job protections that other jobs do. They have families, things happen, so if we're going allow farms, restaurants and construction companies to dodge their responsibility to provide livable wages and benefits, then we need alternatives. Especially when you consider the time element (next point)...
The extended timeframe for an individual going through the process of immigration
The US immigration process is a large convoluted branching set of process steps that take YEARS, is not clear or efficient, and puts immigrants and their families at risk. If the immigration process was five days long and we didn't offer healthcare, etc that would be one thing. But to say "yeah, come to America, bring your family and work here for 10+ years with no benefits and no safety net" - that amounts to constricting our inflow of workers for critical parts of our economy (higher prices). Not to mention how inhumane it is.
5 Ethics Guardrails for Employers on Hiring & Immigration
This simple ethics guide is designed to help employers make informed and responsible decisions about talent strategy while considering the broader impact on workers, their organizations, and society. It acknowledges the challenges and flaws in the immigration process and sets clear expectations for responsible ethical behavior.