Harnessing the Advantages of Immigration for a 21st-Century Economy: A Standing Commission on Labor Markets, Economic Competitiveness, and Migration
Highlights
A permanent expert commission using evidence to flexibly guide U.S. employment-based immigration levels would strengthen the country’s economic competitiveness.
- The report outlines MPI’s proposal for a Standing Commission on Labor Markets, Economic Competitiveness, and Immigration that would regularly advise the president and Congress on employment-based visa numbers and allocations.
- A professional staff of economists and demographers would review labor market, demographic, and immigration data, recommending adjustments to admissions based on changing economic conditions.
- Creation of such an independent, evidence-focused body could help reduce backlogs, make the system more responsive to shocks, and shift many technical decisions out of day-to-day partisan bargaining, while leaving broad goals to elected officials.
- Clear statutory mandates, transparent methods, regular reporting, and strong consultation with employers, unions, and communities would be essential to the commission’s legitimacy and effectiveness.
This policy paper proposes creation of a permanent, independent executive-branch agency that would make regular recommendations to the president and Congress for adjusting employment-based immigration levels.
The Standing Commission concept, first articulated by the MPI-convened Independent Task Force on Immigration and America's Future in its 2006 final report, would provide timely, evidence-based, and impartial analysis that is vital for informed policymaking. The bipartisan Standing Commission would be staffed by a professional corps of career economists, demographers, and other social scientists.
The Standing Commission's findings and recommendations would reflect regular reviews of labor market immigration circumstances and needs as the basis for making adjustments to employment-based immigration levels and visa allocations. In this way, the Standing Commission would make it possible to inject much-needed flexibility into a system that is currently rigid and unresponsive to changing economic conditions because it has been adjusted only every few decades.
Table of Contents
I. Introduction: Competitiveness in the 21st Century
II. A Work Visa System Resistant to Change and Out of Tune with Our Needs
III. The Goals and Effects of U.S. Immigration Policy
IV. The Case for a Standing Commission on Labor Markets, Economic Competitiveness, and Immigration
V. What Would a Standing Commission Do (and Not Do)?
VI. How Should a Standing Commission be Structured and Operate?
VII. Conclusion
About the U.S. Immigration Policy Program
The U.S. Immigration Policy Program provides analysis of U.S. immigration pathways, the impacts of enforcement and other policies, and the characteristics of immigrant populations.
Labor Markets Initiative
This concluded initiative, active from 2009-2013, produced detailed recommendations on ways to make U.S. immigration policy a more effective tool for economic growth.
