The Complexity of Immigration Reform

Abstract

These vignettes, which are framed as appeals from local citizens to their legislator, serve to facilitate discussion of some of the issues surrounding immigration reform, including taxes, business operations, and education. Excerpt UVA-E-0394 Rev. Mar. 11, 2014 THE COMPLEXITY OF IMMIGRATION REFORM Your team represents a group of legislators and industry experts from the same state, which has a large population of immigrants. Your assignment is to draft a conceptual piece of legislative policy on immigration that your group of legislators and industry experts can agree on. Some of your key constituents have raised a number of issues with regard to immigration reform. As a legislator, how would you collectively deal with these issues, some of which are in conflict with one another? How might your group collectively come up with an approach to immigration reform that would address the kinds of issues raised? One of your constituents, Deborah Theobald, just received second-stage funding for her growing high-tech manufacturing business. The company currently employs 100 engineers, but the additional capital raised will allow it to triple in size. This means that it needs to hire another 150 to 200 engineers as soon as possible, in conjunction with expanding its facility. The facility-expansion plans are fairly straightforward, and the influx of new high-tech workers would be a boon to the community. But the primary challenge is finding qualified workers who are already citizens or who hold green cards, so to meet growth objectives, Theobald is looking into hiring H-1B visa holders. If she can't hire more engineers through these channels, Theobald is considering a move to Vancouver, British Columbia. She has requested a meeting with you next week, because she knows you are working on pending legislation and she wants to know if and how it will help her business. . . .