After Securing Border, US Must Allow More Legal Immigration, Report Urges

‘We want the best and the brightest from around the world,’ Tim Doescher, Unleash Prosperity’s executive director said.

Green card holder Jose Delores Mondragon operates a tractor at Mencer Farms in Lake Village, Ark., on April 29, 2025. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

At a time when much attention is focused on tightening border security and deporting those who have entered the United States illegally, one conservative think tank is seeking to highlight the benefits brought by immigrants who have played by the United States’ rules and entered legally.

Unleash Prosperity (UP) stated in a June 16 report that, based on U.S. Census Bureau data, people who come to the United States legally are twice as likely as native-born Americans to be of prime working age, are more likely to be employed, and have accounted for nearly half of the growth in the U.S. workforce over the past decade. Immigrants and their children have also been highly successful in building new companies that generate innovation, employment, and wealth in the United States, the report states.

“We want the best and the brightest from around the world,” Tim Doescher, UP’s executive director, told The Epoch Times. “We are competing for them, and if we stop competing for them we have serious problems.”

The UP report notes that three of the “Magnificent Seven” U.S. tech companies are headed by immigrants: Elon Musk of Tesla, X, and SpaceX was born in South Africa; Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet (Google), was born in India; and Jensen Huang, cofounder of Nvidia, came from Taiwan. Overall, 22 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by foreign-born Americans and an additional 25 percent were founded by second-generation Americans, including Apple, established by Steve Jobs, the son of a Syrian immigrant.

Overall, immigrants are more than twice as likely to become business owners compared with native-born Americans, the study found. And while the first generation of immigrants on average earns less than native-born Americans, the children of immigrants earn incomes that are higher, on average, than national average.

“What all this evidence shows is that not only do people travel to America in pursuit of prosperity and happiness, but that they assimilate well into the U.S. economy and indeed strengthen it,” the report states. “Immigration to America demonstrates that the concept of ‘The American Dream’ is no patriotic or emotional abstraction but rather a powerful reality.”

Illegal Immigration Cuts Support for Legal Immigration

Illegal immigration increased substantially during the Biden administration, although the numbers vary depending on the source. The House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security reported nearly 11 million “inadmissible encounters” between 2021 and 2024, compared with 3 million during Trump’s first term. Inadmissible encounters involve people who have entered or are attempting to enter the United States are found to be ineligible.

Since taking office in 2025, the Trump administration has labored to secure the United States’ borders and has deported many who were found to be residing in the country illegally, particularly those with criminal records. However, the experience of the past several years has soured many Americans toward legal immigration as well.

A December 2024 Pew Research Center survey found that nearly half of those polled wanted to cap legal immigration at current levels, although 42 percent said that highly skilled workers such as scientists, doctors, nurses, and computer programmers should be given top priority. An August 2024 survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that about three-quarters of respondents favored either keeping legal immigration at current levels or reducing it.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, the United States attracts more immigrants than any other country in the world, and currently admits about 1 million legal immigrants each year, though that number has fluctuated over the past century between a high of 1.8 million in 1991 and a low of about 23,000 occurring once in the 1930s and once in the 1940s.

But many employers, particularly in industries such as tech, agriculture, hotels, and restaurants, say they need higher immigrant quotas to fill jobs.

“One stated aim of the Trump administration is to grow the economy at a 3 percent rate or more for the next decade,” the UP report states. “This study finds that it will be very difficult for America to achieve that growth target, retain our high-tech dominance, and meet our labor force needs over the next two decades at least without an increase in immigration.”

Many analysts are hoping, once the Trump administration curtails illegal immigration, that public opinion, and public policy, might shift in favor of allowing more people to enter the country legally.

“We’ve now worked on closing the door to illegals and the border is now secure for the most part, and so this is a way of working on that big, beautiful door that President Trump talked about on the campaign,” Doescher said. “We’ve got to get serious about bringing the right people in.”

Green Cards for Grads

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump was asked by tech and media investor Jason Cancans if he would “give us more ability to import the best and brightest from around the world to America.”

Trump responded, “It’s so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, from the greatest schools and lesser schools that are phenomenal schools.”

Many foreign students who graduate from U.S. universities but cannot stay in the United States, return home to establish successful companies that employ thousands of people, Trump said.

“What I will do is, you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country,” he said.

The first Trump administration supported the 2017 Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment Act (RAISE) Act, stating that it “rewards education, English-language ability, high-paying job offers, past achievements, and entrepreneurial initiative.”

This act, which did not pass Congress, would have shifted immigration policy toward a skills-based system, stopped the issuance of green cards to family members beyond spouses and minor children, eliminated the diversity visa lottery, and capped refugee admissions at 50,000 annually.

More recently, Trump proposed that the U.S. government sell “Gold Cards” that would allow foreigners to buy green cards for $5 million.

America’s Declining Birth Rate

Another issue that the United States faces is a decrease in domestic birth rates to levels that are now well below replacement. According to Federal Reserve data, the United States’ birth rate declined from 3.65 per woman in 1960 to 1.6 in 2023. A birth rate of 2.1 is considered the minimum to sustain a population.

Despite a shrinking native-born population, the U.S. economy has continued to grow but the labor gap has been filled by immigrants.

“In the absence of immigration, the U.S. population will be in decline a generation from now, and already parts of the U.S. have reached that stage,” the UP report states.

While U.S. law as currently written does allow for both skilled and unskilled legal immigration, the process is cumbersome and time consuming, creating a disincentive for many employers to hire foreigners.

A 2022 report by Cato Institute immigration analysts David J. Bier and Alex Nowrasteh states that, for those who attempt to immigrate legally, “the U.S. immigration system is too restrictive and bureaucratic.”

“The result is chaos along the U.S.–Mexico border, wait times for legal visas that sometimes extend for decades, and a reduction in economic and cultural vitality,” they wrote.

The Cato report recommends expanding seasonal work visas; permitting year-round work for agricultural and nonagricultural workers; streamlining and expanding visas for high-skilled workers; allowing states and localities to sponsor immigrants; and restricting the right of noncitizens to access welfare benefits.

The UP immigration report was written by economists Stephen Moore and Richard Vedder, and Matthew Denhart, President of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation. The organization’s leadership team includes Moore, economist Arthur Laffer, and Steve Forbes, chairman of Forbes Media.