A sound immigration system is essential to building the workforce America needs to compete in the global economy. Business Roundtable advocates for policies to establish control over our borders and uphold the rule of law while welcoming legal immigrants with the skills our economy needs.
One of America’s great strengths is our ability to recruit hard working and skilled talent from around the world, which helps our companies to grow, create jobs and innovate. America will be at a competitive disadvantage if we fail to attract and retain workers in high demand fields. Pro-growth immigration reform that addresses our workforce needs, coupled with stronger border security, will help America build the economy of the future.
To maintain America’s place as the global hub of innovation, our immigration system must be modernized to recruit and retain top talent. This requires advancing policies that will help address our labor shortage and deliver certainty for businesses, workers and their families, including exempting STEM graduates with a master’s or Ph.D. degree from annual green card caps.
Business Roundtable examined Canadian and Australian immigration laws and interviewed individuals with practical knowledge of how the immigration systems of the two countries work. The goal of the research was to determine what lessons policymakers could gain from Canada and Australia that could best be applied to the U.S. immigration system.
A vast majority of economists and business leaders agree that immigration is a net positive for the U.S. economy. But the system for welcoming these highly valuable workers is broken. This study explores how two potential policy scenarios — restricted and balanced — would impact the U.S. workforce and economy.
