U.S. Needs More Legal Foreign Workers, Not Fewer

One would expect former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to have a thoughtful approach to the immigration issue. Both his father, George Romney, and his grandfather, Gaskell Romney, were born in Mexico. His great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, fled the United States and crossed the southern border in 1884 to escape religious persecution. The result was the Mormon enclave of Colonia Juarez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. So this family knows what it's like to have to leave your country behind and gamble on the promise of brighter days down the road.

Romney hit the right notes during a recent radio interview when he claimed that U.S. immigration policy isn't just broken, but upside down. We have plenty of illegal immigrants doing low-skilled work, he said. And yet we make it hard for people who come to the United States legally to study or work to remain here and become productive members of society.

So true. People from around the world come to study in U.S. universities on temporary visas. They often excel in class and earn their degrees with ease. But after graduation, many of them beat a path back to their home countries instead of settling in the United States. Just when these people enter their high-productivity years — when they generate income, consume goods and pay taxes — we send them home.

We've heard this same complaint for years from the CEO's of high-tech companies who have pleaded with Congress to increase the annual allotment of H-1B visas for high-skilled workers. Currently, only about 65,000 H-1B visas are granted each year.

That number is shamefully low for a country of 300 million people. And that's just to get here. Staying here is another ordeal. Some CEO's say that, when an international student graduates from a four-year institution or graduate program, he or she should get a green card stapled to the diploma.

That's a great idea. Aren't these exactly the kind of people we should be trying to attract to our shores and retain once they get here? At the very least, Congress should make it easier for legal immigrants to become U.S. citizens.

If this sounds like common sense, we're glad. It doesn't to everyone. Believe it or not, there is — in this land of immigrants — a well-organized lobby working to keep legal immigrants out of the country right along with the illegal variety. The activists fighting that battle talk about economic competition, overcrowding, even environmental impact. Often times, what they're really concerned about is changing demographics and cultural friction.

This is wasted energy. In our eagerness to rid the country of illegal immigration, we must not make the mistake of also getting rid of one of our most valuable imports and greatest hopes for economic prosperity: legal immigrants.

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