If only Congress would listen to the CBO on immigration

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Last week, smack in the middle of a series of congressional meltdowns over border security, the Congressional Budget Office dropped the latest edition of its 10-year budget and economic forecast. It’s the kind of report that ought to — but won’t — shake up the immigration debate on Capitol Hill.

According to the latest numbers, the next 10 years of federal budget deficits will amount to about $20 trillion, with the debt-to-GDP ratio at 114% by 2033. That sounds scary. But it’s actually an improvement from last year’s report: This year’s projection sees the U.S. gross domestic product as $7 trillion higher over the next decade than last year’s, with $1 trillion in additional revenue. More revenue and a larger economy equals a lower debt-to-GDP ratio that, while not necessarily out of the danger zone, is at least closer to sustainability.

So what explains the good news? The answer, in a nutshell: Immigrants get the job done.

To quote the report: “CBO now expects the labor force to have 5.2 million more people in 2033 than the agency projected last year. Most of that increase results from additional foreign nationals in CBO’s new population projections.”

None of this should be taken as an excuse for lax border security. The current situation, in which the asylum system is overwhelmed and people who enter the country and claim asylum status end up being scheduled for court dates years in the future, is unfair to people with legitimate claims and an enormous loophole for people just looking for a chance to work under the table.

But the unruly border politics and policy just make the CBO’s findings all the more remarkable. Immigrants and immigration are so economically beneficial that even a chaotic, somewhat lawless influx that was not even slightly designed for economic or fiscal benefit nonetheless has large economic and fiscal benefits.

Imagine how much better the U.S. could do with a properly designed and properly managed immigration policy, which would deliberately select those who would advance the national interest.

What would that look like?

Of course it’s politics, so these things need to be negotiated. But one obvious place is with skilled workers. A major flaw in the current situation is that while it’s relatively easy to come to the U.S. to work illegally, it’s very hard to practice a skilled profession without a legitimate visa. Giving more visas to foreign-born doctors, dentists, computer programmers and engineers would have a directionally similar impact on macroeconomic variables — GDP and tax revenue up, debt-to-GDP ratio down — as the current influx of asylum-seekers. But the magnitude would be much larger because skilled workers earn higher incomes.

That said, population growth is on some level a short-term fix.

Worries about immigrants “taking jobs” are, after all, on some level an artifact of the weak labor market of years past. In today’s economy, a smaller workforce would simply mean higher interest rates from the Fed in an effort to cool demand. When unemployment is low, extra foreign-born workers not only improve the long-term fiscal outlook, they support lower interest rates, which drive higher investment and long-term productivity.

Last but not least, any new immigration program should allow for more local choice. Some parts of the U.S. are suffering from acute, long-term housing scarcity due to their own poor zoning choices. But other areas are suffering from chronic long-term population loss.

St. Louis, for example, has 550,000 fewer residents than it had in 1950. New Orleans is down 250,000 since 1960. Buffalo has lost 300,000 residents. Chicago, a much larger city, still manages to have nearly one million fewer residents now than it did 70 years ago, despite a much more modest decline in percentage terms.

Maybe some of these cities don’t want more people. But Congress should give them the option of allowing foreigners to move in. This would be different than having asylum-claimants bused in, with no work permits and nowhere to live; it would be a properly organized flow of people with legal permission to live and work in the city that sponsored them. It would help the U.S. economy grow without bothering people who live elsewhere and have a different view of the situation.

Not everyone will like these ideas. Some opposition to immigration is grounded in ugly racism, while some is just a preference for simplicity and homogeneity. But the concrete material impacts of migration matter — and as the CBO confirmed last week, they are strongly positive. Voters shouldn’t have to put up with chaos at the border, and neither should they be denied the economic benefits of a more deliberate and orderly immigration policy.