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The Economy Is Changing the Immigration Debate

Booz Allen Hamilton Vice President Jack Mayer moderated a panel titled “The Immigration Imperative of the 21st Century” on July 3, 2009, at the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Ideas Festival. Mayer, who is responsible for Booz Allen’s organizational transformation and change management initiatives for public sector clients, appeared alongside Alan Greenspan, president and CEO of Greenspan Associates and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board; David Kennedy, who heads Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center for the American West; and T. Alexander Aleinikoff, dean of Georgetown University Law Center and a former executive associate commissioner for programs at the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Following the panel, Mayer shared these insights.

You asked the question, is getting something done on immigration reform possible in the next four years. What do you think?

Immigration reform is an important topic. It’s one that needs to be addressed by the current administration. We can’t kick this down the road any further.

I think it’s possible to get something done in the first four years of an Obama administration. I think it’s going to be hard to get it done in the first two years. If they don’t get it done this year, they’re not going to be able to get it done in an election year like 2010. So I think the best chance is going to be in 2011 with a new Congress in place. I’m less optimistic we can do it after that.

Will immigration reform look significantly different during an Obama White House and a Democratic Congress than it would have during the Bush years?

The program that President Bush tried to push through was not so dissimilar from what Obama is talking about. The problem is that the economy is in a different place now. I think both sides are going to have to be able to compromise.

How does our economic situation change the debate?

I think the whole idea of a guest worker program is not something anybody talks about anymore. There’s also a change in terms of the terminology that we use. We’re now willing to say people who are undocumented are illegal. We’re not using euphemisms anymore. We’re trying to draw starker lines but come up with legislation that’s going to fix the problem.

Inside this tent, it was a very sober discussion, but outside this tent, it’s a very different climate. How do the emotions affect the ability to pass a reform bill?

One of the places that’s very emotional is the 12 million people who are in the United States illegally. What do you do with them? You can’t send them back to the countries from which they came and expect them to come back legally. Alan Greenspan made a great case why from a U.S. economic perspective we don’t want to do that.

Greenspan said it would be economically “devastating.”

Right. So there has to be some process to allow them to pay some penalty for being here illegally but then allow them to move forward. Before, the debate had been anything that allowed those people to stay was an “amnesty program.” We’ve got to take that rhetoric out of the debate.

Greenspan also talked about the need for highly skilled workers. That’s usually not part of the debate. Do you think that should be a part of immigration reform?

Absolutely. It has not been the focus, but it’s a reality. We need to be able to continue to allow high-skilled workers that come to the United States to find work and become productive U.S. citizens.

Watch a Clip from the Panel Discussion

Watch a video clip from the “The Immigration Imperative of the 21st Century” panel.

Learn more about Booz Allen's participation in the 2009 Aspen Ideas Festival.

story posted July 6, 2009