Kicking out undocumented workers would be economic folly

American businesses plan to hire more immigrants in 2018 because of the nation’s labor shortage, and they certainly cannot afford to fire 8 million current employees because they are undocumented.

Yet President Donald Trump’s plan to curtail legal immigration, and Sen. Ted Cruz’s demand to deport all unauthorized workers, ignore the needs of U.S. businesses and threaten economic growth.

The Senate recently began debating immigration reform, specifically focusing on the 1.8 million immigrants brought to this country illegally as children, about 800,000 of whom have work permits under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. But true immigration reform must go much, much further.

A full 5 percent of the U.S. workforce does not have legal permission to reside in this country, according to the Pew Research Center. That’s 8 million workers, 66 percent of whom have worked here for more than a decade. About two-thirds entered the country legally and then overstayed their visas.

Immigration hard-liners believe we should deport every single one of them, including the so-called Dreamers who were brought here as children. Hardliners claim these foreign citizens steal American jobs.

Yet in truth, there are only 6.1 million unemployed Americans who want to work, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many more don’t want or can’t take jobs because they are disabled, enrolled in school, taking care of loved ones or independently wealthy.

Today there are 5.8 million job openings in America, more than enough to end unemployment. The problem, employers say, is that Americans don’t have the skills or don’t want these jobs.

To fill them, many companies must turn to immigrants.

Now imagine what would happen if we deported 8 million workers. Workplaces would screech to a halt, supply chains would go haywire, 8 million consumers would stop spending their wages, and millions in taxes would stop flowing into the Treasury.

Most undocumented workers use convincing fake IDs and Social Security cards easily ordered online from China. Employers demand these cards to give them plausible deniability should Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conduct a document inspection, and they collect taxes as if they were authorized to work here.

Half of unauthorized workers even file tax returns, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Many believe it will help them qualify some day for amnesty and legal residency, which is how DACA worked for the Dreamers.

Even with 8 million unauthorized workers already here, more than half of American employers say they expect to hire employees from outside the U.S. in 2018, according to the Immigration Trends Report, a survey conducted for Envoy, an international human relations firm, by The Harris Poll.

Three-quarters of employers said they need to hire foreign workers to fill critical skills gaps. But 88 percent said getting permission to hire foreign labor has become more difficult, particularly under the Trump administration.

As a result, a quarter of companies had to delay new investments, and 26 percent said they moved operations overseas because they couldn’t bring workers here.

Employers in Texas, which is at full employment, say they can’t find enough skilled workers and are lobbying for the Dreamers and even greater immigration reform.

“DACA recognizes the contributions of these individuals. I don’t think they should even be a bargaining chip for other immigration issues,” said A.J. Rodriguez, chairman of the Texas Association of Business and vice president of external affairs for the Zachry Group.

“We have a declining fertility rate and a retiring workforce. There is going to be a real need for workers. We won’t be able to fill that demand with what we have.”

Employers need more visas and a way to legalize the undocumented workforce.

“If they are productive members of our society, paying taxes and contributing to our economy, we ought to find a way to leverage that even further, rather than dissuading their active participation in our culture and in our society,” Rodriguez said.

Labor is an essential element of any economy, and immigrants are necessary for the U.S. economy to grow. With 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day, and Generation X significantly smaller in numbers, the U.S. will be short 7 million workers by 2020 under existing conditions.

Force out undocumented workers and restrict legal immigration, and that number will be even higher, and the economy will slow.

Finding a way to allow all immigrant workers to remain in the country is necessary for the good of our economy. Allowing them to remain here illegally, with a wink and a nudge as we’ve done for decades, cheats both them and American workers.

Chris Tomlinson is the Chronicle’s business columnist.chris.tomlinson@chron.com twitter.com/cltomlinsonwww.houstonchronicle.com/author/chris-tomlinson