Opinion 1: Immigration Reform Needed Now
Critical Issue
In stipulating these findings, I would assert that immigration reform may be the most critical of the strategies available to us in assuring a vibrant health and human services system in the commonwealth.
In a 2006 study conducted by Northeastern University of immigration into Massachusetts between 2000 and 2005, researchers found that of all the states with some labor force growth over this same period, Massachusetts was the most dependent on immigration for its labor. Below are findings from a 2006 UMass Donahue Institute report painting a picture of the state's future labor needs, particularly as it relates to the health and human service sector.
• Massachusetts' population has grown at just over 1 percent between 2000 and 2004, which is the eighth slowest in the nation.
• Massachusetts is the only state to have lost population between 2003 and 2004.
• The Massachusetts birth rate has been flat in recent years, resulting in an increasing median age of our commonwealth's population.
• At its present pace, the commonwealth's dependent populations will grow 24.3 percent over the next 25 years while our working-age population will shrink by 3.3 percent.
• Home health aides, nurses, and personal/home care aides are predicted to be among the occupations with the largest growth rate in Massachusetts over the next decade.
The findings suggest that, absent significant public policy attention to immigration reform, community health and human services institutions in Massachusetts can expect to suffer greater staff shortfalls and threaten healthcare quality over the next decade.
So, what can be done to insure that health care and other human services for our growing elderly and disabled populations, and the needs of our children, will be available and accessible over the next 10 year cycle? We need to enact progressive immigration reform!
Debate Time Is Over
The current national debate over immigration policy is likely to continue to be one of the most critical policy concerns we will face entering the 2008 elections. As noted by the Drum Institute for Public Policy, "that debate can be a positive one that helps us to define our future as a nation or a negative one that draws upon the fears of inaccuracies for the purpose of dividing people who should be united in the common cause of preserving access to the American Dream."
Immigration policy should recognize the critical contributions that immigrants bring to our national, state, and local economies as health care workers, small business owners, consumers and taxpayers. Why? Because, on average, immigrants pay more in Social Security and other taxes each year than they use in government services.
The American middle-class is reliant upon the services immigrants provide and the goods they produce. Immigrant workers are 15 percent of our labor force and contributed to half of American labor force growth over the past decade.
Like it or not - and I do - future immigration policy must value these immigrants (both undocumented and those who are in the United States legally) and what they offer to our economy.
Immigration reform policy is one tool available to us to address the severe shortage of our commonwealth's health and human service workers. Immigrants have long played a crucial role in making healthcare available to Americans and their importance to the U.S. health and human services sector must not be underestimated. Immigrants have long played a crucial role in making health care available to Americans and their importance to the U.S. health and human services sector must not be underestimated.
We can no longer ignore the value that individuals who have-or desire to-immigrate to our nation and this Commonwealth bring to our health and human services sector. They represent some of the best of our caregivers and future leaders and may be the brightest hope for the continuity of our service delivery system. They represent some of the best of our caregivers and future leaders and may be the brightest hope for the continuity of our service delivery system. We need-we must have-a welcoming and progressive immigration policy here in Massachusetts, if we wish a vibrant health and human services system in the years and decade ahead.
David A. Jordan is the president & CEO of Seven Hills Foundation in Worcester.
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