Press Room
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ursula Oaks, 202.737.3699 x253
For Release: Aug 03, 2006
NAFSA Statement: Comprehensive Immigration Reform
As Congress enters its August recess, the leadership of the House of Representatives has scheduled field hearings around the country in an attempt to build a case against comprehensive immigration reform and in favor of an “enforcement-first” approach under which 12 million undocumented aliens would be deported and the nation’s southwest border would be sealed against further illegal immigration. Only after this is accomplished, House leaders say, might other aspects of comprehensive immigration reform be considered.
Although NAFSA: Association of International Educators is not an immigration organization, we, like most Americans, have an important stake in the effort to achieve a more complete, more equitable, and more common-sense approach to immigration reform, one that reflects fundamental American values that have served our country well throughout its history. Our support for comprehensive immigration reform stems from our strong conviction—backed up by most foreign-policy leaders, business executives, and academic experts—that the United States must do more to be competitive in attracting students, scholars, and researchers from around the world. Absent comprehensive immigration reform, we cannot succeed in this competition.
This competition matters for reasons that we summarized in our June 2006 report, Restoring U.S. Competitiveness for International Students and Scholars. Attracting international students and scholars promotes U.S. foreign policy and international leadership by enabling us to educate successive generations of world leaders in our country. It supports and renews our position at the cutting edge of innovation by creating a pipeline of skilled graduates of our universities to fill cutting-edge jobs in the U.S. economy for which talent is in short supply. It benefits U.S. higher education by bringing scientific and global expertise to our campuses and enriching the college experience of American students. It strengthens our economy: NAFSA estimates that international students and their dependents spend more than $13 billion on the U.S. economy each year. In all these ways, attracting international students and scholars constitutes a crucial investment in creating a world in which Americans can be secure.
Senate-passed comprehensive immigration reform legislation contains important provisions that would bolster the U.S. position in the competition for international students and scholars by harmonizing our immigration laws more closely with the realities of the global age. We understand that, like everyone else with a stake in the national debate about immigration, we cannot fully achieve our own interests except in the context of comprehensive reform. This is so not only in the political sense that immigration reform can only pass if it is supported by a broad coalition of interests, but also because it is simply not possible for one part of the immigration system to function effectively if the overall system is dysfunctional. To try to break out the elements of reform and put into place only those sought by one set of interests is to condemn ourselves to remain in the one place that everyone acknowledges is no longer tenable: with a broken immigration system that serves no one’s interests.
We are therefore alarmed by the attempts of the House leadership to promote the idea that nothing else should be done until the border is secure. Expert opinion is overwhelming that securing the border is impossible absent comprehensive reform. As New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a July 5 hearing on immigration reform, “It is as if we expect border control agents to do what a century of communism could not -- defeat the natural forces of supply and demand and defeat the natural human instinct for freedom and opportunity. You might as well sit on the beach and tell the tide not to come in." It is only when our immigration system, and the laws that underlie it, provide regularized, legal, efficient, and humane access for those who are attracted to and indeed required by our economy, that it will be possible to secure the border against those who have no legitimate reason to be here. No system that defines 12 million people as technically illegal is enforceable. Enforcement-first is a road to nowhere.
Comprehensive immigration reform would serve myriad important U.S. interests. Those interests must not be sacrificed to the chimera of an enforcement-first approach. We urge Congress to face up to the difficult but essential task of comprehensive reform—including provisions to facilitate access for international students and scholars—and to reject simplistic solutions.
Although NAFSA: Association of International Educators is not an immigration organization, we, like most Americans, have an important stake in the effort to achieve a more complete, more equitable, and more common-sense approach to immigration reform, one that reflects fundamental American values that have served our country well throughout its history. Our support for comprehensive immigration reform stems from our strong conviction—backed up by most foreign-policy leaders, business executives, and academic experts—that the United States must do more to be competitive in attracting students, scholars, and researchers from around the world. Absent comprehensive immigration reform, we cannot succeed in this competition.
This competition matters for reasons that we summarized in our June 2006 report, Restoring U.S. Competitiveness for International Students and Scholars. Attracting international students and scholars promotes U.S. foreign policy and international leadership by enabling us to educate successive generations of world leaders in our country. It supports and renews our position at the cutting edge of innovation by creating a pipeline of skilled graduates of our universities to fill cutting-edge jobs in the U.S. economy for which talent is in short supply. It benefits U.S. higher education by bringing scientific and global expertise to our campuses and enriching the college experience of American students. It strengthens our economy: NAFSA estimates that international students and their dependents spend more than $13 billion on the U.S. economy each year. In all these ways, attracting international students and scholars constitutes a crucial investment in creating a world in which Americans can be secure.
Senate-passed comprehensive immigration reform legislation contains important provisions that would bolster the U.S. position in the competition for international students and scholars by harmonizing our immigration laws more closely with the realities of the global age. We understand that, like everyone else with a stake in the national debate about immigration, we cannot fully achieve our own interests except in the context of comprehensive reform. This is so not only in the political sense that immigration reform can only pass if it is supported by a broad coalition of interests, but also because it is simply not possible for one part of the immigration system to function effectively if the overall system is dysfunctional. To try to break out the elements of reform and put into place only those sought by one set of interests is to condemn ourselves to remain in the one place that everyone acknowledges is no longer tenable: with a broken immigration system that serves no one’s interests.
We are therefore alarmed by the attempts of the House leadership to promote the idea that nothing else should be done until the border is secure. Expert opinion is overwhelming that securing the border is impossible absent comprehensive reform. As New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a July 5 hearing on immigration reform, “It is as if we expect border control agents to do what a century of communism could not -- defeat the natural forces of supply and demand and defeat the natural human instinct for freedom and opportunity. You might as well sit on the beach and tell the tide not to come in." It is only when our immigration system, and the laws that underlie it, provide regularized, legal, efficient, and humane access for those who are attracted to and indeed required by our economy, that it will be possible to secure the border against those who have no legitimate reason to be here. No system that defines 12 million people as technically illegal is enforceable. Enforcement-first is a road to nowhere.
Comprehensive immigration reform would serve myriad important U.S. interests. Those interests must not be sacrificed to the chimera of an enforcement-first approach. We urge Congress to face up to the difficult but essential task of comprehensive reform—including provisions to facilitate access for international students and scholars—and to reject simplistic solutions.
