The White House pressed the case Tuesday that President Obama’s administrative actions on immigration would boost economic growth, even as controversy over his actions dominates Congress.
“Immigration reform is one of the biggest levers the United States has to encourage economic growth and raise wages,” Jason Furman, the president’s top economic adviser, said on a conference call with reporters Tuesday afternoon.
Furman and other White House officials touted the effects of one administrative rule finalized by the Department of Homeland Security Tuesday.
The rule would allow spouses of some holders of high-skilled visas to work while they wait to get green cards.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Leon Rodriguez said that having a spouse living in the U.S. but unable to work “imposed, in many cases significant hardships” on families in which one spouse had an H-1B visa for high-skilled work.
About 179,600 individuals would be eligible for H-4 visas in the first year the rule took effect, and up to 55,000 would be eligible in years afterward, the White House said.
To reflect the finalization of that rule and other developments, the White House Council of Economic Advisers released an updated analysis of the impact of Obama’s administrative actions.
Altogether, the actions will raise U.S. economic output by 0.5 percent, or $100 billion in today’s dollars, in 2024.
They would not affect native workers’ chances of becoming unemployed, according to the White House, but would slightly raise workers’ wages.
On Tuesday’s call, Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said the analysis reflected the findings of top economists.
Research suggests that an influx of immigrants can increase economic activity, Furman said, citing studies based on events such as the Mariel boatlift in which Cubans arrived in Miami in large numbers in 1980.
High-skilled immigrants also can lead to faster innovation and add to native workers’ productivity, Furman claimed.
Nevertheless, “all these administrative steps can’t realize the full benefits of immigration reform. That would take a comprehensive bill passed by Congress,” Furman said.
Republicans in Congress remain opposed to Obama’s executive actions, which they say have overstepped his authority. Funding for Homeland Security is set to run out this week as Republicans have tried to tie spending authorization to a reversal of the president’s policies.
Some parts of the president’s action were blocked last week by a federal judge in Texas. That ruling does not affect the high-skilled spouses rule.
