Progressives for Immigration Reform held a conference on A Progressive Approach to Immigration Reform: US Immigration Policy and its Impact on Conservation and Labor in Washington, DC on October 4, 2011.
In the following video from the conference, Vernon Briggs is Emeritus Professor of Labor and Economics, Cornell University, Vernon Briggs discusses immigration’s impact on the loss of jobs in the most protracted period of unemployment since the 1930s (part 3).
Although consumer and national debt is overextended and interest rates have approached zero, while under criticism for over 40 years, immigration policy has remained untouched by policymakers and immigration rates remain at historically high levels. Briggs explains how immigration proposals such as amnesty for illegal aliens, expansion of nonimmigrant temporary visas and cutbacks on immigration enforcement serve to worsen economic conditions and increase the supply of labor in a period of insufficient labor demand and poor employment conditions.
