{"id":9966,"date":"2017-09-15T03:25:45","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T03:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=9966"},"modified":"2017-09-16T18:22:41","modified_gmt":"2017-09-16T18:22:41","slug":"how-dreamers-and-green-card-lottery-winners-strengthen-the-us-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-dreamers-and-green-card-lottery-winners-strengthen-the-us-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"How ‘dreamers’ and green card lottery winners strengthen the US economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ethan Lewis<\/a>, Dartmouth College<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

While President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have long decried illegal immigration and proposed remedies like the wall<\/a> and mass deportations<\/a>, they have traditionally favored<\/a> the legal kind, partly because their business donors demand it<\/a>. <\/p>\n

That seems to have changed. <\/p>\n

In August, the president publicly backed<\/a> a GOP bill to slash the number of \u201cgreen cards\u201d awarded each year in half and move the U.S. to a merit-based immigration system.<\/p>\n

More recently, he ended an Obama-era program<\/a> that protected the so-called dreamers \u2013 children of immigrants who crossed the border illegally \u2013 from deportation. The fate of the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) program remains in limbo<\/a>, however, and the president is negotiating<\/a> with Democrats on a deal to save it.<\/p>\n

As someone who researches the impact of immigration on workers, I believe the GOP plan and ending DACA would both be big mistakes, in part because they\u2019ll make the pool of immigrants in the U.S. much less diverse. <\/p>\n

A new system of legal immigration<\/h2>\n

One of the arguments made to support curbs on immigration is that new arrivals hurt native-born American workers and the economy at large. But in fact, the more homogenous and similar immigrants are to U.S.-born workers, the greater the odds they\u2019ll do just that.<\/p>\n

In contrast, immigrants who come from diverse backgrounds with a range of skills \u2013 such as the 800,000 dreamers \u2013 tend to produce greater economic benefits. That may be one reason at least some Republicans<\/a> and most Americans<\/a> are in favor of keeping DACA. <\/p>\n

Currently, the U.S. receives a lot of immigrants without a college degree or with imperfect English. About half of immigrants fit either description.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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