The Employment-Based Immigration Reform Solution

On September 29, 2010, senior fellow Michael Clemens participated in a panel discussion at the American Enterprise Institute of Beside the Golden Door: U.S. Immigration Reform in a New Era of Globalization, a new book that proposes shifting U.S. immigration policy to favor work-based visas.

Event summary courtesy of AEI: "Economists Pia Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny presented their proposal for an employment-based immigration policy, a plan outlined in their recently published study, Beside the Golden Door: U.S. Immigration Reform in a New Era of Globalization (AEI Press, 2010). Orrenius, from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, explained why the current immigration policy and systems are inadequate. Her coauthor, Zavodny, from Agnes Scott College, proposed that replacing the current immigration policy, which prioritizes family reunification, with an employment-based system would address the shortcomings of the current system while promoting economic growth and reducing the flow of illegal immigrants. Tamar Jacoby, president and CEO of ImmigrationWorks USA, noted that their proposal is unique because it targets the core economic factors driving migration trends, rather than just patching a broken system. Finally, Michael Clemens, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, discussed low-skilled immigration and the tradability of work permits, subjects addressed in Orrenius and Zavodny’s proposal. He used examples of existing, successful auction mechanisms within the United States to evaluate the feasibility of their plan."