Immigration security

Here's What To Expect On Immigration In 2018

The easiest prediction to make for 2018 is that Donald Trump will not visit the Statue of Liberty on the Fourth of July and extol the virtues of America’s great tradition as a nation of immigrants. But what should we expect on immigration in 2018?

Low Unemployment But More Efforts to Restrict the U.S. Labor Supply: The premise of the “Buy American and Hire American” executive order used to justify new immigration restrictions is U.S. workers can’t find jobs because of immigrants and temporary visa holders. The premise is extraordinarily weak. U.S. immigration levels haven’t changed since the 1990 Act and the U.S. unemployment rate  has continued to plummet, approaching a 50-year low.

Goldman Sachs predicts the unemployment rate will fall to 3.5% by the end of 2019. (It was over 9% in 2011.) The problem now is not enough workers. “Employers nationwide are grappling with a problem that threatens to stall economic growth: vacancies — and lots of them,” reports the Washington Post. “In Colorado, where the unemployment rate sits at an especially tight 2.8 percent, analysts are projecting job creation to slow next year, because companies can’t find enough employees to keep growing.” Economists predict Colorado’s unemployment rate to fall to 1.8 percent.