It is doubtlessly naïve to expect, or get, some degree of basic substantive honesty in the immigration debate from those whose who are wholly taken up with their organization or group's self interest. Still, it would be refreshing if groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at least acknowledged that their circumstances really are not as dire as their rhetoric.
For example, it would add to the honesty of the immigration debate if they acknowledged that, "The federal government granted temporary work permits to roughly 10 million foreign workers from 2000 to 2013, effectively boosting the supply of new workers by roughly 20 percent per year." That number increased to 12.5 million if you include spouses, some of whom got work permits, and their children.
These numbers included 650,000 agricultural workers; 4.1 million given J-1 visas that allowed them to work in a wide variety of short-term jobs, including retail, tourism, resort, and fish-processing jobs that used to be held by U.S. students; 884,000 foreigners given permits for work in resorts and landscaping companies; and roughly 3.1 million university-trained foreigners given permits to work in the professional sector for up to 10 years.
A useful graphic, "Temporary Employment-Based Visas Issued from 1994-2011", can be found in the Congressional Research Service's "U.S. Immigration Policy: Chart Book of Key Trends" (Figure 7, p. 8).
It would also add to the honesty of the debate if the Chamber and its members pushing for tens of thousands of additional high-tech visas acknowledged that there is a very substantial question about whether these additional visas are actually needed.
There have been a series of articles, with titles like "The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage" buttressed by major social science research at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Rand Corporation (chapter 4), and the Urban Institute. A very detailed report just published by the Center for Immigration Studies came to similar conclusions.
While it would be hard to argue that NBER or Rand have a policy axe to grind in this debate, I want to focus briefly on the results of the Urban Institute, a center-left research tank that noted:
Several high-level committees have concluded that current domestic and global trends are threatening America's global science and engineering (S&E) preeminence. Of the challenges discussed, few are thought to be as serious as the purported decline in the supply of high quality students from the beginning to the end of the S&E pipeline — a decline brought about by declining emphasis on math and science education, coupled with a supposed declining interest among domestic students in S&E careers.
However, our review of the data fails to find support for those presumptions.
This is social scientist speak for: "There is no general STEM crisis."
Last, there is the issue of widespread fraud connected with high-tech temporary visas. In 2013, a New York Times story entitled "Federal Inquiry Into Indian Firm Puts a Focus on Widespread Visa Abuses" reported that "Infosys, the giant Indian technology outsourcing company, has agreed to pay $34 million in a civil settlement after federal prosecutors in Texas found it had committed 'systemic visa fraud and abuse' when bringing temporary workers from India for jobs in American businesses, according to court documents and officials familiar with the case. The payment is the largest ever in a visa case."
It would, as noted, be naïve to expect fully a honest argument from those whose sole purpose for existence is to further the self-interest of the groups they represent. However, as a result, our immigration debates are riddled with empty slogans masquerading as analysis (the system is broken), unanchored and therefore meaningless facts (never have so many resources been devoted to border security), outright lies meant to gain support for legislation (amnestied illegals will pay the back taxes they owe), and trite truisms that offer no guide whatsoever to good policy ("America is a nation of immigrants").
Next: Avoiding GOP Immigration Reform Self-Sabotage, Pt. 6: Fellow Republicans