Problem Solvers Caucus Co-Chairs Discuss Immigration Policy Solutions to Critical Worker Shortages at CSIS
Dr. Luck: I’m really thankful for our two representatives for coming here today to speak about this important issue – you know, as Bill mentioned, two members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, so – and I think that’s what this is going to need. So I really appreciate you both coming here.
So, you know, I think what I’d love to do is widen the aperture a bit, so focusing on labor market shortages broadly and broad solutions to those problems, immigration being one of them. Just to set the scene, I’d love to start by asking you, you know, in your own districts, you know – you know, we have a strong economy right now, right, and one sort of less beneficial part of that is there’s shortages, right? We basically – we need labor and we don’t always have the ability to find it. So how are you and your constituents sort of seeing the impacts of the labor market shortages now? You can focus on sort of the things that were in the report – whether that be construction, food, health care, transportation – or more broadly; just how is the challenge of finding labor impacting your constituents?
Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA): Yeah. So a big part of the job of a member of Congress is when we’re not here in D.C. voting that we’re back home, and how we spend that time is very important. I think the most important way to spend that time is being out – not in your district office, but being out visiting with business owners, visiting with employees, getting a sense for the vibe of what’s going on, what issues they care about. And you know, in all of the business visits and all the meetings and interactions that I’ve had – whether it be with hospitals, whether it be with nurses, whether it be with restaurants, whether it be with, you know, homebuilders – no matter who it is, when you ask them, OK, what’s going well and then what are your challenges, there’s not a single time when they don’t say that labor shortages are a challenge. That is a good problem to have because that means that they’re doing well. But we need to get them people, because for them to continue to do well they’re going to need those people.
And you know, I’ve always viewed this – and we’re going to get into this in more detail, but my biggest frustration – and Tom and I came in together the same year. We started in the 115th Congress. Of all the legislative issues that we’ve dealt with or not dealt with, this has been the most frustrating piece for me, is immigration, because we know what the solution is. We know what the delta is. We know the number of people we need. We just haven’t to this point in time had enough people who have a seat at the table in terms of policymaking to come up and get behind a two-party solution, not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good, take 80 percent of something over a hundred percent of nothing, and get something done to help at least alleviate and start to address the problem.
So the reason why I’m – one of the many reasons why I’m very thrilled that Tom is my new co-chair is because, number one, much like me he’s a very plainspoken person. You’re not going to get any bluster or BS. And, second, he shares my passion for immigration, which combines border and legal immigration both. There are two separate and distinct issues. They can’t be conflated, but they are related. And you know, we have a working group, amongst many, that are – that are going to be tasked with generating a two-party solution where nobody gets everything that they want but at least starts to address the problem, because it is a complete failure of government at multiple levels over multiple generations, from both parties over multiple presidents, that have failed to address this issue.
This is the biggest advantage, by the way, we have in this country. We have a lot of challenges with our system of government. It’s the best system of government in the world, but it’s also – can be very clumsy and slow. But the biggest advantage we have is everybody wants to come to the United States of America. And we have that as a distinct advantage over our adversaries. Nobody wants to move to China, or Russia, or Iran, or North Korea. So when we talked about the delta that you mentioned, how in 2040 all the working-age folks have already been born. So we know what that number is, right? So we know what the number is. Now we just got to figure out how to fix that. We’re able to fix that much easier than some of these other countries are.
Dr. Luck: Yeah. Excellent. Very well put. I often describe, you know, immigration as America’s superpower. So it’s very well put.
Representative Suozzi, would love to hear about, you know, how things are in New York, and sort of how your constituents are feeling about this issue, yeah, as well.
Representative Tom Suozzi (D-NY): I think he pretty much summarized the whole thing. (Laughter.) No, I – you know, immigration is a very big issue for me. My father was born in Italy. Came to the United States as a young boy. When I look at America, I think of America as the immigrant story. And it’s painful to me that this issue that I define my American experience by has become such a negative issue for so many people. And in my district it’s a pretty diverse district. And I see a lot of labor shortages, especially in the healthcare region, as well as hospitality and construction. All the areas that were mentioned by the economist a few minutes ago is exactly what I see in real life.
So but I look at my district – it’s very unusual. I’ve got one of the highest percentages of Asians and South Asians in the country, over 20-some-odd percent of Chinese, Korean, Indian, Pakistani and other Asian and South Asian groups. Many in health care. Many in entrepreneurial-type positions. People that made their success in Queens – I have a piece of Queens in my district as well – but left Queens and came into Long Island, Nassau County or Suffolk County, for schools and for public safety, and quality of life, and moved into the area. So I have a real insight into the legal immigration as well as illegal immigration into the country.
And it’s a real need. I mean, the report is not just, you know, something theoretical. This is real life for everybody that is facing this labor shortage. And we have to figure out how we’re going to deal with our U.S.-born population, that is not skilled enough to fill a lot of these positions – 60 percent of Americans don’t graduate from college. We have poo-pooed the idea of jobs training for decades. And we need to improve upon that. And we need to increase legal immigration into our country, and legalize a lot of people that have been here for 10, 20, 30 years, that have otherwise been following the law.
And this is a very rare opportunity in our country’s history because the president has made such a big issue out of illegal immigration. And we need – and it’s been 30 – more than 30 – 40 years since we’ve done anything real on immigration. And we need to take advantage of this unique moment in history where the border is such a big issue, and tie together the need of the labor shortage we face, certainly, but to fix the border, fix the broken asylum system that’s contributing to the broken border, and to improve our legal immigration system, and to legalize a lot of folks that have been here for a long time.
Let me just give one quick example. Is, you know, my daughter went to school with a kid that was invited here to America under the temporary protective status program when he was a young baby, along with his family. Came from El Salvador. And he graduated from high school with my daughter. And he went to college studying biomedical engineering. And then he went and got a master’s degree in biomedical engineering. And now he’s getting his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering. But he can’t go to the conferences because he doesn’t have the status that he can travel around the world to go to these different conferences.
So, you know, we have this amazing skilled population, as well as unskilled population, in essential jobs that have been living in the shadows – whether it’s the DREAMers, or the TPS recipients, or farm workers, or health-care workers, or other people that are essential to our economy that we have to figure out how to make them more fully productive in our society, and to bring in more legal immigrants in the process.
Dr. Luck: Couldn’t agree more. Thank you so much for that. I’m going to go right off that last anecdote, which is, you know, this report focused, I think, incredibly necessarily on some of the occupations which are potentially not as – not STEM occupations, lower-skill occupations. But of course, STEM is a really important area if we think about our competition with the PRC or just global U.S. competitiveness. And immigration and immigrants are a huge part of that. Twenty-five percent of STEM occupations are filled by immigrants. Twenty-three percent of all patents have been filed by immigrants over the last 40 or so years.
So thinking more broadly about both of those – sort of that larger population, you know, maybe the working group is early days, so I don’t want to, you know, make you, you know, give your answers too early, but where do we see – where are there opportunities to solve these challenges? Because, to your point, you know, the demographics are what they are, right? We sort of – we know what the U.S.-born labor population is going to be, in some sense. So where are the sort of bipartisan –
Rep. Suozzi: Can I just highlight that one thing? And Brian mentioned it. And I forget the economist’s first name –
Dr. Luck: It’s Jason.
Rep. Suozzi: Jason mentioned it in his remarks. We can’t – we can’t gloss over that, OK? The people who are born today, in 2025, will be 18 years old in 2043. So this is baked. We know what the workforce is going to be based upon the existing population and the birth rate that we’ve had. It’s set. It’s not like it’s – you know, Brian referred to it. You know, we know what the delta is. We got to fill the delta. So let’s emphasize that fact. There’s not some magic solution that’s all of a sudden going to show up and it’s all going to work out, or we’re going to have more babies, or – you know, we have to figure out – we have a gap in the number of people, and how are we going to fill that gap?
And immigration is the most logical and proven way for us to fill that gap. Not just for skilled positions, but for other essential workers. And I want to highlight that term, “essential workers,” because we used it during COVID. You know, think of all the delivery people and the people that worked in important jobs that make our economy move, that are low-skilled people, that are essential workers, that make our society work. That are kind of – there’s a large population that’s kind of living in the shadows.
Dr. Luck: And to that point I think you’re exactly right, the sort of die is cast in terms of what the demographics look like over the 20 or 30-so years. And that has two ramifications. One, we will have less people who are going to be able to go into healthcare and other industries. Our aging population will also increase the demand for those things, like home healthcare aides and other things, right? And this is something, you know, the developed world is going to be seeing in large part, right? So I couldn’t agree more.
Rep Suozzi: I apologize for talking again. (Laughter.) I just want to say one thing. It’s such an important topic.
Rep Fitzpatrick: This is usually the balance, but I – (laughter) – it’s all good. He’s from New York. (Laughter.)
Rep Suozzi: I just but I just wanted to make this point, OK? Ten thousand people turn 65 every day in America. All the Baby Boomers are aging out. And it’s been going on for quite some time now. Ten thousand people a day turn 65. In about six years, 8,000 people will be turning 85 every day. And the number-one cause of homelessness – new homeless people in America is turning 80 years old, because when you get older and you don’t have someone to take care of you, and you don’t have the resources, and we don’t have long-term care in our country, and we don’t have people to fill those jobs, and we can’t put everybody in a nursing home and pay for it with Medicaid – which is going to explode if we don’t take care of these seniors. We have got to address this problem of this exploding, exploding senior population. And it’s tied very much into the health-care issues that you’re talking about. So I just don’t want to gloss over that whole aging population thing.
Dr. Luck: Couldn’t agree more. I want to give you a chance to –
Rep Suozzi: Yeah, say something. (Laughter.)
Dr. Luck: I guess, on the point, in terms of – so where do we go from here? So I think, you know, we’re – the three of us are in violent agreement about the problem. So where do we see possibilities for us?
Rep Fitzpatrick: I think it’s always got to start – I always like to start the analysis, because you got to get everybody on board to the conversation and on some basic fundamental points. So we all agree that, you know, having a smart tax code and a smart regulatory scheme is essential to a healthy economy. We all agree that having a strong military is very important to national defense and national security. We have to start – we have to agree, come to an agreement, on a basic statement that having a smart immigration policy is not only important to U.S. economic security, but it’s very important to national security. We have to agree to that basic point. And once we can start there then we can bring this into the relevance and give it the prioritization that we’re giving everything else.
Immigration always falls by the wayside. Every single quote/unquote “deal” has collapsed in our lifetime because you have too many people that allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. If they can’t come to 100 percent agreement, the whole thing falls apart. Well, what area of our life works that way, right? It’s not how our personal relationships work. It’s not how we manage our businesses. So why does government work that way? Why can’t we figure out the 85 percent of stuff we agree on and get it done, right? So I think that’s really what’s got to happen, is we have to come to a universal consensus that this has to be a priority and why it needs to be a priority.
And this is a question of math, as Tom pointed out. And that’s, I think, a good opening question to ask America – to ask Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Do you believe that this is an issue of economic security and national security? And have the question driven by the numbers that he just gave about the natural demographics that are going to exist in 2040.
Rep Suozzi: And it’s going to be hard for us to change the debate of what’s going on in the country right now. But one of the number-one issues in America right now is border security. So we need to tie in the border security issue and the need to fix asylum with the need to also address legal immigration, and put these all three together. And, you know, there’s going to be a lot of my way or the highway stuff that’s going to happen in Washington right now, with the Republican Party controlling the presidency, the Senate, and the House. And there’s going to be a lot of, you know, we’re just going on alone. We’re going to do our thing. We’re going to implement it. We’re going to do that.
At some point – at some point soon the Republicans are going to need the Democrats to help them. And there’s going to have to be some reaching across the aisle. And it could come sooner than we think, maybe on March 14th with the expiring CR. So let’s take advantage of that opportunity. Instead of making it the same debate that we’ve typically made it, I would argue that we should put immigration and border security right into that compromise, because it’s such a fundamental issue both politically, governmentally, and from a national strategic and economic point. So let’s push that into the middle of the debate as part of this opportunity for Democrats and Republicans, when they need to work together.
Rep Fitzpatrick: And Tom and I are uniquely situated to really advance this ball. Tom’s a Democrat who supports border security. I’m a Republican who voted for the DREAM Act, right? So we’re coming at this from a very, very unique perspective. I recognize, as a Republican, the critical need for immigrants to come to this country, not only, you know, consistent with the matter of becoming of American values for asylum seekers, people that are legitimately fleeing oppression. That’s what America is about. That’s what built our country. But also attracting the best and brightest people to help our industries.
And Tom, as a Democrat, understands the importance of border security. That we all grew up in our families and our childhood taught ingrained into our brain that if you work hard and play by the rules you get ahead, and if you cheat and cut the line you’re punished, right? Basic fundamental principles of fairness. And we need to marry those two together because right now they’re in two different silos and they’re not being discussed together.
Dr. Luck: Couldn’t say it better myself. So I just got some excellent questions from the audience, which I’ll go to in one second. But first I’m going to take the opportunity to ask a self-serving question. Which is, I think you’re exactly right, that we need to change the frame of the debate. We need to sort of agree, as a country, that this is important for our economic and national security. How do we do that? And by that, I mean, how do those of us in think tank community, our citizens, how do we help that conversation move? And are you – in your conversations with constituents, are there ways in which you’re describing what you’re describing here today that is more effective?
Rep Fitzpatrick: I’ll give you an easy, direct answer to that question. Step one is you help our Problem Solvers Caucus and the working group that’s working on it develop a two-party solution, a bipartisan solution that addresses both of these silos together – border security and legal immigration. And the legal immigration – the border security piece is driven by the American values of the rule of law, and law enforcement, and justice. And the immigration piece is driven by the economic and national security necessity of getting new people into this country to fill our workforce shortage.
So once we get that bill, right, then Tom and I bring it to our caucus, and we get the Problem Solvers Caucus to endorse it. Now you have a 50-member group – 25 Democrats, 25 Republicans; few exceptions there, we’re always balancing it out – that can then join with outside groups to go to all 435 districts in this country and try to get them to cosponsor it. And if we get – because of a rule that Tom and I fought for and kept in the rules package – if we get 290 cosponsors on a bill, it forces it to the floor. It circumvents House leadership. And you only need 218 to pass it. So if you have 290 cosponsors, you will pass it. That’s a clear path on how to do it. It’s a lot of work, easier said than done. But that’s the path to get it done.
Rep Suozzi: And you have to help us to build this coalition of outside groups to support us in Congress. And we need to build a coalition of business, badges, and the Bible. Business, that sees this economic reality of what we need to do. Badges, that law enforcement needs to recognize that this has to be solved at the federal level, it can’t be solved at the local level, and we need to support law enforcement by supporting law and order at the border itself, not forcing it into the local communities. And the Bible is generally a term I use to say, let’s treat people like human beings. Let’s figure out how we can start, you know, respecting that everybody’s got individual worth, and let’s help them participate in our society as fully as possible.
And you can find a lot of people that, you know, don’t like the idea that somebody came here as a little kid – not as just as TPS, but even brought here as a Dreamer as a little child, went to high school, now is either in college or served in the U.S. military, is working full time, we’re going to send them back to a country they never knew? Let’s figure out how to make them part of our society and be as productive as possible.
Dr. Luck: Excellent. I love an alliterative plan. So thank you. Yeah. OK, excellent. So this is the – we sort of addressed one of the questions, you know, the last question there from the audience. The last question I’m going to ask from the audience is, you know, what are – what are the prospects you think – we sort of touched on this, but I’ll ask this more directly – what do you see as the prospects of action in this Congress on this issue?
Rep Suozzi: For me, this is – this is my number-one priority. And I think that it’s – I don’t know if it’s number one, but it’s in the top of Brian’s priorities. And again, this has become a national – the border has become a national issue. We need to marry that national issue, that every poll shows it’s either one or two or three of the top issues that American people are concerned about. We need to marry that with the legal immigration and job shortage problem that we’re talking about today. Put those two things together and take advantage of the fact that Congress is closely divided right now and that a few people can make a big difference if they decide to die on that hill.
Now, most people are dying on particular things related to tax or a particular program, but I think we need to figure out how to push the chips into the middle of the table to get this monkey off our back to finally deal with this immigration and border issue that we’ve been killing each other over for the past couple decades. So let’s finally resolve it and give the American people a sense that we’re actually addressing a problem that they care about, instead of just using it for political capital.
Rep Fitzpatrick: And it is my number one priority, along with Tom, because, as I share with you, this is my personal biggest frustration, as someone who just wants to get things done. I don’t like excessive meetings, excessive chatter. There’s got to be action. There’s got to be a deliverable at the end of every conversation. And this has been frustrating to me because real people are being hurt. Real businesses are suffering. And what that translates to is it translates into economic underperformance because we don’t have labor, we don’t – these people could be taxpayers, these people could be cooperating with law enforcement to solve crimes, which they can’t right now because they’re afraid.
And at the same time, give everybody in this country, to Tom’s point, the sense of fairness and law and order that we’re not going to have a system where if you fly into JFK Airport, it’s Fort Knox, you got to go through five layers of security, but you can walk to Eagle Pass Texas and just walk across the Rio Grande River, right? Both of those can’t make sense. So I think we got to solve it globally. I think that, you know, in terms of your question of what’s the possibility this Congress, personally I think it’s good. I really do.
I think once we get through this initial three-month period I think things are going to start to settle and recalibrate, and you’re going to see the pragmatic members of Congress, or pragmatic members of the administration – who understand that we need to secure a border. It’s a big political issue and a law enforcement issue. And also if we want our economy to grow – I mean, depending on what lens you look at it through, even if you just look at it through those lenses, we need people in this country. So to Tom’s point, if we can build a broad coalition that’s bipartisan and nonpartisan as well – that touches on economics, that touches on faith-based, it touches on law enforcement, it touches on everything, and we utilize the 290 rule we can get it done. That’s what I think.
Dr. Luck: That was a very optimistic note to end on. Thank you so much. Representatives Fitzpatrick and Suozzi, thank you so much for your work on this. Thank you to Jason and Bill as well. Thanks a lot.
Rep Suozzi: Thanks, Phil. Thank you so much. (Applause.)