March 14, 2017. In an article featured in the Buffalo News, impacts on Buffalo due to President Trump’s possible merit-based immigration plan are discussed such as population decline, a smaller tax-base, an older population and a decrease in availability of workers for jobs that pay lower wages. FPI’s David Dyssegaard Kallick was quoted discussing the impact Trump’s merit based immigration plan would have on the workforce.
Trump asked the two senators to work on adding a merit-based component to their bill. Under such a system, would-be immigrants would be awarded points based on their education and skills, and the people with high point scores would be allowed to move to the United States.
That would mean America would welcome the kind of highly skilled immigrants who work at places like the University at Buffalo and the Buffalo Medical Campus – but few others.
And while those immigrants are the ones Trump most wants to crack down on, even that could cause economic complications. Farmers already complain to Western New York members of Congress that they may lose the foreign-born workforce they need to bring in the crops, which, on occasion, includes undocumented immigrants.
Other employers who offer low-wage jobs face the same worry, said David D. Kallick, a fellow at the Fiscal Policy Institute who has studied undocumented immigrants in the state.
“They feel it’s going to be very difficult to replace these workers,” Kallick said. “They are pretty confident they are not going to find the U.S.-based workforce.”
Here is the link to The Buffalo News.