Why Washington must fix immigration – now more than ever

New citizens of the United States take the Oath of Allegiance at their naturalization ceremony at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas on March 18, 2019. (Photo by Grant Miller/Bush Center)

Powerful and successful as it is, the United States is not immune to global trends. As in many other countries around the world, the U.S. birth rate is falling and continues to sink below the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman. The U.S. total fertility rate has trended downward since the 1970s, with the exception of a small increase in the early 2000s. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects the total fertility rate will be 1.67 births per woman through 2024 – well below replacement. While the overall U.S. population continues to grow, it may not do so forever. Should it start to shrink, the U.S. economy is unlikely to maintain its current productivity and the United States will almost certainly lack enough workers to fill open jobs.  

Immigration is one of the key ways the United States can avoid such a future. Immigrants grow the U.S. economy, fill open jobs in important industries, and help support programs like Social Security. Immigrants help sustain population growth, and the CBO predicts they will be responsible for all population growth in the U.S. by 2040. Yet the U.S. immigration system is badly out of date. If the United States hopes to avoid the worst problems caused by an aging, shrinking population, it needs a modernized immigration system – one that welcomes the world’s best and brightest, admits talented workers at all skill levels, and is flexible enough to compete for workers where population growth remains high. Congress should start building such a system now.  

Capping growth

Immigrants provide many demographic advantages for the United States. They are more likely than native-born Americans to be prime working age, helping fill open jobs in the economy. Immigrant workers are complementary to native-born American workers and their professions. In the construction industry, for example, where 25% of workers are foreign-born, immigrant workers often fill drywall, painting, and roofing positions while trades that require additional education and credentials – like plumbing or electrical – are often filled by native-born American workers. This system ultimately helps support millions of jobs for U.S.-born workers rather than replacing them. Immigrants also have a higher fertility rate than native-born Americans. These data points show how immigrants can counteract the negative effects of an aging workforce – plugging current holes and contributing to the future with their children.   

To maintain and accelerate economic growth, the United States must develop an immigration policy that focuses on bringing in more foreign workers who have the skills and education to fill open jobs. The United States cannot maintain productivity if it does not have enough workers. As we’ve seen since the post-pandemic economic recovery, the United States already needs more workers than it has – particularly in leisure, hospitality, health care, and construction. If the U.S. birth rate and population growth continue on their current trajectories, the United States will need more foreign-born workers in the future, too.  

Attorneys assist immigrants with documentation in Brownsville, Texas on February 26, 2021. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

The U.S. immigration system is not currently designed to provide these workers. The existing system still strongly resembles the one built by the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Despite a series of reforms from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, the U.S. immigration system is essentially still the one President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law.  Most immigrants are admitted for family reunification, not job skills or education. U.S. citizens and permanent residents (green card holders) may sponsor certain close family members, and several of those categories are subject to an annual cap. Employment-based green cards – where a prospective immigrant is sponsored by their U.S. employer – are also subject to an annual cap. U.S. immigration policy also puts yearly caps on the number of immigrants granted permanent residency per year from each country – no more than 7% per category per country. This causes decades-long delays for countries that traditionally send large numbers of immigrants to the United States, as only so many applications per year will be processed and approved regardless of how many applications are submitted.  

Sponsorship is the primary pathway to legal migration in the U.S. system. Humanitarian migrants such as refugees and asylees may self-petition for admission. Applicants to the diversity visa may also self-petition, as well as certain immigrants who wish to invest and create jobs in the United States.  

While the U.S. immigration system has a temporary foreign worker program, only a few categories of temporary visas allow foreign workers to adjust their status to permanent residency. The most well known of these is the H-1B for certain highly skilled workers. Temporary visas are very important for helping maintain a U.S. labor force that may be short of workers, but they are not typically a tool to use to boost the population as many of those workers will never be eligible for permanent residence. 

Sponsorship and strict caps cause significant wait times for immigrants from certain countries. In 2024, family-sponsored immigrants in capped categories from China, the Philippines, Mexico, and India could expect to wait over a decade to receive a green card. In some categories, the wait is over 24 years. The backlog for employment-based green cards for Indians was over 1 million immigrants deep in early 2024.    

These caps and sponsorship programs limit migration in ways that will restrict the United States’ ability to compete with other developed economies for the world’s best talent. While research shows that immigration is associated with positive economic growth, family-sponsored immigrants don’t necessarily arrive with the precise education and skills the U.S. economy needs most at any particular moment. Meanwhile, of the 140,000 green cards currently awarded per year based on employment, only a fraction go to skilled workers. The remainder are distributed to workers’ dependents. Exempting family members from this cap would bring in more workers with the skills and education needed to maintain America’s economic prosperity and vitality.  

Simply put, the current U.S. immigration system is good at bringing in some workers, but it doesn’t target the U.S. economy’s needs today and in the future. The young foreign-born workers of the future may be unintentionally shut out from the United States because it puts too low a limit on the number of immigrants per country. 

Indra Nooyi, former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, at the 2024 Forum on Leadership at the George W. Bush Presidential Center on April 18, 2024 in Dallas Texas. (Photo by Grant Miller/Bush Center)

Flexible solutions

If the U.S. workforce starts shrinking, this shortcoming in immigration policy will cause significant problems. To prevent that outcome, Congress should increase the number of employment-based green cards available in current categories (mostly for workers with a college degree or other special skills) by either raising or eliminating caps. Congress should also expand the categories of employment-based green cards to be more inclusive of workers who can fill open jobs but may not need a college education. Additional green cards are especially needed for workers without a bachelor’s degree – fewer than 10,000 green cards per year are awarded to this group of people. Congress should also consider creating employment-based green card categories that flex with market demands rather than remaining fixed to the economic needs of the time they were written into law. Categories that flex with the market are better at aligning foreign-born workers’ talents with the U.S. economy, even if it’s not known what jobs will be needed in 20 or 30 years.  

Another useful reform would be to allow immigrants to self-petition for admission to the United States. Under the current system, potential immigrants applying for employment-based permanent residency need a job offer from a U.S. company. Letting employers sponsor immigrants isn’t an inherently bad practice, but preventing people from self-petitioning leaves out potential contributors to the U.S. economy. Most employer-sponsored green cards currently go to foreign workers already in the United States on a temporary worker visa like the H-1B. Self-petitioning would open a pathway for workers who may not have jobs or temporary visas yet but possess the education and skills the country needs.  

Meanwhile, per-country caps hinder U.S. competitiveness by arbitrarily restricting the number of immigrants admitted, creating excessively long wait times for immigrants from certain countries and preventing workers on temporary visas from becoming permanent residents and possibly naturalizing in the future. Canada has capitalized on the long visa-processing times in the United States by recruiting talented applicants currently waiting for a U.S. green card. The cost of these long wait times is often unbearable and makes the United States a less attractive destination for migration – particularly when families are prevented from attaining permanent residency in a timely manner. Imagine a spouse who cannot legally work on a dependent visa, or foreign-born children who may age out of the immigration system before their parents can sponsor them. 

Hamdi Ulukaya, founder and CEO of Chobani, at the 2021 Forum on Leadership at the George W. Bush Presidential Center on April 15, 2021 in Dallas Texas. (Photo by Grant Miller/Bush Center)

These per-country caps may cause the United States to lose out on highly productive immigrants coming from the few countries enjoying booming birth rates in the future. The population of sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double by the year 2050. Yet according to the Migration Policy Institute, in 2019, only 5%  of the foreign-born population of the United States came from this region. In the coming years, the world’s aging countries are likely to start competing fiercely for African talent. America’s current system of per-country caps will severely limit its ability to win that competition. If green cards are still capped at 7% per country per year when the majority of the young talented workers are from African countries, the United States will lose talent to other nations which promise faster admission for work or permanent residency. The United States needs to change its immigration system now so it doesn’t end up limiting migration from the world’s growing regions.  

Even if the United States reforms and expands its immigration policies, the overall U.S. population could still shrink. Smart immigration policy can help the country prepare for such a future.  

Immigrant innovation will be needed to help America maintain productivity with a smaller population and labor force. Immigrants are innovative and entrepreneurial. Nearly 45% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. Innovative immigrants and the companies they start may be the ones to solve the productivity challenges that will arise if the population shrinks. Admitting more educated and innovative immigrants into the country now is likely to lead to the kind of innovations the United States will need in the future.  

Some Americans may argue that policy changes can encourage Americans to have more children. It’s possible those approaches will work as designed. But the data suggests such policies don’t work over the long term, and certainly Americans can’t rely on them to secure the future. Despite the best efforts of well-intentioned policymakers, the U.S. population is likely to decline. Americans deserve policymakers willing to consider every tool available to confront potential population decline, including welcoming more immigrants. 

A modern immigration system can help ensure America’s prosperity, vitality, and security. Americans must demand Congress treat immigration seriously and deliver the kind of top-to-bottom reform that is desperately needed.