…for the Immigration Policy Center…
As the public debate over healthcare reform continues to rage, mention is seldom made of the vital role that immigrants play in the healthcare workforce of the United States. If immigrants are mentioned at all, it is usually in the context of heated discussions about whether or not unauthorized immigrants will, or should, be included in any of the healthcare bills now circulating in Congress. Lost in this debate is the simple demographic fact that immigrants are a critical component of the healthcare workforce at both the high-skilled and less-skilled ends of the occupational spectrum. Most notably, immigrants comprise more than one-quarter of all Physicians and Surgeons in the United States, and roughly one-fifth of all Nursing, Psychiatric, and Home Health Aides…
Immigration and employment
In his Dec. 3 Ideas piece, “Recovering Stolen Jobs Key to Recovery,” Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) misconstrues the relationship between unauthorized immigration and unemployment among native-born workers. Smith seems to think that deporting the 8 million unauthorized-immigrant workers now in the United States would magically create 8 million job openings for unemployed, native-born Americans. In the real world, however, it’s not that simple. Immigrant and native-born workers cannot simply be exchanged for one another like batteries…
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