Rosenzweig, Jasso Challenge Proposed Legislation

Economics Growth Center Director and Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics, Mark Rosenzweig, along with coauthor, Guillermina Jasso, Silver Professor and Professor of Sociology at New York University, have penned an op-ed article in Time Magazine denouncing a new Senate immigration bill endorsed by President Donald Trump. The article titled, “How Donald Trump’s New Immigration Plan Could Harm the American Workforce,” outlines how the proposed new policies, “may have the unintended consequence of reducing skilled immigration.”

In short, the RAISE Act is a bill that proposes amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act, and intends to, “reward education, entrepreneurial initiative, and previous achievement,” which Rosenzweig and Jasso argue is a poor metric. By contrast, the editorial explains how the current immigrant selection system works by debunking fallacies, while citing studies showing how the U.S. immigration policy is beneficial to our economy.

“The current immigration system emphasizing family-based immigration thus is not a system that significantly favors unskilled immigration,” write the authors. “It is a system that places responsibility, including financial responsibility, for immigration in the hands of private U.S. citizens, who have an interest in individual immigrant success and who are highly informed about who they bring in, rather than in the hands of government bureaucrats and politicians or based on rigid formulae making use of limited information.”

The full article can be found here on the Time website.

Addendum:

Mark Rosenzweig, along with Sarah Paoletti, Director of Transnational Legal Clinic, were guests on the Knowledge @ Wharton business radio show discussing the RAISE Act. To listen to the discussion, click the link below.

	8/8/17	Sarah Paoletti and Mark Rozenzweig on Knowledge@Wharton	The RAISE Act